Manic Monday – and Tuesday and Wednesday and…

Honestly I just really don’t know where the days, weeks and even months go; it’s clearly not just me that feels like this – as many conversations with friends prove.
I am positive it’s only a few days since the August bank holiday yet here we are almost in October and I’ve a thousand (slight exaggeration) jobs to do in the next few days.

I did have a rather lovely break a week or so ago. Two school-friends and I took a three-day to Herefordshire. We laughed, we chatted, we reminisced, we giggled, we walked, we howled with laughter, we ate and we drank…oh and we slept when we eventually went to bed.

A couple of the stories are, ‘What happens in Herefordshire stays in Herefordshire type of stories’, but suffice to say we had a wonderful time.
Visiting Hay-on-Wye all three of us felt it was just not the shopping experience we would usually enjoy: having to put a mask on (and then take it off to breathe in some fresh air) for every shop just makes shopping no-fun, so we wandered over to the river and walked along the river-bank where some super-duper glamping log-cabins-on-stilts had been erected.

The undulating countryside and sparkling river made for stunning views, albeit it was slightly windy.

Eardisland is a small black-and-white village with some interesting history. By the old Grammar School-house is a whipping-post – imagine children being whipped at school nowadays?? I loved the original AA Box in the village – as a child I used to think they were similar to the ‘Tardis’ which, being a Dr Who fan, I loved! The AA’s very first boxes were erected in 1911 and telephones were installed later. The Eardisland box is the only known surviving pre-war box which was rescued by local AA man Harry Gittoes, who stored it in his garden.

My own garden is in the second stage of redevelopment having had two unattractive large shrubs taken out, more gravel removed, and three huge boxes made by my OH for raised beds in which to grow vegetables.

It’s all very exciting but I’ve certainly given myself a heap more work to do. An old friend of mine, P, has given me some super plants for the shady areas (which I was quite concerned about) so I am looking forward to seeing how they do. His wife, P, who I’ve been friends with since we were around 11 years old gave me a jar of Loganberry Jam in exchange for a jar of my Damson Jam; if you haven’t tried loganberry jam try and get hold of some…it’s lovely!

Fingers crossed I will have a loganberry bush of my own next year provided by the lovely P. I’ve made plum and damson jam this year (the damsons were a swap for some of the dratted gravel I have been giving away) but all the blackberries I picked have been used up in pies or simply eaten with yoghurt.
On that note (kitchen activities) I recently made scones and cake with Gluten-Free self raising flour. What a disaster? The scones hardly rose and according to my granddaughter, Katie, were ‘Hard and not as fluffy as your usual scones’. Yikes! If anyone can enlighten me as to why my baking was so disastrous please let me know…otherwise I will never try gluten-free again! My OH and I both thought the scones reminded of us of the biscuits used in ‘biscuits and gravy’ which we had many years ago when travelling through the USA.

Oh, I am soooooo looking forward to travelling again and hoping that 2021 will allow me to do so.
Hope? It’s Just this Girls thing at the moment because concrete plans are impossible to make!
Hugs
Leigh