Monday 13th June
A quiet day just pottering around Hope Farm other than a trip to B&Q and a local farm shop to get a boneless leg of lamb. Tomorrow is our last night, so with no after school activities, no climbing club, and no other visitors, it will be a family bar-b-q and I’ll cook the boned lag of lamb, but first it has to be marinated overnight. Oh dear, getting the right ingredients for the Marinade became a problem, we must have visited every supermarket in the area and even then Christine had to improvise.
Tuesday 14th June
Today we’re having a day out. Christine and I had to go to a particular shop to get somethings for Sandy and Wendy and the nearest branch is in Cribbs Causeway. I also needed to visit the Apple Store to get a replacement lead for my laptop, curtesy of Truffle chewing through my old lead👹👹👹👹. Hearing a trip to Cribbs Causeway was on, Jane jumped at the chance to come. She didn’t know about this big shopping area fast off the M5 on the outskirts of Bristol.
Arriving around midday, naturally being with Jane we had to find a suitable place for a “big bit of naughty”; Cinnabon, Krispy Kreme, or Dunkin Donuts etc., etc. Unfortunately there was nothing of the kind so made do with second best, a place called Bakers + Coffee; very nice but didn’t quite hit the spot, “never mind” said Jane. On our way up the mall she had spotted a “Millie’s Cookies” shop!!! Now we have a plan, on the way out we stop there🤪
Christine and I achieved our reason for being there and Jane absorbed all the shops and filed them in her mind for another time. Time was now marching on, so we headed out of the Mall, naturally stopping off for a bag of cookies from Millie’s!!
Originally we were going to take the scenic route back, over Brunel’s suspension bridge and through Ashton but we were later than planned so hit the M5 to get home quickly.
To cook our rather large “slab” of meat on a charcoal bar-b-q is a challenge for me as I only have gas bar-b-q’s at home: I needed time to get it going and up to speed before placing the meat on the heat. The long and the short of it was this time and a bit of luck, I got it fairly right and to support my “claim”, not a crumb of the meat was left: no cold lamb sarnies tomorrow!!!!
After our meal, again accompanied but copious glasses of wine, we all had a great laugh trying to play Croquet. It was now Mia’s bedtime so we cleared up and once Mia was in bed for the night we had our last game of Marjon
Wednesday 15th June
After packing up the final bits of the car and saying our goodbyes we headed to Portsmouth and on arrival in “Catherington” stopped at the “Farmers Inn” for our “last” pub lunch for some time.
This afternoon Christine had arranged with Jill to visit Dougie and as the car was full I stayed at their cottage, unfortunately being later in the day, Dougie wasn’t quite himself as he was very tired.
Next we headed off to Tom and Kathleen’s for dinner and was spoilt with an excellent roast lamb with all the trimmings dinner; thank you Kathleen. After dinner Christine took Kathleen to visit Tom, currently in hospital; get well soon Tom.
Time to hot-foot it to the ferry terminal and as usual chose the wrong queue! Every queue was moving apart from ours so eventually pulled into another and sailed through, then just waited until the appointed time when we were called forward. Unfortunately we headed our lane and as we headed out was stoped by a customs spot-check. We were asked the usual questions, asked to open the boot which was easy, just pushed a button. The officer had a good look but being so packed, fortunately didn’t want us to unload, she was satisfied so I pushed the button again, the boot closed and we drove onto the ferry.
No messing tonight, we went straight to our cabin for a good nights sleep