Rain!

Last night, just as we were going to bed, we had another thunder and lightening show from Mother Nature which went on for at least an hour and a half. As well as sheet lightening we had fork lightening as well, which lit up the whole sky and was very dramatic indeed! Sophie and I watched the rain fall from her bedroom window and it was lovely to feel the cool draught filtering in and alleviating the heat a tiny bit.

This morning I woke up at about 5.30am but after reading for a while I went back to sleep and slumbered until 8am. The sky was grey and everywhere felt muggy and damp again.

Sophie had an appointment for her nails at 11am and I dropped her off and drove over to the gym where I spent a pleasant hour reading my book and having a coffee in the cafe. The gym was very busy, with the pool packed with people and the cafe itself was abuzz with families having lunch. Outside the rain fell steadily out of a grey, dismal sky and it never really stopped until we were sitting in Caffe Nero in Market Harborough, having a quick bite to eat. It was ironic because we'd got soaked running from the car park into the town and I'd bought a small umbrella in the Edinburgh Woollen Mill to protect us from the worst of the downpour!

After a quick snack we had a mooch around the shops and Sophie treated herself to some jewellery in Monsoon. There was a sale on in there (and other shops) so no doubt the winter stuff will soon be appearing on the rails.

We ended up, as usual, in Duncan's shop and tasted three French wines and a red from the north west of Spain. He said he'd been quiet because of the weather but as we tasted our wines the sun had come out and it was very hot and humid again. I bought one of the wines, a sweetish white and also a Portuguese wine that we'd tasted the other week which Sophie and I enjoyed. I also bought a present for Liam's birthday next week and we sneaked in a couple of tastings of a Cherry Bourbon that Sophie loved.

Duncan said that the sweetish white went very well with olives and recommended us to pop into the Farndon Fields Farm Shop on the way home. We managed to find it and I really wish I hadn't as they have such a superb range of delicious food and drink! We chose different olives and stuffed peppers, some locally made bread and two Scotch eggs that I have a weakness for and only eat very occasionally!

We took a different route home through verdant countryside, passing by the Naseby battlefield site and we actually saw a Buddhist monk near Haselbech! Once home we spent a frantic hour looking for our luggage scales as Sophie was finishing off her packing but in the end we had to resort to weighing Sophie on our bathroom scales and then weighing her with her suitcase, which did feel very heavy!

We also completed our Advanced Passenger Information for our flight next month and picked out our seats, so that was very exciting! We've decided to check in online the day before we fly which will hopefully make things a bit easier at the airport!

In the evening we had a three course meal to say goodbye to Sophie as she is off to the airport tomorrow in readiness to fly out to Barcelona on Monday. We had pate and the bread we bought today, followed by nachos with chicken. I made a Pavlova with strawberries and we settled down to watch Mrs Doubtfire. A great end to a very good day!