This June...

At the end May we were away flying to Chicago from Heathrow just after the Bank holiday, and my plan was to stay off socials pretty much, which with the time difference was a good call. It meant that in the run up to our break I was busy getting ahead of myself and scheduling blog posts for the duration of our trip. Staying off socials meant that I didn’t want to include details of the trip in my May update, but I’m happy to do that now.

USA baby

We flew to Chicago spending four nights there exploring both the city and the nature it offered. My highlights here were the boardwalks by the Lincoln Park Zoo, trying (and being beaten) by a Chicago Deep Dish pizza in the city of its name, and a fabulous birthday meal at Gibson’s Chicago Steakhouse. Next we took an Amtrak train across to Seattle, this epic adventure took 2 days and 2 nights, and while it wasn’t exactly luxury it was a great experience.

We spent four nights in Seattle - my best moment was our visit to the Dale Chihuly exhibition and gardens in the grounds of the Space Needle, truly, truly amazing. I’ve so many more pictures to share from this, and the whole trip, but here’s a teaser:

And Canada too

Then we were back on the Amtrak, this time taking a much shorter journey across the border to Vancouver for another four nights. Here we met up with MOH’s cousin and her family; we haven’t seen them for far too many years and it was great to spend time with them. There was lunch, brunch and another lunch out and a seaplane trip for some, and a good old natter and catch up for others.

We stayed in English Bay, a very chill part of Vancouver which was even busier than usual as a lot of Canadians seemed to be staying home rather than heading over the border this year, and the high unexpected temperatures. Luckily we’d packed for all eventualities, but we were close to running out of our more summery clothes - which is far better than not having the opportunity to wear them at all.

We celebrated our eighteenth wedding anniversary while in Vancouver, and to mark the occasion we hired bikes and did a couple of laps around Stanley Park. A couple of laps was unintentional, but we hadn’t realised that the path was one way, so once we’d found the Totem Poles we decided to just go around again. That worked out well as we realised when we stopped just how warm it was - and don’t worry, I’d hired an e-bike so it really was fine by me.

Actually the e-bike worked out well - picture the Canadian equivalent of a Boris bike and you’re close to the model I had, and even that meant I enjoyed the ride much more than on a manual bike, so it’s something I’m seriously considering now we’re home.

Hot, hot, hot

It seems the unexpected heat came home with us as we walked back into a heatwave when we got off the plane at Heathrow, and there’s been another one this past weekend. It has been very warm, and uncomfortable - but strangely very windy too.

That first weekend we were back we headed off to Gardeners’ World Live in Birmingham (#Ad - I was invited to and provided with a pair of tickets for the show) visiting on the last day of the show for the first time. Given the scarcity of public transport options here on a Sunday morning I drove there in my new car - my first long drive, and that was great as it really gave me the opportunity to get used to it. Which seems a strange thing to say as although it’s the same make and model as my previous car, this one’s a hybrid - and I must say, I’m loving the petrol consumption and efficiency.

Wildly blissful

I’ve also spent the last week on the month at home alone, and it’s been bliss. I’ve had things planned in most days and I’ve kept myself busy, even starting my Essex Linen kisses quilt - more on that tomorrow. MOH has spent the week in Ireland cycling parts of the Wild Atlantic Way with some of his cycling buddies, and while the timing has been a bit of ‘everything all at once’, to be honest I’m surprised they managed to make it happen at all.

The weather there was more in keeping with what you’d imagine from a route with wild in its name, with temperatures a good ten degrees below those here. He told me that everything he took was damp, and needs drying out, so you can imagine how much I was looking forward to that when he got home!

In more mundane news, I’ve got the right sized olive tree for my large pot - but I don’t think I have enough soil to fill the pot, and so far nothing has come of my post in the local Facebook groups, so it’s likely that we’ll be off to the garden centre again soon.

Post-holiday food shopping really is dull, though the offer on a favourite Rose wine sweetened the trip a little. The heat pump was serviced, and a small leak was eliminated. MOH’s been to see a chiropractor, which seems to be doing the trick, I’ve had my annual health check - and passed (I think!), and treated myself to a luxurious 90 minute massage, and I’ve been along to a new-to-me DanceFit class, as sadly while I was away my regular Zumba class ended. I’m very sad about that.

But the best thing about being back?

Finally, a decent cup of tea, how I missed a cuppa while I was away!

If you want to read my previous monthly updates in my ‘This is’ series you’re very welcome.

This May...

Oh dear, I ended last month’s post wondering if this would be the month we started to sort out the garage. In short, it wasn’t! I clearly had good intentions, but then completely forgot about it, so that’s another job that is still on the list for this month.

In other ways though it’s been a busy month. I was back down in London at the start of the month for the press preview of the new Unearthed exhibition at the British Library, and really enjoyed my mooch around the exhibition and the British Library, which I hadn’t visited before despite living in London for most of my life…

MOH joined me later in the day and we had a wander around the British Museum which was very busy, and then headed over to our hotel in Docklands ready for a day at Grand Designs Live the next day. Although we hadn’t really thought this through and booked a restaurant - the German Gymnasium in Kings Cross for dinner. Thankfully though the Elizabeth line made it super easy to get across town, and back again.

