And Off We Go Again!

Having got over the party we started getting ready to leave again, we'd planned to go to Mike's Mum's for a few days but as Tuesday progressed and we were doing things like collection prescriptions, stocking up at the shops and tidying from the day before, we found it was getting late and we were both tired, so decided to delay our departure until Wednesday morning.

Two nights with the in-laws and then we back to The Fens, to stay with friends Dave and Bev. A nice relaxing couple of days and we take it in turns to cook dinner. We used the new Mary Berry Cookbook and I did her Spaghetti Bolognese, which unusually has chicken livers in it, which we enjoyed, although I did use red wine, rather than having to buy a bottle of port.

The Saturday we all took a trip to Sandringham, to have a walk around the grounds.

On the way back, we decided to call in to have a look at the former Royal Railway Station at Wofferton. Closed of course, by Dr Beeching. Brave man! Not sure I'd be the one to close the Royal Railway line!

Although the Station is spilt into 4 private houses, the platform is open to the public, with all sorts of memorabilia around and free postcards. Well worth popping in if you are ever in the area.

That night is was my turn to cook dinner and we all relaxed, including Rowley, around the Log Burner.

Home for Easter

And various other reasons.

Firstly my Son and family, who have been living in my house, while we go travelling, was off to Legoland, London and visiting my daughter in law's family down there.

We were needed for cat sitting, as still 6 cats in the house, 3 of mine and 3 of theirs. Sadly, there had been 4 of theirs but the beautiful Arthur, only aged 6, just died in the night back in late March.

Easter Sunday, 20th April is my birthday and so I was having lunch with my Mum, which was lovely but I could only relax a little as the next day, Easter Monday was to be our 30th Wedding Anniversary. It was in fact Easter Saturday when we got married and my birthday that year had been Good Friday.

We'd decided to have an 'At Home' party and with any luck, if the weather was good, we would be in the garden and the little ones would have a Easter Egg Hunt.

But there was an additional element to this party. I previously wrote about my Husband's new half sister, who turned up, out of the blue, nearly two years ago. Mike, as a 12 year old, back in the 1950s, had no idea that his Mother had given birth to a daughter, by his step-father, back in a very difficult time for the family, when his step father had just had a stroke. 

Catherine, or Kate, as she became was adopted from birth. Kate had written to her birth Mother, who said she didn't wish to have contact and Kate has stuck by her wishes.

However, after finding out she had siblings, she decided she would trace them and although a shock, we are very pleased she did.

The difficulty now is Mike & Kate's Mum is in her 90s and we don't want to upset her by letting her know that we know her secret. If it were my Mum, I would tell her that I know but Mike won't, so we'll let if rest there.

But, the exciting part of our party is, Kate was coming and for the first time would meet her niece and nephew and their children, plus my own extended family because we don't do any sort of division here, my children and my sister and her partner and his children, are just one big family.

It went just as I hoped, there were a few tears, we all laughed about how much Sue looked like her Auntie Kate and the children hunted, found their eggs and had a great time.

My ideal would be for Mike's Mum to know that we know about Kate and for her to meet her younger daughter, as she can't have too many years left but that is how it is and I must a accept it.

An Evening in Bath

The funny thing is, since we had The Goddess, we have seen more of eldest daughter, Sue, in Bath, than we had in the previous 6 years.

After Mike was kicked out of the BBC at the age of 60, because they could then, he was forced into working freelance, which meant we were having to survive on about half the pay for work he could actually get and he had take take everything that was offered him. The end result was, he was mostly working weekends and seeing family that lived away was impossible, as of course they had work and school in the week.

If have kept this to myself for 9 years but after the work Mike did for his Radio Station in all the years he was Staff which was enormous, this was shameful. He never took time off, unlike some. If the weather was bad and other presenters couldn't get in, he'd just carry on, for hours, until someone got there. He'd been assured by the Station Manager at the time that although he wouldn't be Staff he would still have a job when he reached 60. 

That wasn't exactly true. With five years to go to his State Pension and a BBC Pension that was less than half of his BBC Salary, he was taken off the hugely successful Breakfast programme and given one programme a week, The Gardening Show. 

