New flooring; long distance walkers; breakdown cover

New hallway flooring and built in mat area

As of January this year, we have super new flooring in the living room and hallway at the house (and the same purchased for the dining room, though not laid as yet). We’ve subsequently moved Ruth’s bookcase into the living room and I have to say it does round off the room quite nicely. We managed to have a bit of a purge of books and a consignment of some others to the attic. Spirited little Harley has now mastered the new flooring and is able to come skipping into the living room of an evening, though Catherine Howard hasn’t.

In January, went on my first walk with the Beds, Bucks and Northants section of the Long Distance Walkers Association, after joining on Matthew’s recommendation and in a fit of New Year enthusiasm. Mustered with Hai, Matthew and a cluster of LDWA members (a few around my age, but most of them older) in the car park of The Caldecotte on a particularly awful morning of cold sleety rain. The walk leader had changed the route on account of the weather, so in the end we ended up going for a walk up around Caldecotte and Willen Lakes and Campbell Park – pleasant, though mainly territory that I know quite well already so perhaps not as interesting as it could have been.

The weather got progressively worse as the walk went on, becoming a semi-blizzard at one point. We huddled in a bandstand by Willen Lake to eat our sandwiches. Was glad of the flask of hot tea I’d brought with me. A brisk pace was set by the group members; I certainly felt well exercised afterwards. Total distance 14 miles.

Mustering at the start. Me third from left

Lunchtime sleet

 By the MK Rose. Me centre of pic with red rucksack. Think that was Hai on the left

Our group in Campbell Park. Me second from right

Walk route, showing start and end by Caldecotte Lake

Being a cautious type, have had breakdown cover for all of my driving life, albeit some of it as an extra name on Ray’s cover. Always with the AA until this year, when Ruth persuaded me that the AA was expensive and I should shop around. Indeed the renewal quote I got was quite expensive, but with hindsight what I should have done was phone them assertively and ask if they could do me a better offer. However, didn’t do this and Ruth found me a – certainly much cheaper - quote from Green Flag via a price comparison site, which I took up, albeit with some reservations about how many vans Green Flag actually have, whether they are indeed a proper breakdown service etc etc.

Having done the above, irony happened. A week before my AA cover was due to expire, I had occasion to call the AA. Started to back out of parking space at the OU and immediately suspected that all was not right with the car on account of the loud banging coming from its front end. After attempting to inspect car myself for trapped branches etc, gave up and used the AA’s delightful app to report a breakdown. How much simpler is that than in the old days, when you had to ring and attempt to explain where you were (well, and find a phone as the first step, in my earlier driving days). Got a pretty much immediate response from the app to say someone was on their way, and was able to track the progress of the AA vehicle from its starting point (somewhere near Bradwell Abbey) to where I was. AA man quickly diagnosed a broken nearside suspension (coil) spring and informed me that it was “a recovery job”.

Quite a long wait subsequently for the recovery vehicle, though once he'd arrived the nice driver did allow me to sit in his cab to warm up. Warned me that the hooking up of my car and towing it to the garage of my choice was going to be a slow process, so left him with my keys and called a taxi home.

Called Anglos the following morning to double-check that they did indeed have my car. The resulting bill to replace the spring was around £120, which I didn't consider too bad. Have actually never had to be towed before, so not bad going over the course of c. 30 years. The AA man theorised that broken springs are often caused by speed humps, though I blame all the damn potholes.

After this positive eleventh hour experience with the AA, am now with Green Flag. Huh. Thankfully the car has been fine so far, but my experience of GF has already been tainted due to the fact that, as I took out my cover via a price comparison site, I don't have access to the Green Flag smartphone app. As I had been considerably impressed by my first use of the AA's app, this is extremely annoying. Haven't quite decided whether to cancel my cover and crawl back to the AA.

Rundown of September

Started September by booking two cottages at the Low Briery park near Keswick for a family holiday next April. Hurrah. Lake District here we come. Don't think I've been since we had a family week there in 2005, which seems a long time really. On that holiday it rained quite a lot and Hannah and I spent quite a bit of time watching episodes of Dallas on DVD.

Booked the day off on Friday 1st for a day out with Mum and Hannah in London to see the Giacometti exhibition at Tate Modern. Mum and Dad had stayed overnight in London the night before and seemed to have enjoyed themselves, things only being marred by Dad wearing some ill-advised sharp shoes that had given him blisters. He was off to the Geological Society on the Friday; Mum, Hannah and I met near the Millennium Bridge where Mum lightened her own bag by offloading a jar of crab apple jelly onto each of us. Mum had also evidently been accosted by some people filming an ad for Galaxy chocolate, and been given several free bars.

