End of my week off

And so we come to the end of my week off.

We went to Bishops' House on Saturday morning and had the grand total of 5 visitors! Not that that really worried us. I quite enjoyed a nice peaceful morning, drinking tea and eating apple and blackberry pie and reading the papers on my laptop. The Builder appeared to enjoy pottering about and chatting to the various dogs who popped their noses in to say hello.  Not quite sure what it is about our tiny shop, but dogs seem to find it quite fascinating.  I know we put a bowl of water outside the door for dogs to drink from, but even dogs who have not been enticed by the bowl still come over and amble in - hotly pursued by their apologetic owners!!

The tomato and chilli festival, which was to have been held in the walled garden at the bottom of Meersbrook Park on the Sunday has had to be cancelled because the tomatoes aren't ripe yet!!!

This is, of course, a bit sad, but didn't greatly inconvenience us.  We wouldn't have been able to go anyway.  For we had a visitor coming for lunch on Sunday.  An old school friend of Tabitha's who kept in quite close touch until we moved to Tupton.  He went and lived with Tabitha and Gareth for a while when they were in Cambridge but I haven't really seen him since then. He is a friend on Facebook and he chats to me sometimes on Twitter. And it was on Twitter that he happened to mention the previous week that he wished we didn't live so far away because he would quite like to catch up sometime.  I pointed out that Chesterfield is not on the dark side of the moon and invited him for lunch. And so he came.  We had a nice lunch and a nice chat and a pleasant potter around the garden, it not raining on Sunday. We had Japanese inspired fried dumplings to start with, a chicken "korma" for our main course (not a real korma, obviously, because they are made with coconut which might not have made the rest of my Sunday afternoon particularly fun!) and a plum tarte tatin for dessert.  Was all very tasty and convivial.

So that was a pleasant end to a pleasant week off, in which we didn't really do anything very exciting. We just pottered about, took a few gentle strolls, ate and drank, visited Joan, did a bit more pottering.  Nice and gentle.

Was something of a struggle to get up on Monday morning and dash about purposefully.  But I managed, after a fashion.

It's supposed to be nice and sunny this week.  Might do some washing!!