We woke on Friday to a lovely sunny morning. So we did some washing and hung it out on Taffa and Gareth's line. Then we wandered into town for a (surprisingly nice) late breakfast in The Mitre. Not pizza!
Another visit to the bear shop, and a visit to the Mac shop. Austin had been saying that they have just released an external hard drive in Japan of 1 TB. Lindsey says they haven't released it in Australia yet. All very interesting, but I couldn't see that i would need a whole terabyte. Something smaller would do. But I certainly need something. The number of photographs I have acquired from the wedding and the "honeymoon" takes a huge amount of space - and I haven't got anything like all of them yet! 500 GB would probably do. Until I discovered that 500 GB was £99.50 and the very recently released 1 TB was £110. I bought a terabyte! The Builder also bought me a pair of Ecco shoes. My very comfortable black Hawkshead shoes have really fallen apart and I need a pair of black shoes to wear to work for winter.
Suddenly there was a torrential rain shower. Taffa drove her bike off to work. The rest of us took a bus back home.
By the time we got back, the rain had gone, the sun was shining and the washing was steaming gently.
We had a picnic lunch in he garden, gathered up the damp washing and left Gareth to sort out a recalcitrant bicycle. Off to Salisbury for us.
We decided to risk the M25 and set off. All was well, until we were approaching the St Alban's exit from the A1. I checked Traffic Line. Oops. The M25 had a 20 mile hold up in the direction we needed to travel. Avoid said the lugubrious Traffic Line voice. So we came off the A1 and headed Another Way. In the end, via Oxford. Not the best way to get from Cambridge to Oxford! In the event that e ever need to get from Cambridge to Salisbury again - we'll take the direct route to Oxford. Much more sensible!
We had a lovely meal at The Swan, preceded by pre-dinner drinks sat in the garden by the river in the sunshine.
We had gone to Salisbury primarily to visit The Builder's mother. It being a beautiful day, we decided to take her through the New Forest to Lymington for lunch in The Ship by the harbour and then for a walk along the marina and harbour path. Her walking chair is wonderful. It folds down really small so it easily fits in the boot, even with a load of junk in it. The boot, not the chair. We took her home and then made our way to Whiteley for an evening barbecue with Jeanette and Matthew. Also there were Mike and Rosie, who we haven't seen for ages, and Ian and Sophie who we haven't sen for even longer. Not that we saw much of Sophie. She and Rebecca spent most of the evening in the playroom playing board games, computer games and watching DVDs. Was lovely to see everyone. And Mike is looking remarkably well to say he's been so poorly and still needs his heart properly sorting out.
The lovely weather continued into Sunday. Lindsey and I went for a pre-breakfast stroll up towards Great Wishford. We ambled gently into Salisbury for a stroll around the shops. We went to Warminster to inspect Barb's new tiny cottage and to join her and her brother Greg for ham and salad. Then we took Lindsey and Ian to Ealing where they abandoned us and took a tube into central London for a couple of nights out on the tiles. And we came home.
To find the house devoid of feline presence. It was obvious he had been about - or at least something had been about. his breakfast had been thoroughly munched. But he didn't come when I called him. Or again later when I whistled for him. We were just thinking about going to bed when I went into the kitchen to batten it down. A nose appeared in the cat flap - and stopped abruptly when it detected a human presence in the kitchen. It sniffed cautiously. Recognised it was me - and Marlo burst through the cat flap,clearly delighted to see me, and equally clearly extremely surprised. I suppose we normally get home much earlier when we've been away than we did on Sunday.
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