Update

So this hire car. It’s like driving a fighter jet or a star ship. All you have to do is press buttons! There’s no key – you use a card and then press a button to start it. The handbrake comes off automatically when you start to move. The windscreen wipers are automatic if you have got them turned on Even the headlights come on automatically if you are driving at night. Even so, fun gadgets notwithstanding, I’m not sure I like it. It handles oddly. The Builder has done most of the driving since we got it! I am waiting patiently for the Vixen to come back from the hospital!

The laptop has also come back from the hospital, but unrepaired. It, the cat and the fruit bowl all cascaded off the dining table a couple of weeks ago and the laptop lost its space bar, the x key, the alt key and the windows key. I took it to the computer repair shop on Ecclesall Road and they charged me £30 (and took 5 days) to tell me it would need a new keyboard at £120 plus VAT plus labour. I declined to play. Bea’s partner Steve fixes things. I’m sure he can do it more cheaply. And if not, I’d rather give him the money. In the meantime, it’s very odd hitting a little button instead of the space bar. For some reason it means I keep missing the n key!!

Clarissa’s husband Mike has had a hearty tack :(. He woke up all poorly sick on Monday morning and had to go to the hospital in an ambo, lights flashing, siren blaring. They managed to disperse the clot using drugs and he is now well on the way to recovery. They were hopeful he might be able to some home this weekend. He was fortunate in that there was a paramedic passing when Clarissa phoned for help so they got to him very quickly. She says how amazingly calm and quiet the whole thing was, given that it was such a dramatic event.

And now The Builder and I have come down to Salisbury for the weekend. We came down yesterday, Friday. I took the afternoon off and was intending to leave work at around 2. The Builder came to collect me but got held up in dreadful traffic and was nearly half an hour late. Took nearly for ever to get back home. Dashed about and got ready. Found Tammy Next Door, who has been away for half term, and got her to look after the cat for the weekend. Took off for the M1. To find it at a complete standstill when we got there. Kept going around the roundabout and back to the A61. Was quite a pleasant trip down the A61 and the A38 to Brum, then we had much fun trying to find the A42, not wishing to find ourselves in London! On we went, until we found ourselves in a huge, huge queue. Time was ticking on. Began to get worried about the B&B. And I didn’t have their number. Rang Freyja who looked it up on the net and rang them to say we were on our way. Useful things, adult children!

We arrived at around half 8. Announced our arrival to Norma (at the Bridge Farm) and then disappeared into Salisbury to see if we could find something to eat. We got to the Market Inn on the market square 15 minutes before they stopped serving!! Had a rather nice plaice “kiev”, filled with a shrimp and mushroom sauce. Not sure I would have put quite such a heavy breadcrumb batter around it, though. Plaice is quite a delicate fish. I think I’d have put a lighter covering on.

Have just had a fantastic breakfast. Fruit and yoghurt followed by a deliciously cooked full English. Lovely crispy bacon and fantastically cooked mushies. Won’t need to eat again for ages and ages. Which is a pity for we are supposed to be taking The Builder’s parents out to lunch!

A quick visit to the farm shop, for Norma tells me they now have the seedy granola back in stock. Granted the stuff I made was rather lovely, but so is the one they stock in the shop and they taste different. Found some lovely local veg in the shop as well. No real need to go to the market now! But we’ll go anyway :). First to Waitrose, because Bea has found in the one in Sheffield a supply of food storage boxes where the lids clip on and which retain liquid. Then to Lakeland for a proper potato masher, preferably one which does not bend when you try to mash potatoes. Found one. And a storage jug which will fit in the fridge. And some foil on discount. And – oh lots of things we didn’t realise we needed. Plus a wicker basket to put it all in. Ah well, I’ve been looking for just such a basket to take things to work in! Then we ambled off to the market and found ourselves outside Nuggs, a new shop in a beautiful old building filled with loads of different oils and herbs and spices and lovely things. Avoided all the oils but did succumb to a pepper grinder. And some chicken stock bones in the market itself. There will be lovely stock at our place tomorrow. And I have many, many kitchen things to play with!

