Today I shall be Mainly...

[Sue]

Home, 670 miles 14 hours, several stops

[Big Kev]

Hurrah!

[Gloria]

Sit down, feet up, have a drink, and relax, anything else can wait until tomorrow. It must be such a relief to be home.

[Stanley]

I echo Gloria, it must feel great..... So pleased it went well Sue. Now rest and enjoy the warmest day this year at home, 18C forecast.

[Sue]

Morning all hope all is well with you and yours.

Not a lot happened yesterday, like Stanley is always telling me I sat down and did nothing all day with the occasional doze.

I am awake early after 7 solid hours sleep, my hero who drove 670 miles in 14 hours is also awake, french time for exactly 8 weeks does that to you. Ah my hero is moving gone to make a brew, English style. Ie proper tea that brews to a decent colour

First job, 8.00 am phone the dentist., then take the day is it comes, there is a mountain of post. The things to be done can wait awhile.

Its good to be back

Thinking very positive, staying very cheerful, not keeping too busy today but still staying safe and having a really good chill out day ( all after the dentist!)

[Stanley]

Best of luck with the dentist Sue, I don't envy you. Thank God I don't have that problem.....
I'll bet you will be tempted by the fact that we are going to have a good drying day and another tomorrow.

[Stanley]

The shed has got blown away by domestic matters, a little essential shopping and now the washing machine needs emptying. Then there is the small matter of having to walk Jack before Melvyn Bragg and 'In Our Time'. It's all go!

[Sue]

I have been triaged by the dentist, and will get a phone call at 11.15 am. They can’t see me but can give treatment eg painkillers, anti inflammatories, antibiotics. Fingers crossed for something. Seems a little better today. Perhaps I wasn’t clenching my teeth last night.

[Big Kev]

Things are moving Sue, which is good.

[Sue]

Ok long chat (20 minutes on the phone) with the dentist . He thinks I have a nerve dying under one of my fillings, which could lead to an abscess. Ideally I would have the nerve removed and root filling but it is not possible at the moment . He says I have been doing all the right things, rubbing Sensodyne into the gum, paracetamol and saline mouth washes. The symptoms are less severe today so he says it may be working so to carry on as I am but if it gets worse ie swollen face , earache ( which I have today) nasty taste in my mouth to phone back for antibiotics. Lovely man, wish he was my dentist. He is one of the others! We laughed about me trying to explain all of that in french

[Sue]

How nice was that a two hour walk into the hills, a visit to the shop. Met lots of people like us, all social distancing. I wouldn't go in the shop though, dare I say I was afraid. I also felt guilty being out so long and no permit. Bare in mind for 8 weeks I have been behind the garden gate, seen next to no one and apart from two trips to the pharmacist seen no one but our 4 neighbours and children. I could speak and read notices freely not having to translate everything. That was absolutely exhausting at times, especially when it was official notices and paperwork. Its nice to be back, moan all you want but life seems easier here.

[Stanley]

"life seems easier here."
I wouldn't swap it Sue. Glad you had a nice walk, fresh air is the best medicine.
I understand what you say about shops, my attitude is that the earlier you get out there the better because the fewer the people about. Not 100% guarantee but it cuts the odds down.
This dentist problem is serious. It seems to me that anyone with their own teeth is in a worse condition than we were 70 years ago! At least we had a dentist even though they almost always meant pain. Now I hear stories of people pulling their own teeth out. I had an abscess in 1954, it was an impacted wisdom tooth and I still remember the pain so I sympathise with you. Then it entailed 4 days (I think, may have been 5) in hospital and an operation under full anaesthetic, I think actually the length of stay was so I could recover from the gas! Your mention of the taste rings a bell. I hope you get a resolution quickly, it's a miserable condition.
Today I shall definitely be in the shed. No mention of Covid19 or even thoughts of it while I am in there. That in itself is a blessing!

[Sue]

Morning all, hope all is well with you and yours.

I am still waking on french time, well actually earlier, although Bob is a little later. Our bedroom here gets the sunrise, our summer bedroom in France gets the sunset. Thus I have been reading since 5.30 am.

It was a strange lovely day yesterday, even my tooth felt better, although I do have earache.I shall keep up with my personal treatment plan and keep my fingers crossed I am in the 10 %whose condition gets no worse. However I am hoping that the earache is related to the climate up norf, as I am back to blocked nose and sinus issues and sneezing ,none of which I have had for about 5 weeks. I have just gone back a season to my hayfever time!

The mail was not too bad. Our cleaner who had kept an eye on the house for us had sorted it into letters, magazines and adverts. Apart from a couple of phone and bank statements it wasn’t worth reading. We loved our walk in the hills yesterday, by way of a very long detour to our local Tesco and the post office. About 3 miles I suppose. Such freedom. I think we will try and do it often. Our normal casual walks around here are between 4-5 miles usually in quite wild spots although I gather these have got much busier of late, so the 1 km allowed on France was not worth doing, so we didn’t, we got more exercise gardening.

We did a bit of garden tidying here yesterday ie moved pots of dead bulbs to their summer hiding hole, then trimmed back the massively overgrown geraniums in the conservatory. These normally go to France for the summer but this year we we should have a nice display in our garden here. I fed and watered them and put them in the greenhouse. I now have over 30 new geranium cuttings in glasses of water in the conservatory. The rest of the day , apart from one pilates and one yoga session we chilled, having a glass of wine to celebrate our return about 8.30 pm . How nice it was to sit in the conservatory in the sun watching the washing gently blowing in the breeze, and drying soft rather than baking dry and hard on the line in France.

