Stampede ! Hikers almost trampled to death. Plus Mad Meg's Curse!

Dairy (Lol) 2013 – Week Fourteen. Part One.

Friday September 27^th.

Little Loll wasn’t needed at Uni again today so she stayed put. This meant she decided to have a lie in while I walked the woof and went swimming afterwards. Sarah was impressed that we had won the quiz last night and disappointed that her team had not done all that well. It is hard to know what to say in these sorts of situations. When you know that your mind is full of loads of stuff that other people don’t bother to, or can’t, retain, it is tricky. She has told me of a prize quiz in a pub near Barnsley that has a current roll over jackpot of £378. I have asked her for more details, Maybe the Scampis could go on the road?

Felice is back. Rah, rah, rah!

We had a long meeting with our supervisor and the guy who did all the testing of the casket. Some of which I had heard before and some of which was new. I told her all about the V & A caskets and we are going to see them soon. How soon I don’t know. I told her I’d get in touch with the Collections Manager and see if they had any others which weren’t on display, that we could examine too. Felice is a part time embroiderer. She claims to be not very good.

It seems that as Felice is technically not part of our department and has her own office I get to use the shoe box office which Andrea and I were going to share as my own. How neat is that? All that may change at the end of next year, of course, but I am not bothered. It will be my feet under the table already. Her BF is now history, that’s her big news of the summer. She hasn’t hooked up with anyone else yet. The BF was the one who, having met me, asked Felice if she thought that I’d be up for a threesome with them! Why are men’s penises in charge of their brain most of the time?  She almost dumped him there and then but for some reason she didn’t. The straw breaking point was the fact at the height of passion with her, during the vacation, he called out another girl’s name! Whoops!

She was pleased that Laura had moved in with me and jokingly said “Maybe you two and me would make a better threesome!”  It took me a moment to realise she was joking, though. She has driven across from France in her car, it’s a new Twingo. I used to love those as they have really cute faces. The new one has lost its face and is just another run of the mill car. She has to keep going back to France in it so that she doesn’t have to reregister it over here or something. I didn’t quite follow what she was getting at TBH.

If we go to Alport Castles tomorrow she has asked if she can come too. I said, “Bien sur. Naturellement.”

Back at Chez Nous the Lollster had done it again. This time with a plate of Scampi! How appropriate! We had homemade chips and mushy peas. Heavenly. She had cooked so many scampi I almost didn’t have enough room for dessert. Almost. Well, the apple cake needs eating up. I must get on with baking some more. They really are utterly marvellous. Good old Woman’s Hour.

I dropped Laura at the restaurant and then drove across the city to Mum’s house. I had promised to go and check it out for her. She is coming home next week so I went to make sure there was nothing amiss. As far as I could see the only thing wrong was the back lawn was rather longer than Mum would have liked. If it hadn’t started to go dark I would have got out Mum’s lawn mower and given it a trim.

She had a mountain of post in her hall. Nellie, her next door neighbour, picks up the mail everyday [except Sunday obviously] and puts it on the console table in there. I had a similar heap at home when I got back; 90% of which I threw straight into the bin. As I had quite a bit of time on my hands I decided to give her home a clean. I dusted and vacuumed everywhere. I am not sure if she will notice when she gets back but I felt good about doing it.

Callie had a good old charge about the garden, I used her ball wanger to give her a bit of a run. She just loves retrieving stuff but doesn’t know when to stop, so I have to be careful that I don’t tire her out completely.

Laura was changed and ready when I got to the restaurant so I did stop for a chat. They were rushed off their feet all night but the plus side she had made over £40 in tips! She wasn’t too whacked to walk Callie with me and as I’d given her loads of exercise at Mum’s we only did a tiny stroll, up to The Big House on the Onesacre Road and back. They often leave their cars on the drive at night and they have consecutive personalised number plates. I am not sure if that is really cool or totally tacky.

I hope the weather’s OK for tomorrow. I am sort of sad about selling my Little Picanto. It’s done me sterling service over the two years I have owned it. The Ce’ed is quite a different proposition all together. I hadn’t realised that Laura is a little wary of driving it. Just goes to show how I can be totally insensitive at times, doesn’t it? I hadn’t even registered what she felt about it.

Saturday 28^th September.

OMG. The 'Dairy' bit approaches! A cattle stampede nearly wiped out the Scampi Tails!

After walking the pup and swimming we had a huge fried brekkers this morning. It is always useful to have one if you are going on a long walk. [Alport Castles from Ladybower – and back – is about 8 miles in total.] First, though, was the small matter of getting my new car.

It looked brand new at the garage. Fully cleaned inside and out [they call it valeting for some reason] and full service too even though it hasn’t even done the 12K before its service  is due. They have even given me a full tank of diesel; I dread to think how much that is going to cost when I have to refill it. I was asked if I wanted to take out their service plan which meant that I’d pay £19.50 a month for the next three years and that covers the next three services of the car. Laura did the maths and told me I would save marginally by not taking it out but just putting away the amount each month, when you factor in the compound interest over three years. I have no idea whether that is true of not but my savings interest statements each six months give me enough extra cash if needed so I declined their offer.

It turns out I needn’t have fretted about Laura and the car after all. It appears that my Ce’ed is the Kia version of Hyundai’s i30 (how was I supposed to know that?). Laura learned to drive in an i30 up in Cumbria. So there is no problem at all, in fact she knows more about how it will handle etc, than I do. The salesman who sold me the car looked like a bloody sixth-former! He told us if we have any problems with it at all to contact him direct. I should hope we have no problems at all. He watched with amusement as I tried to get Callie to jump into the boot. She is used to it with Dad’s car, obviously, but seemed reluctant at first. The guy told us to hang on a moment. (Hang on?) He came out of the showroom with a catalogue of stuff to buy. There is a bumper protector thing which fastens round the bottom of the tailgate and covers the top of the bumper. It’ll be ideal for stopping Callie’s claws scratching the paintwork. I have ordered one. They will phone when it arrives.

I have put Callie’s chew bones and her vet bed in the boot, plus her rope knot. I hope she likes her new travelling space. One of Dad’s dogs used to be sick every time it was put into the boot. Luckily she grew out of it and now occasionally salivates a river if she travels in a different car! Callie spent the entire journey to Ladybower standing up, leaning against the dog guard. I think she may have been getting her sea legs!

Seven of us met up at the end of the road to the higher Dam walls, Laura, me and Felice and four other Scampis. We all had fairly well stuffed rucksacks as, unlike last week’s walk, there is no pub in the middle to stop for lunch. It almost didn’t matter at all. My route took us up through Crook Hill Farm, from there we follow a really well defined ridge all the way to Alport Castles. It is so easy really, once you get the initial climb up through the farm out of the way.

 In about the third field from where we’d parked there was a herd of cattle. About half a dozen heifers and nearly a dozen calves, at a guess. One of the girls asked me if I was going to put Callie on the lead. Talk about bloody prescient! I had just explained to her why this wasn’t a good idea when one of the heifers decided that my little pup was a threat to her baby and headed down the slope straight towards us and her. One or two of the other bloody stupid creatures decided to join their mate and we had a mini stampede heading straight at us! It was really fcuking scary [pardon the language], we were too far from the field boundary to leg it. I knew we’d be better in a bunch than spread out across the field. The sensible part of my brain knew the heifer was targeting Callie the scaredy-cat part was ready to scream.  

Some of the Scampis started to panic and wanted to try and run, even though I had told them it was the wrong thing to do. I had to shout to stop them. I had Callie’s ball in my hand, so when the herd got a bit closer I threw it away off to our left and yelled, “Callie” Fetch!” The good old dog’s retrieving instinct took over. She zoomed off after the ball, the heifer change direction and pursued Callie and all the cows followed her. Bloody hell! I felt a bit shaky and some og the others had gone a bit pale.

I told the others to keep walking steadily towards the stile, which was about 50 yards away, and if Callie came back with her ball I’d throw it again. The heifer almost caught up with Callie as she stopped to pick up the ball. Its head was bent low down and it made a wild sort of lunge, as though it was trying to head butt her. Callie looked up, saw what was heading her way and simply dodged off in the other direction. The girls scrambled through the stile and I called out, “Callie! Come!” She circled around the, by now sauntering, herd and headed straight for the stile. I suppose the heifer, realising that Callie was too quick and agile to be caught had given up the idea of chasing her. I knew I had to sound really calm and collected, as though this was something I had encountered lots of times before. I simply said, ”Aren’t cows just the most stupid animals?”

I absolutely dread to think what would have happened if I had tried to keep Callie on the lead. Some of the Scampis were a bit shook up by being charged at by a herd of cattle, others were quite excited at their lucky escape. I knew that people had been killed by herds of cattle when walking their dogs, thinking that keeping it on the lead and close to them was the safest thing to do. It is a good job I had seen that particular news item or I may have tried the same with my puppy. Phew, eh?

The rest of the walk was uneventful in terms of our lives being threatened by marauding domestic animals. The weather was brilliant, though, and so clear for the time of year. The ridge, which is actually the edge of the valley of the Alport River, winds its way steadily and gently up to The Castles and if you followed it all the way up it would eventually take you to the Bleaklow Plateau.

Alport Castles is an old quarry, I suppose. It’s one of many dotted about the Peak District, where at the start of the industrial revolution people from Sheffield and Manchester used to come to get their Millstone Grit grinding wheels. In places there are huge finished wheels just lying about. The place would have looked pretty much like a modern working quarry when it was a going concern but centuries of neglect and the ravages of weather have made it a magical place. It is great for scrambling about. There is a really nice stack, called The Tower, which I climbed while the others just hopped about below me on the boulder field. Sandi attempted to get to the top with me, but her nerve gave out and she told me she’d wait where she was and we’d scramble back down together. Even the usually proficient Laura took one look at the stack and decided to give it a miss. [This is the girl who has climbed Nape’s Needle with Dad and I, baulking at what was, in effect, just a scramble.]

