It was really rather a pleasant weekend.

The sun shone, mostly.

The birds sang.

We saw a sparrow hawk being chased away by a couple of swallows.

We pottered in the garden.

We went to Chatsworth and pottered about in the usual shops in Chesterfield.

We had lunch in the Nettle (and a magnificent prawn and sun dried tomato risotto it was too) and checked Pat’s booking for July. She and her brother and sister-in-law will be around for a few days at the beginning of July. She had asked me to find them an interesting pub to stay in. I booked it back in February and thought perhaps I ought to check that they had remembered she was coming. They had :-)

We put the beach hut frieze up in the bathroom and began thinking about floor coverings. (The frieze looks lovely).

The Builder went a dig-dig-digging and made his back cross.

I put together the makings of next summer’s elderflower fizz (Memo to self: must remember to get more hinged bottles and some straining muslin!)

We sat out in the still dishevelled garden and drank wine and plotted and planned.

And the summer plans are slowly, slowly, slowly starting to come together. Austin will be in the UK from July 28th to August 20th. Lindsey and Ian will be here from 31st July to 30th August. I am looking to see if I can find somewhere for us all (including Taffa, Gaz and Freyja) to go for the week we all seem to have off together. This is complicated by the fact that it is getting a bit late to book places for 8 people in August, and by the fact that I want somewhere Monday to Friday and very few places do short breaks in August. But I shall persevere.

Ian and I need to start thinking about menus!

Monday lunchtime. I begin to ponder the need for a sandwich. But before a sandwich can be acquired, I need to lay my hands on some cash. There is a cash point in the Owen Building. It was raining. So I picked up my large umbrella and made my way to the foyer. It was absolutely pouring down. The concourse was like a lake. The rain was like a very large waterfall pouring into the lake. I stopped to wonder if I really needed a sandwich. Fortunately, at that point one of the Acquisitions people ambled past and lent me the money for a sandwich. I remained in the building.

Mercifully – by the time I had to go out in the afternoon to a meeting in a building on the other side of the campus, the sun had come out and the weather was lovely.

On the way home we stopped at the Yorkshire Tile Company showroom to consider floor tiles.

Off we went, heading home, occasionally running into the very edges of what seemed to be quite a strong rain storm. Certainly the clouds were Very Black Indeed. But mostly, we were only on the edges very briefly and had a fairly dry run home.

We approached Tupton. The slow moving, dark, dark clouds were moving in a ponderous manner towards our place.

We got out of the car just as the first big fat raindrops fell.

As we shut the door behind us, the heavens opened and the rain fell in vertical sheets. Our courtyard began to fill with water and the satellite television signal ambled off.

After a few moments, It crossed my mind that I should check the windows. Just as well. As I walked into our bedroom, the water which was gathering on the window sill began to cascade off onto the ottoman and the floor. Most fortuitously, I happened to have the seaside buckets, which are usually in the bathroom, in the bedroom. I caught the water in those while The Builder moved very slowly and cautiously (bad back – remember) and brought the (clean :-( ) towels from the bathroom to mop up. The bathroom window was leaking too, but that needed re-sealing rather than closing. As the storm passed, The Builder got his sealing gun and re-sealed it.

Then the storm went away and the evening cleared to be lovely and the courtyard dried out again.

It’s lovely again today too. And I think I might have found us somewhere to stay in August. I am waiting to hear if my booking request has been accepted.