Memorandum Monday - No Details

We have been ill.
All three of us have had a tummy bug.
Fortunately not all at the same time but it was close.
No details except to say that we never want to experience that ever again, thank-you.

Normal service will be resumed when the world stops buzzing and whirling around my head

Birthday Holiday - Day 4

Tuesday 9th Feb

Weather: Dry, wet, dry, wet COLD

Up at 7.30am!

Listening to the sea

salmon and haddock in puff pastry

Sleazed after breakfast and then walked down through the village to listen to the sea.

"oh look it's lunchtime, let's go into the Anchor Inn and partake of some refreshment"
"Don't mind if I do."
Horace had Gammon and three times cooked chips. Hector had Smoked salmon, haddock and prawns in a puff pastry case with long beans, carrots, broccoli and saute new potatoes. Delishhhh

look how steep the road is down to the beach

 Took a picture to try and show the steepness of the little road that goes down onto the pebble beach the strolled back up the village, pausing in the pharmacy to buy a shower cap for Hector.
Back to the cottage for more sleazing.
Later hector walked down to the fish and chip shop
ON. HER, OWN.
Yeay!

Gammon n three times cooked chips

Hector could not eat all her chips. Horace ate all his while watching TV and playing transport empire on his tablet. No wifi but he had already downloaded it and has become quite ... keen.
Sleazed a bit more then Hector ran out of battery on her tablet so she put it on charge and went for a shower to try out the new shower cap.
She wants a shower just like that one please.

Birthday Holiday - Day 3

Monday 8th February

Weather: Wet, windy and very loud.

The Tea Timer

Horace decided that he had to walk about a bit today and we needed supplies so we headed for Exmouth via Sidmouth and Budleigh Salterton.

Found the Oak Barn Coffee Shop which also has fabulous oak furniture for sale (when we win the lottery ...) We had a delicious tuna/mayo panini for our lunch and Horace got to play with the tea timer again. It has three different timers on one stand and depending on how strong you like your tea as to which timer you watch. Hector remembered the camera and took a picture.

Did not get a picture of the rough sea at Budliegh Salterton or the sand blowing up the road at Exmouth - one hundred yards up the road - because being ill breaks habits. Carry camera yes, use it? oh yes! that's what you're supposed to do!

Stopped briefly on the sea front and stepped out of the car. Promptly stepped back in again when Horace realised that sand blowing in the wind fills your mouth and hurts your skin. Did a circuit of Exmouth because we could and then stopped in Lidl for shopping. Hector chickened out of taking a picture in Lidl when we were served at the till by Upsey Daisy from "In The Night Garden" Well he had the hair anyway.

Headed back to Beer, stopping in the Donkey Sanctuary to drop off the knitting and cards in the visitor centre and a cuppa to give us sustenance. Arrived back at the cottage just as it started to rain.
Drove through the flood again and forgot to take a picture

Hector got so cold she had to go to bed to get warm.

Note from Holiday Hector: You might wonder why there is no mention of the kitchen in this cottage. Hector does not cook on holiday except to make toast in the mornings. This is only to maintain the tradition of setting off the smoke alarms at least once. Any other cooked meals must be bought otherwise it isn't a holiday.

Birthday Holiday - day 2

Sunday 7th February.

Weather: plenty of it and mostly awful

the floods 

Slept very well in the comfy bed to be woken by a very upset Horace
"We have to go home" he said
"Why?" I asked, reaching for my glasses so I could stop him being blurry
"I've left my insulin on the table" he replied

Oh How We Laughed as we put on our clothes and shoes, collected our money and keys and climbed into the car.

We drove through floods and afterwards Hector said "I should have taken a photograph of that." She thought for a moment and said "If we go this way again I'll take it then."

We went home, he did his insulin and we made sure we took it with us as we turned around and went on holiday again. We arrived back at the Barn just after 2pm having had breakfast at Morrisons and a quick cuppa at the Little Chef in Ilminster where the staff are really good.
We both decided we needed to lie down - that bed is so comfortable - woke up in time to watch Vera.

