Life!

Mike visits Devon to see his mum at Christmas, Easter and one other week in the year as a general rule.  The week beginning 20th August was to be his "extra" week this year and we duly set off on the Saturday morning at roughly the time we had aimed for - ie 10.30.  The M5 was very busy again, but not quite as bad as the last time I had come down, and it took 4 hours in total.  Jayne was out when we got there - so we had a cup of tea and then I took Suki out to the plantation for a walk.  It was wet and miserable so Mike decided not to come - and got stuck in to a jigsaw instead!  Jayne was in when I got back and we had a lovely evening drinking wine and chatting and having a nice supper whilst watching an episode of Endeavour she had recorded. Suki and me up on the Moor It was lovely to see Jayne again and to go walking together and for coffees.  We went up on the moor several times when the weather was good, and of course to my favourite Yarner Woo...

Sunday 14th.  Went to 8 am service and did the ringing circuit.  Had to ring at Barnes and Chiswick as made them up to 8 and 6 respectively. Mike played the organ at the convent. Went to Wendell  market on the way home and got lots of lovely Moroccan food from the stall there. Had spinach and feta flatbread for lunch. Fish cakes and salad for supper.  Mike went to Hackney 10-bell practice.  I had a quiet afternoon blogging and adding photos.  Took suki for a walk.  Did some cross stitch in the evening.  Another hot sunny day.  Watched Olympics - quite exciting.  Watched Justin Rose win gold at golf and Max Whitlock win men's floor and pommel golds, but couldn't stay awake long enough to watch more than first set of Andy Murray match. Had to wait till morning to find out he had won gold too.   Finished off the red wine from the lunch last Tuesday.  Still good. Monday 15th .  Mike went to work in the morning - I saw hi...

Oh dear - last published 15 December 2015!  And the longer I left it the more daunting it became. However I have at last taken the plunge and here is my first blog for 2016.  The thing is, I found a little app called Handy Diary and I thought "I know what I will do - I will keep a diary every day with all the trivia etc and then only blog the interesting bits".  Well I kept the diary but somehow never seemed to get round to updating the blog.  Then in June I upgraded my phone and although the app copied over from the old phone with all the other apps, the entries I had made for the year had all disappeared!  Even more daunting now!  So this is not a catch up - just a hello and sorry for being silent for so long.  I shall blog away again from now onwards, and try and write some catch up blogs as I go along. There have clearly been some welcome improvements to Blogger since I have been away - and I can now amend the date published to arrange the blogs ...

The Roving Ringers tour this year was based in St Neots - and was the shortest yet!  It lasted from Saturday 30 July to Thursday 4th August because the accommodation couldn't be booked for the weekend and the organiser couldn't find anywhere else.  Mike offered to help but his offer was not taken up.  However he did organise a few towers around West London for those wishing to continue to the end of the week - and offered accommodation at our house!  Penny B came to stay which was nice - she was very appreciative of my porridge. Having got back from Butlins the previous day, the plan this year was to pack Mike up in the car and then drive myself down to Devon to pick up Suki.  Mike was giving Louise Palmer a lift, so she would be able to unpack him and the bike at the other end and then we would do the whole thing in reverse at the end of tour. So I didn't actually participate in any of the tour this year.  Mike thoroughly enjoyed it - there were some ve...