The exhibition was crowded but interesting. After taking this selfie in the turbine hall we went for lunch at a nearby Carluccio’s, after which Hannah left us to go and see a friend elsewhere in London and Mum and I walked around for a bit, having a look at the new extension from the outside.

Went over to Gail and Rob's house on Saturday 3rd for little Emily's second birthday tea party. Small gathering of only us plus Rob's nice father Brian. Emily is an outrageously cute child with a mop of blonde hair. Amused to see that she is now speaking a few words, including "More icing, Dad".

As part of ongoing quest to find a suitable hearth, or a piece of stone that could be fashioned into a hearth, I drove Ruth out to a stone merchants’ near Basingstoke on the afternoon of the 8th. We stopped off at The Vyne on the way to have lunch and make some use of our National Trust cards. Had a walk around the walled garden which had a gorgeous bed of pompom dahlias. The house is under scaffolding at the moment as there seems to be a major roof project underway.



Then found our way to stoneCIRCLE where Ruth spent some time in the yard browsing offcuts, seemingly mainly from kitchen worktops. Some discussion with the saleswoman followed but we didn’t end up actually ordering anything.

Managed to mess up our visit to the London 'Open House' weekend this year, entirely through not being sufficiently organised. Firstly, we were too lazy to stir ourselves on the Saturday morning and postponed our visit to the Sunday, thereby missing the chance to view Goldfinger's Haggerston School in Hackney, which I had been interested in seeing. When we arrived at Reading station on the Sunday morning, it turned out there were no trains running between Reading and Paddington because of line works, so we had to travel in to Waterloo instead, which, if you're unlucky (we were) takes almost three times as long.

On arrival, we headed over to Regent's Park to visit the Royal College of Physicians, though on arrival we discovered that the building is actually open to the public most days throughout the year. We signed up for a tour of the building and gardens, which was quite interesting though the tour guide was a bit over-theatrical for my taste.



We then took the bus to Hackney intending to see a few things there, but lost some enthusiasm after an interminable circa 24-stop bus journey. Queued for a while to see a wooden eco-house whose name I've forgotten, behind a bickering family of four whose bickering then descended into a brawl between the father and his teenage son. We went off the whole idea after that and took the bus back to Islington, where we had beer and crisps in The York. We should have focused on one borough and a handful of properties within easy reach of each other, but we never quite seem to manage to do that.

On the following Monday, my colleague Galina saw fit to share that she'd managed to visit four Open House properties with her daughter, in between taking her son to the junior parkrun and seeing a show. Some people are just made of sterner stuff.

On the 22nd we hosted Book Group at the house, to discuss Ruth's book choice 'Exposure' by Helen Dunmore. Quite an easy read; background of Cold War, spies etc. Of the four regular attendees who might have come, two were away but Ali and Lesley managed to make it. Ruth had tackled a new recipe involving halloumi-stuffed meatballs in a chermoula sauce - the preparation involved some ridiculously middle-class bleating over the phone about how the Caversham Waitrose were out of chermoula. Luckily I did an emergency chermoula run to the bigger MK Waitrose and managed to get some. We served polenta as an accompaniment, which I'd only attempted to prepare once before and been slightly bemused by. It was OK. By the following day it had become a shiny bouncy lump as per the photo. We marvelled at it for a while, prodding it at intervals. I eventually cut off a couple of slices and fried them as a dinner accompaniment - OK but I can't say I'd go a long way to seek it out.

Ray came up to MK to visit me on the 27th and we went for dinner again at the Antep Kitchen over the road from Tesco. Busy and humming, as per the last time.

Went down to Abergavenny the last weekend in September, stopping on the way at Westbury Court Garden, to make yet more use of our NT cards. I'd located it on the map as being reasonably conveniently located en route - the blurb claims it's the finest example of a
Dutch-style water garden in the country. It turned out to be a small place (euphemism for the fact that it didn't have a tea room, which we were a bit disappointed about, though I think the lady at the admissions hut might have been selling KitKats) but it's a dear little formal garden with some eye-catching planting.