We had our lunches, swapping morsels with each other and then after some more messing about and photographing we decided to head on back. One or two asked if there was an alternative route back to avoid the cattle [wusses] so I told them we could veer off down to Lockerbrook Farm and then drop down to the reservoir side and walk back along the lake, if we wanted. The majority decision was to do that. So we did.

We had a bit of a surprise down at Fairholmes, the Upper Derwent Visitor Centre was open. As was the refreshment kiosk. I hadn’t mentioned all this in case they were closed and the girls would have been disappointed. To arrive and find them open was a very nice treat for us all. We must’ve spent about an hour here too. There is nothing as refreshing as a freshly made cup of tea out in the open. It appeared that everyone and their Dad was out for the afternoon [did I mention the weather?] and had decided to descend on the centre. Felice caused a stir by calling the coffee she was given “Camel’s pizzle” and throwing it away. I supposed she was expecting a little more than instant! The kiosk person tried to answer back but she was met a string of French invective and furious arm gestures and decided to shut up. She did offer Felice a soft drink instead (Why? It would never happen to me.) so she chose some flavoured water instead.

The last bit of the walk along the reservoir was delightful. The Ashopton viaduct comes into view eventually and you know you have almost finished the walk. I told them the story of Mad Meg and her curse on the village of Ashopton. [I read it in a book of local legends.] It goes like this: (paraphrased)

In the middle of the 19^th Century Ashopton was thriving farming community just far enough from Sheffield to not be influenced by it. In the village lived an old herbalist / healer / wise woman, called Meg. She was the one the villagers would turn to for remedies, cures and potions. The older she got, the crankier she became and some of the villagers became frightened of her. She ended up being branded as a witch and was driven from the village.

Now Meg, who was most definitely not a witch, loved the area and didn’t want to leave, so she set up a bivvy of sorts on the edge of Kinder Scout, at a place which is now called Mad Woman’s Stones. Here she would live her life and could be seen occasionally on the hillside shouting curses at the villagers of Ashopton for throwing her out.

Life continued as it does, as normal, until one autumn a farmer hired a jobbing shepherd for round up. There used to be lots of these itinerant shepherds who would work their way down the Pennines, from the Cheviot in the north to Darley Dale in the south, being employed as extra hands for the round up. The shepherd was given the task of fetching the sheep down from the edge of Kinder as none of the local ones would go up near Meg, being frightened of her.

The shepherd found a pile of rags near a mound of stones and poking them with his crook was horrified when a decomposing skull rolled out. Not knowing what to do he gathered up the remains and took them down into Ashopton. There the local constable and doctor decided they must be Meg’s remains and by the state of decomposition she had been dead for almost a year.

This is where the story takes a twist. For, in the months leading up to the finding of her body a Meg-like figure had often been seen silhouetted on the skyline near Win Hill summit, shouting curses on the village and villagers. One person remembered the last curse they had heard. It was, “You shall all be drowned in a great flood!”

In 1932 the people of Derby and Nottingham needed more drinking water so they formed the Derwent Valley Water board and built three huge dam walls across the Derwent River: Ladybower, Derwent and Howden. So that nowadays the village of Ashopton can be found 120 feet below the surface of Ladybower reservoir! Meg’s curse had come true!

The girls thought it was a great story. They demanded to know if it was true. I couldn’t answer that but told them that there is usually a grain of truth in most legends. What is clear is that Ashopton can only be reached by divers, but Derwent village, which was also drowned by the reservoir, occasionally appears when the level of the lake gets really low. I have seen pictures of the summer of 1976 and the streets and bridges of Derwent were clearly visible.

We parted at about 6pm, having had a brilliant day, despite nearly being trampled to death by a herd of stampeding cattle. At home our beef stew was done to perfection. Aren’t slow cookers a marvellous invention? [There is an unintentional irony there, isn’t there?]

We ate before we showered. Dirty cows that we are. Then we sprawled on the sofa, snuggled up together. I had day dreams about the Young Montalbano and Little Loll fell asleep in my arms! [We watched the TV show on BBC4.] Callie was content with a romp around the field as her final walk.

As a post script the Scampis want to do the prize quiz. It is down to me to sort out the details. Thanks for that!

Sunday 29^th September.

Oh No! Bad, bad, bad news! The Dockers LOST! Bloody Hawthorn beat them in the Grand Final. The family are gutted, sick as parrots and any other sporting cliché you’d care to mention. Even more so as they had flown over to Melbourne to watch the final live. I was Skyped by Annabelle after they’d got back to Warnbro and she was still tearful over the video link. According to Mum, who is a little more dispassionate, the Dockers weren’t out played and it was a very close, low scoring game. At one stage they closed down Hawthorn’s lead to just three points but the win wasn’t to be. They lost 77 – 62. If three of Freo’s behinds had been goals they could have won. They scored three more behinds than Hawks which is always disappointing. Knowing that a few feet would have turned one point into six!

I was hoping the Dockers would win. I was all set to watch the edited highlights over the interweb this morning but in the end I didn’t bother. Too painful to watch. Mum is all set to fly back home. She leaves on Wednesday. I have arranged that I’ll come on over on Thursday night and cook her dinner for her when she gets back from Manchester airport. Then she is going to have a girly day with us, in town on Saturday and lunch on Sunday. I have missed her not being here. Strange how that happens, isn’t it?

Before lunch I decided to take Quokka for a spin, so we zoomed up the M1 into Leeds and through to Horsforth to visit the Older Brother. He was surprised to see us; more surprised at the new car and even more surprised by the deal I’d got. He wanted to take it for a drive too but I wouldn’t let him. That brought out Mr Grumpy for a while but not too grumpy to invite us in for Sunday lunch. That was an unexpected bonus. He also played the CD of Jane’s ultrasound scan which still looks like nothing at all to me. Even Peter and Angela had to agree. I think Peter was a bit embarrassed by the fact his Mum is pregnant again, Angela is looking forward to having a living dolly to dress and play with.

She then asked are you going to have a baby Aunt Vicki? I was sorely tempted to say, “Yes. Barbequed!” but held back just in time. Peter came out with, “She can’t you idiot!” You could almost hear the intake of breath round the table before he went on with, “You have to be married before they’ll let you!” Never has a mouth full of roast potato produced such an expectant pause.

This innocent remark brought about a huge squabble about cousin Julie who had her baby and wasn’t married. Their spat doesn’t bear repeating but it was funny to hear the sort of concepts children get into their heads. I wonder if I was full of such total misconceptions at their age. {Arrghh! No pun intended!} Laura really confused them both by saying, “Vicki isn’t going to have her baby until she’s forty, that way it’ll be older when it’s born!” You could almost hear their brains trying to work this one out!

I was so pleased we had to press on, leaving Phil and Jane to deal with the consequences of that particular pearl. We decided to drive back the A road way, rather than use the motorway, to get a better feel of the gears and the power of the engine. I am gobsmacked by how the thing accelerates going uphill! I used to have to change down in the Picanto but with the Quokka you just put your foot down and off it goes! Another thing we have noticed. When you get that loud 'enginey' working hard noise that the Picanto used to make at about 65mph, in the quokka you are doing almost 90 before you hear it!! Both of us will have to watch out for that, speeding tickets are the last thing we need.

Laura took over in Huddersfield and we made our sedate way through all the speed cameras back home. The drive on the front of my house is plenty big enough to park straight across the window but I used to park the Picanto pointing down the garden. Quokka needed a bit more thought to get it in. Mainly because the wheelie bins are in the way. I have had to shift them down the garden.

Our joint of meat had cooked itself through nicely, and was ready to eat but as we’d stuffed ourselves at P & J’s we decided to have our Sunday lunch tomorrow night instead and have salad filled wraps with satay chicken pieces for tea instead.

It was so warm we were able to sit out in the garden, where we were joined by Steve & Ann and Muriel & Ken. When it got a bit chilly, as the sun set behind the Onesacre road, we decamped to our conservatory. We got through five bottles of wine between the six of us during the evening. It was hard to believe it was the last Sunday in September.

New job, new car, new boss. {Scampi Tails win AGAIN!}

Diary 2013 – Week Thirteen. Part Two.

Monday 23^rd September.

We went for our usual swim this morning in rather subdued fashion! That whisky was the nail in the coffin of our sobriety last night. It was a Lowland malt called Auchentoshan and it was so smooth and palatable. It slipped down with no effort at all. It did make slipping through the water a huge effort this morning though. After 50 lengths I thought we’d had enough, Laura was only too pleased to agree.

Meetings, meetings and more meetings today. I hadn’t realised there’d be so many. Loll went off for Fresher Week things while I sat and felt my gluteus grow numb in the meetings. Still it will be worth it I suppose.

The chest is back and we had a woman come along today and tell us all about the embroidery it was, partially, covered in. This was absolutely fascinating. So afterwards I looked up on line more information. I discovered there is a woman in the US who teaches people how to make replicas of these things. She’s employed a joiner to make some rather more elaborate caskets than ours and then over the course of a year she teaches you how to do the required stiches and techniques to make the pieces of work which are put onto the caskets. The price for this activity? $3700!

Apparently the V & A have several examples of this kind of casket in their collection, two of which are on permanent display. It may be worth have a little trip down to London to have a look at theirs. I haven’t been to the V & A since I was a teenager. I think we’d have to go by train, I wouldn’t fancy driving all the way down to London. Well, the drive to Mill Hill would be fine it’s then the tedium of trying to negotiate London traffic that is the anal irritation! I shall apply my little grey cells to the matter.

We were back home by about 3.45 which made for quite a short day really. I could get used to this. Felice is back on Wednesday [my non day] so we will get started proper on Thursday. I shall probably spend tomorrow reviewing what materials I have got and my notes on what we have translated so far from the chest. I unearthed, from one of my plastic crates in the under-eaves storage space, a piece of stump-work I began in Australia just after my Breakdown. I found the concentration required in its making was quite therapeutic at the time. I haven’t even looked at it since I came back from Oz. The techniques I have used on this piece are a contemporary adaptation of the work on the casket. There the technique is a bit clumsy in places and the range of stitches quite different to what we use to today but looking at my cottage garden picture [it wasn’t my choice] and the photographs of the work on the casket, there is a definite line of progression between the two.

