Traffic trauma

Sophie still felt headachey this morning, and even though she was dressed for the gym, she decided not to go. We sat and watched Come Dine With Me this morning and met five new characters!

Keith took me to work and I had a pleasant start to my Tuesday. The rest of the day sped by and before I knew it, it was 4pm and time to head home. We've been treated to another sunny day with clear blue skies and it's set to continue all week. What a bonus!

Sophie came home this evening and declared she was going to the gym tomorrow morning even if her leg was hanging off, as the traffic had been so bad when she went to work this morning. I agreed... my morning commute at 7.30am is getting worse and the number of cars on the road is horrendous. It's not helped by the new houses being built along the A43, and the large new secondary school on the outskirts of Moulton. The problem is, I have no other way to go.

Our usual evening routine followed - catching the headlines of the news at 6pm (depressing), followed by a drink and cards and listening to music. There was enough pie left over from last night to feed Keith and me, while Sophie had a Tesco Finest paella that Keith had bought last week. Sophie enjoyed the meal but said her version was better!

Keith and I watched the penultimate episode of Virdee tonight, a new crime drama set in Bradford. It reminds us strongly of Luther and is quite disturbing, but immensely enjoyable. I will be sad when we have watched all of the episodes, but I have a feeling he will be back!

A sunny Monday

As predicted, Sophie didn't go to the gym this morning and we sat with a coffee and watched Michael Portillo in Portugal. In the first episode, he was in Porto and the city looked gorgeous. Outside, the sun was shining again so it made for a lovely start to our working week.

I love seeing the sun at this time of year, but it was low on the horizon when I drove to work making it difficult when it was directly in front of me. In Holcot, as I emerged from "cut-throat" alley, I couldn't see at all!

Sara was off again today, so I concentrated on the emails and had a busy shift. The day flew by! I sped home in the sunshine and pootled about until Sophie arrived home. Although the days are sunny and definitely a bit warmer, the nights are still cold and we put the heating on and lit the fire in the living room to take the chill off.

Keith and I played cards and we enjoyed Sophie's chicken and mushroom pie for dinner. It was a Hairy Bikers recipe and was delicious! We had put puff pastry on the bottom of the pie as well, and we'll definitely do that again!

A good clear out!

We awoke to another beautiful day, so our plans to get into the garden and clear the garage could go ahead! We picked up all the branches on the ground that Keith and Mike had cut down a few weeks ago, and I also picked up some litter that had been caught in the bushes when our garage door had swung open in the wind and a bag of recyclables had blown into the garden!

As Keith chopped up the branches, I put them into a bag and we took them to the tip along with some other items we no longer needed. I also put a couple of bags of old clothes into the car to go into the big recycling containers.

The tip was quiet when we arrived and we managed to get rid of everything easily. Two of the items, a soup kettle and my Dad's old CD player went to re-use so I was pleased about that.

Back home I swept the garage and tidied up and it looked so much better! I carried a box of books into the conservatory and cleaned them ready to be taken to a charity shop in Market Harborough next week. I stifled the urge to try and sell them as they were worth next to nothing online and it's just hassle finding a box to post them.

While Keith and I were working away in the garage and garden, Sophie had cleared out the freezer as there were so many containers of leftovers that we couldn't fit anything else in there! She culled a lot of tubs of curry and chilli leftovers, and we took them to the tip as well, disposing of them in the non-recycling rubbish skip along with a pair of Keith's old wellies. She also sorted out some clothes for us to take, so we had a very busy and productive morning!

As well as sorting out the freezer, Sophie also prepared a chicken pie for tomorrow night's dinner along with the vegetables, and hoovered! I mopped the floor in the conservatory and the kitchen and then we decided to try and get the VW washed as it was filthy. However, most of the population of Northampton had the same idea and both car washes we went to had long queues. The roads were busy as the sunshine and mild temperatures had drawn people out!

We gave up with the car, called into Waitrose to get Sophie some ham and bread for her lunch tomorrow and returned home where I had a long, and very hot, shower! Bliss!

Sophie had a bad headache in the afternoon and had a nap on the bed. I have suggested she go and see her doctor to try and get something to help as these headaches are now interfering with her daily life. She came downstairs a little later feeling better, but I doubt she'll be going to the gym in the morning.

Dinner tonight was Chinese takeaway leftovers and there was more than enough for another meal!

A little planning

We awoke to beautiful sunshine and blue skies this morning and this weather is set to continue over the next few days. It's still cold, though!

I wanted to set aside a few hours today to sort out our Vienna trip and book our overnight accommodation for our Spanish holiday in June. Sophie asked me to go to the gym with her this morning and she just wanted to do a run for half an hour. 

We drove into Northampton and the gym car park was heaving! I just about managed to find a space! While she was off doing her run on the treadmill, I tried to finish my latest book. When she came out a little while later, we called into the garage at Moulton and bought the Saturday newspaper, some hot cross buns for Keith, and pains au chocolat for our breakfast.

Back home, we enjoyed coffee and pastries, and then we sorted out the finances for Vienna. After this, I dragged Sophie off the bed where she was cuddling with Gomez and we started to look for Airbnbs for our journey to and from Spain.