Cone-shaped trees	One of the canals
Prettiness	Reputedly the oldest evergreen oak in England

Tai Chi; taking up floorboards

Started a weekly beginners' Tai Chi class in September, run by the lovely David who has, apparently, been teaching Tai Chi in Wolverton since 1983. Blimey. The form we are learning is apparently the Long Yang form - similar to the form this chap’s doing, though I’m not sure it’s exactly the same. Here’s a clip of David himself doing part of the routine, presumably in his garden. David learned Tai Chi from Gerda Geddes, apparently more or less the first Tai Chi teacher in the UK. Geddes, a trained dancer, apparently came across Tai Chi in China in the late 1940s. An interesting red herring is that, in addition to dance, Geddes had apparently also worked with Wilhelm Reich, he of the Orgone accumulator.

As a not-originally-planned part of renovating the living room, Ruth has recently completed taking up all the floorboards in the living room and hallway, putting down insulation and replacing the floorboards with chipboard. We briefly considered trying to retain the original floorboards but they’re not a complete set as some have been replaced with newer board over the years, added to which some had woodworm. So we’re considering selling them – seemingly they can fetch a bit. Ray helped out as part of an exchange of labour he and Ruth have worked out, though he lent expertise and tools as well as labour. We took him for dinner at The Crown at Playhatch a couple of weeks ago as additional payment.

Ruth's first checking out of the floorboards, observed by Beau

Ray's car stuffed with insulation

Hallway partway through

Living room partly done

Rug

The inevitability of not actually finishing the living room before Christmas (artfully predicted by me some time ago) is upon us. We want to get Chris from Alldec back to do the painting, as we were impressed with his work last time, but he isn’t available until the new year. To increase cosiness until the new flooring is put down, we’ve brought a rug of Ruth’s down from the attic. I’d never seen it as it’s been rolled up since she moved in, but it’s actually quite nice. Ruth is a big fan of Persian-style rugs, which I can take or leave.

We were given some quails' eggs recently by Gail, who has started keeping quail. One has, sadly, been lost to one of their cats, but Ruth and I viewed the others at Emily's recent birthday party. I fried two of the eggs for breakfast on some sourdough bread.



To finish, a couple more snippets from the OU noticeboard:

 

June musings

June mixed and rainy so far. Some impressive rainfall in Milton Keynes lately, accompanied variously by thunder and flash-flooding, with inevitable long traffic jams. An entire stretch of grid road was closed last week due to flooding – bizarre.

Well, today is EU referendum day. Headed to Milton Keynes Christian Foundation this morning to vote, half expecting a long queue, but there was only one person ahead of me. Perhaps they were all biding their time until later. As a memento of this historic day, here's Google's reminder:

Looking back to the previous entry: the damp treatment to the living room external wall did indeed delay the living room project a bit, though it has been delayed longer than necessary by a) the fact that it’s us; b) our plasterer Mark has been injured, plus is also in the process of moving to Norfolk. Tried to think quickly what else we might need plastered before he goes. The damp treatments were carried out by a very nice man (whose name I've forgotten) from Thames Valley Preservation Ltd. Luckily I don't think we're afflicted by wood boring insects, but we know who to go to if and when.

As of last week the rest of the plastering is now done. As, after much to-ing and fro-ing, Ruth decided against installing a woodburning stove (for which I am profoundly thankful – had had visions of being obliged to strip down to underwear in order to sit comfortably in the living room), we got the inside of the fireplace plastered as well, which looks dead smart. It was still a bit damp when Ruth took this picture to send me, but the idea's there.

Next job is painting: I agreed a while ago to have a colour other than white (my default) on the living room walls, as Ruth thought a darker colour would look cosier (can’t decide whether to file the notion of ‘cosy’, along with ‘character’, in my list of poisoned interior decorating concepts). However, inevitably, it’s been a job fixing on one: I agreed to a tasteful earth tone, following which Ruth changed her mind and tried to sell me on slate grey, which I was initially doubtful about but which have now come round to, with the inevitable result that she’s now changed her mind and is trying to argue for a darkish blue. I don’t care for blue as a decorating colour, but am inclined to agree to it just in the interests of getting the job done – and also because the trade off is (and I'm recording this in writing) that I get sole choice over the dining room décor.

