holiday time

Brigid is enjoying not being at work ... we've had a sort of "at-home" holiday these last couple of days ..

but only after she had got the "domestic goddess" routine out of her system and spent the complete first day of her holiday in the garage - moving everything off the three decrepit shelving units, rationalising and tidying; then constructing the three new shelving units she had bought ... and putting everything back.

I have to admit it looks great - but what a whirling dervish she is!

I didn't do much myself on Monday cos I was still pretty weedy ..

Tues was better - we toddled off to Trentham, round the gardens, even managing to catch a little sun. We had cake for lunch .. not a good thing. We also bought a new raincoat for me.

Raincoat sellers must be the only ones pleased with this weather .. and wader manufacturers. How many of you have waders at the ready for the event of flooding? And how come so many ppl on the telly always seem to be equipped with the right gear for the unfolding drama? Do the BBC take the rubber kit with them from props and fix the story like they do with faking phone-ins? .. I guess we'll never know!

Weds was a sociable day.

We went to Little Moreton Hall like real tourists. It was busy there, in fact. Then off to The Egerton Arms in Astbury where they were having a Shellfish Month and I ate langustine for the first time since I had them in The Outer Hebrides .. strange but lovely. I used to work in that pub when I lived in Congleton, 25 years ago. It's changed totally inside and the"new" landlord is really excellent .. he's been there for 12 years.

We went onto Sandbach after lunch - it always seems to be all traffic there to me,

tho the old ancient crosses and the three pubs on the adjacent sides of the old square offer a calm space in the melee.

B stayed there to meet Celia H and I went over to see Azrini and then to the Simcocks' place - all of which offered an interesting variety of conversations.

Today saw us off to an early start to meet "our" interior design woman at John Lewis. We're all excited about getting new curtains for the lounge and she had some great options to show us in the range of fabrics there. We then drove ot Central Manchester for dimsum at Little YankSing .. which wasn't exactly the YankSing we were looking for, but it was lovely.

We added a bit of culture by dropping into the Art Gallery then home to pack for our weekend in Wales ..

YAY!