I went down to breakfast pondering what to have.
Gwen was proposing to feed us roast beef at about 1:00.
I really can't eat a full breakfast at 9:00, followed by a roast meal at 1:00. Quite apart from the fact that it won't fit in, it tends to give me indigestion.

So. No full English.

Eggs Benedict? I like eggs Benedict, but Hollandaise sauce is a bit rich for me for breakfast. I suppose I could have it all but without the sauce. Eggs on toast? Bit dull. Ponder, ponder, ponder. In the meantime, The Builder went to get the coffee

Sat at the table and was idly gazing at a couple of young American girls on another table while waiting for The Builder to come back. They had stuff on a wooden platter. Fruit. Cheese. What is there on the menu that gives you fruit and cheese on a wooden platter? Had a look. Aha - the croissant option, which I had never looked at because I do not care much for croissants and certainly not for breakfast. Ham, cheese, fruit, jam and croissants. I wonder - perhaps they could be persuaded to give me toast instead.

And they did. And it was lovely! The ham was wonderful. And it didn’t give me indigestion at all :-)

The Americans were talking to Carl the Landlord about their best options for getting to Stonehenge. As we were checking out, they came back from the bus stop to say that there was no Sunday service and what should they do now? Stonehenge is no great distance from the Swan so we offered to take them. They were lovely lassies. They're from a small university somewhere in Oregon which as a partnership arrangement with the University of Nottingham and about a dozen of them come over for a semester each year. These two are spending their weekends trundling around the rest of Britain.

Since we were there we decided to have a walk around as well. Except that, as we went in the light rain decided it was going to be Very Heavy Rain Indeed. The advantage of going in using your English Heritage card (quite apart from the fact that you get to do some serious queue jumping - a lady came along the queue asking if people were English tax payers. We said we were but had EH cards. Showed them to her - and she escorted us in through the staff gate!). Where was I? Oh yes - the advantage of going in using your EH card is that you can decide after three minutes that the weather is not conducive to admiring the stones, and walk out again without wasting your £6.50 entrance fee! We called into the shop and went away. In fact, sometimes we use our EH cards simply so we can call into the shop!

A quick trip to Waitrose and to the toy shop. Decide not to walk into town in the rain and trundled off to Nunton to find that Peter had taken all the rubbish to the tip first thing in the morning and all we were being called on to do was to eat roast beef and roast potatoes and boiled potatoes and an EVEREST of vegetables at 1:00. And the biggest bowl of tinned peaches and cream that I have ever seen in my entire life!!! Gwen is a fine cook - but she doesn't half over-feed you.

We took some flowers up to the church yard after lunch and admired the new name stone that lies over Mick's ashes. Then we took Gwen home and headed back to our own home. We decided not to go on the motorways and not even to follow Jenny the Sat Nav's directions. I wanted to know why she never takes us up the most direct (on the map) route. This would be because there is no obvious way of avoiding the town centres and all those roundabouts slow you down. But it was a very enjoyable drive. We must do it again sometime when it is all done in daylight.

Marlo was very pleased to see us back! We had party food for supper (tempura prawns, spring rolls, that sort of thing). I really should make a selection of party pies and pasties and things that can be heated from frozen when we get back and are snacky rather than hungry.

I'm on the evening duty today, and didn't come in until later in the afternoon. I've spent the day washing and tidying and making soup and baking cakes and sorting through a box of potatoes. I went to the allotment in fine sunshine - and got drenched on the way home. And the washing got wet ;-( And I undercooked the cakes and they sank ;-( But the soup is magnificent and I had a lovely, peaceful, quiet day. It's not too bad here this evening either. A pleasant number of queries, including some real information ones. Enough to make the time pass but not so many that you fell rushed and flustered.

Freyja has been cut off from the outside world. Her phone line, internet and pay TV have all gone with Mark (who I assume has now moved out). And her mobile phone tried to run away and very nearly succeeded, except it was found by a Kindly Stranger who is sending it back. In the meantime, if you want to talk to her you might need to resort to pigeons or smoke signals. She needs to talk to me, though. Not only do I have Bernard and Sleepy Hippo, who accompanied us to Salisbury, and Austin's Christmas present, which she is taking to Japan for me - but I also have both her passports and if she hasn't seen me by Monday she won't be going anywhere!!!!!!!

PS
Seems Mark hasn't moved out properly yet. He's in the process of moving out over the next week or three