Here we have rarely seen footage of the grubby cavapoo, emerging from her natural habit after digging her escape tunnel.
Here we have rarely seen footage of the grubby cavapoo, emerging from her natural habit after digging her escape tunnel.
We had a weekend to ourselves this week which actually made a nice change! I am very appreciative of being able to socialise again but sometimes just need some relaxing time at home.
As it is our anniversary at the beginning of September we usually try and organise a trip away somewhere around that time and so I used Saturday afternoon to look into finding a dog friendly cottage for us to book. I found something that looks like it will be just right, dog friendly pubs nearby, interesting walks within a reasonable distance and in the area of the UK known as the Cotswolds. On the subject of holidays, an ex work colleague of mine was on the ITV news on Friday, being interviewed on the subject of passport applications that have gone astray. 36 hours after her interview, her 'lost in the system' passport renewal suddenly arrived in the post. Coincidence? 18 weeks and 3 days after she sent her old passport in for renewal. It has taken her 400 phone calls, over 50 hours on hold waiting to speak to someone, many emails, a letter to her MP and a national television interview to finally get some action. Just weeks before she is due to go on a big family holiday to Iceland to celebrate her son finishing uni and daughter leaving school to start. All's well that ends well!
Lots of neighbourly speculation nearby too as work started on a house just around the corner from us. As the days have gone by it has become obvious that the work that the builders have been doing bears no resemblance to the planning permission that was granted. The people adjacent and behind the very obtrusive extension have complained to the powers that be and the extremely large new loft conversion has suddenly been removed. You can imagine the local gossip!
So what does this week hold? A real mixed bag. Normal childminding duties, Zumba is back after a week's break and we are going out for lunch with friends on Friday. Saturday we will be going to a memorial service for an old work colleague of mine who died during lockdown restrictions. Her daughter lives in New Zealand and this is the first time she has been able to return to the UK. It will be bittersweet but I am looking forward to sharing memories of her with her other friends and family.
I need to also crack on with my blanket making as I seem to have ordered some more wool in preparation for a new crochet-a-long that starts in a few weeks time 😀 The existing blanket is growing nicely
photo credit: Unsplash
Usually I would start the month with my online book club choice but I chose not to read the designated book this month; the book chosen was The Diamond Eye which is set in Kiev in World War 2. Like so many other people are finding, the news from Ukraine is just too heartbreaking and at times overwhelming so in search of something easier to read and more lighthearted I downloaded The Break by Marian Keyes.
Following the loss of his father and a close friend, Amy's husband Hugh announces to her that he needs a break. Therapy sessions and medication have not helped him, he has decided that he needs six months on his own travelling in South East Asia. He isn't leaving her, he just needs to get away. He promises he will come back. Six months is a long time, will he be the same when he returns? How will Amy be feeling after that much time alone? Amy's first husband left her and she honestly believed that life with Hugh would be very different so she is in total shock by his announcement.
I haven't read anything by Marian Keyes for years but I had a feeling that this book would be just the kind of reading that I needed. I found myself reading this with an Irish accent in my mind because I've heard Marian being interviewed so know what her voice sounds like!
I enjoyed this book, I wasn't sure how things were going to turn out when/if Hugh returned from his six month break; I wasn't convinced it would be a 'happy ever after' ending as the book progressed. I also went from feeling cross with Hugh for leaving to sympathising with him and not being surprised that he felt he needed to go and put some space between him and Amy. In amongst the various threads of the book the author moves between the amusingly surprise internet vlog sensation that Amy's mother unwittingly becomes to the serious issue of the problems encountered by Irish girls who find themselves carrying an unwanted baby. Marian Keyes seems to have a knack for mixing humour and seriousness into her books and I enjoyed dipping back into her work.
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By now it was the middle of the month and I needed another book to read so I have continued with the next in the Inspector Gamache series, The Cruellest Month. (The fact that I was reading it in April took me straight back to A level English Literature when we studied TS Eliot's The Wasteland where he states 'April is the cruellest month ...')
These books can be read as standalone novels but I am finding it interesting to read them in sequence, with each book revealing a little more about a past event in Gamache's career and also the people who have been sent to investigate and solve the case alongside him. This part of Gamache's story takes up a lot of the last few chapters of the book and ties up many loose ends. While I enjoyed the easy reading style of this book, I don't think I enjoyed the story line quite as much as the last ones. It won't however put me off reading the next in the series!