Our planned whole week boat trip next week has been scaled down, largely because Ray is understandably behind with his refurb due to having to work lots of weekends recently. His employer Lawrence has decided to sell his house near Hurley and move to Poole, so there has been lots to do prepping the property for any interested viewers who can afford five million pounds. Ruth and I went over a few Saturdays ago to visit his place of work and admire the immaculate gardens. Here he is in a couple of poses on the property. The plan is for him to work on the boat Saturday through to Tuesday and for us to go out up the Thames (as opposed to along the Kennet & Avon) for a few days from Wednesday.

Ruth and I went up to London on Saturday morning to visit a few places as part of Open Garden Squares weekend (photos here). Arrived a bit later than we intended as we discovered on arrival at Reading station that all the fast trains to Paddington appeared to be cancelled, presumably connected to Thursday's derailment. We duly got on a slow train, which took about an hour, and were surprised to be passed en route by several fast trains. Pondered deceitful nature of Reading’s departure screens.

After breakfast at Carluccio’s we took the Jubilee Line south from Baker Street to Canary Wharf to visit the roof garden at Crossrail Place that was opened in 2015 (the planting's now a good deal lusher than in the photos in the link).

Roof garden at Crossrail Place

We retraced our steps one stop on the tube to Canada Water, where we emerged into a part of London new to both of us and attempted to find Lavender Pond Nature Park, another garden on the route, apparently built on the site of a pond that was used for floating timber when the docks were active in that area (I didn't know anything about the Surrey Commercial Docks, but there's some blurb here.) After what seemed like a lot of walking through housing developments, we did eventually locate it, though it was a bit underwhelming – but in fairness it looked like there was some work going on to the boardwalks.

View towards Canary Wharf

From there we walked to join the Thames Path and looked at the river for a bit, all looking splendidly choppy and tidal. Looked across the river to Limehouse and kind of hoped that Ray doesn’t ever attempt to take his narrowboat out on to the river there, though I know you can only do it at certain times of day and accompanied by a pilot etc etc.

We walked westwards along the river for a bit towards the Brunel Museum, which has a garden that was also part of the weekend. On the way, passed one of the quite attractive little round brick buildings (one of two, I believe) housing the now-closed spiral staircases leading down into the Rotherhithe Tunnel. Apparently pedestrians can still walk through the tunnel, though I can’t imagine it’s too pleasant - see these blog entries here and here.

The final garden we visited ended up being the Garden Barge Square at Downings Roads Moorings. An amazing place - they claim to be London's only floating gardens. Access was a bit blustery and wobbly - we were warned by the guides to hold onto the railings - and the walkways are so narrow that more time was spent trying to avoid other people than actually looking at the planting.

View across the Garden Barges

We took the train back to Reading after two slow bus journeys back from the Tower Bridge area to Paddington - we had the bad luck to get on two buses in succession that both announced changes of destination en route. Once back in Reading, we went for dinner at ASK Italian where they seem to now serve half bottles of wine in these adorable little round carafe things.


The OU noticeboard continues periodically to amuse, in a cheap and childish sort of way:

January round-up

Ruth's birthday on 3 January ended up being a bit understated as we were still stripping wallpaper. We had booked to go to dinner at Myalacarte, but cancelled in the end so that we could continue stripping longer and not have to finish early to wash, don frocks etc. I think we had a Domino’s pizza. The glamour.

Also on 3 Jan we dropped off Harley for a week’s stay at Reading Rabbit Rescue in order that he’d be out of the plasterer’s way (being a bit too prone to showing interest and hopping about dangerously under people’s feet). Sandra again raised the question of whether we were intending to get another companion for him, and we raised concerns that she’d have to be a female who wouldn’t bully him and banish him from the ground floor as per Willow. Sandra then, quite kindly, voiced her opinion that Harley is “a little bit of a sex pest”, and that some of his rougher treatment by females might essentially have been asked for. We felt similarly to how parents must feel who have been claiming to the headteacher that their child is being put upon by other children, only to be told their child is in fact a bit of a sod. Sandra mooted the idea of possibly pairing Harley with a younger female who had been neutered early, the theory being that such a female would not achieve full typical female dominance, unlike a female such as Willow who had come to full maturity prior to being spayed. Sandra did show us a few young females she had in, who were indeed cute, but Ruth was undecided so we didn’t push it. As at the time of writing she appears still undecided.