Loll was quite excited about the whole new term too. She has taken flyers from lots of undergraduate societies although she hasn’t actually signed up for anything yet. There is a canoe/kayak one which looked interesting and of course there is our Climbing for Novices one which she’ll be coming on anyway, if she wants.

I have had an e-mail from Mum. She has had her return flight rescheduled for next Tuesday and the whole family are going to the MCG to watch the Grand Final on Saturday! She is using her Lotto win as money to pay for it all. If I was slightly jealous before, I am incredible hulk coloured now! As it was about 5pm when this little snippet arrived through the ether it was too late to call the antipodes so I will do so tomorrow morning. Assuming she is in. Last week she went up to Geraldton [on her own] and took one of the day trips through the Pinnacles Desert. Then she went up to Monkey Mia to see the Dolphins. I am pleased that she has branched out and not stayed in Warnbro.

Laura wasn’t needed at work tonight after all. Monday is usually very quiet and Dominic had only about twenty bookings for the whole evening. That meant we had a night together. We had a dinner of home made curry, a Madhur Jaffrey one. Then we spent a lazy evening watching the backlog of things recorded on the PVR. OK, it was only an episode of Young Montalbano. OMG, he is so cute. Even nicer than Luca Zingaretti who plays the older version. I could have become part of his investigations any day. We also watched the Lucy Worsley programme about Murder. I think she could be my role model. Imagine a female historian presenting so many different TV shows? Wow!

Callie’s last walk was a joint one again. I wonder if she actually notices that there are two of us with her? She hasn’t shown Laura any particular attention at home as far as I am aware.

 

Tuesday 24^th September.

It looked as though it could be quite sunny in town but over the hill behind the house there were lots of clouds. Does the weather know what it is supposed to be doing today? Did it listen to the forecast? I bet it didn’t. Swimming was fun today as we decided to try and swim backwards. This is easy with breast stroke but impossible with any other. It takes a hell of a lot more effort than swimming forwards and by 10 lengths we were both as tired as if we’d done or usual amount. It did make lots of the other swimmers stop and gawp at us. I suggested it as Laura had another bikini on and I knew that without a distraction I wouldn’t be able to control myself. Back home we spent almost 30 minutes in the shower together! I dread to think what my water bill will look like!

This morning I was given a list of students who would [if they turn up] be members of my personal tutor group. OK, it was e-mailed to me. Nothing like the personal touch, eh? I have only really spoken to the ancillary staff, everybody else seems to communicate with each other by e-mail, even if they are just one room away from each other. Still the cleaner knows me and the secretarial pool and the caretaker. Lol.

I am at a loss as to what to do with the list, so I have decided to do what happened to me. I have allocated each of them a 30 minute spot next week, put it on a piece of paper and pinned it on the notice board outside my office. What more can I do? We have our own little notice boards. To be fair, I have copied what I have seen on a couple of other boards. I’ve put details of what my lectures will be for the first three weeks as well. That appears to be what some of the others have done too. Spoke to one of the lecturers and she pointed out to me that the e-mailed list had the students’ new Uni e-mail addresses as well. What an idiot! I spent the next few minutes sending each of them their meeting appointment. I hope she doesn’t pass on this information, I’ll look like a complete drongo.

Part of my day has been negotiating with the science department which dated the casket, and contents, to get a copy of their results. I was fobbed off with “Andrea already has them!” I had to explain she has left and taken them with her! This lead into a long chat about why she left and as I felt absolutely no loyalty to her at all, I explained clearly and in detail why she left and what I thought about it. Maybe that was a mistake. I have been promised a copy of all the findings – by e-mail ! !

Out at 3.45 again. I received a flyer from the garage which services my car yesterday, advertising a mega sale. They are offering a 62 plate Kia Ce’ed for just under £9K. [They have a few of them, actually.] I ‘phoned Dad from work and he told me if it’s genuine bite their hands off; especially if they have a diesel model with low mileage. We stopped at the garage on the way home. They had three 62 plated diesels, one with 32K on the clock! How can you do 32K miles in a year? Bloody hell. One with 5.5K and one with 8K. The 8K one was white and had quite a lot of added extras – tow bar, alloy wheels, window spoiler, load space protector, mud flaps. I took it for a test drive up the Halifax road and it was a dream to drive. Plus it seemed very quick. It reminded me a little of Mum’s Audi A3 inside.

The asking price was £8995, they offered me £6200 for my little Picanto, so I did as Dad suggested. I have bitten their hand off. They will valet and fully service the car before I collect it and they are going to put a dog guard in it for me for free [how’s that?]. Laura was quick off the mark with the maths and told the salesman the difference in price would be £2795 before he had even switched on his calculator. You could see his expression change as he looked at her, wondering how could such a gorgeous blonde be so quick at maths. [I have similar thoughts about her all the time. She astounds me with her calculations – she can tot up the prices in the shopping trolley at the supermarket in her head. She has often amazed the checkout person by saying it will come to £XX.YY and she’s right!]

We will do the swap on Saturday morning. The new plate will be a Sheffield one YS62; my last was a Cumbrian one PX11. We looked at the vehicle registration document in their office and although it is a 62 plate it was first registered in January of this year. When I phoned Dad [again], when we got home, he was really chuffed for me. Callie will love it. There is enough space in the boot for her to have a party. Laura and I were both able to climb into the boot and sit down in there. I think the salesman thought we were mad. The only downsides are; the colour – will it get dirty quickly?  I will no longer have Callie being able to put her head over my shoulder as we motor along. The plus side, if I do get a second dog there will be plenty of room in it for her. Oh, another plus, the road tax per year is only £30! That is around £150 less than I pay for my little car!

I received interest statements on my savings earlier this month and the main one has given me just over £6K in the last six months, so I will use that to pay for new purchase. I am going to call the car Quokka. It is small, but unbelievably cute, just like quokkas.

Laura has arranged to swap Wednesday night for Friday so she can come with us to the girly meal at Collette’s. This is miles away on the route to Mum’s on Carter Knowle Road. So I will go and check on Mum’s first before going. I have told the girls I will bring the most amazing apple cake for one of the desserts. It is brilliant. They will love it as much as they love my lemon meringue pie, I am sure.

Wednesday 25^th September.

Swimming again, luckily a more practical costume today for the skinny blonde, unfortunately she seemed to be the fruity one and kept trying to interfere with me as I swam. We really will have to stop using the changing cubicle for sex, someone is bound to find out and I’ll get banned! I wonder if it is all a ploy by Laura to get out of swimming altogether?

Everyone was really pleased to see me back at X, X, X and Y this morning. I even had a visit from Christopher. He had heard about Mrs Briggs and I meeting at the Halle concert. He came to give me the DVD copy of the four seasons he’d recorded from the BBC Proms broadcasts. I am really looking forward to hearing it. The newspapers gave it an excellent review [according to Dad, anyway]. I gave Chris a quick peck on the cheek as a thank you. I also warned him that I was only doing it as a thank you as it seemed appropriate. He wasn’t to read any more into it. He got that stupid bloody dreamy look in his eyes again, so I left the staff kitchen. Why do I do it? I am just being me but he sees it as a come on! Oh, Bugger!

I am back on the digitisation programme unless there is no-else free for retrieval. I really enjoy this as I come across all sorts of strange and lunatic cases. There are the mundane and ordinary too but the weird and wonderful make up for it. It seems strange without Catherine in the office. She would always say really silly, unexpected things. I obviously can’t think of any now I have said that, isn’t that just typical? I think she may have been a secret Comedy Store performer in her free time!

Laura caught the bus back to the village tonight, she didn’t need to stay as late as I did and thought she’d zoom back and rescue Callie from the palace. Bonding, perhaps? When I got home she was all changed and ready so all I had to do was have a swift shower, put on some glad rags and hot the road. We decided that the girly / startling thing was totally inappropriate for our GDG, so we dressed in any old stuff. Laura was in jeans and T-shirt; I had leggings and a tie-dyed top. 

If you asked where Collette lives, on hearing the answer you’d automatically assume she’s really posh. Living on Carterknowle Road is one of the smarter addresses in Sheffield. Actually, if she owned the whole house it would be very smart, as it is she has a two bedroomed ground-floor flat. There aren’t all that many on this road, believe me! We didn’t drive on past and head for Mum’s after all. I had forgotten just how long it can take to drive those few miles.

Despite being a ground floor flat in a big house I swear Collette’s place is bigger than mine overall. It is stuffed with bloody nick nacks though. It would drive me barmy all this clutter. On the walls are loads of pictures, I am not sure if they have any significance for her or not. She has a huge block mounted print of Derwentwater looking north east to Blencathra in the distance. When I commented on how stunning it was she just went, “Oh. I wondered where that was!”

She’d done us a huge pie with game – rabbit, pigeon, pheasant, grouse etc . I thought it was very good. You could see some of the others trying to hide their surprise but, as I shoot and eat what I dispatch, I wasn’t complaining.  They eventually starting making the appropriate noises but I could sense they were a bit insincere. By this time my appropriate noise was the sound of me finishing the last morsels of the pie in the hope there’d be more. Even Laura who isn’t usually squeamish about food seemed to baulk at the idea of game pie.

Greedy guts did have a second slice, I think I was the only one. Everyone gushed about my magnificent apple cake, so I confessed that I had heard the recipe on Woman’s Hour on Radio 4. I pointed those who were interested in the direction of the website which was where I had taken the recipe from. A couple of them had never even heard of Woman’s Hour! Can you believe that? I may have converted a few to listen in the future.

The Scampis who’d walked upto Derwent Edge were mad keen to do another this coming weekend if the weather was good. I suggested Alport Castles in the next Valley west from the Upper Derwent Valley, we said we’d finalise plans at the pub tomorrow, where the Scampis will ride again. Although it looks like we will field only one team as the others had forgotten during the ten week Hiatus of YT.

Next time, in a fortnight for some reason which seemed logical at the time but which I can’t recall now, we’ll be at the baby of the group’s place, Claire. She is 22 and was fresh out of University last year. She’s only done one meal before but that was a brilliant Spanish evening so we all pressed her for another.

