All of a sudden I seemed to come to a stop!
New Year's Eve was SUCH a late night, then we had a full-on day at the footie. The next morning of course Paul and Ali were up at 5.30 to get to the airport for their flight to Belfast (Christmas pressie to Paul from Dave and guaranteed to keep Dave in Paul's good books for a good decade or so!).
So ....... time to relax. I was incredibly tired, and Amelia felt the same. Friday we tried to go for a walk. The first time we got to the gate and came home again as the rain started to fall heavily. No sooner were we inside and had discarded our wet weather gear than the sun came out and the skies were blue. I should add that there were approximately 100 gale, storm and flood warnings over South West England at present. However we couldn't resist the sun, so wrapped up and headed out again. This time we tramped at least 5 mins down the road, avoiding mud and puddles as best we could, before the heavens opened, lightning struck and thunder boomed directly overhead. Time to shelter under some trees (intelligent in an electric storm) and ring Dave to say "please can you come and rescue us?" We gave up after that and I retired to the beanbag with my kindle.
Later we went to the supermarket for some bits and bobs. 'Supermarket' seems a strange word to describe the store that has food, sure, but also: a foreign exchange counter; a section for clothes; a tv/dvd/camera/phone department; a cobbler; café; drycleaners..... Interesting.
Amelia made a scrummy quiche for tea, and we spent the evening in turn reading, chatting, we watched a bit of Forrest Gump and Graham Norton. Lovely lazy day.
Saturday was another late start, sooooo good! Missing Paul, but definitely appreciating having the bed to myself for a few nights.
Amelia's camera died, so she and Mel headed to the supermarket (haha) to buy a replacement. Mel bought a huge lamb rack from the village butcher for tonight's dinner so I mixed a mint, garlic and rosemary marinade for that. The rack hadn't been trimmed at all - it's the first time I've done that, so that was fun.
Mel and I headed out for a ramble, she assured me we could make our way round one of the many reservoirs in the area. Sounded good in theory! It wasn't long before we were struggling to find the path among the flood water, mud, brambles and horse droppings. It was lots of fun but we got very muddy. When the water and mud started oozing between our toes (inside socks and sneakers) we knew we may as well stop worrying and just go for it! At one stage we laid a thick branch across some mud and water and walked across that. When the path was totally blocked by floods we took a detour and ended up doing an extra kilometre in a circle to miss about 30 meters of mud! After an hour we caved and rang Dave again - our rescue hero!
Showered off the mud and we 3 girls headed to Windsor to visit the castle. What a treat! We were there 3 hours and only left when it closed. We saw so many rooms - some were only open in the winter when the queen is not using them. She was in residence, but didn't pop out to say hello, we were a bit disappointed. We learnt about the history of the Knights of the Royal Garter, and saw where all the ceremonies take place. We also explored the church on site - saw King Henry VIII and Princess Charlotte's tombs. A fabulous afternoon.
Home to do dinner - fortunately my NZ Masterchef memories held up and it was delicious. Mel's friend Anna from Drama School came over for the evening and it was lovely to renew my acquaintance with her.
Sunday, another gloriously late start - slept till 9am, nearly caught up! Mel made sandwiches, we took them with us. First stop was Datchet to take photos of the flooded Thames, then into London to see Crys's flat, walk around her local area, and bring her home for the night so we could set off from Bath tomorrow morning.
Now, I have never driven in London, but felt only sightly nervous with Mel navigating - her confidence is definitely contagious. All went well until we reached a very nasty, huge round-a-bout. By huge round-a-bout I mean one with buildings in the middle, and streets that bisect it, as well as 2 or 3 lanes going round it. Ok until between us Mel and I became confused, I tried to change lanes at the last minute, stalled, panicked, pumped the accelerator and flooded the engine, right in the middle of the road. Mel kept her head and put on the hazard lights. I turned the car off, considered leaving it to Mel and walking to Crys's, but took a deep breath, restarted the car, and carefully edged forward. Then cried.
We had a lovely walk around Earlsfield, through a giant cemetery, ate a belated lunch with Crys, then headed home. It was rather hard to summon up the nerve to drive again, but I was determined not to let it beat me.
Again, Mel was full of confidence - this would apparently be easy as it was straight on to the round-a-bout, hug the left, and take the first exit. LIES! I made it into the round-a-bout, it was the third exit not the first, so I had to get into a right hand lane initially: I heard someone say, turn right, turn right, (from the back seat) which I did and found myself in one of the bisecting roads. Leaving that, we went right around again, and again....... Mel asked the back seat drivers to sshh, I was stressing, we started again, and finally exited at the correct place. Then it was on to the drive through the rest of London (it seemed) until we hit the M4, and crawled along, eventually passing a stalled car (not mine!!!!!) in one lane. An eventful trip home!
Now we are relaxed in the warm, soup for tea, TV on, glass of wine in hand, planning for our Bath road trip tomorrow,all is well with my world except that I need a Paul hug.
Photos on facebook, sorry, uploading not working on this site. Very glad no-one in the car had a camera handy!
Looking forward to bed tonight!
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