Holidaying close to home

 I am pleased to report that my 'capsule wardrobe' for our trip ended up being very good and only one outfit didn't get worn, that was the one I added just in case we had a chilly day and that wasn't needed so good news all round!

We really enjoyed our trip, and were so lucky with the weather (always a concern when holidaying in the UK!) The Airbnb house we had rented was very comfortable and clean and in a perfect location for exploring the area.  

It was a Georgian house dating from about 1800 so lots of character and built over four floors so plenty of exercise going up and down the stairs!

We had needed to do a bit of research before we went regarding where we wanted to visit as due to Covid we needed to pre-book everywhere we wanted to go but the benefit of that meant that we knew that we would be able to get in to wherever we went and there would be no queues.

High on our list of places to visit was Arundel Castle which dates back to 1067.

It is still the home of the Duke of Norfolk and because of that, only part of the castle is open to the public.  Can you imagine living somewhere like this? The grounds were really beautiful.

A lot of the structures in the garden that looked as if they were stone were actually carved from wood.  It really was a fascinating garden to wander around.

The village of Arundel is really quaint, there is a lot to see there including a cathedral so it was a lovely place to spend our first day.  According to my phone, I clocked up 16,783 steps on Friday - no wonder I slept so well that night!  

  

Staycation questions

 How many clothes is 'too many clothes' for 5 days away in the UK?  

(Asking for a friend 😉 )

It's a lot easier when you're going on a beach/hotel holiday in a sunny country isn't it?  Our weather is so changeable at the moment and last week my packing list was predominately trousers and warm tops with waterproof shoes.  Suddenly the forecast is for warm and dry weather ... what's a girl to do?

She overpacks, that what she does.  She packs trousers and pretty tops for evening meals out because that's a safe bet.  Then she packs crops and t shirts and cardigans for layering on a cool day which may improve as the day goes on.  Not to mention a few dresses just in case the sun shows its face.  And a long sleeve top to go with the crops because a t shirt may not be warm enough ...

I know that when Paul gets back from his volunteer work over the park he's going to raise his eyebrows and then pass me his clothes for the weekend.  One pair of smart trousers for the evening, a couple of nice shirts, he'll travel in a pair of jeans and then pack 4 polo shirts for the days.  

Shall we take bets now as to how many of those clothes in the photo don't actually get worn?

A change in plan

 We thought we had this weekend planned out.  We thought we would be celebrating the fact that it was 40 years ago that we were newlyweds

Thank goodness we hadn't planned a big party; all we had done was booked to go out for a meal at a really nice pub restaurant near us, but it wasn't to be.  As in the early hours of Saturday I spent more time in the bathroom than I did in my bed and it became obvious that little Rosie had given me an early anniversary present of norovirus.  She had been poorly in the middle of last week but we thought she was over it by the time I spent time with her on Thursday afternoon - we were wrong!  As not only was I being ill on my side of town, her mummy and brother were being very ill on their side too!  Oh boy did I feel rough. The celebrations will have to wait - we are going away for a few days later this week and hopefully I will be feeling back on form by then.

Fortunately Leo was feeling better in time for his first 'day' at school.  Which was really only an hour in which to meet his teacher, get to see what the classroom looked like, for his mum to chat with the teacher and discover that the little symbol that he would see wherever his name was would be a ladybird (his favourite insect) and his colour group would be red (his favourite colour) so all things considered, he came home a very happy boy.  He goes back again next Monday and Tuesday mornings, covid has meant a very gradual introduction to his 'bubble'!

So if we're going away in a few days time, it is surely time for me to start making lists.  Something new to add to the mix this year, how many masks will we need for a 5 day stay?

A sentence a day in August

Well, here we are at August, July saw a lot of little changes in our lives, what will August reveal?  Will we move forward, or will be have to rewind a little?  Let's see ...

Day 1 Went out to lunch to Pizza Express, and I almost forgot to take a photo to mark the occasion (which is why my pizza has a slice already eaten!)

 Day 2 Found a new pattern for a face mask, seems easy to make and doesn't take too much fabric - I can see that I will be making more of these!

Day 3  Dentist - nothing to be done so I practically skipped back to the car park.

Day 4 Leo and Rosie here - went over park in afternoon to feed the ducks and go to the playground

Day 5 Max here - his mummy has been making homemade strawberry jam so I happily took a jar home when I dropped him back home - yum!

Day 6 Zumba day - from September we can return to the hall (with limited numbers) - felt very down today, not sure why.

Day 7 Went to look for new armchairs in our lounge and managed to find exactly what we wanted in the first store we visited - it isn't often that happens is it?