So that one was finished on the very last day of the month and I have now downloaded May's book club choice which is a non fiction novel this time and it sounds like it is going to be very interesting and thought provoking. Come back in four weeks to find out what it was!
I mentioned before that our son and daughter in law gifted us a hotel voucher as a Christmas present, and we made our booking for last Friday. Coco was booked into my niece's house for a couple of days and we headed off, bright and early, for the Chiltern hills.
When we were trying to decide where to go, we didn't want to go too far afield and waste our limited time away in the car so we chose Amersham, which is only about an hour and a half away. Isn't it strange how we tend to venture further afield to discover new places and not visit places closer to home? We based ourselves in Old Amersham at The Crown Inn. If you've seen the film Four Weddings and a Funeral you will have already seen where we stayed as it was used as a location where Hugh Grant and Andi McDowell stayed there!
We started our exploration in West Wycombe which has close association with Sir Francis Dashwood who built the mausoleum dedicated to his family.
It would seem that at this moment in time I may be Leo's most favourite person ever (well apart from his mum, dad and sister!) and it's because of something that was completely out of my control! I didn't want to go over the top with Easter eggs this year as the kids will get more than enough chocolate so I just bought them one small one, and put it in a colour yourself canvas bag with a little gift. Olive had a egg shaped stacking toy, Max had a Spiderman in a car, Rosie had a Polly Pocket and Leo had a couple of packs of Pokemon cards.
At 7 o'clock on Sunday I had a WhatsApp video call from an over the top excited Leo because in one of the packs was a very rare collectable card - what were the chances? He was so happy! Apparently they are so rare that they sell on eBay for about £350 - not that he will be parting with it any time soon, but what a lucky pack that was.
We had our Easter family day on Friday which was absolutely lovely, the sun was shining and we spent the whole afternoon outside in the garden with all the cousins playing so well together.
So what does this week hold? Well, after we have our routine childminding days out of the way we are venturing away for a couple of days - shh don't tell Coco she is off on a little holiday to stay with my niece! We aren't going that far from home but will be using the hotel voucher that J&S gave us for Christmas. I'll share more next week but the weather forecast is looking good, there's a good restaurant attached to the hotel and hopefully we will discover some interesting places to visit in an area that we haven't explored much before. It's been over six months since we had some time away from home so I need to dust down our overnight bags. Having been made to stay at home for so long means that even a couple of days away feels like a big deal!
There's something very special about walking through a bluebell wood in the spring. Thanks to Coco for taking us somewhere different for our morning dog walk today!
It's only 9am but it's been a long day already. Someone - Coco - decided that 2am would be a good time to go for a little stroll around the garden. Not to do anything in particular, just a bit of a saunter around, sniffing the breeze and generally wasting precious sleep time out there. We have no idea what prompted it, did she sense a fox out there? Or a cat sneaking onto her territory? A squirrel running along a fence? We will never know, but it's so hard to get back to a nice deep sleep at that time in the morning, unless you are a dog!
We'd had a busy weekend as well so could have done with an uninterrupted night! Popped over to Saffron Walden on Saturday where they have a really good market especially the vegetable stall there. We had friends over for dinner in the evening and it's nice to stock up on good quality veggies when you have visitors.
Then on Sunday we had Rachel and her family here for lunch; it was our first chance to catch up on all the news from their holiday. It was a lovely sunny afternoon, we were all out in the garden. Daisy was running rings round Coco, the children were inspecting the tadpoles in the pond or playing football. It was great and it really felt that spring was on its way, but I did feel as if I'd spent a lot of time preparing food over the last 48 hours!
So this week Coco is going to be spending a few hours at my niece's house on Tuesday to see how she settles as they are going to be dog-sitting for us in a few weeks time while we have our couple of days away which was our Christmas present from J & S. I hope she behaves herself with no 2am shenanigans then!
I have a Wednesday free again this week as Max is going to go with his mum and sister to visit friends but we will be seeing all the grandchildren together later in the week when they come for lunch on Good Friday. I think I shall be spending today trying to decide what to cook. I am thinking of pesto and parmesan crusted salmon as the main part of the meal but need ideas for accompaniments and desserts. Any suggestions for me? I'm always looking for new dishes to try!