INSIDE THE GERMAN GYMNASIUM AT KINGS CROSS

The decor and history of the restaurant was amazing, and it was a popular place. The food was good, but it’s not somewhere I’d rush back to. The reviews online were mixed and I can see why, but it’s somewhere that I’ve wanted to go for a while, so it was good to experience it for myself. The toilets were pretty unusual too, so at some point I’m sure I’ll share some of their decor.

The building was an actual old gymnasium, and a German one at that. It was built by the German Gymnastics Society in 1865 and was home to London’s first indoor Olympic Games in 1866—and then again in 1908, there’s still some hooks used for the equipment in the Grade II listed building’s roof trusses.

We’ve been further afield too, heading to Devon for a few days to visit family and for a day out at the Devon County Show - our first ever any kind of county show. We had a good day there, again in brilliant sunshine, and it is always good to catch up with family. We stopped off at Croome National Trust on the way down and then on the way back again, so I expect I’ll share more of our visit there, as it’s a beautiful place.

Sport and sorts

There’s been cycling extravaganzas for MOH too; he ventured to Stevenage by train with his bike to meet up with friends for a day’s cycling, and then completed one of his mad 100 mile cycling challenges a few days later. The latter in brilliant sunshine and high temperatures, rather him than me.

For me yoga and zumba in the next village have been few and far between, what with bank holidays coinciding with yoga and in the case of zumba, the hall being used for the local elections as well as a clash with a night out in Newark wine tasting and our few days in Devon. But there has been plenty of home yoga and some home zumba sessions. Home yoga was more successful as I easily dipped back into Yoga with Adriene; for zumba I searched and tried several workouts on YouTube to find one where I didn’t stumble over my feet quite so much - the jury’s still out!

But the big sports news for this long-term Crystal Palace supporter is the FA Cup win. It was a nerve wracking match to watch, but they held onto their 1-0 lead and triumphed over Manchester City. For the occasion I’d opted for some of Brewdog’s Wingman to calm my nerves, mostly because the can was yellow with a blue eagle on!

So clearly I’m claiming some of the success for Palace’s first major trophy win. The beer I drank and for the lucky rub I gave my age-old supporter badge, which I have no idea how or when it arrived with me, clearly made all the difference!

Specs and spectators

My regular eye test and contact lens check was due this month, and while all is good the optician confirmed what I knew already, that my current glasses are now further away from my actual prescription and could do with an update. So I’ve chosen, and recently collected new glasses, which I’ll mostly wear about the house and which will come with me on trips in case of emergencies. And I’ll know that if they’re needed then they’re up-to-date enough to cope with the job!

We’ve been to the theatre in Nottingham again, this time to see Henning Wehn, the german comedian and in the smaller Theatre Royal. It was a good evening with plenty of chuckles along the way, which is always good. I still can’t quite get my head around being home usually within 30 minutes or so of stepping out of the theatre.

At the moment we’ve only got one further theatre trip booked, and that’s not until October when we see Divine Comedy - maybe I should do something about that and see what else is on.

My favourite month

May, I think is my favourite month, though I’m probably biased as it’s my birth month. Though it seems that all of a sudden everything has taken off, we’re much busier than we have been, the weather has generally been good, the garden is growing (and growing) and we’ve been out here, there and everywhere.

I’ve picked up my new car (it’s a newer version of the car I already had and it’s fabulous), the large pot we bought at Grand Designs has been delivered - so now I need to find the right sized and right priced olive tree to put in it - and we’ve got our travel bug back. So much so that I’ve been looking through our holiday photos from last year, and even plan to share some of those walks - you can’t rush things, clearly!

But it also seems crazy that with June around the corner we’re close to half way through the year, how did that happen?!

If you want to read my previous monthly updates in my ‘This is’ series you’re very welcome.

This April...

Well April’s weather is certainly ending the month with a bang, and a steamy hot sizzling one at that. All of sudden we’re experiencing prolonged temperatures in the mid twenties, and while we’ve been lucky enough to have the odd lovely sunny day throughout the month they haven’t been quite as warm as this. Of course though with a bank holiday on the horizon it won’t be long before things are back to normal. It is what it is.

Our family weekends have continued this month. I’ve shared a separate post about the joy the blossom brought after lunch out in West Sussex with MOH’s side of the family. Then the following weekend we hosted a barbecue for my side of the family - and we were lucky with the weather that day too; we’d said a few weeks before that if it looked like it would be nice enough to sit in the garden then to bring garden chairs - and it was, and they did. It was a lovely and relaxed afternoon with all the usual, and a visit to see the lambs too. My great niece, who’s four, was impressed with our house and stated she could live here - she’s so much like her mum it’s scary, though her mum was probably twice that age when she had a similar if not bolder request!