Day 8 Oh Saturday you were very hot and humid, made a couple of face masks in the morning and in the afternoon Rachel came over with the children.  Crab and prosecco linguine for tea - perfect for an easy, light meal in the garden.

Day 9 Another hot day, another Sunday lunch eaten in the garden! Lamb kofta with tzatziki, a greek salad and couscous today.

Day 10 Went out for lunch with my sister and brother in law as the government is running an 'Eat Out to Help Out' scheme to get people back to restaurants and pubs and covering 50% of the cost of your food on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.  Thanks Boris!

Day 11 Leo slept over at our house last night and then we childminded him and Rosie all day - it was SO hot today too, I feel shattered!

Day 12 Took Max to the park to see the animals and he took quite a shine to the llamas, luckily it was all in the shade as the temperature was almost 40 degrees today

Day 13  I knew that temperature and humidity had gone too high, our heatwave came to an abrupt end and we had some pretty impressive thunderstorms with lots of rain.

Day 14 What a thunderstorm we had overnight - Paul and Coco got absolutely drenched on the early morning dog walk this morning!

Day 15 Our son and his wife had booked an anniversary meal in Cambridge, their first night out alone since October, but their babysitter (Sophie's sister) couldn't get to them after all (she's a midwife and was involved in an unexpected home birth!) and so we were happy to step in an babysit Max in the evening, an unexpected pleasure!

Day 16 What a wet and miserable Sunday (weather-wise) but nice to have a relaxing day at home catching up on chores.

Day 17 Realised that I could probably do with some more face coverings, so fired up the sewing machine

Day 18 Rosie and Leo were here all day and Nanny and Grandad are exhausted.  

Day 19 Today it was Max's turn for being here, he's just learned to walk and was happy to show off his new talent

Day 20 A day of socialising (at an appropriate distance!) Paul's cousin and partner popped over for a cup of tea in the afternoon, and we were invited to friends for drinks in the evening.

Day 21 Babysat for Leo and Rosie while Rachel and James went out with friends in London as an early birthday celebration for Rachel - almost got myself locked upstairs in their house as they have a new stairgate at the top of the stairs and no one explained to me how to unlock it once it was closed!

Day 22 Jon and Max popped over as Sophie was at her sister's baby shower, Max and I spent the afternoon together while Jon and Paul went out for a bike ride (incorporating two stops at country pubs which meant that they were gone 3 hours!)

Day 23 Rachel and family here for Sunday lunch as a pre-birthday dinner for her, first time they have been here for Sunday lunch since 1st March, ended up with extra visitors too when Jon's car had mechanical problems on their way to visit friends.

Day 24 Rachel's 34th birthday! Surely I'm too young to have a daughter that age? 

Day 25 Rosie and Leo here - stuck indoors as weather was awful and we tested our imagination by building a zoo and amusement park out of a cardboard box, wooden train track, a road layout, Duplo and a box of plastic animals.

Day 26 Had Max here for the day, went into town to pick up some carpet samples (is getting new carpet a good idea when we have under 5s here on a regular basis?)

Day 27 Ended up on a mercy mission to Hobbycraft when Rachel discovered that our local cake making shop no longer sells to the public and her plans for a superhero birthday cake for Leo seemed scuppered due to lack of red, black and yellow fondant icing in the supermarkets.

Day 28 Decision finally made on new carpet, samples returned to the shop - just need to sort out that decorating now.

Day 29 Leo's 4th birthday!  Our superhero loving boy had a super day, and what a fab cake his mummy made for him.

Day 30 Today was designated 'start painting the fence panels' day; enthusiasm was waning by the time we got to the 3rd one and there's still 8 to go ...

Day 31 Determination sets in and all fence panel are now painted!

Ready for that video of my month?  Here it is thanks to 1 Second Everyday

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Scavenger Hunt Link Up 3

 It's time to link up to share our next batch of finds for the Scavenger Hunt 2020 organised by Marie Lou.

My finds for this month are

10 Something smaller than a paper clip

I do love little ladybirds so this was a natural choice for me!

12 Something that holds your favourite beverage

Do I go for alcoholic favourite

or

Coffee?  

Now this mug may not be the prettiest, but it is my most favourite coffee mug.  It's a handmade earthenware mug that I bought when we were on holiday down on the south coast when we were first married so it's almost 40 years old and coffee just tastes delicious in it.  There is no way I would use it for tea, because as we all know, only china will do for a proper cuppa.

20 Something with the number 7 on it

This should have been the easiest of the batch as we live at No 7 but I thought this was a good find.  When Paul had been clearing out his Mum's house he came across a few of his old toys that she had kept in a drawer by her bed.  This little car was one of them and perfect for this project I think!