We rolled home at about 11.30 on the drive back Laura and I had a character assessment of all the participants. She has met some of them before, obviously, but it was fun to talk about the others behind their backs as it were. It was just Callie and me for the final walk tonight and when I got back in little Loll was pushing the zeds. She had obviously tried to stay awake and surprise me because the double ender was lying beside her as she slept. I’ll have to make sure we use it in the morning. As I slipped into bed she muttered, “I love you, you know…” but had dozed off again before I could reply.

 Thursday 26^th September.

We didn’t wait until the morning. At about 5am I was woken by a delightful sensation down below and found Loll’s busy fingers at work! This must be sort of how Richard felt when he woke up to find himself deep inside me, I used to take advantage of his morning glory while he was still asleep!

Just me walking Callie again but both of us went to the pool. I told Sarah about the Scampi Tails outing at the pub and she said she’d try and get along. That would be nice. Laura was almost up to my speed today and we finished on 80 each as I slowed down to let her keep up. I haven’t had conversations while swimming before at this early morning session, which seemed unusual. Although you do learn stuff. She told me that she has already been given her University e-mail address, which means my ten students should have got theirs by now too. I must check my account pronto when we get in.

The ‘we’ turned out to be me as Laura isn’t in today. The real stuff begins next week for both of us, I guess. Although with another two meeting this morning it felt pretty real to me already.

Pretty ordinary day to be honest. Felice isn’t back yet, she will definitely be in tomorrow. I am looking forward to seeing her again. She makes me smile as her English is so good yet she lapses into very Gallic gestures while she’s talking to you. I wonder if she’s an embroiderer. That could be useful. We may be able to get the Uni to fund a trip down to the V & A to examine their caskets as part of our study. I will put that to her when she does arrive.

“Scampi Tails are Go!” again. Eva was pleased to see us once more. I am not so sure some of the regulars were though. We actually had enough for two teams, and Sarah did turn up with her friend who I think was called Sally. They made up enough for team two.  I am sorry to have to report we won again. This is getting to be a bit beyond a joke. Once again we donated our winnings to charity [of Eva’s choice]. Our second team managed to come fifth out of eleven teams. We were miles ahead of the second placed team, by at least twelve points.

I didn’t have a meal with the girls tonight as Loll had been at work in the kitchen while I was at Uni. I arrived home to a brilliant chicken dish which was almost like a fricassee. It was really tasty whatever it was. We finished with some more apple cake. I’d made three altogether with the intention of taking one to the GDG, putting one in the freezer and eating one. We are on the freezer one already!

Dominic was keen on knowing about my taste in wines tonight when I walked across from the pub to the restaurant to pick up Laura. He had never heard of Dornfelder, for example but he listed a lot of Italian reds I’d never heard of. I asked him if Vino Nobile de Montepulciano was the same as M.D’Abruzzo and learned that it is not related at all! We shared a glass to illustrate the point. Loll was whacked when she finished. The restaurant had been very busy, so after driving us home, I walked Callie alone again. I was expecting to find Laura asleep when I got back, but she seemed to have gained her second wind and we didn’t get to sleep for at least another hour!

 

 

Fremantle Dockers in the Grand Final. Rah rah rah!

Summer Diary 2013 – Week Thirteen. Part one.

Friday September 20^th.

Up and swimming again after walking Callie up to Hilltop Wood for a change. Laura decided to wear a less distracting swimming costume today which meant we spent some time in the shower together at home instead of getting all fruity at the pool! I did 100 lengths in the time Loll took to do 60. She is determined to get up to my speed. [Ought I to slow down to hers?]

Today’s plan was to zoom off to Uni, with Laura in tow, and meet up with Andrea to discuss our schedule for the next semester. Laura went for a wander round after I had introduced her to everyone who needed to know her. My Ph.D supervisor had some shocking news for me. Andrea, our former Junior Table Tennis champion from Hull, has dropped out of the venture. She’s pregnant! There you go: I just knew there’d be three pregnancies! My Super didn’t go into too many details but it seems Andrea is five to six months already. She hadn’t bothered to check why her periods had stopped! Can you believe that? A so called educated woman, she already has her Ph.D - which is why she was the lead researcher, in denial about being pregnant. My Super was more diplomatic than I was.

The upshot is they have asked Felice to be her stand in for the year and then they’ll make a decision fully after that. Felice! Rah, rah, rah. She will be much more fun to work with than Andrea – although I may be maligning the woman unduly. I’ll never know now. It will also save money as Felice is already employed by the Uni so that will be one salary less to come out of the History budget. I may have to do some more teaching as a result, but they are trying to prevent that if they can. Felice is still in France at the minute but will be back next week. My timetable of work will be unaffected for the moment. That was good news as our next port of call was X,X,X & Y Solicitors’ to see Mrs Briggs to talk in detail about my hours there.

I was all set to drive across when I realised I was a stunningly beautiful, slim, blonde person missing. She was supposed to be back by 11.30 and there was no sign of her. I ‘phoned her from the car park and, for once, her ‘phone was on! [There’s a miracle in itself!] She had managed to gain access to the Maths Faculty block and was introducing herself to her new Tutor. I offered to come on over but she told me that she’d be there in two ticks. One completed Times Cryptic Crossword later she knocked on the car window. I jumped about a mile! I am surprised there isn’t a Maia’s head shaped dent in the roof of my little car.

As usual, virtually every building on campus was wide open and any T. D. or Laura could wander in off the streets. She was pleased to have met her tutor and to have found her way to the Maths building without needing a guide [me]. We whizzed up to Broomhill and Mrs Briggs. Lynn can be very intimidating when you first meet her. She’s from the same mould that produced my Mum, I think. Little Loll didn’t flinch in her presence, not even when I introduced her as “My Girlfriend”. Lynn asked if that fact was common knowledge and I truthfully told her that Mr Carr knew but that was about it. You could almost see the cogs behind Lynn’s eyes whirring into place as she assimilated this information alongside what she knew about me already. She asked, “Don’t mind me for asking… [I knew she’d not care if I minded anyway.] Were you always of this persuasion or it is a recent thing?” This persuasion. Delicately euphemistic. I asked Laura if it was OK, she nodded, so I explained how a public schoolgirl from Norfolk had been captivated by a state school girl from Cumbria.  She laughed, which was my intention. I gave her a brief outline of our affair. She knew about Richard, so I knew she was being inquisitive.

Mrs Briggs then subjected Miss Thomas to a very gentle but subtly probing series of questions about her, her life, her ambitions and her and me. You could tell that she felt she had another fledgling to take under her wing when they had finished the potted history everything Maia and Laura coloured. They had even touched on my Dad, and Molly being his cleaner since time immemorial. When Mrs Briggs likes you, you are well and truly in favour. She even questioned Laura about her understanding of the legal world and if she had ever been inclined towards the profession. I have not seen her dumbfounded very often but when Laura launched into how she was hoping to pursue her P & A Maths into areas like fluid mechanics and brain surgery, you could tell that not only had she wandered completely out of any area of shared knowledge, but that Mrs B was smitten by my little Mathematician too.

Back into the realms of the mundane and prosaic I was able to arrange a complete day with X,X,X & Y and one afternoon per week. That is only eight hours fewer than when I was working here before! I still cannot get over how flexible my Uni week actually is. The full day will be Wednesday, the half one has yet to be arranged. After all this we had a cup of tea and some of the “Guest” biscuits and we just chattered, well… gossiped, really.

She asked about my concert going and told us she was going to see Sir Mark Elder conduct the Halle at The City Hall tonight. Laura piped up, “So are we!” We arranged to meet in the bar for a swift snorterino during the interval and compare how much we liked the Dvorak piece “The Water Goblin”. I’ve borrowed a recording of it from the City Record Library and I am “sort of” not impressed to be honest! The music itself is delightful and fey but when you read the background story you wonder how Dvorak thought that his Music and the Story could match – the story contains an almost drowning, a forced marriage, forced imprisonment and the death, by decapitation, of a child, these themes don’t really fit the, almost, sweet music you hear. Well not to my ears, anyway.

They didn’t to Mrs B and Laura when I told them the back story of the piece during the interval. We all agreed, though, that if you hadn’t known what it was supposed to be about it was a lovely little piece of music. I suppose this is a good example of knowledge not always being a good thing.

The Halle was excellent as always. I have seen them several times now. Sir Mark Elder was a compact conductor, very sparing in his movements it seemed. I have watched a series of TV programmes where he is the conductor of the orchestra illustrating the development of the Symphony. His insights into how the form developed, from the early 17^th Century’s nascent noodlings to Shostakovich and beyond, are brilliant. The presenter of the programme was Simon Russell Beale who is informative without being dominating. I am waiting for the BBC to produce a DVD of the series.

As for the rest of the evening’s programme, the Beethoven piano concerto was wonderful and if anyone is failed to be moved by the Enigma Variations, well you can take them out and shoot them!

Laura joined Callie and me for the final walk of the day and as we strolled along, arm in arm, on the Onesacre road I asked her, “Happy?” She replied “Mmmmm….!”

Saturday September 21^st.

Extremely grey morning, this morning but no rain! Callie and I did the full circuit this morning and then the three of us drove off to the pool.

100 lengths and 60 again.  Followed by more fun in the shower at home.

We reflected on Last Night at the City Hall. We thought that the Halle’s version of the Dvorak [and  Mark Elder] had tried to inject more of an edge to it than the Library’s version I’d borrowed. We concluded that our outfits had been magic, although taking Callie for her last walk in those shoes had not perhaps, been a good idea. We’ve decided when we go to a formal function; concert, theatre etc to have a distinct contrast in the way we dress. One of us will be “girly” and one of us “startling”. Last night Laura had been the girly one. She had curled her hair, it is naturally curled anyway but she spends ages in the morning, after showering, straightening it. She wore a gorgeous blue dress. It was her old school prom dress bodice with an altered, shorter, flared skirt. On top of this she had one of my white shawls and white tights with blue matching shoes.

