Exploring

We've had light rain showers this morning, but certainly not enough to make any difference to our extremely dry gardens. I spent the morning working on one of my old travel diaries again, this time from 1981 when we drove to Italy and I had a holiday romance!

At lunchtime, Sophie and I drove to Bicester, and although the plan had been to have a picnic at Graven Hill, we ended up in a McDonald's after doing a tour of the town itself in search of a Subway! The restaurant was busy with people, and we started talking to a poor woman who'd had an accident on the way home from her holiday and had written off her car... Sophie was suspicious at first that she'd ask us for a lift home, two hundred miles away, but I think she was just upset by what had happened and wanted to share her experience with someone!

After we'd eaten we drove the short distance to Graven Hill, parked the car and had a good look around. The rain had stopped and it felt warm and humid. There was hardly anybody about so we walked around taking some photos of the houses:

When the roads are finished off and the communal areas tidied up, I should think it will be a lovely place to live. We talked to a woman who was picking seed cases in one of the front gardens and she said that she thought some of the houses were weird, and we had to agree! There's such a hotchpotch of different styles, some very traditional and some really "out there" but at least the place isn't boring! It was great to chat with her (her son and daughter-in-law were building a house) and get a little insight into what it's like to live here!

As we walked around it became warmer so we returned to the car, drove around for one last time and went home. The traffic on the M40 was heavy with queues going onto the A43 and I think there was nearly an accident behind us when all the traffic stopped suddenly!

Back at home we relaxed, played two games of Scrabble (one each) and enjoyed cold meats and salad for dinner. It was warm and humid and the temperature in the kitchen was 80f. Phew!

Pootling!

Sophie went to the gym this morning to take part in a yoga class, and I managed to complete some jobs on my to-do list, which was enormously satisfying. I bought travel insurance for our holiday and booked Duxford next Sunday as a treat for my parents. I called the museum and reserved a mobility scooter for my Dad, so that should make it easier for us to get around. I enjoyed coffee and pastries for breakfast, and Sophie returned at about lunchtime after enjoying her class and having a run.  

I didn't leave the house at all today and it was blissfully quiet - wonderful! I think a lot of our neighbours are on holiday at the moment, so peace reigned. It was lovely to pootle about and I sat and read the papers while Sophie prepared dinner, a chicken and pasta dish that smelt wonderful.

We played Scrabble in the evening and Sophie beat me twice! She finished off the meal, which was lovely and used the small orzo pasta that makes it more like a risotto.

After we'd eaten Keith and I watched an old Bond film starring Timothy Dalton. What a shame he wasn't the most successful Bond!

Saying goodbye...

As you can imagine, I was mightily glad it was Friday, and amazingly, we're almost at the end of another month!

I was working with Jo today, instead of Kathy who was on annual leave, and it was just the two of us. Sara said she would help out, but she didn't, so it was a bit full-on, and there was no real let-up. I had some very strange calls, as usual, and I could hardly hear one woman on the phone who started to get very rude as if it was my fault the line was bad! Thank goodness it's nearly the weekend!

Keith didn't go to the pub this evening, and Sophie and I sipped a lovely glass of Picpoul de Pinet and watched a great film starring George Clooney and Catherine Zeta Jones called Intolerable Cruelty. It was funny and very quirky! I honestly think that George Clooney is the new Cary Grant... swoon!

Dinner was pizza, crispy potatoes and salad, and after we'd eaten, we watched the rest of the film before catching up with the last ever episode of Neighbours. It was a double-bill, and a lot of the old faces appeared, including Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan. I suspect, though, that the scene they were in was filmed separately as they didn't have anything to do with the rest of the cast, and Kylie never uttered a word!

I stopped watching Neighbours when they killed off the character of Sonya in March 2019, and I haven't seen an episode since, but I wanted to watch the last instalment, which I found quite emotional. I used to be a huge fan - one year we even watched in Mallorca on holiday - so it was a bit sad saying goodbye. It will be interesting to see what the cast get up to in the future!

Frying tonight...

I was back in at work this morning and grappling with the box office returns. Our area manager wanted me to deduct any "no shows" which meant a lot of extra work for me, as we need to report how many members attend, so it was a fiddly task. Consequently, a half-hour job took me double the time, which I think annoyed Sara, as she wanted me to work on some of the customer service emails.

We were short-staffed today so I had to answer the phones but the shift passed very quickly. I sped home at 2pm, and had a quick catch-up with Keith, who had been shopping and had managed to get my Dad's car washed successfully! The only problem was that it had stopped working halfway through the wash and he had to sound his horn to get someone to help! I was just glad that the voucher I paid for yesterday was still valid!

I went to collect my Mum, and we drove to Tesco where we bought a few things in the supermarket. I bought a bottle of English sparkling wine to try this evening, as our sparklers are supposed to be very good, and I wanted to do a blind tasting to see what Sophie thought of it.

After the shopping, we headed home to have a cup of tea and some cake, and I showed Mum the photos I'd found of our holidays years ago. She was delighted to see them and we had a great reminisce about the old days!

Sophie and I tried the wine and she guessed pretty quickly that it was English! It was lovely and bubbly with a sweetish taste, but was it worth £15? (I paid £11 as I had a Tesco Clubcard). I think, in the future, we'll stick to Cava or Prosecco - or some Loire sparklers - instead!