I thought I would share an update on various projects I've got on the go at the moment, just to prove I don't spend all my spare time watching the second series of Bridgerton 😉 {only because I binge watched the whole thing and have no more episodes to watch!}
I've also started a new project which was a present from Jon and Sophie for my birthday
Also, project holiday has been finalised! I realised that before we could decide where to go, we needed to find dog-care arrangements for Coco so that we knew when we could go. Can you imagine how disappointed I was to discover that the lady she usually goes to is away herself for most of June and her son is home from Dubai for the whole of July? As he hasn't been back since he got married out there 3 years ago there is a lot of relative visiting to do and she couldn't say when she would be home during his stay. I wondered if my niece was serious when she said that she would have Coco for us if we ever wanted to go away. Her dog died last year and they are missing canine company. I mentioned it to my sister to ask if she thought that Kirsty was serious about her offer, when she said 'oh, can we have her here instead?' They used to look after Kirsty's dog from time to time and I think that they too are missing having a dog around. As I felt myself relax, it dawned on me that if she was home in the UK and free to have Coco, then she wouldn't be using her house in Portugal so I asked if we could use it and next thing you know I was booking flights! It still feels a bit of a big deal, but I am so looking forward to it. It is somewhere we know well and Gill was out there last month and said she felt so much safer over there than she did here so I feel a bit more confident about things.
I guess my next project needs to be 'stop eating cakes and chocolate so I can fit into my summer clothes'
I started the month with our book club choice of 'I must betray you' by Ruth Sepetys.
It's always nice when March arrives; the days get longer, the sun shines now and again and of course - it's my birthday month!
You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!
Click here to enterHere we are on the last week of March, a quarter of the year gone already!
It was Mothering Sunday yesterday. Even though I have now had 25 Mothers Days without my mum, the date is still poignant but how lucky I was to have her for the years that I did and it is the happy memories that keep you smiling. We spent the day with our son and his family with Jon cooking a wonderful meal followed by a lovely walk around the village and then tea in the sun in the garden. Rachel popped round to see me in the morning with some beautiful flowers and she then spent her Mother's Day jetting off to Dubai in the afternoon!
Getting caught up in the excitement of R's holiday has made me think that I need to give some serious thought about what we are going to do this year, first step will be arranging holiday care for Coco and then working around that! We went to friends for an Indian meal on Saturday with another couple and they are off to Sri Lanka at the end of the week, I don't think we'll be aiming for anywhere quite so exotic, I'm still a bit unsure about the way all the health requirements keep changing. It was stressful enough seeing it second hand through Rachel!
Do you have plans for the summer yet? Maybe I'll get some inspiration from you!
We have had the most glorious week of good weather here this week (much to the dismay of friends who booked a week in Spain and have had seven days of solid rain and wind) so it seemed a bit ironic to be spending my time continuing my latest crochet project of a wooly blanket. Hey, if it keeps the sun shining I may just keep crocheting from now until autumn!
With a view to decluttering a box of leftover wool from previous blankets I have started a pattern which I can mix and match colours and stop when I run out of wool as it is worked in a square rather than stripes. I aim to just use leftovers for this and not buy any more wool. Please remind me I said that as the blanket gets bigger.
The pattern is from the amazing Coastal Crochet blog. Eleonora is the most talented designer of crochet projects and honestly, before last January I had never crocheted yet now I am the owner of three handmade blankets. Her patterns are not only written on the blog, but when a new stitch comes up there is a brilliant youtube video to accompany it. It makes it so easy to crochet along with her - with a lot of pausing while I make sure I am doing it correctly! The pattern I am doing this time is called Changing Tides and the first rows represent the changing blues of the sea, with the white frilly one being the froth of the surf as the waves hit the shore revealing patches of yellow sand.
I am really enjoying this project. It's a bit of a challenge to be making something new without having to actually buy anything, plus I just love the texture and designs of the pattern. If you've ever considered trying a new hobby but thought crochet wasn't for you, please do give it a go and head over to Coastal Crochet. You don't have to go crazy and buy enough wool for a blanket; one hook and one ball of wool will be enough to make a little sample and then you'll know if you're going to be 'hooked' like I was!