I was the startling one. We’d put my hair into a chignon, I had quite basic make up but bright red lippy. I wore a matching set of bright red T-shirt and footless tights, topped with a black leather mini skirt [way shorter than I normally wear], black leather bikers’ style jacket and heeled black ankle boots. To be honest if I had carried a rolled whip I would have been ideal as a dominatrix! The red and black was definitely startling. So much so that when I went up to her in the bar at the City Hall last night, you could see doubt flicker across Mrs Briggs face before she recognised me.

Today was really a lazy day. I took Callie round Broomhead reservoir, before lunch and then we chilled out until Laura had to go to work in the evening. OK. I admit it. I cleaned through the entire house again! I know I shouldn’t be so fussy but I can’t help it. Loll kept making me stop and have a cup of tea, so I kept having to stop and empty my bladder. I think she hasn’t actually witnessed me having a OCD session properly before, and she was quite alarmed, TBH. In the attic room she did suggest we use the day bed for something other than sleeping. So we did, for over an hour.  This took away the manic desire to clean everything. I wonder what would happen if I got OCD about sex?

Dominic did have a plate full of pasta and scallops waiting for me at the restaurant when I came to pick up Laura [she had some too]. He thought Roy’s wine was lovely. He asked if he could get it over here, in the UK, but I don’t think Roy export it. He just comes over near Christmas time [to his family and friends] with presents etc. For Dad that is always two or three cases of his current wine. Dad gives me some because he knows I am good with alcohol (!). Roy’s family home is now somewhere between Sulmona and the Adriatic Sea. It’s one of the places where my Dad’s been but I haven’t. Mum & Dad had divorced before Roy moved south so we never went there as a family. I do remember Dad’s stories of seeing a frozen waterfall when he went to visit and he said I would just love it out there as it is so mountainous.

Laura’s working week will be Week Day nights with the occasion Friday, Saturday or Sunday if she is needed. He doesn’t think she will be. Fortunately they don’t open on a lunchtime at all!  One good thing, he is paying more than minimum wage plus she gets to keep her personal tips. All of the serving staff have their own tin by the cash desk, which seems a novel idea. Last night her tips came to £19.50! Laura had said she is going to put them away in a jar to be used for special occasions and not be just added to her wages! I think that, looking as lovely as she does, the tips will be fast and generous.

Tea tomorrow is at Steve and Ann’s house. I hope we’ll be having fish although that could be unlikey is Ann isn’t keen.  He was really pleased with the bottle of whisky I gave him for looking after my little postage stamp garden while I was in Australia.

The two of us walked Callie again before turning in. I brought my tablet into the bedroom with me, so I could Skype Suze in the morning, to get news of Freo’s game against Sydney Swans in the AFL semi-final.

Sunday 22^nd September.

Go Dockers! Go! They have won the semi. 99 to 74! They’ll play Hawthorne in the Grand Final next Saturday. It is the first time in their [short] history that they have made it to the finals! According to Suze they were all over the Swans, winning every quarter convincingly. When I spoke to the family this morning they were still high as kites. Even Mum, who’d gone with them to the Subiaco Oval on Saturday night. She is a bit miffed that she will miss the Grand Final as she is scheduled to fly back next week. Jill and Annabelle looked funny as they still had their purple and white facepaint on despite the fact it was 1pm when they called! I bet their pillows are a complete mess!

I sussed out the AFL website and have been able to watch highlights of the game. I had to pay for the privilege though. Still, it gives me access to the Final highlights as well! Little Loll couldn’t understand the passion but when she comes out to Oz with me next summer she will, I’m sure. In fact she fell asleep during the middle of our chat so I was able to show the family her fast asleep. [Not sure that was the right thing to do, actually, as I have just shown them all that we are together in the same bed. I mean, I know they know we do that, but was it right to show them? They didn’t comment on it. Luckily.]

Callie and I went off for the morning’s walk and there was an inversion outside! The valley floor was shrouded in very dense mist but the tops of the slopes were all in bright early morning sunshine. My little house was in the mist but, 100 yards up the field, the road to Onesacre was completely clear. The temperature change was noticeable too. Down below it was a bit chilly; it was much warmer once you were out of the mist.

A surprise waited our return. Laura had made breakfast! We are planning on sharing the cooking but so far it has all been me {OK it’s only five days}. She had seen me walking back on the Onesacre road so she knew she could get the timings right. I arrived home to a plate of bacon, eggs, beans, mushrooms and toast! Being half way up the hillside the sun had burned off our mist so we ate in the conservatory.

Our plan today was to meet up with the rest of the Scampi Tails at High Bradfield and walk up to Derwent Edge. From there we were going to take the path to the Strines Inn for lunch and amble back into Bradfield by mid-afternoon. I have to say the Scampis were a disappointment. Out of ten of us [if you include me] only five appeared at the Church [not including Laura and me]. Undaunted we strolled on and had a good old gossip along the way. Some of the girls have met Laura before, three of them hadn’t. Laura told them that she was my girlfriend! I was very worried about their reaction but they were all cool with it.

None of them knew I was starting back at work next Wednesday. They were astounded and asked how I had managed to work that out. I explained that when Catherine Eames left in the summer (quite unexpectedly) that left ARR under staffed – her and me making up half of the people in there. Mr Carr had appointed a new person on a part time contract to fit in with her child care arrangements. [I haven’t met her yet, and I can’t remember her name, dammit!] He then e-mailed me to ask if I had any time to offer, as I’d said I thought I would. I am going in every Wednesday for the whole of this academic year and one afternoon too. The girls were delighted.  Rachel, Claire and Ann are the three who made up the original Scampis (with me as the fourth Musketeer) and are also the founders of the Dining Group. They were chuffed to bits. Christine and Michelle were keen to find out what the Dining Group was. I was amazed that they didn’t know about it.

Back to the walk. The stroll up Duke’s Road is very untaxing but a bit long. It doesn’t climb any great slopes or steep inclines; it slowly and steadily leads you up to one of the most astounding view points in the Peak. At Derwent Edge you are presented with two of the three enormous reservoirs that fill the Upper Derwent Valley. If you don’t know they are there it takes you completely by surprise. Laura was amazed by the view, as were the others, for whom it was their first time here too. Rachel and I have walked this before so we knew what to expect. The reservoirs in question are Ladybower and Derwent. There is a third; Howden, which isn’t visible from where we were. They are well worth putting into google images for a look. It was using these three dams, during WW II that they practiced their bomb aiming for the Dam Busters raid. Every year the surviving three aircraft from WW II do a memorial fly past. [I haven’t seen it yet, sadly.]

We had a long sit and several swigs of tea, drinking in the liquid and the view. The way we had come up isn’t the usual tourist route up. Most people tend to park their vehicles in the Derwent Valley and just rush up the slopes from there. That seems like a lot of effort to see the view from the top. I am pragmatic when Fell Walking, reduce the effort is the key to enjoyment. On a day like today, with unexpectedly gorgeous weather that was important too. If you'd rushed up to Derwent Edge you be a real Sweaty Betty at the top. When I go rock climbing I expect there to be some serious effort and maybe some perspiration involved, but from a walk?

Our route back to Bradfield took in three more reservoirs on the eastern side of the ridge, which most people don’t even realise are there. After lunch we walked alongside two of the three.  I had booked in a party of eleven for lunch at the Strines Inn, it was a bit embarrassing to have to say we were only seven. Still, the barman didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. We were booked in for 1.30 and we arrived on the dot!

Laura and I had their meat and potato pie, which never fails to delight. The others had the Sunday Roast. We didn’t have the roast mainly because I had gone on about the Pub’s wonderful meat and potato pie for so long I couldn’t really not have it. We stuck out again at about 3 o’clock and wound our way along Strines Reservoir and Dale Dike Reservoir only meeting four other people on the way! Despite it being so sunny and warm by now. At Bradfield we had some ice creams from the shop near the cricket pitch, we sat on the wall eating them. Then we did some car juggling which meant we didn’t have to walk up the steep hill to High Bradfield to fetch the other car and drop Laura and Callie and me off at my car. I was so pleased everyone seemed to have enjoyed themselves and that I had got the date and venue for the next Dining Group meeting. It’s at Collette’s this coming Wednesday. As we parted company I noticed that all of the fair haired walkers [me included] had very red faces from the sun! So unbecoming!

We got home in time for a shower and sit before we were off out again to Steve and Ann’s. It wasn’t as far this time, only four doors along the road. I told them we would be returning from a walk in the Peak and may be ravenous. That maybe why there was a mountain of food spread before us when we finally settled down to eat.

 

I was wrong about the fish. There was cold, cooked, trout [one of Steve's from the Derwent] and masses of cooked meat. Every kind of salad you could imagine and some you couldn't [Carrot, raisin and orange? It sounds weird but was absolutely scrumptious!]

After tea we were entertained by tales of their life in the police force. Both are retired officers, each being an inspector when the packed it all in - after only 30 years of service! Unbelievable. They were in forensics in the days when it wasn't made glamorous by shows on TV like Silent Witness and the rest. Some of their tales were gruesome in the extreme and not fit for repeating here.

I took along two bottles of Gewurztraminer Riesling and we polished off the lot. We had a bottle of Rose of theirs and then Steve brought out some whisky and we must have had almost three quarters of a bottle of that. It was a good thing we only had a few yards to wobble back to my little house. Callie was unimpressed, though, that her last walk of the day consisted of a run around the field behind the house while her rather sozzled owner merely sat on the wall and watched her. 

 

Bi-weekly or semi-weekly?

Bon jerr.
(That's your actual French, that is!)

I have had feed back telling me that publishing my ramblings once a week makes the amount of blog to consume at one go quite long. I am going to publish twice a week in future. May be cut down on the unedifying trivia too!

Bi-weekly or semi-weekly?

Bi-weekly means every two weeks; semi-weekly means twice a week but.... it sounds very clumsy.

I think twice a week, despite using more letters, is much better and won't cause confusion.

People just don't love the Grammar as they should, any more.

Have fun.

The neighbours meet Laura as we decamp to Sheffield!

Diary 2013 Week 12.

Friday September 13^th.

Good job I am not superstitious, touch wood!