I returned to work on 4 January leaving Ruth in the company of Mark the plasterer. Returned home on 8 January to attend a hospital gynaecology clinic appointment, at Townlands Hospital in Henley. I was mildly surprised to discover Townlands was even still open, but indeed it is and appears to be undergoing a major refurb. The clinic – along with a few other clinics – was operating out of a portacabin, but the receptionist and other staff appeared to be coping admirably. Spent a mere 15 minutes or so with the consultant, Miss Vijayanand, who has referred me for another hysteroscopy under general anaesthetic, currently scheduled for 22 February. Apparently I also had the previous one in 2009 under her team, though I think I must have seen her underlings on that occasion.

Lodge of Friar Park with blue sky behind

The day of my appointment at Townlands was a gorgeous wintry morning such as we have had precious few of this winter. Stayed in Henley for a while after the appointment, going for an initial short walk, then for a second breakfast at Patisserie Valerie, then for a second slightly longer walk, by which time the day was dulling a bit. Enjoyed walking around Henley again though. Strange to imagine that I lived there now – seems such a long time ago. Tempus fugit, etc.

River near Marsh Lock

Mark has, as ever, done a beautiful job of plastering, though with the teensy hitch that the living room external wall appears to have a damp problem, which he reckoned we should get sorted before he plastered it. He gave Ruth contact details for two damp specialists, one of whom we now have a quote from. Slightly tedious as the necessary treatment of removing the existing plaster and applying whatever medication is required will delay the living room project for a while.

Still, here's the living room chimney breast, pre-plastering on the left and post-plastering on the right. The debate over whether or not to install a wood-burning stove (or, in our case, smokeless fuel-burning stove) is still ongoing, with me maintaining that the room is far too small, I hate the faux country cottage look and the house isn't cold enough, plus it would mean displacing Herbert, our dead classy Buddha head, while Ruth maintains that real fires are cosy and apparently I Just Don't Do Cosy. This usually leads to me countering that she doesn't understand tidy and clutter-free, and things descend from there. I have, in fact, given in on this one, in the interests of stopping having conversations about it, and said that she can have a woodburner installed provided she pays for it. To date, the process of choosing one is still ongoing though.


Prior to plastering, Ruth and I briefly considered trying to remove the hallway and living room radiators ourselves and duly watched a couple of YouTube ‘how to’ videos. Realised we needed shut-off caps for the TRVs, and tried to find the ones we’d presumably been given at the time the radiators were fitted. Couldn’t find them – Ruth has a nasty feeling she may have chucked them. Went to Screwfix to try to buy some more, but bought the wrong size. Eventually Ruth cracked and rang Aqua-King, the company who fitted both our boiler and the radiators, to come and take them off at the same time as doing a boiler service. They did, didn’t have the right cap and managed to flood the living room carpet. FFS. We might as well have tried it ourselves.

As a belated 50th birthday present for Ray, Ruth and I bought him a little fan that sits on top of his stove and blows warm air from the stove around the boat. I’d never heard of these and was a bit sceptical, but he seemed pleased with it claiming that he has heard good things about them from other boaters. He called later the day we delivered it to say that his bedroom appeared warmer than usual, so there we are. Here he is sticking his fingers in it, in possibly ill-advised fashion.

As of January, Ruth and I have taken out a joint membership of the National Trust, at my suggestion – she is considerably less enthusiastic about it and considers it a mark of staid middle-age. I pointed out that Hannah and Henry are NT members, but not sure this was regarded as a particularly convincing argument. Our membership came with a free gift of an absurdly tiny pair of binoculars, seen here next to a biro. We haven’t yet attempted to use them to spot any birds through - indeed I am not a natural bird-spotter, being far too impatient - but perhaps that may come. Eager to make a start at using our membership, I drove us to our nearest NT property, Greys Court, an attractive Tudor house between Reading and Henley, on Saturday 16th. We didn't go into the house, preferring a walk around the grounds as it was a beautiful day. The house doesn't have extensive parkland but has some attractive walled gardens, though they were naturally looking a bit understated in mid-January. Ruth is keen to return later in the spring to see the walled gardens again, which I am regarding as a first minor NT success. Now, of course, we just have to make good use of our membership by going to loads more properties.

Greys Court

Day in London with Ruth on Saturday 23rd. Caught the 205 over to the Old Street area and called first on Ruth’s intermittent boss Patrick and his girlfriend Barbara, who live in a flat on one of the side streets off Old Street. Patrick was Ruth’s line manager during her stint at HCT Group and, coincidentally, is again managing her during her current contract with Voiceability. Patrick – an American, though evidently something of an Anglophile – seems a very nice chap; indeed I have since taken to checking that Ruth is being nice to him, to a point where she may be regretting having introduced us.

