Mama Mia - Didn't See Ya

Another hugely irritating day at work but I was looking forward to meeting up with two friends after work to go and see Mama Mia at the brand new cinema in Andover. We got there a quarter of an hour before the film started and couldn't believe it when we saw posted on the door 'sold out' for both the 6.30pm and 8.30pm showings. We were gutted as we had been so looking forward to it. We tried for two other films, WALL E and the new batman but they were sold out too! We tried to book for Thursday night but only 4 seats left, sitting apart - no thanks to that we thought. We wandered despondently into town and had a couple of drinks in Witherspoons instead which was fine actually but wasn't at all what we'd planned........

We plan to try again in a week's time, during the day, when I have a day off.

On the way home so nearly ran over a cat. One minute it was sitting on the pavement with it's other cat pal and then whoosh straight under the car - how I didn't hit it god only knows!

A Sandwich Sort of Day

Today was a sandwich day - good at the start, rubbish in the middle and good at the end. Got up early this morning and actually had some time to kill before work so sat in the garden and ate my cornflakes, how very civilised.

Sat through a 3 hour meeting in a very hot room which was very tedious. This afternoon was spent editing the minutes of the said meeting. When I came out of work it was like walking into an oven, the heat was amazing and the car thermometer showed 30 degrees! Of the three ways I could have chosen to go home I chose the wrong one (the motorway). There had been a bus fire on the M3 and the tailbacks were enormous. I managed to skirt off around the back roads but my journey still took me an hour instead of half an hour.

My plan when I got home was to nail some new footing boards to the fence in the older part of the garden. I sawed up the wood and put two panels up but couldn't get the nails in the third because of the angle so by the time Peter came home I was hot, cross about getting home late, work being rubbish and my inability to fix the fence - I think he knew I was in a moody when I threw the hammer across the lawn!

Peter helped with the rest of the fence whilst I had a shower and then we had dinner with a bottle of rose we won yesterday. That cheered me up and calmed me down and we enjoyed the sunshine before the weather started to change and we have now had some much needed rain which has made it so much cooler (hooray I'll be able to sleep tonight!).

Sweltering in the Garden

Got up at about 7.30am this morning and nipped out to get the papers and some diet cokes as I thought to myself 'it's gonna be a scorcher' (excuse The Sun Headline!)

I wasn't wrong, after a leisurely breakfast in the garden I set about weeding the veg patch and cutting back some brambles that have grown over from next door. Within minutes the sweat was just dripping off me and my hair was really wet - yuk yuk, I really hate that feeling. It turned into that sort of day really, doing about half an hours graft and then having to stop for water and a cool down.

However, I'm not knocking it - it's about time we had some summer. It's 5.00pm as I'm typing this and I'm sat in the garden in the shade and have decided that work is done for the day. I've had a lovely cool shower and feel clean again. Tonight, when it's cool again, we'll have dinner in the garden with some Rose wine we won yesterday I think and tonight's TV will be Midsomer Murders - it's perfect Sunday night telly I think and it being two hours long you can really chill out whilst it's on.

Dreading work tomorrow, I have to minute a long meeting in the morning which won't be fun in a hot stuffy conference room - oh well, tomorrow's another day............

Freebies, Fetes, Family and Feathered Friends

Had a absolutely fab day today - one of those 'couldn't be better summer days'. We left home late morning and headed to Andover where we picked up a bag full of free paperback books from someone who had offered them on Freecycle. Then it was over to our favourite charity shop at Enham where I bought a DVD of 'Hearts in Atlantis' staring Anthony Hopkins (it's based on a Stephen King Novel so should be good). Then we headed over to St Mary Bourne Flower Show and Fete (SMB is where I was brought up so it's a tradition that we go and I love it). We met my mum and dad there and three of mums sisters who were down for the weekend. Peter and I headed straight for the bookstall and purchased a great bag full and then it was off to the bottle tombola where we eventually spent £8 throughout the day and got 5 bottles of wine, one bottle of champagne and an interesting 43% alcohol pear drink!! During the day we also sat outside the 'beer hut' in the shade and Peter had a pint of real ale and I had a Pimms which was delicious (must buy a bottle). The heart of the show is 'the tent' with all the entries in for classes such as flower arranging, vegetables, photography, cooking etc. Every year I say "I could have done better than that" when I look at a cake or a bunch of flowers so next year I MUST put something in to shut myself up.

After the show it was back to mums and we sat in the garden from about 4 O'clock until 8.30pm which was lovely. Mum served us fresh fruit and ice cream and scones jam and cream - bliss. The only disturbing thing of the evening was that Peter and I went on a wander down to the field at the bottom of the garden (where dad has two owl nest boxes) and we saw a pigeon fly out of one (where mum and dad knew there to be owl chicks); not a good sign. As soon as we told mum and dad they went down to have a look (strictly speaking you shouldn't but they figured that the owls could be in danger as there is no way owls would put up with other birds in their box). Anyway, strangely the pigeons had been nesting in one part of the box and the owl chicks were huddled in the other (no sign of the parents which should have been there at that time of day) and they looked sick and mum thought one of them looked dead - they only had a quick look so couldn't be sure. There was much debate about whether to ring a rescue centre but we thought it best to let nature take it's course in case the parents did come back. Fingers crossed that they do.