I already have one Ft13 mess up. Laura told me last night her last day at work is tomorrow not today. She will be finishing at lunchtime and then that’s it. Finito Benito for the Wigton job. We have decided that I will borrow Dad’s tank on Sunday to drive us down to sunny Sheffield with Laura’s stuff [it would be a very, very tight squeeze in my little Picanto], come back on the same day and then drive down to Sheffield proper on Tuesday. I cleared this with Dad and he offered to simply come down as well on Tuesday with Loll’s stuff and then drive back. We sort of want to be independent and do it ourselves. I guess it’s the symbolism of the thing. We are striking out together; two against the world. So we have gratefully declined his offer.

The weather here [Hawick] is still dreadful. I suppose as an area the Borders does get more than its fair share of wetness. That could be one of the reasons Mum moved south as soon as she could. Norwich is a desert compared to the Borders! Gran has a cupboard in her hall way where she keeps her coats – they are all waterproofs of one kind or another! Sums it all up, doesn’t it? I keep my best riding coat at Dad’s, I don’t need it anywhere as much in sunny Sheffield.

Gran asked me if I could drive her to Morrisons’ to do her weekly grocery shop this morning. I was only too happy to oblige. I think she eats way too much processed food. Hardly any of her meals for next week will be cooked from scratch using fresh ingredients. Obviously I didn’t say anything, I just mentioned how I plan my week’s meals in advance and then shop for them. It saves me a lot of money that way and I eat fresh produce every day. [I drew myself a bank menu on A4 paper which I photocopied. I fill it in each week and use it to buy my groceries.] I am not saying she didn’t buy some fresh food but ready meals will be three of her dinners next week. Can that be healthy? She is in her mid-eighties, so I guess she may be thinking she’s survived this long eating the way she does why change now? Plus, she does own the renown Scottish sweet tooth! One bowl in her lounge is full of sweets!

On the drive back down to Cumbria, I stopped in Langholm to visit the Macdairmid memorial sculpture on a hillside over-looking the town. It’s just so visible on the skyline as you drive back down the A 7, I had to go up and have a look. Dad’s favourite band “Runrig” used it as the cover image on one of their albums – Amazing Things. It is quite an impressive sculpture, shaped like a book with different icons on the two pages which have a particular resonance for the Border’s own bard. It looked eminently climbable, so I swarmed up it and sat on the top, just as another bloody car pulled up for a closer look. How sodding embarrassing was that?

I was sat there like a bloody ginormous pixie on top of this national monument. The man and woman found it amusing that I would choose to do something without an encouraging friend or two at the bottom egging me on. Guess what? They were also Runrig fans. And… they had been at the Runrig concert at Preston last year which Dad took me to! I was able to tell them that the Support artiste, Jill Jackson, had played Langholm Buccleuch Centre a year before supporting a band from Tiree called Skerryvore. [Dad took me to that too. We actually met the band afterwards and spent ages in the bar talking with them. Dad bought me their CDs and I got the each of the band members to sign the sleeve booklets for me. Rock star groupie or what?]

Leaving the stunned couple behind Callie and I walked along the track to the Cleopatra’s needle on the far skyline. It was an obelisk erected to commemorate the life of Sir John Malcom – a bloody soldier and politician. Why is there no commemoration to the town’s much more influential son Thomas Telford? I asked this question in the café at the bottom of the road up the hill to the Macdairmid memorial. The woman inside didn’t even know who Telford was, never mind the fact he’d been born in Langholm. She did tell me Scotrail are going to reopen the Carlisle to Edinburgh railway line, which will be a joy to travel on. There is no time scale for this as yet.

From here, the thoughts of Eskdalemuir earlier in the week made me decide to make a detour up to the Buddhist temple there. It is ages since I have been. From the outside you can tell it is something unusual, even in the driving rain! It is a riot of colour and weirdly shaped monuments and buildings. A prayer session was just beginning and, as everyone is invited to go and sit in the temple, I went in to watch.

I had intended to stay for a few minutes but I ended up being there for the whole session – about an hour. It was sort of intoxicating, fascinating and totally alien all at the same time. The Monks chanted throughout and played instruments and span prayer wheels. What struck me most was the fact they’d be doing this every day of the year, regardless of their surroundings or the political climate they were in. It was sort of humbling to think that people were still prepared to devote their lives to a cause they believed in for the good of the whole planet [in their eyes] even if the rest of the inhabitants were totally indifferent. In the shop I bought a couple of “Free Tibet” items: a fridge magnet, a T-Shirt and a poster. I will frame the poster and hang it in my office at work.

Dad and Louisa were out when I got back to Tallentire, so I set to and prepared a boeuf bourguignon for dinner, as I’d arranged with Dad last night. Molly was there when I got back, so I made her stop cleaning and sit and have a cuppa with me.  She told me Laura was really nervous about beginning the new term in a new city. She was looking forward to living with me full time but was apprehensive about whether she’d fit in and be able to make new friends and that kind of stuff. I told her that was only natural, and I thought that she’d fit in just fine. Embarrassingly, she did say that she thought I was the best thing that had happened to Laura in her life so far. She had always seemed directionless and an outsider in things but now she was much more independent and focused and becoming a personality in her own right, if I saw what she meant? I think I did. She said she had always thought I was a very stable and strong willed person and some of that seemed to be rubbing off onto little Loll.

I told her I was so grateful that she hadn’t reacted badly to Laura’s decisions and the situation she must have found herself in when Laura finally “came out”. I promised I would do nothing to harm her precious daughter because she was precious to me too. She is! She is just as precious as to me as Richard was, but in a totally different sort of way.

I picked up the subject of our conversation from Wigton as usual and she gave me a huge kiss as she got in the car. We sat in the car park and kissed for quite a while to be honest. Apparently I had scared her zooming off to Gran’s without a moment’s thought like that but she couldn’t explain what had scared her. I could resist giving her the present I’d bought her straight away. I got her a paperweight from the glass maker in Hawick [Peter Holmes used to be Selkirk Glass’ main glass maker but he moved to Hawick a few years ago]. Laura collects paperweights and this one is lovely. It is all clear glass and bubbles with no colour at all. There is a ring bubble in the middle and through the hole in the ring a second bubble, looking like an elongated tadpole, has just burst out. She really liked it. I sort of knew she would. That brings her collection up to twenty four.

Louisa took care of the rest of the boeuf so all I had to do was arrive at the table to eat. We opened a Dornfelder to go with it and dessert was another of Gran’s rice puddings, specially made for Dad as she’d remembered how much he loved them. I think it is good there is no animosity between them since the divorce. The rice pudding was extremely Moorish! We ate the whole lot in one go! Pigs!

We spent a lazy evening lying on the sofas in the lounge watching more of The White Queen. Then an early night prior to Laura’s last day at work tomorrow. No more Ft13 mess ups all day. Phew!

 

Saturday 14^th Sept.

Had a frantic Skype from Oz this morning: the clan are going to the AFL play of semi at Subiaco next week [21^st] even Mum! They were just so excited. They will play the Sydney Swans; the other semi is between Hawthorn and Geelong. Freo will know who the opponents will be in the final proper, because H vs G takes place on the Friday evening! I am rather green tinted at the moment. Even Dad seems quite stirred up by the news. He has always ridiculed AFL and calls it a game for thugs.

There were no flags or bunting at the Wigton tool hire centre this morning for Loll’s final day. I guess there never is. Whenever you undergo a momentous change there is hardly ever a celebration of it. I suppose Graduation is the closest most people come to one [other than weddings and christening of course] and I missed my graduation having had my breakdown in Australia. I don’t think Laura had actually thought about it, TBH. I took Callie across to Silloth for a long walk along the prom. We parked up at Skinburnness and walked all the way into the town centre, had a cuppa at one of the cafes [a bit cold and blowy outside] and then strolled slowly back. You could see that the fell tops, away to the south, were getting a battering from the weather but the coastal strip often misses out on the nastier stuff. I think that is why my folks chose to buy their holiday home where they did.  Quite often, when the Lakes are being filled from above, there is dry walking to be had along the Allerdale Coast.

After Silloth I explored the delights of Wigton’s shopping centre [it took about a minute! Lol]. I was accompanied by the Wigton Whiff. There is a huge chemical plant right in the centre of the town and this often floods the area with a dreadful odour. We have always called it the Wigton Whiff. I really don’t know how the residents of Wigton can stand it. It means I will never ever buy a house here. Some days, if there is a strong Northerly wind, you can ever taste a glimmer of the whiff in Tallentire!

I asked if there was anywhere she wanted to go when I picked her up at 12.30. She said she just wanted to go home. So that’s what we did. Eric was at work and Stephen was at a friend’s house, Molly was in, baking. I left Laura with her Mum and she said she’d be round after dinner. I felt sort of hollow dropping her off and leaving her like that. I hoped there was nothing wrong. It turned out there wasn’t. She just wanted to be with her Mum for a while, without the rest of her family about. I knew what she meant. Having Mum all to myself in Australia was really special. Plus, it gave her time to get all her things sorted for the move.

 

Sunday 15^th September.

One Cabin Trunk. Two suitcases. One holdall. One flight bag. Two cardboard boxes. One bag of cuddlies. That is an inventory of what Laura and I loaded into Dad’s car in Cumbria and unloaded to my little house in South Yorkshire. It might have been possible to fit it all into my tiny Picanto but I doubt it.

The journey there and back wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be despite the awful weather. The rain driving down the M6 was pretty unpleasant at times. I went the quickest way down. M6, M61, Woodhead Pass, A616, A6102, home. Dad’s car does just fly.

At my house the process of unloading took about a quarter of the time that the packing did. We then spent about an hour watching Laura’s possessions being swallowed by my house. I asked how she wanted to arrange her clothes and she was keen on my shared wardrobe idea, so we have half of our clothes in the huge ‘under the attic stairs’ cupboard and half in the freestanding robe. I cleared one of the chests of drawers for her and rearranged the desk up in the loft [it’s just a table really] so we could have a side each. In anticipation of her arrival I bought another bookcase, where she has put her collection of tomes.