We have decided to cross the Channel on Friday afternoon and stop near Calais. We all hate the very early morning start and a long day of driving, so Sophie and I have taken a half day's holiday on Friday, we'll go home, and then drive to Folkestone for a late afternoon or early evening train before stopping overnight, meaning we'll be fresh on Saturday morning! 

We opened the huge map of France on our kitchen island and put stickers on the places we wanted to stop near. On the way down, we booked an Airbnb in the village of La Chapelle d'Angillon, where the author of Le Grand Meaulnes, Alain Fournier, was born. I visited before, years ago with my parents, when I was studying the novel for my French A Level, and I was disappointed to find the gorgeous chateau there had been transformed into an American Wild West theme park! Very bizarre!

We have booked Le Troubadour in Rocamadour for the second night and then we'll be in our Spanish Airbnb for ten nights. Heading back up to the coast, we booked an Airbnb near Clermont-Ferrand, and then one near the wine village of Chablis. We loved it there so much we wanted to go back. Finally, our last one of the holiday is an apartment in the middle of Montreuil-sur-Mer, and we were delighted to find it was near a restaurant we took note of on our first-ever visit there, in May 2023. We contacted the restaurant and we booked a table for the night we're there.

The Tour de France passes through the town so, hopefully, we will get a great view! It was lovely planning the Airbnbs and we received lovely comments from the hosts. We just need to book the Calais house and we're all set. 

Sophie disappeared upstairs to cuddle with Gomez but before she went, she transferred the short video clips she'd taken of our holiday to Provence last October to me on my phone. We have been wanting to piece them all together and make a film so I set about doing that in the afternoon. I uploaded the clips onto the computer and with the help of AI, I did it! By the early evening, I'd added a lovely music track and uploaded it to YouTube so we could watch it on the television! Sophie thinks she may have left some clips out, so if she sends me more, I'll do a "Director's Cut" and make another one!

We treated ourselves to a Chinese takeaway in the evening and before it arrived Sophie and I played cards and we reminisced about our holidays in the past. We are looking forward to going back to L'Escala and the beautiful Costa Brava again!

Never-ending emails!

I had another busy day at work, and the time flew by. The emails never seemed to stop coming into the customer service inbox, and by 4pm, I'd had enough! It didn't help that Kathy felt cold today so I turned up the radiator and closed the window which had the effect of making us all sleepy! Not what you want at work!

It was lovely to emerge into the sunshine (yes, the last two days have been lovely again!) and feel the fresh air on our faces! I sped home and did very little. It was Friday, yippeee!

Tonight was an easy dinner - pizza, quiche, chicken -  but I had to fit all the food into the oven along with roasted new potatoes. Sophie and I drank a lovely bottle of Macon Villages and watched the rest of the Come Dine With Mes.

After dinner, we went outside to see if we could see the alignment of the planets. We think we saw Venus, and there was another very bright star but neither of us really knew what we were looking for. The night sky was beautiful, though, and sprinkled with stars, which we both found amazing (and I don't use that word lightly). Our streetlamps hindered us slightly as the one opposite our house was too bright, something that was supposed to have been dealt with by the parish council.

We went back in, chilled to the bone, and languished on the bed with the cats. Bliss!

A dead phone...

Sophie had another headache this morning, so she missed the gym and we sat with a coffee and watched Come Dine With Me instead. This week's contestants are, in my opinion, mismatched but we'll have to see how they get on!

I had a busy shift, walking into 90 emails as Sara was also off work yesterday. I gamely plugged away at them and Sue helped me with a few, so that was a bonus! Keith collected me at 2pm and we returned home, where I had a quick cuddle with Mooney, before going over to the care home. He loves to sit on one of the bar stools with his paws over the edge and I would have loved to have stayed with him all afternoon!

My Mum's hair looked lovely today and she had her phone plugged into a charger, but it wasn't the one I'd bought for them. It looked completely dead. I found another one, but still not the one I'd bought and the phone refused to turn on.

I stayed with them for about an hour before going home and tackling the usual evening jobs. When Sophie arrived home, she tried to put Olive on to charge but it wouldn't work. She is becoming increasingly worried about this as there always seems to be some problem and the car is only charging up to 80%, which is fine normally, but not if we want to go on a long journey. We are taking Olive down to Heathrow next month when we go to Vienna, and it needs to be able to have enough charge to get us there and back!

A quiet day

I was dismayed to wake up to grey skies and rain this morning after the lovely two days we've just had... while I was at work! All plans to get out into the garden were put on hold and I spent the day pootling about, doing indoor jobs.

I couldn't reach my parents on the phone, so it looks like they have lost the charger I bought for them a couple of weeks ago. My worry is that if I buy them a new phone, will they lose that as well?

So, today I didn't venture out of the house and I kept myself busy with the usual Wednesday chores. I cleaned out the fridge, wrote the shopping list and hoovered so when Sophie arrived home in the evening, the house was warm and cosy. Keith and I decided to put the heating on at around midday because it was so cold!

I also managed to get another month of my 2015 blog transferred over to a Word document, so I just have October, November and December to do now. Hopefully, this weekend, I can get it finished!

We had beef tacos tonight, using the beef that we'd bought for the casserole on Sunday. We put the chopped-up meat into our blender until it was minced, and the meal was delicious!