Two massive thunderstorms there were, in the end. Torrential rain (nearly drowned escaping from Waitrose!), spectacular lightning. All very exciting! Filled the (new) orange bucket up to nearly a third. Plastic ducks on the pond all bounced up and down (according to The Builder who was at home for the first downpour). Garden and pots all well and truly watered. Debbie next door got caught in it coming home. She said she resigned herself simply to getting very wet -- and was drenched through to her underwear by the time she got in!
Cleared into a lovely, non-humid evening.
Yesterday was just a lovely day. Pleasantly warm, nicely fresh. We ambled about in a relaxed and lazy manner (memo to self: next time you decided that you simply *must* clean the shower -- do it before getting dressed!). The washing flapped lazily on the line and dried nice and quickly, and was ironed piece by piece as it came off. All very satisfactory.
At just before 11 we took ourselves off to Chatsworth. I wanted some of their ciabattas and plain bread rolls. If you don't get there early, they're all gone. We went exploring on the way, going by Another Route which is straighter than the way we have been going but which has a quite spectacularly steep descent (including one very, very tight curve) into Rowsley. Was fun! Lovely and green, the steep descent! And so on to Chatsworth for the bread, a few vegetables to supplement the ones from the allotment (can anyone explain to me why I have completely failed to grow carrots this year? Might plant some this week. And some more beetroot, not to mention lettuce and radish), a few bits of meat and some lunch time treats.
Then we meandered on to Bakewell. Haven't been to Bakewell for simply eons. Visited the farmers' shop (now have a ham for roasting and 5 counties cheese and the less exotic double Gloucester and red Leicester. Went for a wander around. Catastrophe!!!! There is now a Wittard's (coffee and tea shop) in Bakewell. Hidden in a Ralph Something or another shop which sells dried fruit and seeds and snack-type mixtures and things. Even bigger catastrophe. They sell the Japanese rice cracker peanuts ALL ON THEIR OWN!!!!! I have bought two packets. And two packets of Japanese rice crackers. Plus some Bombay mix. We can have these as lunchtime treats as well.
We dropped briefly into the shopping village in Rowsley on the way home, but the shopping impulse had passed and we neither lingered nor bought anything. Went home instead and weeded the garden and dead-headed the roses and planned the new layout for the bottom of the garden (will be quite costly; must sell Freyja on eBay again!) and sat about and drank gin (or vodka if you happened to be The Builder), then moved onto a rather nice NZ sauvignon blanc, which we drank rather too much of. Then we had roast beef from Chatsworth, with new potatoes from the garden, peas and broad beans from the allotment, carrots from Chatsworth, thyme and tarragon from the garden. Was extremely yummy. I do enjoy summer, and this one is being particularly balmy.
At one point late-ish in the evening, 4 or 5 Virgin hot air balloons sailed serenely by, quite low. Sat and waved at them. Then a multi-coloured, not Virgin hot air balloon sailed by further to the north. Was quite a bizarre sight, all those hot air balloons. Do you think it was an invasion?
No comments:
Post a Comment