During the evening some photo's came out of two of my aunts trips to Canada which made Peter and I even more keen to go. The only downside is that they said their trip cost more than twice what we had thought! I really admire them, they are both widowed and have got together to see the world, they have already done Australia, New Zealand and Canada and next are going to Germany and planning another trip to Australia. That's the way life should be, full of adventure (it helps if you can afford it of course though).

When we got home we watched Mock the Week which was the perfect end to the day. Looking forward to a relaxing day in the garden tomorrow too.

In Another Life .........

In another life (a fantasy life) I would be the seller of books. I love everything about books; reading them, touching them, recommending them, selling them, the smell of them - my love of books is on a par with my love of coffee shops, so to run a shop which contained both would be marvelous indeed.

I am currently touting a huge list of secondhand books around my place of work to raise a bit of much needed cash. My list is well over 100 books long and one of my customers asked me to select a short list for her on what I thought she would like
(she gave me a brief outline of the type of read she enjoys). I selected 10 books for her and emailed her the list plus the back cover blurb from each book. Out of these 10 she has already read 6; although I was disappointed to have not made more sales I'm quite proud that I was so accurate in predicting her taste.

On other fronts, I'm viewing the weekend ahead with mixed feelings. On Saturday I am attending a family thing (my side) and I'm smarting a bit about various injustices at the moment (ie me doing all the running to keep in touch, the one who remembers birthdays, the one who drives everywhere to meet up etc) so I'm not exactly going in the right frame of mind. However, as I said to Peter last night, if I don't make the effort I won't see them at all so I'm between a rock and a hard place really.

Picture Blog

More pics as per last blog (2 x Peter's sister's garden and 2 x Lavenham - guess which is which!)

Post-holiday Blog

We came back from our few days in Norfolk on Friday. We drove up on the Monday and checked into the first of our three Travelodge’s (we moved 3 times in order to secure their £19 room rates – it has to be done you know).

On the Tuesday we went to see Peter’s sister and family at their new place. It’s lovely, they have got so much more room now but the ‘wow factor’ is the garden. I’m so happy that they have found such a lovely place, they all seem very happy. See pictures attached and on separate blog.

The rest of the week we went to a couple of National Trust Properties – one of the villages was Lavenham with its beautiful houses. We also visited some local towns and churches.

On Friday we headed home but needn’t have rushed back as the Air Show Peter was due to attend at the weekend was cancelled as the field car parking was flooded. Peter was gutted as it’s the ‘show of the year’ as far as viewing aircraft goes.

Instead at the weekend we did lots of gardening as things have grown like mad even in our few days away.

It was back to work this morning and the day was filled with wading through emails and diary management. To cheer myself up I started booking our Travelodge accommodation for when we return to Norfolk later in the year – there’s nothing like booking a holiday immediately you get back from the last one!

Early Mornings, Hedges and Tennis

Another busy day - Peter was picked up by a couple of mates at 3.00am (yes, 3.00am!) to travel up to the air show and mum and dad came over to see me at about 9 O'clock.

Dad turned up with his hedge cutter and we all got stuck into cutting our 3 sections of privet hedge. As it had got so overgrown we created a huge bag of clippings and the job took us about 3 hours but now it looks great. I did try and persuade dad to carve an elephant shape into one section but he was having none of it - shame!

After a bit more general gardening we had a lovely lunch of chicken in bacon, leek and cheese sauce and home grown strawberries and then watched the Women's Wimbledon finals. I don't mind tennis but I do think the matches go on for a tad too long - or is it me?

During the day, although the weather has stayed fine it has been so windy - so much so that I've been a bit worried about one of our trees blowing over - at time of typing they are all still upright so fingers crossed.

I am now going to chill and watch a film as quite frankly I am pooped.

The Gas Man Cometh.....

Peter worked from home today as someone needed to be here for when the National Grid came. Apparently our gas meter is past its sell by date and needed replacing (free of charge) by N.G. The meter man duly arrived and changed the meter and then told Peter he didn't like the fact that we didn't have an air vents in the kitchen and wouldn't be turning the gas back on! Nice! Peter rang me at work and I went straight on the Internet and onto the Trading Standards website and phoned a Plumbing and Heating Company; DSI from Southampton. I must say they were absolutely brilliant - all the people in the office were polite, helpful and phoned back when they said they would and the wonderful engineer 'Norman' who originally thought to put vents in would cost us about £300, found another way round the problem - put a vent in the floor instead of going through two walls and charged us just the call out fee plus £2.00 for the plastic vent. It is so so rare these days to find such good service that I was actually quite stunned. We are going to get the same company back to service our boiler in the autumn - once you've found someone good like that it's best to hang on to them on think......