Memorandum Monday - learning all the time

Sometimes the way I feel about this lovely man just hits me in the breath

On Friday there was a lot going on at our 'ouse. We had arranged to go to the garden centre to buy one of those mini greenhouse thingies - this one is extra long while being the standard width and will fit on my tiny back yard. Then the British Gas said that the engineer could come on Friday morning to do essential work to my boiler. Then I remembered that Miss Boo was having a sleep over because her parents were gallivanting off to see Fun Loving Criminals on Thursday evening. It all worked out nicely though. Son-in-law arrived in time to be my running-up-and-down-stairs person. Mr M went to the garden centre and took Miss Boo with him and the gas man was the same one that did the emergency work for us at Christmas. He replaced a leaking T-piece and then replaced the flexible hose with copper and installed the required filter. He reminded me that we need a C02 detector for that bedroom because the boiler is there and he was gone before lunch.
Mr M came home with two of the greenhouse thingies - he does like to encourage me and we prepared for the weekend. I was going to attempt to put up one of the greenhouses but the weather was against it.
Saturday we went to see Mr M's brother. spent a while talking about all sorts of stuff and I learnt a bit more about the enigma that is my brother-in-law.

Some time on Saturday there was a moment when I was suddenly made aware of just how much I care for my husband of 30+ years. I upset him you see, and when I realised was the moment that I learnt that even when you love someone you still have that power to hurt. Shan't do that again, it hurt me too much as well. He loves me enough to forgive me! Isn't that wonderful?

So what have I learnt? Love never dies, even if it becomes as familiar as a favourite chair it is just waiting to poke you in the heart and thank your stars for what you have. I've learnt that sometimes you get an engineer that has pride in his work and takes that extra care.

My thanks to Sian at FromHighInTheSky for inventing this way of keeping me writing.

Birthday Holiday for Horace? Don't mind if we do.

Over the next few days I will put the Holiday Journal entries together with pictures so you can enjoy our holiday too. A brief reminder here that Mr M's holiday name is Hungry Horace while mine is Tired old Hector
Beer, Devon 6-13 Feb 2016
Time: 11.56am
Mileage: 0n the clock 182
Weather: Rain and wind. Rain in buckets, wind 40mph and gusting.
The spray on the motorway was dreadful so we were forced to stop at the Super Mare for lunch. No really, we simply had to stop.

I had steak and chips - yum, Horace had the Tandoori huge thingy. Then we carried on and the rain carried on too. The nasty man in the car in front of us made us take the wrong way at Ilminster - well not the wrong way just an alternative. The nasty man's driving was so awful Horace had to keep shouting instructions so when he signalled that he was going along "our" road we took the other one.
Arrived in Beer via the Co-op in Seaton where we purchased the comestibles. Followed the instructions and found the key to the barn and settled in.

The Starre Barn is really nice. We put the food away, chose our sitting places - everyone does that right? chooses the chair they will claim as their own for the time they are there.
The rain continued to hammer down as Storm Imogen did her worst. it carried on until about 9pm by which time Hector was testing the bed for comfort, she rated it 9 out of 10 and the duvet was good too.

Note from amazed Hector: I have a new holiday bag so Horace decided to use the old one for his kindle and camera and batteries. He was rummaging in it and found the front door keys I had thought were lost when we stayed in the Travelodge in Ilminster. I am so glad, they were hidden under the thing at the bottom of the bag. I am not a careless person and it really upset me when I thought I had lost them.

Note from the drive down: We passed a "Little Chef"Restaurant on the road to Axminster.
"You don't see many of those these days" said Hector. Horace nodded in agreement. Several Hours later we realised that we had passed the one at Ilminster AND stopped in another one before Axminster - DUH

Memorandum Monday - New Baby

I meant to post something about our week away and what I had learnt but my eldest son rang me last night to tell me that I have a new granddaughter. She was so eager to join us that she arrived before the midwife - just like her father. She weighed in at 8lb 7oz, just five ounces lighter than her father and on Valentine's day. Her Daddy arrived on August Bank holiday so they both made their entrance on a special day.
Mother and baby are doing fine and Daddy sounded very cool even though he had just delivered his daughter.
I am so excited. Just as excited as when the first grandchild arrived more than 20 years ago - heck I have been just as thrilled and excited when each of them has arrived.
Have I learnt anything from this? Yes. I have learnt that the safe arrival of a baby is always good news and the sharing of that good news is absolutely fantastic

My thanks to Sian at FromHighInTheSky for inventing this meme and keeping me writing.

