We had some absolutely gorgeous weather last weekend. Saturday, Sunday and Monday in particular were all lovely autumnal days with bright, blue skies and a pleasing and pleasant warmth to the sunshine. Indeed, Susie Dent’s “Word of the Day” for Sunday was ‘apricity’ (17th century): the warmth of the sun on a chilly day.
We popped over to Adam and Ava’s on Wednesday just for the heck of it. The weather was decent and, after spending time enjoying Julieta’s cheerful company, we took Daisy for a walk around the marvellous park they have just adjacent to where they live. It was great! Lots to sniff and lots of dogs with which to interact. And Daisy had fun too.
Afterwards, Grandma and Grandpa wandered up the road to collect Jessie from her after school club which is always a delight. She doesn’t know we are coming and when she spies us after coming through the door there is inevitably a whelp of delight, her face bursts into an enormous grin and she shouts, “Grandma! Grandpa!” and then sprints down the path and flings herself into Grandma’s arms. I usually get a cursory “hello” as well but this time she wanted to walk between us so that she could hold both our hands. Be still my beating heart!
Those of you who know Jessie will appreciate that she has no trouble making conversation. So, we were regaled with all manner of things on the walk home but, most excitedly, she was very proud to show us her after-school activities chart which is used to record her attendance at these activities. Her chart was full so she was delighted to tell us that she would therefore be receiving a medal! Very exciting for a six-year-old.
Although it wasn’t part of the original plan, Ava very kindly offered to make us some supper so that we could stay a bit longer. She made egg-fried rice with, in my case, prawns. When Jessie discovered I had prawns in my dinner, she queried why she didn’t have any. I tried to assure her that it was because she wouldn’t like prawns. “I love prawns!” was her instant reply.
This reminded me of an incident many, many, many years ago when we were visiting California. We were stopping with our wonderfully dear friend Miles at his beach house in Capistrano. My sister Susie had come down from Portland and there were numerous others hanging around as well. Miles had booked us in for dinner at a Chinese restaurant in town but because there were so many of us, we had to have two tables.
When we arrived at the restaurant there was inevitably some discussion about who would sit where. Thinking very quickly, I immediately offered to sit with Susie’s two children, my lovely nieces Emily and Dana. I was imagining that they would not like such things as prawns and other shellfish which, of course, I adore. If I was on a table with a number of non-shellfish eaters, I could finish the lot without appearing to be excessively greedy. Only they would know and I didn’t think they would tell.
Sure enough, a platterful of prawns arrived and I was looking forward to an absolute feast when they both exclaimed, “Oh! Prawns! I love prawns!”
What’s that expression about best-laid plans?
Penny and I had our flu jabs last Saturday and our Covid jabs on Thursday – hopefully that will get us through the winter.
With decent weather through most of the week, we were able to take a couple of “new” walks – one was completely new to us and the other we’d done once before. Both were fabulous.
A particularly splendid award-winning sourdough loaf this week.
I’ve been somewhat remiss in keeping you up to date with my progress in my virtual Tour de France, largely because progress has been so slow. That is partly due to our bike being “off the road” for a couple of weeks with a fault but (probably) mainly to do with the fact the le Tour de France is a f**k of a long way! Still, I completed Stage 16 yesterday, from Rodez to one of my favourite places, Carcassonne. Only six more stages and 775 km (481 miles) to go! You should all start thinking about where I should go next.
We’re off later this week for a few days at the Walton’s near Cheltenham. This will be Daisy’s first over-nighter visiting someone as opposed to being with us in the Campervan. Hopefully she won’t disgrace herself too much. Or, at the very least that whatever damage she causes will be easily repairable.
I guess most/all of you have been following the clusterfuck that is the current iteration of the shitstorm that is the Conservative government. As you would imagine, there have been hundreds upon hundreds of very funny memes (whatever they are), Twitter comments and Facebook posts. One of the best I saw was:
Liz Truss sacking Kwarteng is like a ventriloquist sacking the dummy for not liking what it said.
You really could not make this shit up!
Finally, excuse the crappy photo – full moon and Jupiter from the bathroom window the other night.
Meanwhile, keep happy, keep smiling, be careful, wear a f**king facemask in crowded places and keep your distance. And keep safe. And be gentle to wasps and bees.
Lots of love to you all,
Greg