We joined the 8.00 pm clap for the NHS. How nice to see all the neighbours up and down the road clapping and waving. Its a thoughtful and community building expression of peoples thanks, its what makes us British! We saw more people yesterday, and spoke to more people ( from a distance of course) than in the whole of the time since my art class on March 11 th when Bob picked me up to drive to Portsmouth. It was the right decision to stay in France, but it was also the right decision to come home

More of the same today . I shall now finish on a modified daily mantra.

It was

Thinking positive, staying cheerful , keeping busy that helped us stay safe and have the good days that we had. I shall adopt this way of thinking from now on. ( but no longer say it in writing every day)

I have a new one

Keep cheerful everyone, life does get better.

Now have a good VE Day Bank Holiday. Its 75 years today since Mum and Dad got engaged. I found that out reading one of their letters recently.

[Stanley]

Sue, did I hear right? Has Macron abolished the dreaded permits to leave home as soon as he knew you were in the Tunnel?
"Keep cheerful everyone, life does get better."
Exactly, getting gloomy and fratching doesn't help anyone.

[Sue]

Sue, did I hear right? Has Macron abolished the dreaded permits to leave home as soon as he knew you were in the Tunnel?
"Keep cheerful everyone, life does get better."
Exactly, getting gloomy and fratching doesn't help anyone.

Yup, glad we were gone ! Actually french border control was funny. He was sat reading the newspaper, looked up, saw the registration and sort of flicked his hand backwards to go through as he carried on reading the paper.

[Sue]

Actually, joking apart, as expected they have announced new permits from next week !

[Stanley]

Slow progress in the shed yesterday, I shall be in there again today. I'm getting old, things take so much longer but that doesn't matter as long as I can dodge death a bit longer!

[Sue]

Morning all

This morning7.10 am is a much more sensible time to wake up.

After a morning pilates session, yesterday was a day of pottering in the garden, chilling sat in the conservatory with a glass of something, chatting to the neighbours over the fence and going to bed early. I did water the garden thoroughly as it is so dry, so different from the soil in France which was sodden. My neighbour, Sue, gave me some tomato and courgette plants so I have no need to start again. Space is a problem here but we may try to get some grow bags for the greenhouse and put the courgettes in pots outside, after all we will probably be here all summer to water.

The tooth continues to give a problem but I haven’t needed as many painkillers. The earache on the other hand is worse, wether they are related I do not know. I think it is more likely to be hay fever related

Have a good day everyone, keep cheerful, life will get better

[Sue]

So yesterday I spent part of the afternoon sanding and re-oiling the table in the conservatory. It had got water damage from water overflowing from the watering of plants, whilst we were away . I did a pretty good job. Anyway Bob returned with our fresh croissants ( really nice) from our french tutor cum pâtissière who helped us with the translation of the nightmare paperwork . He also took him a bottle of wine in way of thanks. Any way we made posh coffee and sat down to enjoy. I had finished my croissant when I knocked my coffee over. Thinking positive, the coffee didn’t wet the surface of the table, lovely round globules. On the negative side it was all over the floor , up the window frame, round the old cat flap. Well you can’t win them all. I now have had to have another coffee! C’est la vie

[Stanley]

Hard luck Sue, you had the right reaction I think, have another cup of coffee! That's the time when a reflective drag on the pipe comes into its own! I have the same reaction when I cock up in the shed.



No cock up yesterday. Quiet rewarding progress. Nice!



Later at almost 08:00.Hot pot starter kit. Half the fat from last week's gravy and a pound and a half of Shin Beef. All nicely browned and loaded up with parsnips, carrots and sliced potatoes on top. The cast iron casserole will sit in the oven now for over 3 hours at 150C. I think it might be OK! The excess carrots and the cabbage are cooking separately.

[Stanley]

Cooking blew away the shed but today I shall definitely be in there finishing the Con Rod.

[Stanley]

We make progress on Kahara's engine. Lots of fiddly work yet but you can see it emerging! I shall be aiming for the shed toady but need a Pioneer shop for essentials. I am fancying having a break from engine building and doing something that's been nagging me for a while.
Apart from that, maintaining contact with the family and looking after ourselves!

[Tizer]

The engine looks beautiful. Lucky Kahara!

[Stanley]

Thanks Tiz. I quite like the looks of it as well but my problem is I know there is some very demanding work coming and I am going to have a temporary rest by doing something different which has been nagging me for years!
Aiming for the shed this morning, at the moment I can't see any obstacles in my way but then..... I've said that before!

[Tizer]

I'll be carefully reading a local planning application this morning. There's going to be a new housing development built pushing out from our residential area into the adjoining fields. More houses are needed here and it's been known for years that the fields would be built on but the first plans were thrown out due to insufficient affordable housing. Later plans are being scrutinised - developers are trying to take advantage of people being distracted by the covid lockdown. Now there is an application for a foul water pumping station and ancillary buildings for the new development. Residents are up in arms to fight it because it's shown on the plans as not being in the new development but just over the road and up against three of the present houses in our residential area. It's also very close to two stream which converge on their way into the town. It would effectively sit in a triangle bordered on two sides by streams and on the third side by the three houses. The other sides of the proposed housing estate will border fields and the pumping station could have been planned for one of those outward sides instead of the town-facing side. I suspect the developers are trying to avoid having it against the new houses that they want to sell and instead dumping against present houses that are not theirs. Or perhaps I'm just an old cynic!