Things people say: number two

See the water spraying up? FLOOD!

Fearless photographer Horace in Lyme Regis

The pictures are from our birthday week holiday. Mr M celebrated a birthday and we spent the week in Beer in Devon. You are probably aware that the south west was battered by Storm Imogen and there wasa flooding. This particular flooded bit was at the top of the hill that leads eventually down to the village of Beer. But that's not why I am writing

Me taking a picture of Mr M - or Horace, to give him his holiday name - is not the reason I am writing either.

No, the reason I am writing is something we overheard while dining at The Dolphin Hotel in Beer on Friday evening. Let's make no bones about this, I was eavesdropping. Well if people that are half a room away talk loud enough for me to hear what am I supposed to do? Hmm, talk louder than them? I think not. We kept on eating because letting our food go cold was not an option and we listened. This is hard for Horace because as soon as he goes on holiday he goes deaf. We decided many years ago this is because his ears go on holiday too but they go to Porthcawl while he goes all over the country.
Anyhooo, there we were chomping politely and listening while one of the ladies described a bookshop in Seaton
"It's absolutely full of books from ceiling to floor"

Now is it just me or is that odd? We have added it to our collection of over heard things, the best one still being the voice overheard in Abergavenny market "No! you can't have a gas-mask!"

We think that "From ceiling to floor" is going to rank quite highly. There will be detailed posts about the holiday as I get the journal out and sort through some pictures. Now there's a thing. I had six weeks of not going far and not lifting the camera and I realised on this holiday that even though it is around my neck all the time I have broken the habit of automatically pointing the camera and taking a shot whenever something moves. It took three separate trips through the flood before I thought how good a picture would be - DUH!

The things people say - number one

I can ring my bell

True story here. My daughter occasionally takes time off work to volunteer for things at Miss Boo's school. Sometimes the children have to walk into the city centre to attend the local Catholic Church. They need parents to go with them because they have to cross several roads.The last time my daughter helped with supervision one of the teachers called out

"Mrs R, can you stop traffic?"
"It has been known Mrs D," replied my daughter "It has been known"

Collapse of red-faced teacher while the children patiently waited for my daughter to press the button on the pedestrian crossing lights

I was reminded of this and needed to write it down somewhere for posterity

Memorandum Monday - Still improving

It's been a quiet week......................... I have done that intro before, but you know what I mean.
We sold my late Father-in-law's car so that has gone into the probate pot. We went Costco shopping and my legs survived. I worried about my daughter who has a respiratory tract infection and won't stay home and get better. I worried about Youngest Son who drives articulated lorries and has to go across the Severn Crossing and it has been a bit windy!! Imagine my horror when I am scrolling through FB and there is a picture of a lorry on its side on the old Severn Bridge and it is the firm that he drives for - AND he was in work at the time. Shortness of breath was the order of the moment until I realised that YS had commented on the picture and said No it wasn't him.
Dinner at the Bluefunnels on Sunday. Lady B loves a roast dinner and would have one every day but the Lord Admiral likes other food too so she knows she can invite us to eat there and do a roast. She always makes enough for a small army and then piles the left overs onto a plate for Mr M to have the following day. To make the transportation of a plate loaded with food easier she gave Mr M a large cake carrier from Lakeland as his Christmas gift. He was able to test it on Sunday and we can report that with the addition of a circle of that weird non-slip stuff you are supposed to put under rugs the transporting was a huge success and he was able to eat his second dinner when he came home from work today.
What have I learned this weekend? That an hour is no time at all when you are doing the Great British Garden Watch. We don't get a great variety of birds in our tiny front garden, mostly sparrows that move so quickly they are difficult to see let alone count. One Bluetit, one Coal Tit, one Blackbird and fifteen sparrows - I forgot about the time but they all arrived stuffed their faces and left within 20 minutes. Not bad for a garden that is on a main road with people constantly walking past

My thanks to Sian at FromHighInTheSkyfor inventing this way of keeping me writing, next week I will try from the tablet because we are away from home - leaving YS to fend for himself.