Ironically, the Breakfast Programme was given to someone, who has managed to massively, nay, enormously, reduce the listening figures and he's still doing it!

Anyway, having got that off my chest, we went to stay with Sue for the third time in 8 months. Wonderful!!

She had said we'd get a takeaway as she was working but changed her mind and we popped out and bought some huge sirloin steaks, salad and I bought our first Jersey Royals of the year. That girl really knows how to cook. She was even offered a place in Masterchef for this year but as her youngest daughter would have been going off to University during filming and we know she will be heartbroken to have both daughters leave home, she decided to turn her place down. Maybe next year.

Their house is high on a hill above Bath and there is a large stately home type place behind them, which is presently a school. Often Deer come over the fence into the garden. We didn't see any Deer but we did see two foxes, who are regular visitors, much to the annoyance of the dogs.

Next morning we set off for home, knowing we would be seeing Sue and all her family again on Easter Monday, as we were having a family party and there was a special reason as to why there was a three line whip, for the grandaughters to be there to
  

Accidental photo of the 'Nigella' in the family, in her lovely kitchen.

 

Breakfast on the Beach

The next day, Sunday, was our last day in this leg of our tour. The following day we were to head home, spending Monday night at our daughter's house in Bath and arriving home on Tuesday. We were due back home then to house-sit and pet watch as our son and family, who have been living in our house since September were heading off to Legoland and London for a few days.

Sunday morning dawned bright, if a little breezy and we were planning to cook breakfast, when I suddenly thought, how nice it would be to cook breakfast on the beach and the beauty of the The Goddess and this particular beach was, I could drive her down the road and park right on the edge of the beach, where I could cook and spend as much of the day as we wanted, with our home and the dog with us.

It was a brilliant idea, one I liked even more when we found both parking ticket machines were broken, so we didn't have to pay the £6 day charge!

It was an excellent day.

 Starting to cook breakfast

 View out of the door

 Mike waiting for his breakfast. The black on the beach seems to be some sort of storm defence thing, it's a strong black plastic, which has got rather ripped up over the winter. I hope they are going to remove it.

 The Goddess enjoying the view

Later in the afternoon we went back to the sit to relax, while dinner cooked 

Then in the evening, we were treated to a beautiful Lunar display over the sea.

Birthday Dinner

The day following our very long walk we didn't feel like doing much and so we didn't. In fact we did virtually nothing at all and our sunburnt faces didn't feel like being out in the daylight too much either.

We'd booked ourselves a table in the Tower Inn in Slapton village, so just a short walk in the evening. This was my birthday dinner, as we knew on the actual weekend, we were going to be very busy.

Lovely old pub, parts of which date back to the 14th Century and a cosy fire, as the evening was still pretty cool, although my glowing face wasn't aware of that. Good food, so it was a lovely relaxing evening.

 This Scotch Egg Starter was just divine!

The cosy corner we sat in

Who needs a torch to get back to the Site with that glowing face.

Mad Dogs & Englishmen

Slapton saw by far the best weather on our trip to date, although there was still a cool wind.

I fancied a walk from Slapton, through Bee Sands, to Hall Sands. It didn't look too far and there were one or two pubs and cafes halfway along. The sun had come out but the wind was keeping the temperature quite low but before we'd walked for an hour, we realised it was getting quite a bit warmer. 

There was evidence of the Winter storms on our way.

With hindsight, we should have stopped at Bee Sands, had a drink and gone back to Slapton but we didn't, we plodded on across sand, up steep cliff paths and down the other side, for the distance, it was taking far longer than we'd expected.

When we finally reached Hall Sands we had been walking for two and a half hours, which meant this was going to be a five hour walk. On the way back the tide had come in and for one dreadful moment we thought we would have to go back and climb another cliff path but thankfully, with careful timing, we just made it around the cliff, in-between waves.  

Before we got back to the Site, we had a much needed pint.

And saw a beautiful trio of Swans fly by.

It was a lovely walk but not one I'm in a hurry to repeat!