We had discussed the idea that she used the second bedroom’s cupboards and stuff as her clothes base but she wasn’t keen on that idea. To be honest, neither was I, but I offered it to her in case she decided she didn’t want to sleep with me all the time. [I hoped she would, naturally.] We had a bite to eat in our kitchen and then sex in our boingy chair in the bedroom before we drove back up to Tallentire. I went back through Leeds, following the route through Horsforth which I take when I visit Phil and Jane. (A65) I almost made a detour and called in on them but decided against it. We are going to see them in the week ahead anyway. The journey took us past Skipton and the three peaks mountains. I have walked the 3 Peaks Challenge when I was a youngster. I wonder if we could walk it again?

There was a huge Sunday dinner waiting for us when we got back to Dad’s, with Molly, Eric and Stephen plus Errol and his partner. We had quite a boisterous crowd round the table and then on into the evening. We ended up game playing. Charades first. We used to play this all the time when I was younger then Errol challenged us women to a Trivial Pursuit match. I haven’t played this since Christmas 2011! This was so weird because Loll and Stephen had never played games at home in this way, they’ve only ever been sat in front of a screen plugged into whatever game console they own. They really enjoyed it.

I had forgotten just how much I enjoy quizzes. Needless to say Dad, Errol, Eric and Stephen won. We didn’t stand a chance against two University Professors really. Although it was pretty close.  This coming Thursday will be the third of the month for our village quiz at the pub. I will have to get on the ‘phone and summon the troops. We have our Scampi Tails reputation to uphold.

I picked my scab off before bedtime. Stupid I know, but it was really itchy. Laura told me I needed punishing for being naughty and laid me across her lap to whack me with my hair brush. The beating lasted only three whacks before I felt familiar fingers worming their way into my knickers…..

Monday September 16^th.

Dad and Louisa went off to Lancaster pretty early this morning, for the day, so when we were fully awake we carried on from where we left off last night…

I cooked a huge pile of bacon and we had mammoth BLTs for breakfast. As the Aged Parent and Louisa had gone in Louisa’s car I took Laura and the four dogs in Dad’s Citroen to Crummockwater. We stayed in the woods, mainly, as it decided to rain on us just as we arrived in the car park. This was a blow but the dogs enjoyed the walk. We went almost to the top of My Fell – this is Lanthwaite Green Top [I don’t know its real name, it may be Lanthwaite Hows.]. When I was a little girl my Dad gave me the fell top as a present! So it has always been known as my fell ever since. His reasoning was as he was a National Trust Member and all the area was owned by the Trust, that meant he owned it, so he gave it to me.

Luckily the woods skirt the actual top so we were able to stay under cover and not get too wet. If we’d gone up to the fell top proper, we’d have been drenched in minutes. The paths are very well defined up there and I know them so well. I took us along to the path that leads to the Lanthawaite Green then we flowed alongside the beck down to the lake itself, just by the boathouse. We had a drink of tea from the flask here and some chocolate. Sadly the dogs decided they wanted a swim and all four went into the lake. I hoped there were some towels in the back of Dad’s car, I’d forgotten to check. Once they were in we decided they may as well swim properly so went spent a good half an hour throwing their ball, and any sticks we could find, out on to the lake. Several people came by and stopped to watch them swimming. A few of them were planning the circumnavigation of the whole  lake. I thought they were mad, but I kept these thoughts under my hat.

Having taken so long at the boat house we had passed the magical 12 o’clock. This is the time when the Kirkstile Inn starts serving food. [It actually opens at 11am but they don’t serve food until noon!] There was still more swimming to be had at the fish ladder end of Crummockwater, by the dogs that is, and more chatting to the people who stopped to watch them.

There were towels in the car! Thank goodness, but it took about fifteen minutes to get them all into a reasonable state of dryness before I drove us off to the pub.

The barman recognised me and jokingly said, “Glass of white wine, ham baguette and chips?” I had to tell him we were going to go for the soup and a sandwich option but could the sandwich be a baguette which we’d share? That was OK. We also ordered a single portion of chips. I had my usual glass of white and Laura had a J20. They stock a Riesling here which is really tasty. Not many pubs do, they have all gone down the Chardonnay road, or recently the Sauvignon Blanc/Semillon route. I find them too dry for my liking. We had the beef and caramelised onion baguette with our soup, which was home-made leek and potato! Yummy in my tummy. The chips were excellent as usual, the only difference to my normal visits here was I didn’t have Callie in with me, waiting patiently under the table for her few chips. I thought four dogs might prove a handful in the small bar.

Later in the year they serve a brilliant mulled wine here. It costs around £5 a glass [it is a 250ml glass though]. When I have been in the depths of winter, a glass of their mulled wine by the roaring open fire is heaven.

After lunch we drove straight over to Workington from Loweswater to look at the sea from the mouth of the harbour. We did a mini food shop too. I bought us some fresh mussels from the local fishmonger, he assured me they were fresh Solway ones, I was planning on doing a simple Moules et Frites dish for tea. Laura still isn’t quite sure about some sea food, but she said she’d give the mussels a go. As the rain had stopped, and the dogs were whinging we walked them up Derwent Howe. This is another thing the local girl has never done! I just can’t believe it. The view of Workington from here is pretty impressive, well I thought it was, anyway. On a clear day looking out to sea you can sometimes see the Isle of Man. Today you couldn’t: too much cloud!

Laura was really squeamish about putting a moule into her mouth. I almost told her she’d had my labia in there, how tricky could a moule be? But the Aged Parent and Louisa would probably not have found it amusing, so I refrained. She did eventually try one and was gobsmacked at how delicious they were. Fresh ones are really tender and “melt in your mouthy”. These obviously were as fresh as the fishmonger had said. Dad had brought a cheese cake back with him for dessert. He joked that it was done deliberately as part of my diet [bastard!] then he brought out the individual fruit tart he’d bought for me because of my cheese allergy [un-bastard!]. In fact he’d brought five fruit tarts so we could all have another each with supper.

They were in Lancaster sorting the flat out. We are going to drive down again tomorrow in convey and Dad and Louisa will turn right into Lancaster as I carry on down the M6. I bet that doesn’t happen, he’ll hit the motorway at Penrith, put his foot to the floor and Zooom! We’ll not see him for dust. I’ll bet they will have been into the flat, and had a cup of tea and be listening to the Radio by the time we are driving past.

We watched the final episodes of the White Queen tonight. The actor playing Richard III was very good, and I liked the way they had kept Gregory’s sympathetic portrayal of him. He really wasn’t the murderous villain from the hatchet job done by Shakespeare at all. Trust me, I know these things.

No sex tonight, just falling asleep in each other’s arms. I just love doing that. Tomorrow is one small step for woman, one giant leap for womankind!

Tuesday 17^th September.

Up with the larks. Laura zoomed off pronto to her folks’ house to say goodbye to her Mum and Stephen. Her Dad is out somewhere with the lorry [he drives for Eddie Stobart’s] so she’s going to phone him later. I took all four dogs up Tallentire Hill in the rain. It seems to have done that a lot since I got back from Oz and yet everyone tells me they had a wonderful summer in the UK.

There were two more condoms at the view point seat. You think people would take them away when they leave rather than just dumping them. I used the dog trowel (again) to put them in the ditch where they could degrade without being an eyesore. I got me wondering was it the same guy who came twice or two different guys up here? Most guys’ recovery times aren’t all that quick, so perhaps it was two different guys. Unless it was a pair of gay men? One girl I knew at University  used to photograph all the guys she’d slept with using an instant camera and hang the condoms they’d used underneath this “stud’s gallery” on one of her walls. How tacky was that? By the end of the academic year there were nearly fifty photographs on her wall.

Back at Dad’s I put our two small bags in the car and had a final breakfast with Dad and Louisa. We aren’t going to drive down in Convoy after all. They have some stuff to do in Kendal, so they will have a leisurely drive through the Lakes and then head off to Lancaster later. Laura decided she wanted to drive us down to Sheffield, especially as I said I fancied going via the Skipton route so we could call at Phil and Jane’s on the way. Her practice with my little car over the summer has made her a much more confident driver, previously (TBH) I used to be a little twitchy when she drove but 8 weeks of commuting have put paid to my nerves. She’s pretty good. Quite a bit slower than I drive but that’s only to be expected. We stopped at a florists’ in Skippy to buy some flowers for Jane and then to exercise La Woofie, who was disappointed she didn’t get out when we did.

Jane was in when drew up in Horsforth. So we had a longer stop than intended. She made us a cup of tea and some sangers. She has gone part-time at her work but she is thinking of packing up altogether after the baby arrives. Phil says she needs to take the full maternity leave package and then quit – but he is an accountant so everything has pounds signs attached for him! She is hoping for a little girl. [So am I to be honest. I am not keen on boys, they are too much trouble and hard work. Not that I know anything – this is just the voice of prejudice speaking.] She had just been to Ikea and had a look at their baby furniture. They had got rid of all the old baby things from their loft last year, Peter is 9 and Angela 7 and they thought they wouldn’t need them again. [That was a telling statement, I thought!]

Phil is now making so much money that they can afford for Jane to be a full-time, stay at home Mum. I am not sure what I think about this, TBH, I mean if she never goes back to work what a waste of money her education will have been. I guess I can’t really imagine the attraction of wanting to be at home with the baby all the time. Maybe if I have one of my own my opinion will change? She loved her flowers and put them into two vases straight away. They needed two as there were so many in the bunch. Apparently they haven’t had flowers at home for ages. I always buy a bunch a week with my weekly shop – usually white ones. It doesn’t matter what the flowers are so long as they are white. I love white flowers! We left just before three as Jane was getting ready to go and pick the kids up from Primary School.

I decided to drive the rest of the way back as little Loll has little experience of Motorway driving. The centre of Leeds can be a nightmare! We hit Oughtibridge at just before 4pm.   I parked up, we unloaded and then we both took Callie for a long walk. We went up to Onesacre, dropped down to Coombes Brook and then into the village. I called in at Sylvia’s to start my newspaper order once more and we popped into the restaurant for Loll to meet her boss, Dominic,  again. The cheeky bugger asked her if she could start tomorrow! She has agreed!