We had a busy evening sorting through boxes that had been stored in the same cupboard as the gas meter and deciding if we wanted to keep things. Old books I thought were long lost appeared, photographs of Peter's family I'd never seen before appeared (it's ok Anne you and K weren't amongst them so you're safe!) it was quite a nostalgia trip. I should have known though that cupboard emptying is very dusty and messy work - we had boxes everywhere and bits and bobs we wanted to keep but weren't sure where to put. We got there in the end and got rid of a couple of boxes and sorted a large amount of books to sell on.

Whilst Peter got his things together for an air show he is going to tomorrow I watched the last part of 'Criminal Justice'. I must say I was a bit disappointed with the ending - the makers seemed to rush the ending and not fully explain why things happened as they did.

Road Rage, Books & Gardening

I needed to be out of the door early this morning so gave Peter a lift to the station. Dropped him at the Airport Station as there are road works all around the town station. Decided go go to work part motorway and them come off at the first junction to pop into Sainsburys. In a one mile stretch of motorway I had a stupid DHL van suddenly try and pull into my lane whilst all three lanes were queuing - I couldn't find the horn quickly enough, so much flashing of lights went on followed by the horn when I found it! Then idiot number two who had been cruising in the middle lane overtaking no-one decided to take a leisurely manoeuvre to half way across the slow lane - no indicating, no quick correction of his mistake - he just drifted back again - probably under the influence of something I think.

After getting of the road to hell as quickly as possibly I nipped into Sainsers to get a batch of greetings cards and treated myself to a book I had seen recommended on Richard & Judy yesterday "No Time for Goodbye" by Linwood Barclay - the premise of the book sounds fascinating......

"Synopsis
On the morning she will never forget, suburban teenager Cynthia Archer awakes with a nasty hangover and a feeling she is going to have an even nastier confrontation with her mom and dad. But when she leaves her bedroom, she discovers the house is empty, with no sign of her parents or younger brother Todd. In the blink of an eye, without any explanation, her family has simply disappeared. Twenty-five years later Cynthia is still haunted by unanswered questions. Were her family murdered? If so, why was she spared? And if they're alive, why did they abandon her in such a cruel way? Now married with a daughter of her own, Cynthia fears that her new family will be taken from her just as her first one was. And so she agrees to take part in a TV documentary revisiting the case, in the hope that somebody somewhere will remember something - or even that her father, mother or brother might finally reach out to her...Then a letter arrives which makes no sense and yet chills Cynthia to the core. And soon she begins to realise that stirring up the past could be the worst mistake she has ever made..."

Can't wait to read it. That's the trouble with me I'm still in the early stages of my current book and another one catches my eye - I think I need to factor in more reading time into my days.

Work was manic again today and we had so many interruptions, I just got into typing something and either the phone would ring or someone would come through the door. I was working on three sets of minutes and sent them through to my boss and hoped not to see them for a bit but he turned them round really quickly so I was back staring at them again in no time when I really just wanted to concentrate on something else for a bit - sigh.

As soon as I got home I mowed the back lawn, just in time before a shower of rain came, and then emptied out the gas metre cupboard ready for our new gas metre installation tomorrow.

I feel I have done more than enough today so I'm chilling out with episode 4 of Criminal Justice.

Broken Things, Meetings and Good TV

Phew, busy day. Got in early today but boss was already in so I gained no extra work time at all, so a bit pointless having made the effort really - oh well.

My colleague, Sue, was back from leave today - hooray, at last sometone to talk to again - it's been tough this last week having no one to sound off to.

This morning went in a flash and this afternoon between 1.30pm and 4.00pm I was minuting an environmental meeting. As meetings go it is was quite enjoyable - it helps that I'm actually interested in the subject I guess. Lots of talk of wind turbines and the like. My favourtie quote from the meeting is as follows:-

"It is a fact that cats pose more of a danger to bird life, per metre squared, than wind turbines". Quite how this was measured I don't know!

On the home front it appears to my week for breaking things, well having them break on me I guess, the hoover has bitten the dust - it started to smell of burning and had sparkes coming out of it and the upstairs loo seat has a broken hinge - more expense!

I have brought the minutes home to edit them as I don't want to be faced with them tomorrow - it's taken me well over three hours but they are in some sort of shape now and I shall feel good about it in the morning.

I am currently watching the wonderful 'Criminal Justice' on BBC1. It's on every night this week and it's fab. It's got a wonderful cast; Pete Postlethwaite, Bill Paterson, Lindsay Duncan and Ben Wishaw (a young actor who was in the film 'Perfume'). It's great having something gritty and totally engrossing to watch for a change.