Tea at Barbican Kitchen

After leaving their flat we made our way over towards the Barbican, via lunch at The Iskele on Whitecross Street. Lunch was underwhelming and somewhat indigestible – though perhaps I just chose the wrong thing – but we did like the décor with the lovely coloured lanterns.

We had gone to Barbican to see the exhibition ‘The World of Charles and Ray Eames’, though in the event we bodged it a bit – after paying the £14.50 to get in, we managed to fail to notice that the exhibition had a whole upper floor, so only got about half of our money’s worth. What we saw was interesting, though not all very accessible to people not already pretty expert on the Eameses and their activities. Ruth's and my knowledge of them pretty much extended to the famous lounger, so I was interested to see the photos of the houses they'd been involved in building, including their own. By the time we’d made it through the ground floor rooms we were, admittedly, flagging a bit – possibly due to lunch – and went for a cup of tea at Barbican Kitchen, before returning to Paddington via a brief visit to Heal's and Habitat on Tottenham Court Road.

January ended on a sad note with Uncle Dan’s death on 19th, followed by attendance at the funeral on Friday 29th at Westerleigh Crematorium. As I had already arranged to visit Mum and Dad for the Saturday and Sunday, took the Friday off work and incorporated this into the weekend. Set off, as often happens, rather later than I intended so having to abandon my tentative plan of visiting a National Trust property en route to start getting my money’s worth. The crematorium thankfully proved easy to locate, being not far from junction 18 of the M4. Met up with the parents, Dave, Hazel, Hannah and Henry, and we lurked in an ante room until Uncle Dan’s wife Jean and my cousins Owen and Robyn, plus their partners, joined us.

The short service featured two hymns, Lord of all Hopefulness and Cwm Rhondda – as Dan’s family had kept the numbers to immediate family only (in fact Dad had been obliged to check with Robyn that his offspring were actually invited) we only filled the first two rows, so the pallbearers filed into the row behind to flesh out the singing. This was a good thing though a little startling, and I had to struggle not to meet Hannah’s eyes at points or there would have been a risk of inappropriate sniggering. After the service, Jean and the others vanished to a nearby pub, and as only Mum and Dad had been officially invited to join them, the rest of us hung around briefly not too sure whether we should go along – eventually we decided against it and Dave, Hazel and I drove to a pub we’d passed on the way in and had a drink there.

After we parted I headed for the Premier Inn at Cribbs Causeway, where I had booked Ruth and myself in for the night, and successfully arrived with only minimal veering wildly across lanes waving at other drivers. I had arranged to pick Ruth up from Bristol Parkway and chose that evening to experiment with the satnav facility of Google Maps. As satnavs tend to do, it chose a route that was probably the most direct but not necessarily the easiest to someone not familiar with the city – the journey of what can only have been a few miles took me what seemed like a good 20 minutes of missing a crucial slip road and carrying on towards the centre of Bristol, finding somewhere to turn round and then doing the whole thing again, not helped by darkness and heavy rain. On about the third attempt I managed to be in the correct lane to take the slip road and sometime later actually managed to pull into the station forecourt, where I erroneously turned into the taxi rank, to immediate protest from taxi drivers, left and pulled into the bus station, yelling at Ruth – whom luckily I had spotted – to hurry up and get in. Left the station possibly on two wheels and managed to retrace the route back to the hotel, where I calmed down after a large glass of wine. We ate dinner in the hotel restaurant due to the rain and lack of familiarity with our surroundings.

The following morning we drove to the nearby Portway Park and Ride and took the bus into the city centre, where I went to meet Hannah for coffee and Ruth stayed on the bus as far as Cabot Circus for a spot of shopping. Spent a pleasant couple of hours with Hannah at the Boston Tea Party on Whiteladies Road, before walking back down into the city and locating Ruth in Waterstones. Headed to Abergavenny around midday and spent the afternoon at Mum and Dad’s – the plan had been for the four of us to have dinner at Abergavenny’s new branch of Prezzo on the Saturday evening, but Ruth managed to contract some sort of 24-hour stomach bug and ended up staying in the house, so Mum, Dad and I went on our own. Restaurant was certainly busy that evening so I hope it does well.

We got this flyer through the door recently from the estate agents Philip Baker. Personally I would be hoping to get a bit more than that for the house. Think this may need some re-wording.