I got up on Sunday morning to be informed by Ian that he had waited up for the return of Bernard and the Sleepy Hippo, lest they should have trouble getting back. No worries about Freyja and Mark; they’re grown ups. Bernard and Sleepy Hippo are not used to living the high life. Ian was concerned that Bernard appeared to have been drinking at the reception! This didn’t really surprise me – I’m fairly certain that it was Bernard who drank the complimentary bottle of wine that came with our boat when we went to the Broads last year! It was a bit of a surprise to find both Bernard and Sleepy Hippo coming to breakfast wearing sun glasses. Freyja tells me that it wasn’t because of a hang over, or not very much, but because they were sad that Ian was going!

When we had got back to the guest house on Saturday evening, we had found an invoice for our stay on the bed. It was for loads more than the girl had quoted me on the Saturday morning and twenty five pounds more than my email confirmation had quoted. Ian further reported that at some point, very late, while he was Hippo-waiting, a man had appeared in the lounge room, apologised for the non-booking of the third room and had asked if there was a problem with the invoicing. Ian agreed that there had been. It seems that this man was the manager from London. He said that we should pay whatever we had originally been quoted.

This took some explaining to the nice young woman who attempted to relieve us of our money on the Sunday morning!

Mind you, having had a proper description of the room from Freyja and Mark later, I’m amazed they had the gall to charge us for it at all. Freyja reports that it was full of dead insects and dead furniture, that it had no television and no headboard on the bed, the bathroom door (shared with the next room) had no lock on the door and was full of the next door room’s people’s bathroom stuff and that the door from the laundry into the little corridor was mostly locked. I assume the people in the next room were long term residents. However, as we won’t be going there again, I decided not to make a post-departure fuss!

We went to Stansted airport instead, in search of breakfast and a plane to put Ian and his Gr’ck (Graham’s Radial Competency Chart, I believe – Gr’ck sounds much friendlier!) on to take them to Prague, where Ian was to present it (The Gr’ck, not the plane) to an expectant and admiring audience on Tuesday. Or Monday. Or sometime. At a conference.

We abandoned Ian to an enormous queue at the airport and took ourselves back to Cambridge to collect one of the marquees (the other one can stay in Cambridge for us to use when we go to visit) and my plastic boxes to take them home. Amazingly, I got home with lids to match all the boxes, and boxes to match all the lids. I was astounded!

We took Freyja and Mark through driving rain, back to Sheffield. We were soooooo lucky with the Wedding Weather. The rest of August has been, more or less, rubbish (unless you are a vegetable gardener, In which case it’s been very nearly ideal, except slightly more sunshine would have been useful.)

We got home to find a message from Nick the Mechanic. We had left the van on Ward Street during the week so Nick could clean the brake pads and do various other arcane mechanic type things. There was no hurry from our point of view. We were away for a good part of the week and not intending to use it when we were about. Nick’s message was to say that some mad old bat had left a stroppy note on the windscreen telling us off for parking there. Ah yes. Mrs Bay Windows. Mind you – she might be mad and she might be a bat, but she’s not all that old. Only about my age, I think. Anyway, Nick had kept the note for our entertainment. She very disparagingly referred to poor Uncle John as a Postman Pat Red Van. Gave us a right telling off, she did, for daring to park outside her place (though we were only half parked across her front; we were parked across her neighbour’s front too). She will shortly (well, later, I sent it second class) get a properly laid out, typed letter on proper paper (none of this ripping pages out of spiral notebooks for us) telling her, very, very politely, that she can go whistle. And not to leave any further notes. We ignored all references to sisters in Australia (hers, not mine), the deleterious effect that having to look upon a red *trade* van was having on her view, her difficulty in getting out of her drive with such a large vehicle parked down the road (although if that was a genuine complaint, she really ought to rethink her suitability to be on the road) and all attempts at snobbery, bullying and intimidation.

Actually, we hardly ever park Uncle John on the roadside. If we do, The Builder takes all his tools out and puts them in the kitchen. This is not entirely convenient. But sometimes there is need. Like last week, when Nick asked us to. I would very much prefer not to upset Nick. He’s a good mechanic and he’s not exorbitantly expensive. Don’t care much about upsetting Mrs Bay Windows. (I didn’t call her that in the letter, BTW. I used her proper name)

On Monday, everyone went back to work. Except Taffa and me. I can’t speak for Taffa, but I spent the day washing up, clearing up, doing the washing, hanging the washing out, bringing it in when there were showers and then ironing it. Was knackered when The Builder came home in the evening!

Freyja has very exciting news. She is now the proud possessor of a Certificate in Marketing. She got all Bs for her results :-) And all of the marketing books which have been on my SHUcard (somewhat disconcertingly – I don’t expect to find marketing books on my library card!) for months have come back to the Adsetts Centre.

I came back to work yesterday to find that nearly all the staff had moved offices in my absence. It’s been something of a challenge trying to find people since!

And the Gr'ck went down a storm at the conference. On Monday. Not Tuesday. Just as well Ian checked.

Can you REALLY imagine The Builder being intimidated by anyone? Really?