Cute lambs and cats

I’ve had plenty of opportunity to keep my eye on the lambs - and them me - this month as I’ve had a week of cat feeding duties for one of our neighbours, which of course I was more than happy to do. Every time though that I walked past the lamb field they all stopped to look - probably for food - before bleating a bit and going back to whatever they were doing. They really are rather cute.

Feeding the cats was ok too, though one of them did a bit of a disappearing trick from late one evening to late afternoon the following day causing a bit of concern. But she came back - phew, and was unscathed by her big adventure - double phew! Though both of us were happy that she was milking the attention and fussing when she returned, and of course the other one didn’t want to miss out either - but mostly it was a ‘no see just leave the food’ kind of arrangement!

The Barbican and The Workhouse

The month started with a solo trip to London for me, strangely the first where I’ve travelled both ways on my own. I was in London to celebrate a friend’s retirement - and it was great to see everyone - but was there early enough to visit the Citra Sasmita exhibition at the Barbican, and also to stumble across the Moor Lane Community Garden, which was a fascinating place and had plenty of quotes, like this one, hung in the space.

I’m planning to share more about both of these, but they haven’t quite made it here yet - but will do soon, hopefully.

Over Easter with family visiting we headed out to our nearest National Trust property - the Workhouse and Infirmary at Southwell. It was our first visit there and we weren’t quite sure what to expect, but it probably wasn’t what we experienced. It was a really insightful glimpse into life at a workhouse, and there was a lot to take in - it covered the life of those in the workhouse and their daily tasks, but also the history since the workhouse closed, and was brought to life by volunteers in costume.

It really was very well done and incredibly educational - we also discovered that the cellars were lovely and cool, worth noting for future hot spells!

And last weekend we popped along to the Newark Garden Show again - we loved it last year, and so went back again. This time though we left with a few more purchases including a large garden sculpture (wrapped in black plastic in the photo below), which we just about got in the car, and a new large plastic pot which I plan to move the peach tree into at some point. And plants, more plants than last year too!

Lights, wands and customer service

There’s been some other new additions to our home this month too; the replacement light I mentioned at the end of last month’s post turned into a bit of a drama. After receiving the returned item we were told that the replacement wouldn’t be in stock until June at the earliest. June! So I was straight on the phone and email to cancel our order and request a full refund, including the hefty delivery charge - thankfully they agreed to do this pretty easily, but after a week or so no refund had arrived. When I phoned again it seems they were waiting for me to provide my credit card details, but as they hadn’t asked for these or even mentioned it I’m not sure how it was ever going to progress. This is the second thing we’ve attempted to buy from this company (we had delays on the first item too), and it’s the last - we won’t use this company again, ever.

Which is a shame though as I really liked the light - but not enough to be messed around, or to have a substandard lamp - so our search continued, and while it’s not the same a new light was ordered. That has arrived and even though that took longer to arrive than first indicated, it’s a keeper.

I’ve also had a replacement wand for my Shark - and I’m still impressed with it, probably more so as their customer service is fantastic. It’s a shame they don’t sell lights tbh! With family visiting we were cleaning, as you do. We even cleaned the cobwebs off the highest skylight, which involved the garden ladder at it’s full extension and a rigged up cobweb buster boosted with our extended skylight pole. Clearly MOH was up the ladder and I was directing from the ground!

But cleaning at ground level also gave us an issue as the pivot joint on the Shark sheared and so it wouldn’t open to full height. It was still usable but to use it we had to bend double, so it wasn’t ideal. I thought I’d give them a call even though it was a Saturday morning to try to source a replacement, and sure enough they sorted it there and then and the replacement part arrived on the Tuesday. Given my other customer services experiences this month, this was the total other end of the scale and quite frankly all customer service should be like this.

We’ve welcomed new neighbours in the last barn to be completed on our development, and enjoyed their hospitality along with our other close neighbours one evening. A productive evening too it would seem as remember last month I said there was more traffic coming through the village (at speed) following the roadworks, well it seems having a car parked in the main thoroughfare slows things down, though it does at time encourage more beeping, but hey ho!

My sewing group held a stash sale, and while I could have easily hosted a table I didn’t - I went along with a small amount of cash to spend and left with more than I expected, including some fat quarters and some large pieces which I’ll be able to use in future charity quilts, some fabulous vintage Vogue pattern catalogue pages which I’ll share more of later in the week and a random selection of old haberdashery items, including threads ‘for darning all kinds of hosiery etc’ - clearly I won’t be using them for that!

And finally, in house news our main thermostat for our heating system is working again - yay! The issue (which didn’t affect how the heating system worked) was a wiring one, which thankfully was easy for the right engineer to fix. I’m glad it’s sorted though.

We’ve a busy month ahead of us in May, and it could finally be the month where we get at least some more of the garage sorted out - mostly because from the end of next month it’s likely that I’ll be restricting what’s allowed in my very new car, which I test drove and ordered last week. And yes, for those of you that know me in real life - it’s another Renault, I’m nothing if not a creature of habit where my cars are concerned!

If you want to read my previous monthly updates in my ‘This is’ series you’re very welcome.