So, back to normal, whatever that is. Sister Susie left on Friday morning on her long, long trek back to Portland and we are without any visitors and, perhaps more significantly, without any bookings for the Guest Wing until December! There’s still time to get your reservations in although you will have to be quick.
We had great fun with Susie and packed in a lot in the ten or eleven days she was here. We got her a fourteen day National Trust Touring Pass and we managed to squeeze in visits to six NT properties: Charlecote, Baddesley Clinton, Packwood House, Hidcote (complete with the 800 mile hike up the vertical incline which Penelope now insists upon whenever we visit), Upton House & Canons Ashby, not to mention Coton Manor. My goodness, she certainly got good value out of her pass. If only the weather had cooperated marginally more we could have squeezed in a couple more. Still, they’ll be there the next time she comes.
We enjoyed another Annabelle double-overnighter which regrettably coincided with two days of steady, unrelenting rain. So, we were mainly confined indoors but there were still lots and lots and lots of games and activities to choose from.
On Monday evening as Penny was putting her to bed there was great excitement as her second wobbly tooth came away in her hand. While this was certainly exciting, it was also disconcerting – how would the Tooth Fairy know that she had lost it while she was with Grandma and Grandpa? We assured her that the Fairy would probably wait until she was in her own bed before coming to harvest the tooth and, the next morning, she found a note explaining much the same thing, under her pillow.
As there was no opportunity for any outdoor activities, on Wednesday afternoon Bubble and I went to the cinema for the matinee showing of Cars 3. I had not seen Cars 1 or 2 but it mattered not – she, obviously, had seen both the previous renditions so knew everything (and more) that I needed to know. It was good fun even if the purchase of a small bag of popcorn requires a small mortgage.
This week’s Brexit nonsense – an interesting article in the Guardian by a leading economist outlining how the warnings of the dire consequences of Brexit are coming home to roost.
Some argue that if the government adopted a more coherent negotiating strategy the damage would be less. But the fact is that there is no coherent negotiating strategy. May’s objectives – restriction of immigration from the EU while maintaining full access to the European single market – are fundamentally incompatible.
It’s what I’ve been saying since the referendum – the objective of limiting free movement inevitably means the UK will be excluded from the single market. Very simple. But, for some reason the Brexiteers still feel that they can have their cake and eat it too and hence their lack of a coherent negotiating strategy. I wonder sometimes if they are just simply stupid or whether they genuinely believe their own rhetoric – that the UK is such an important trading partner with the EU that they will cave in and allow us to continue trading as before but without letting any of those smelly foreigners in. It’s a fantasy and the clock is ticking.
There was an advertisement for an apartment in Amsterdam I spotted the other day in which cooking is explicitly not allowed! It’s yours for the sum of €1000 per month (just over £900 or nearly $1200 per month). One presumes there are plenty of restaurants in the vicinity?
Love to you all,
Greg