Spring Bank Holiday Weekend

I am delighted to report that there is very little to report about the weekend just gone.

It was a long weekend.

For me it was an extra long weekend, for Tuesday was a University holiday and today I didn’t come into Psalter Lane until half past two.

And it was lovely and quiet and restful.

Well, fairly restful.

We went to Chatsworth on Saturday for a few supplies and decided to call into Ashover on the way home for lunch. It’s a little place which we pass through occasionally if we are taking back routes to Chatsworth or Bakewell. It had attracted my attention partly because the local “parish council” which oversees many of the roads we travel on to Beeley and thereabouts is the Ashover Parish Council, but mostly because the pub you see on the road that passes through is called Old Poet’s Corner and looked quite interesting. It was definitely on my mental list of places to visit for lunch one day. Well, with a name like that, you more or less have to go and investigate, now don't you. Though I still don't know why it bears that name. Must find out.

It’s not a bad pub, not a bad pub at all. It sells several real ales and, happily, some real ciders. I had a pint of Old Rosie Scrumpy. It also has a good menu with quite a bit of local produce on it. The Builder and I both had local organic sausages - lamb and mint, and pork, spring onion and ginger – with mashed potato and peas. It was too salty for my taste but the sausages were well made and nice and meaty. After lunch we went for a potter about. And found two more pubs, which also look quite interesting, a cricket pitch, a lovely little church, and an extra bit of the village which we didn’t realise was there, with a Post Office, a butcher and a deli. It’s a nice place. We have added the other two pubs to our list of places to visit!

On the way home, we found a small reservoir near Clay Cross. Ogston Reservoir. There’s not a lot to do there, but we went for a poke about and an ice cream. Then we went home.

Despite the dire predictions of rain, chaos and horrible weather conditions for the Bank Holiday Weekend, we were mostly dry. Very, very windy, but dry. We spent most of the weekend in the garden or on the allotment, or pottering about, not doing very much. We ate well, drank well, slept in a wee bit – but not much. Not only are we trained now for early, early rising, but the birds start singing loudly and joyfully at about half past four. It’s lovely to hear, but you could wish they’d wait a couple of hours!

We didn’t get the promised, and much needed, rain until Monday night. It rained on and off for most of yesterday, and for bits of today. Mostly it has been damp and misty and very drizzly. The Builder went back to work. I stayed inside!

And cleaned.

I cleaned the skirting boards, I did. This meant, of course, that I had to clean the dado rails as well, lest they felt left out. Plus those irritating little ledge thingies on the doors. And having done all that I figured I might as well clean the window sills too. If you're going to do all that then there is no choice but to get the hoover out, then the broom and mop for the kitchen and the bathroom. I've even cleaned the fridge and the ovens.The hoover was in a catatonic state and refusing to work any more. I've broken my little Galileo barometer. Marlo went into hiding.I was knackered.And then the windows started glaring at me accusingly.I went to bake some bread as a recovery activity and to avoid actually cleaning the windows.Frannie - Domestic Goddess in training :-D

Before The Builder came home, I went and had a shower and put some clean clothes on. There was a stew bubbling away, ready for when he was ready for dinner.

I think I must have been captured by the 1950s yesterday!!!!

It was better today – there wasn’t really anything much left to be done. The house positively gleams!

I’ve brought the second freezer back into commission. We seem to have been over run with a glut of rhubarb. I’ve got tubs of frozen rhubarb, plus rhubarb crumbles and rhubarb pies in there. Oh – and I’ve got 8 jars of rhubarb chutney down in the larder, alongside the 4 I already had. My larder is beginning to look quite well-stocked and it’s only the end of May! I tell you – the 1950s! Does that mean I get to do the 1960s next weekend?