Lavender

Finn and I went to visit Auntie Ann during our week's holiday - sadly, Richard was at work so we didn't get to see him - and we spent a lovely day sitting in the garden, chatting, having lunch and trying to keep as cool as we possibly could on a sweltering hot day.

Ann and Richard's garden is filled with colour - Auntie Ann has an obsession with painting everything!  And, in fact, was responsible for me painting my own shed blue and white like a beach hut.  At the time, her shed was blue and white - and we actually discovered that I'd managed to pick exactly the same paint shades by very happy accident.  

Ann's now had a garden overhaul and everything is lavender - well, mostly lavender.  There are a few bits that are still blue, but I think (hope!) we've persuaded her to keep them as they are.

My front garden is a mess - it's a huge expanse of concrete and paving slabs and I hate it.   So, while sitting outside chatting with Ann, we've come up with a plan - a few weeks ago, when the girls were doing the London to Brighton walk, Amanda, Ann and I had to meet Shannon at the lavender fields opposite Oaks Park in Surrey and I mentioned then that I loved lavender.   So we devised a way to make my garden look and smell beautiful, attract bees and butterflies, and hopefully provide the raw ingredients for home made lavender bags around Christmas time!   It'll take some time to get things up and running, but, since coming home, I've sown two hundred and fifty lavender seeds, most of which have already sprouted!   I'm hoping to plant up lots of pots which can all be crammed into the front garden (with just a small path left inbetween the pots for me to get the bins in and out).  And, if any die, I can hook that pot out and replant with some more lavender.   I've bought two more packets of seeds to sow a couple of other varieties.   Even if it all comes to nothing, it will leave me happy and hopeful in the meantime.

I should also say that, on the day I visited, Auntie Ann had even coordinated her laundry with the garden!

Box Hill Stepping Stones

Finn and I quite often visit Box Hill on a visit to Surrey for a good run, but, because it's been so hot, we visited the Stepping Stones at the bottom of Box Hill instead.   The River Mole runs along the bottom of the hills and there are plenty of shady places for paddling, swimming and generally taking things nice and easy on a hot day.

I should imagine that, at weekends and school holidays, it's probably heaving here, but we had it almost to ourselves for a few hours.   Finn spent ages swimming while I had a little paddle and enjoyed watching him larking about in the water and playing with the few dogs that we saw.

From the stepping stones, it's a ninety minute walk up to the top of Box Hill so we gave that a miss and meandered instead beside the river.   Lazy!  

I love this photo - it looks for all the world as if Finn is going to dive in!

We went for a walk in the sunshine, but, as it got warmer, we headed back to the stepping stones - which I stepped across.  Finn naturally swam!   It was getting a bit later in the day - nearly to lunchtime - and the car park was getting noticeably busier and families and workers started arriving for picnic lunches.

I think this week has been a lot about visiting old haunts and almost saying goodbye to them - now that Andy is on the move, I wonder when we'll next get back here.   Lovely to say our goodbyes on a beautiful warm summer's day though, and not when it's teeming it down with rain!

Reunion

Mary and I have known each other since we were both seven, which makes us "old friends" - old as in long-standing and not in age - I have actually started to go backwards in age, although Mary has taken great delight in refusing to go along with it!  

Mary and Nigel moved to Dubai eighteen years ago, I think it was - I'm rubbish at dates.   And in that time, Mary and I have seen each other twice - the last time was in 2005 in Dubai and the time before that was in 2000 in the UK when Mary was pregnant with Charlie and Harry and had flown home while she still could. We cannot be accused of living in each other's pockets!

So, when I found out that Mary was coming back to the UK to see Joe and Mary, her parents (my surrogate parents also when I was growing up), at exactly the same time I was staying with Andy at Heathrow, there was only one thing to do.  Abandon Finn and Andy one evening and wend my way over to Waddon, via Wallington, the town I grew up in, to have a reunion.

Oh my gosh, we didn't shut up for the whole time I was there!  It was so lovely to see her - and Mum and Dad, and the boys.   It was a lovely, funny evening - we shrieked with laughter, there were tears, there was lots of sending each other up.   It was like we had never been apart.  The boys, very sweetly, came to sit out in the garden with us - with tea and cake, how civilised! - but, after five minutes of us laughing hysterically at sod all, they soon gave up and went back in to watch TV.  Bless 'em!  

Such a fab evening - I love that we can catch up right back where we did the last time and that we don't have to explain things - we just know each other.  It's perfect.   I'm just hoping we don't wait so long the next time - according to the law of averages, we should be meeting up next in 2020!

Paddock

When I tell people that Andy lives in a paddock, I don't think they really believe me.  Who would?!  But he really does.   There are three (previously five) caravans just outside the paddock fence and Andy's is probably the oldest/ most disreputable looking!   It's done us very well though - prior to setting it up at Heathrow, it served Andy very well at Bedford on his last job.   By my reckoning, he's been living in it for over five years now.  

We recently heard that Andy will be moving to another job at Stratford from 1 September - where he will be working on turning the Olympic Stadium into the new West Ham football ground - although it will have a couple of transitional changes to a World Cup rugby venue, followed by an athletics track.  But it has to be handed over to West Ham in June 2016.   Andy's very excited as he's never worked on a stadium before.

I thought that, as this was potentially my last visit to the caravan, I really ought to take some photos to mark the occasion.  I got quite emotional actually - I've done nothing but moan about it for the past few years, but, now he's got to move, I'm actually quite sad.    I shan't miss Finn chasing the resident cat, Reggie.   Or chasing any other dogs that are about.  The stables owner bawling me out for having no control over Finn at regular intervals.   (She's such a good dog owner though that she had to give away her Jack Russell after only six months as she couldn't cope - so I do feel slightly vindicated, and I've noticed that she hasn't bawled me out as much since!)   I won't miss my anxiety levels rocketing every time Finn goes near the horses, although they're very good and let him play with them.   And I certainly won't miss having to give Finn daily baths because he's rolled in horse shit.  

But I will miss the lovely friends I've made in Stanwell Moor - I always have a lovely welcome when I visit. And I will miss that it's so near to everywhere and that I can go and visit friends and relatives when I'm staying mid week and Andy's working.   I will miss our jaunts into Windsor and our walks along the Thames Path.  

I won't miss the M25 though!

Holiday Randoms - Stanwell Moor

Finn and I are not long back from a week's holiday with Andy in Stanwell Moor.   Andy unfortunately couldn't get any time off work so Finn and I did our own thing each week day and then met Andy in the pub garden each evening after he finished work before heading back to the caravan for tea.  

Apart from the couple of days where we had things planned, we normally got up about six thirty ish/ seven and had breakfast.  Then we sat around and chilled out until nine o'clock at which time we went for a wander over the moor and Finn had a swim.   Any earlier than that and we'd have got caught up with the schoolkids on their way to school.

Then back to the caravan for lunch and to sit outside in the sunshine, until it got too hot.

At which point, we sat inside the caravan until the sun changed position and we could get back outside in the shade again.

I got lots of knitting done during the week - I made three socks!  

It was a really lovely week - probably the most relaxing holiday I've ever had.   We only planned things for a couple of days - I think this might be the way to go with holidays from now on.  We're too old for all this gallivanting around - especially as every trip from Andy's involves a drive on the M25!