Alt A

An animal statue

Many years ago an elderly aunt of mine gave my sister, my mum and me one of these squirrel garden statues each for a Christmas present.  It seemed a bit of an odd choice of gift but this little guy has come with us every time we have moved home and he'll always have a place in our garden.

A month to go and four to find - that's doable isn't it?  Are you joining in too?  How are you doing?  

Ta Dah in August

 August seemed to involve a lot of childminding - and a lot of hot weather - followed by a lot of rain, so it's not unexpected that there aren't too many things to go 'ta dah' about!

📗📘📙📚📕

I did read three books though.  My friend who is an author is often gifted pre-release books from publishers and she gives me a couple whenever we meet up.  So I read A Song for Tomorrow by Alice Peterson and One Minute Later by Susan Lewis.  By a strange coincidence both dealt with the issue of organ donation.  I will not give away any spoilers, but let's just say it makes you realise how important is is for us to be on the organ donation register.   Did you know that by being on the register, you could either save or enhance up to nine other people's lives?   Both books emotional reads, and both based on true stories. The other book that I read was The Viper by Christobel Kent.  The final in a series of books about an Italian detective, Sandro Cellini, based in Florence.  I've really enjoyed these books and sad that this was the final one.

😷😷😷

I made three more face masks, two shaped ones and another pleated one

The verdict is out as to which is the most comfortable style but at least I have a variety to choose from now!

😋🍕🍲

We 'Ate Out to Help Out' with my sister and brother in law whose local pub was taking part in the government scheme to take 50% off food on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays.  It was nice to think that Boris was buying half my lunch!  

♼♼♼

Now this next one may seem insignificant but I cannot tell you how good it feels to have the job done and dusted - I have cleared our shredding pile.  Which has been no mean feat I can tell you.  Eight years of bank statements, mortgage statements, credit card bills, insurance renewals ... I hadn't realised it had reached an eight year milestone.  But I have quite literally just shredded the last piece of paper and boy does that feel good!

And guess what?  I am still doing my daily Duolingo lesson in Spanish! Qué sorpresa
eh? {what a surprise (I think!)} however ... they've started introducing verb endings now and things aren't quite as straightforward as they used to be!  How much longer will this be on my 'ta dah' list?  

Expect the unexpected

 I thought we had our weekend mapped out.  A leisurely Saturday followed by Sunday lunch with our daughter for a pre-birthday celebration.  We'd also invited our son and his family but they already had plans to visit friends who they hadn't seen since lockdown.

Saturday morning Jon rang to say that Sophie was going to her sister's baby shower in the afternoon, so could he and Max pop over for a visit.  Absolutely!  Then he called to say it might be nice for him and Paul to go on a bike ride in the afternoon and maybe have a beer in a local pub garden on the way back.  No problem.  Could he come round in the morning and have lunch with us?  Of course, then they could make an early start while Max had his post lunch nap.  So I quickly baked Rachel's birthday cake, and Paul went over to Rachel's to collect his spare bike which he had lent her husband a couple of years ago before he bought one of his own.  

Jon arrived with Max at the same time as Paul arrived back with the bike, pushing it as it had two flat tyres.  Which meant that we soon had this scene going on in the back garden.

Two new inner tubes and a bit of a clean up later, they were ready to hit the road while Max had a nap and I finished off the cake. Three hours later, they returned.  THREE HOURS!  Max had woken from his nap, played in the garden, filled the lounge with toys and had a mid afternoon snack by the time they got back.  Turns out there were two pubs on their route ...

Sunday morning, dinner in the oven, dinner table set, a mountain of veggies prepped and ready to cook.  Phone call.  From Sophie; her and Jon were on their way to their friends and the car was acting weird.  They were closer to us than they were to home so could they limp it back to here and call the breakdown company to see to it here.  Of course.  But the breakdown company said they may be 90 mins, Max was already hungry and I am starting to wonder if dinner for six will stretch to dinner for nine.  Just about.  But just as Rachel and family arrived, so did the recovery van who couldn't diagnose what was wrong but said he would follow Jon home so they could leave it at a local garage to be looked at in the morning.  Then if he broke down completely, he could tow him onward.  So we ended up with dinner for eight and a 'doggy bag' to go home with Jon.

Then after lunch I took Sophie and Max back to their home while the rest of them loaded the dishwasher and tidied up the kitchen.  

So it was a win for me, as we unexpectedly did get to have the whole family together, just about, plus I got out of the bad bit of having people over for dinner - kitchen tidying!