Or should that be 'Quizzicle'? It seems that the Wordle quiz was just the tip of the iceberg. Six attempts to find the five letter word. The letter turns yellow if it's correct but in the wrong place and green if it's in the right place.
Then I discovered Quordle. Like Wordle but with four games going at the same time and you get nine attempts. For some reason I find this easier than Wordle!
On Thursday I saw someone mention Heardle, a musical intros quiz. You hear snippets of the intro to a song starting with one second. You start to type your answer in and you will get a choice of artists and/or songs. If you get it wrong you hear a little more of the song. Six attempts before you are timed out.
Then I discovered Worldle. You see the silhouette of a country and you have to guess where it is. When you have guessed, it tells you how many miles your guessed country is from the one you are looking for and in which direction the correct one can be found. You get five tries for this one. I am not a geographer so this one involves a lot of guesswork. This 64 year old brain is getting a good daily workout!
The weather here has been glorious and was a good excuse for tidying up the garden. Also cleaning windows and window cills as the storm we had on Wednesday brought with it horrible orangey coloured dust which has settled everywhere.
I had also planned to have a good tidy up in J's old bedroom. We have a cubed bookcase in there and my intention is to keep the grandchildren's toys neatly stacked in the cubes but in order to do that I need to empty all the stuff that J left behind. I came across a folder in which he had all his travel documents from when he went to Tanzania in 2012. Tucked in amongst everything I found a batch of photos of us that he had printed off and taken with him and I suddenly felt very emotional that he had done that and imagined him all those miles away possibly feeling homesick. He had such a wonderful time over there that I doubt that actually happened but it still distracted me enough and needless to say that was the end of my tidying!
So this week sees us on our usual routine, plus the bonus of cakes after Zumba as part of the fundraising for a local hospice. The weather forecast is looking good and I'm hoping that we will be able to spend a bit more time out in the garden. After the cakes on Thursday I'll need to do a bit of extra exercise!
In 1967 The Beatles released a song which is very, very appropriate for me this week. 'Will you still need me ... when I'm sixty four' I would have been nine then, and 64 would have seemed ancient - not quite so funny when you've actually reached that milestone though eh? 😆
I started my celebrations on Friday with a meal out with friends, had friends over for drinks on Saturday, all the family together yesterday and today Paul and I are going to my favourite Thai restaurant for a Thai tapas lunch. By this evening I think that at the grand old age of 64 I'll be ready for a nap in the armchair and an early night!
After all the excitement it will be back to business as usual for the rest of the week.
So with the rest of the lyrics of that song in my mind, 'Will you still feed me?' I guess I had better start thinking about what I'm going to wear for my birthday lunch!
Have a good week x
Oh, what a week this has been around the world. It's impossible to put into words how upsetting the news is at the moment isn't it? It feels like the only way we can help is to donate money to charities who can get whatever is needed to the people who need it most. We have donated via the Disasters Emergency Committee but I am sure that there are many others who are helping too.
I ended last week with a fun meal out with 16 ex-school friends - it was so lovely to see everyone again after such a long time. We were very lucky to make life long friendships and whenever we meet up it feels like we are still sixth formers! Of course sixth form was 45 years quite a while ago 😉
It feels like a long time since I had a crafty project on the go so I have tentatively started a new crochet blanket. I think we can safely say that there will be little ironing done this week #anyexcuse. This one is called Changing Tides by Coastal Crochet and it wasn't until I got to row eight that I realised that I had inadvertently chosen the colours of the Ukrainian flag for the central piece.
Last week I told you about the promotional video being filmed at our Zumba class, would you like to see my 15 seconds of fame?
The first book that I read this month was Before We Grow Old by Clare Swatman.
I knew from the reviews of this book that it was going to have a mix of happy and sad moments. From half way through it is obvious what the sad bits are going to be but that didn't stop me enjoying the story. The title 'Before we grow old' refers to a bucket list of things the friends draw up when they are young, all the things they want to do before they get old - at that point they set an age of 'old' being forty. No comment!
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Our book club's choice this month was The Paris Bookseller by Kerry Maher