Discovered that the pub quiz is on the LAST Thursday in month, not the third one. I looked in to check. Eva told me that the Scampis had been in for the last quiz, in August but they’d missed the July one. They won the August quiz by one point! That now makes 5 wins out 5! Rah, Rah and indeed Rah! It seemed pretty cold in the house so I switched the central heating on! It’s mid-September for heaven’s sake! Soon we were snug bug ruggly.

We had an early night for once, I think I was tired after all the travelling. Loll was! She was fast asleep and zed pushing when I came out of the bathroom. She has agreed to come swimming tomorrow morning. I bet she changes her mind in the morning.

Wednesday 18^th September.

I would have lost the bet. When I got in from walking Callie Laura was up, dressed and ready for the off. So with Callie in the back seat as usual we went to the pool. I introduced Laura to Sarah and then we had a swim. I only did half my lengths for two reasons; one, it was my first swim for over a week and two, Laura wouldn’t be able to manage more. There was also a third reason, she had brought a totally impractical cossie [a very skimpy bikini] and I just wanted to keep putting my fingers inside it. This seriously restricted our swimming activity and got me so turned on I had to get fruity in one of the changing cubicles. She nearly bit through the towel in an effort not to make a noise and get us thrown out or arrested [or both]. We drove back home with her hand down the front of my shorts and at home we only made it as far as the lounge sofa! It is extremely hard to concentrate on your driving when a dextrous finger is rubbing your important little places.

We had the day to play with each other if we wanted but we discovered a terrible oversight! We have left the strap-on up in my bedside cupboard in Cumbria. That made the decision for us, we would go into town and get ourselves another one from the Ann Summers shop down there. The only one in town is now at Meadow Hall, so that’s where we went. Laura has experience of this sort of place having been to the Carlisle branch but was astounded! The lingerie was out of this world. I could’ve spent a fortune but we restricted ourselves on a second strap on. I was very tempted by a new Rampant Rabbit which was quite a lot softer than the one I’ve got, but I resisted.

We strolled round the rest of the centre and I told Laura the saga of how Kaybers and I had been thrown out of here for roller-blading inside the mall itself. On the third occasion we were actually taken to a small office and held there for over an hour until I called Mrs Briggs at work who went ballistic at them down my phone and threatened them with all sorts of legal action if we weren’t released immediately. They called her bluff and phoned the solicitors using the phone book to look up the number and their land line, obviously assuming I had just called someone at random to rant at them.

They crapped themselves when they were put through to her again! While I’d been speaking to Mrs Briggs she told me to take photographs of all the people and the room we were being held in, videos if possible. So during their call to work that’s what I did. She was able to tell them that with the photographic evidence I was taking and e-mailing to her office, they personally -and the company they were working for - wouldn’t have a leg to stand on when they were sued for unlawful imprisonment and worse. Needless to say we were politely escorted from the building and asked very nicely not to return wearing our roller-blades as they constituted a health hazard. I just told them, “See you in court!”

At work I thanked Mrs B profusely but she was as excited as me and said she hadn’t enjoyed herself as much, at work, for ages. The firm sent the security company a formal letter stating that their client had decided to reserve the right to pursue the case through the court but for the moment were prepared to let the matter rest. I imagine they were not happy at getting that letter. We never took it any further. Kaybers and I went back to skating in their car park early on Sunday mornings, which was what we usually did anyway. [We only went inside the first time because I wanted the loo and couldn’t be arsed to take my skates off!]

Laura has yet to meet Mrs Briggs, but she will, sometime this term. She has met Mrs Orr (Kaybers) a couple of times. She says she can see why we became best friends. We just egg each other on to do more and more outrageous things. At school we were notorious for our pranks. We are going to see her this week now that she and Jan are back from Norway, visiting the paternal grand-parents to be!

I was quite surprised by how many people were actually in Meadow Hall. I mean it was a weekday for heaven’s sake? How come it was so busy? Loll was impressed by the size of the place and the cleanliness of it all but it can’t beat a real street with old and characterful shops, IMHO.

The strap-on is just as effective as the one we left in Cumbria. That’s all I will say on the matter.

From the beginning of the arvo onwards we had a steady stream of people coming to see me [and meet Laura] from the houses along the street. We are a very friendly bunch really. I must’ve drunk about a dozen cups of tea. We’ve got half a dozen invites to drop by for meals, some of which we’ve  already pencilled in the diary. The neighbourliness of my row of houses is lovely. When I first moved in (2010) I thought they were just being a set of nosey parkers but I was so wrong. The neighbours are all ages and genders but they all have one thing in common, they do all care. Laura found it all a bit overwhelming. I have tried to explain why I love living in my little house but I could tell she didn’t quite get it. She does now!

After dinner I lost Laura for the rigours of the working life. She began at the restaurant at 7pm and I went to collect her at 11pm. They have a longer licence at the weekend, so she’ll be there later on a Friday and Saturday night. As it was still fine, I walked Callie along the field behind the house and joined the Coombes Brook path behind the Doctor’s Surgery as part of my collecting her.

She was a bit surprised to find I had walked. I think she was expecting to be driven back up the hill to ‘our’ house. I was offered a glass of wine while I waited for her to finish up and Callie was given a dish of pasta and sea food which had been left by the last diners! She wolfed it. I threatened Dominic that if she got me up in the night needing the loo I’d bring down here to pooh on his yard!

I surprised him by asking if the wine was a Montepulciano D’Abruzzo? He was astounded. It was! I explained that Dad has a few cases of Montepulciano each year, which an ex-colleague, Roy, sends him from Italy. He gave up being a Professor and went to live with his Italian wife in her home village and become a wine maker. They wanted to bring their kids up in an environment that wasn’t as toxic as the UK’s! Roy’s wine was a bit like what Dominic had given me.

Walking back up the real hills to Bedfordshire, I could see that little Loll was done in! I should have fetched her with the car. I let her have Callie, she pulls like buggery on the lead for anyone but me. Callie dragged my little waif back home. She was too tired even for a nightcap. By the time I’d finished my evening ablutions she was pushing the big zeds – again! Bless!

Thursday 19^th September.

We sat and worked out our first week together’s menu this morning, after the dog walk and joint swim (again). The Red Cross parcel I’d snagged from Dad was going to run out today, so we’d need to restock! I’ll not bother with the details of the shopping [boring really] but suffice to say it took longer than when it was just me who decided what I wanted! We zoomed down to the Hillsborough Morrison’s for the food shop. I haven’t shopped with Laura for food before. She is a nightmare. She kept dropping extra stuff in the trolley, with a “…mmm they look nice,” or “…Oh I quite fancy some of that!!” This morning’s food bill came to £124! I almost dropped through the floor of the shop. To be fair we have planned for up to the following weekend too, so it was bound to be a bigger bill than usual.

From Hillsborough we headed out to Kaybers’ house for a cuppa and gossip. She’d invited us over last night and had her first ultra sound image to show us. [TBH, I couldn’t really see anything but a tiny little blob but I cooed and aahed in the right places.] The Norwegian in-laws were just thrilled by their news, Jan is the first of their brood to produce offspring. They asked her if she still saw much of me and Kaybers was able to inform them that I had become a lesbian! [Well, thanks for that!] Their reaction was, “Oh her poor mother!” Kaybers asked why and they told her that I’d not produce any grandchildren for her. To her credit she was able to tell them that if I wanted to become a mother there was no way that being gay would stop me. That shocked them even more than the homosexuality! I suppose I won’t be getting invited over to Norway any time soon then!

Laura told her that I wasn’t lesbian; I was bi-sexual, because I still fancied men. [How the hell does she know that? I thought I had kept my desires hidden.] It turns out I am not good at hiding my gawping at men but I don’t ogle to women. She is a star, little Loll, isn’t she?

Kaybers is like a dog with a bone sometimes, she wouldn’t let go. “So if Vic wanted sex with a guy would you let her?” [I was thinking, should I just leave them room?] Loll’s reply was “Well…. I suppose I might but I’d have to be allowed to have another woman, too!” I nearly choked on my cup of tea! She just wouldn’t stop though. “Wouldn’t you… you know? Just want to join in too? You and Vic, having sex with a guy… together? Wouldn’t it be exciting?” Laura seemed quite affronted by this, telling K, of course she bloody wouldn’t. She didn’t want a filthy man anywhere near her, thank you very much. It’s a bloody good job we went to different Universities as I could see that Kaybers thought this might have been an interesting proposition. The two of us and one guy. I simply had to stop the conversation going down this route.

“Oh come on, kaybers. We’d never be both satisfied and we may bloody kill him!”

We had a good giggle and thankfully the conversation wandered away from this potentially explosive topic. She asked us where we’d been and Laura launched into a paean about my orgainsing a week’s menu in advance and how she’d never have thought of that; of how my cooking was brilliant and she hoped she wouldn’t put on any weight by living with me. Kaybers said, “Not in the way I am, that’s for sure!”

Phew.

Kaybers rustled up some lunch for us, maybe feeling insulted by Loll’s praise of my culinary abilities? At about three we wandered back to my little house and indulged ourselves somewhat until it was time for me to cook the dinner. A hot mackerel salad, actually – for Loll’s I’d bought some Feta to crumble into it as well.

She was at the restaurant again tonight, so I promised to fetch her in the car rather than walking down, I didn’t want to get her completely worn out after only a few days of living with me. I actually drove the car and Callie down in to the village, parked up by the restaurant and walked roughly the same circuit as I’d done last night, now that the rain had finally passed over, and then we motored back up the hill.

I promised Dominic I’d bring a bottle of Dad’s colleague’s Montepulciano on Saturday night and we’d, all three, have a glass. I am certain I have a couple of bottle left from last year’s vintage. This year’s is probably still on the vine! He said that he’d have a little light snack waiting for me if I did. That’s good. Isn’t it?

Laura wasn’t as tired tonight after work but we just kissed and cuddle together as we couldn’t summon up any more energy; we decided we’d save it for the morning. For before our swim.