A Very Quiet Weekend Indeed

Very, very, very quiet.

We were at Bishops' House on  Saturday morning, but for a shorter time than usual. Then house was closing at 12:30 for a wedding in the afternoon.  And it was Very Quiet Indeed.  We had one visitor pretty much as we opened - but she didn't get any further into the house than the shop. She had come to buy stocking fillers for Christmas. I counted her as a visitor.  Around that time the Treasurer turned up to make up price lists and to make sure the house was ready for the wedding.  Then some of the wedding people came and decorated the chairs and the room where the wedding was to take place. I didn't count them on our stats sheet. Then two people turned up to put radon detectors in various places.  I did count them because they then went for a proper look around the house.  I didn't count any of the people who stopped outside to read our early closure notice. I did talk to most of them though - many of them were wondering whether we were really licensed to have weddings in the house (yes) or whether we were just having receptions (no - not licensed for receptions, just weddings).

The morning passed surprisingly quickly to say that we had almost no traffic through the place.  And then we abandoned the house to its happy afternoon and took ourselves into Chesterfield for a bit of Christmas shopping and lunch in the Rutland.

And that was it, pretty much. I didn't leave the house from when we got back on Saturday afternoon until I left to come to work this morning.  The Builder did, but only to go as far as the dairy for milk and cream on Sunday morning. I passed Sunday morning making a steamed suet pudding and custard to go with it.  I also roasted some chicken and some potatoes and prepared some vegetables and made an apple cider gravy for Sunday lunch.  We had the roast chicken before we had the steamed pudding! I made some bread, intending it for today. Alas, it was extremely tasty and we ate it for supper instead! I had to make some soda bread rolls for lunch today :-D

The Builder let the ducks and chickens out of their run when he went down to feed them on Sunday morning.  I found Marlo sitting by the kitchen sink later in the morning, watching them through the kitchen window.  I went upstairs to make the bed and sort a few things out.  When I looked out of our bedroom window I could see Marlo merrily playing a happy game down the bottom of the garden. I could see he was happy.  His tail was up and he was positively bouncing.  I don't think the ducks enjoyed the game of chasey quite as much though. They seemed much happier when we had called Marlo off and brought him back inside!!! (I don't think he was actually trying to catch them; he wasn't stalking them or hunting them. Just chasing them :-D )

Despite the fact that we really didn't do anything very much, the weekend still vanished in a puff of smoke.  And now there's only just over a week until Christmas.  I have done the bulk of the shopping but there are one or two things still to get. And we can't really do the perishable food shopping quite yet.  Over next weekend, I think.

Sunday morning sunrise

Marlo - after we had stopped him chasing the ducks :-D