A cup of tea in the cathedral refectory (very, very nice) then off to pick up The Builder’s parents, who are in fine fettle, given that Gwen fell on Thursday night and cracked her head on the door. We took them out to the Red Shoot in the heart of the New Forest. It’s a nice pub. It lets dogs in. And there were three or four ponies ambling about in the driveway who were not going to move for anybody. Was amusing watching vehicles and walkers navigating around them.

Good, thought I. There’s soup. Gwen and Mick are having soup. I shall have it too. Nice light lunch after that huge breakfast. Then I realised they were going to have a main course as well. Sigh. I shall have mussels. A huge pot of mussels with a cream sauce at the bottom. Couldn’t eat all of it :S It was all rather nice, even so. This was somewhere Gwen and Mick hadn’t been before! Then we took them home, had a nice cup of tea and a chat and left just before 4. I think they were missing their afternoon nap!

We, however, were not in need of an afternoon nap. We went for a walk instead. Down through Lower Britford, up past the rookery onto the main road then back down to the farm. Nice round walk, about two miles. Lots of lovely old houses with large gardens dotted about on the river meadows.

And so to a completely unnecessary dinner. We found ourselves outside the Red Lion in Salisbury and went in. It’s in the Places to Eat booklet in the B&B. Beautiful old rambling building with an ancient wisteria growing in the courtyard. You can eat restaurant food or bar food. We didn’t actually feel the need for restaurant food for some reason so had bar food. Which turned out to be restaurant quality in the end. Just not as much of it, fortunately! But next time we might well try the restaurant. It looks lovely.

I walked a shade under 20000 steps on Saturday. Alas, I probably ingested about 120000 steps worth of food and wine :(

Oh dear. Another day of eating. We had yet another fantastic breakfast, courtesy of Norma at Bridge Farm. Then, it being a bit early for the farm shop on a Sunday, we went for a stroll, down the dead end road along the river to the church, this time. It was a lovely walk. The river is quite high and the moat around Moat House (which I think might once have been the Manor House) is also very full. We had a lovely amble in the church graveyard, admiring the old graves and generally enjoying the damp grass underfoot on a lovely winter’s day. The church, St Peter’s, is clearly very old and made with knapped flint. And, wonder of wonders, it was open. It’s lovely inside. Very plain but beautifully made. The nave is Saxon, the chancel 14th century.

Back to the farm shop for some chicken, milk and yoghurt, then we took ourselves off to Romsey. I’ve driven through Romsey before but never actually stopped. It’s very lovely. Mediaeval. Beautiful abbey that we couldn’t go into because the morning service was not quite finished. Not a great deal is open in Romsey on a Sunday. King John’s House was closed, so was the Heritage Centre. We wandered around the streets for a time, found a tea shop, had tea, pottered around, went back to the car. There’s a restaurant with a few bedrooms in Romsey called Bertie’s. It has very good reviews. Must go there one day. Preferably a Saturday!

We arrived in Winchester, which has just been declared by a Channel 4 viewer poll to be the best place to live in England, to meet Ian, Donna and Sophie for lunch. Jeanette, Matt and Rebecca came too and we went for a wander through the main street to an Italian restaurant for lunch. Wasn’t all that impressed with my pizza which was certainly large. But the base was unimpressive indeed. No real Italian restaurant would have served it. On the other hand, my tiramisu was lovely. Everyone else enjoyed their meals, I think and everyone seemed pleased to see each other. Even Donna, who for some reason seems not to like The Builder and me much, thawed towards the end. It was a nice, leisurely Sunday lunch. I do like Sunday lunches! We wandered off to the park after lunch for a post-prandial walk and so Rebecca and Sophie could play on the swings. There were lots of people out enjoying the pleasant afternoon.

Then we came home. We left at about ten to four, had a couple of roadwork hold ups, but got home in just after three hours. A much better trip than the one down. I have chicken stock simmering. The cat is on The Builder’s lap. All is well. Except that we have left The Builder’s dressing gown at Bridge Farm!

12000 steps today. Still under the steps worth of food ingested.

Clarissa rang at lunchtime. Mike is now nice and pink again and has gone home. He’s off work for at least six weeks but things are looking quite good at the moment.