This week has not started well ...

... I think I might just go back to bed and start the week all over again!

I decided last week that I would keep an eye on eBay and see if my Farley ever turned up for sale (so far, he hasn't). But while I was there I ran across a fluffy Old English Sheepdog soft toy of roughly the same size and colour as Farley and decided that it would probably do as a temporary substitute while I wait for the FBoFW online shop to come back in July.  It was dispatched via a courier service which gave me a tracking number, and I tracked the parcel through its journey until the tracking website said that it had been delivered and "left in a secure place".

I thought this was a bit odd because I knew that The Builder was at home waiting for the parcel, but assumed that the delivery person had popped the parcel in the porch without bothering to ring the doorbell.  I sent The Builder a message.  "There is no parcel here," said he.  Hmmm.  Odd.  Not only was there no parcel but there was also no delivery notice.  Maybe the delivery person had made a mistake and put it through the letter box next door.  It's not unusual for people to get 2 Bridge Street and 2 Queen Vic Street mixed up.  But no. No package was delivered to either house to the sides of us.

I contacted the delivery company.  Yes, they said.  The parcel has been delivered and left in your safe place.  We don't have a safe place with that company.  We have never used it previously.  The person I was speaking to said it would have to go to the Investigation Team for an, err, investigation.  In the meantime, The Builder wondered whether it might have been delivered to Bridge Street in Chesterfield, so he came and met me at the coach station after work and we dropped by to see.  Alas, there was no one home.  So my package is missing and I hope that the Investigation Team gets to the bottom of it.  If it's gone to the wrong Bridge Street, the delivery person was paying no attention AT ALL to the postcode.  The big advantage of the British long and complicated postcodes is that they are very specific to a small number of addresses and should point you precisely to where you need to be.  2 Queen Vic's postcode is slightly different to ours.  The postcode of Bridge Street in Chesterfield is vastly different.



Then the week took a significant turn for the worse :-(

On Saturday we were driving out to the Marsh Green Farm Shop - quite early for us; we usually get there late morning and this was a little before 10:00.  As we drove past The Nettle I noticed that there was a sign on the side door.  There was a sign on the front door as well.  The sign said in large letters CLOSED, and then there was more writing underneath that I couldn't read.  We assumed they were closed for the weekend, or for a holiday or whatever and decided that we wouldn't after all go there for lunch on Saturday :-D  Yesterday I was moved to wonder how long they were going to be closed for and went to look at their website.  Their website was gone !!!!!  I tried again.  No.  Still gone :-S  So I investigated a little more and found that it has, in fact, closed for good. ;-(  Places like Trip Advisor had been muttering about the proposed closure for about 6 weeks.  But, of course, I hadn't had any reason to go looking at The Nettle's presence in any of the forums so hadn't noticed it.  And it's about 6 weeks since we were last in there.  We are very, very sad about its closure.  Partly because it is positively our most favourite pub ever, but mostly because we missed by only a few days the opportunity to say goodbye and thank you to Marcus and Sanford, who we are very fond of.  So thank you, to Marcus and to Sanford and to The Nettle for many celebrations, lots of very good food and many fun times.

Vale to a lovely little pub

There is no possible chance of it coming back as a pub under new ownership.  There is planning permission in place to turn it and its land into housing.  Sigh!

I must say that I am a bit worried about the health of the Marsh Green Farm Shop too.  I know we were there earlier on Saturday than is our usual habit, but the shop was very under-stocked with vegetables and bread, and the new fish counter has gone. It's hard to say whether we were just there before the delivery people had got there. But it's been quite quiet the last couple of times we've been in. Fingers crossed that our fears are misplaced. They have an extremely good butcher!