Keith barbecued steaks this evening while I fried some real potato chips. I'd looked up a recipe and it recommended frying the potatoes at 130c for ten minutes, then heating up the oil and finishing them at 190c for about five minutes. We have a thermometer so we tried this method and they turned out really well - lovely, crisp and golden brown. The barbecued steak was tender and delicious as well. What a success!

Rain!

After a lazy start to the day, I cleaned the house, catching up with some jobs that needed doing badly! I had noticed that the windowsill in our bedroom was covered in dust and the tiny little black flies that arrive at this time of the year. With the windows open all the time, and the dry wind we've had recently, the sill needed a good clean!

I was all finished by 1pm and having a shower before Sophie arrived home. We'd decided to pay a visit to the new community shop in Walgrave that had just opened. They had a coffee machine and outdoor seating, so I suggested we go and see what it was like.

Before heading to the village we popped to Brixworth to take a parcel, and the small cafe opposite the row of shops was doing a roaring trade! I keep forgetting (I have no idea how) that it's the school holidays! On the way to Walgrave, we drove over Pitsford and I thought the water level would be really low because of the lack of rain, but it was looking lovely and full. Let's hope we don't have any hosepipe bans here!

The new shop looked lovely and the staff were delighted to see us and very friendly. We bought a bag of new potatoes, but there was a family installed on the bench seat outside having drinks and ice-creams so we left. It's a great asset to the village and as it's a community shop run by volunteers we all hoped it would do really well and be successful.

From the village, we drove to Kettering and popped into Costa and enjoyed a sandwich and coffee. I am noticing the price of things creeping up now - Keith and I shared an M&S sausage roll and it was £3.15! Altogether, our snacks came to almost £19! Hmmm!

In Tesco, we bought some things (Aperol for me, very important) and then I wanted to get my Dad's car washed. I bought a voucher in the garage shop, and we queued for ages, annoying Sophie who had taken precious time off from work to go out with us. I don't think it was the kind of afternoon she'd envisaged!

After waiting patiently for ages, Keith scanned the code and we moved forward into the carwash. Only nothing happened... we sat and waited, but it became obvious that it wasn't going to work, so we had to drive out, feeling a little bit silly! There was a queue waiting, so we gave up and went home!

This evening the sky turned really dark and we had rain! Hooray! Sophie and I played Scrabble and she cooked one of our favourite meals, the chicken and ham tangle pie. It was delicious as always and there was enough left over for her lunch tomorrow.

It was lovely to sit and watch the rain fall this evening, but I fear we may need a few more days of this to make any difference to the gardens!

Rain?

I was dreading going into work this morning, after yesterday's craziness, but it wasn't as bad as I feared thank goodness. It was busy - it's the summer holidays after all - but we did have some lulls in phone calls when we could get other work done. It was lovely to leave at 4pm and know that I had tomorrow off, with no actual plans, other than Sophie coming home from work early, which was a bonus!

Back home I mooched about and gazed at our desert of a garden. It's now been ages since we had any decent rainfall, and there are mutterings in some parts of the country about hosepipe bans and comparisons with 1976... Our grass is dry and crinkly and I have no desire whatsoever to go out there and tidy up. And cutting the grass is out of the question!

Sophie cooked a delicious dinner tonight of chicken stuffed with garlicky cheese and wrapped in Parma ham. It reminded me of when we had to isolate after our short break in Mallorca, until we received our  PCR results, and we made this dish from things we found in the fridge! Ah! Happy days!

A stressful day!

Today has been very stressful as the phone calls have been non-stop and at the end of my shift, I felt utterly drained with all the questions I'd had to answer. We lost about 70 calls and when the phones opened at 10am we had twenty calls waiting in the queue! By 4pm, I was mightily fed up with saying the same thing every time someone phoned up to book swimming! I felt like screaming!

Bizarrely, Sara had to look after her 7-month-old grandson for nearly two hours this morning while her daughter went for a beauty treatment. I honestly don't think our office is a place for babies and, in the end, she had to take him out as he became quite grizzly. She had already admitted to being snowed under with work (there were over twenty email cancellations needing to be done, let alone all the normal emails) so why didn't she just say no?

When I got home I tripped over the leg of one of the barstools and, sitting on the loo, Monty appeared and literally screamed at me for food! I think it was the last straw! I had had enough of everyone wanting a piece of me! Then my Aunt called and I ended up being on the phone with her for over half an hour, as she wanted to visit my parents at the weekend. A lovely gesture, but I'd had enough of phone calls!

It was bliss to sit in the quiet with a drink and chat with Sophie and Keith. I made a start on finding someone to look after Monty-cat while we're away, and I'm hoping Paul will call in every other day. Sophie looked up automatic cat feeders on Amazon - apparently, you can programme them for up to 15 days! She wants to take him to Spain with us, but the red tape and vaccinations he'd need would probably be the end of him!

After a delicious dinner of cottage pie (the green beans made a comeback along with carrots, broccoli and cauliflower!) Sophie and I watched a couple of episodes of My Dream Lottery Home. How I'd love to win the lottery at the moment and disappear!