 |
| Jenny & Abbie, Brian's youngest and Eldest granddaughters |
 |
| Up with the kitchen floor at Abi's |
We went over to Abi on the Thursday to see her and Sooty (who hasn’t been completely well) and to take up the kitchen floor. This has been a long brewing problem we’ve tried to ignore. The concrete under the Lino has swollen and cracked. My fear was they’d damaged a pipe or something when they knocked through the wall to make the doorway into the conservatory. Abi’s worry was that the marine plywood and joists were going to be rotted away and the underfloor was going to be full of mushrooms! In the end, a combination of the two, it was damaged concrete, but due to the freezer that had regularly defrosted itself, one rotten joist and some bits of floorboard. We took as much up as was needed, cleared away a good chunk, before making it safe for her builder friend to come in and fix, at some point! It could have been so much worse!
Friday mum had her Covid booster before we met up with Jan (who we saw a few weeks ago in Daventry) and her daughter-in-law Kelly, both of whom mum used to work with at Hanbury Hall. Lovely of them to come and visit.
 |
| Three of the many Alvechurch scarecrows on display |
Saturday I had my flu jab. Only Brian to go on that then, who knew there was a different flu jab for under and over 65’s? He has managed to book his though, for the 3rd December, as I have managed to book my Covid booster. Mum and I then spent an enjoyable hour and a half wandering Alvechurch looking at all the fabulous scarecrows constructed for the Alvechurch scarecrow festival.
Sunday was John’s 60th birthday, which was why we were back in the Midlands rather than travelling in Ted. 25 of us descended on The Old Crown pub in Digbeth for a very good Sunday lunch. We’d been invited by Helen and Richard and told it was a surprise, which I thought was horrible. Fortunately he had been told the week before as it was an emotional enough day without that too. By the end of the afternoon there was just Brian and I, Helen and Richard and John left to get the 18.15 train back after what had been an enjoyable but difficult day.
 |
| John blowing out his 60th birthday candles flanked by Sarah's parent's Richard and Helen at his Old Crown Inn party |
 |
| Brian's daughter Fiona with Oscar cat and Jenny |
Monday as we had a ‘free’ day Brian thought he’d see if Fiona was available. Surprisingly she was, after a very busy weekend with all 5 of her bridesmaids in attendance, they’d been to the wedding fair at the NEC, then to a bridal shop in town for bridesmaids dresses, followed by another bridal shop on the Sunday for Fiona’s dress. A busy but successful weekend left her with a day off to chill so we popped over for lunch. And left 7 hours later!
Tuesday mum and I went to Sainsbury’s on the bus to do a ‘proper shop’ to make sure she doesn’t starve when we go away. Bus pass and shopping trolley to the fore it all went well, though I wouldn’t recommend her getting on and off the bus with as much stuff as I did. Then to the library to explore the whole new world of audio books, she’s borrowed a set of CD’s and we’ve worked out how to download eAudiobooks to her phone, and how to get them into the nice little speaker we have waiting for the memory stick with more books onto arrive from the RNIB. Isn’t modern technology wonderful?
 |
| Taking the car door to bits to unjam the window |
Wednesday, I was taxi service to Redditch for the stroke association meeting before B and I went to see Rob and Alex. Lovely to see them and have a gentle chat.
Thursday the Occupational Health assessor came round to see if there are any modifications to be done to the house. Apart from the rail Brian has already fitted in the bathroom it would appear not, which is good news. She did feel slightly odd with a strange man asking to see her sit on the loo and get into bed... just as well we were there! Then off to Denise and Paul for Brian to put an extra socket in the living room and change the stop tap on the washing machine. He did well, both jobs went remarkably smoothly. Shame the same couldn’t be said of our departure. Driving away, waving out of the window, as is traditional, he went to raise the electric window which made a horrible noise and refused to move! We managed to pull it half way up, and stick a bin bag over it, but that was it for the evening. Thank goodness it wasn’t wet or windy!
 |
| Door window fixed (sort of). It'll never open again, it's held up with a piece of wood inside the door and that wire hanging is part of the old winding mechanism that will pull the window up if the wood becomes dislodged. Bodgit and Scarper at their best! |
 |
| Bid Ted parked up at our first pub stop overnight |
Friday was meant to be getting Ted out of storage, but fixing the window took priority. It’s amazing what info you can get from the internet and with John’s help, supplying tools, bits of wood, cable ties... we now have a safe, if non functioning, window. Still time for Ted, so that was Friday and Saturday taken care of, with a quick trip out for Brian to get his Covid booster.
Sunday we were meeting Jonathan and Lucy halfway between them and us, not to swap mother, but to swap her car. The DVLA have said her eyes aren’t good enough for driving so Jonathan has had the car for Charles and Caroline to learn to drive in. Lovely to see them but the closing of a chapter for mum. Back in time to have my eye retest before collecting Helen and Ian to go into town for a Sunday tea club with all the usual suspects, and Manu’s daughter Elizabeth. Great evening, fabulous food, yum.
 |
| Second stop and the campsite cat is very friendly |
Monday we got our act together and left in Ted for a few days away. A pub stop (Grid Ref: 51°49'19.5"N 2°05'04.6"W) for our first night gave some good food, but also the discovery that the alarm on the van isn’t working. We arrived at our campsite near Stonehenge (Grid ref: 51°12'27.1"N 1°54'54.5"W) ready to do as many diagnostics as we could. We’d stopped en route to buy a big magnet, ( where do you get a big magnet from? Tool station as it turns out, with some very helpful staff) to use to check one half of the alarm sensors on the 7 alarmed doors/lockers. None of those, next step, short the sensors together one by one. Hmm, none of those. Back on the phone to the installer, who wouldn’t talk to us without £40 to transfer the details of ownership from the person who bought the van. Explained what we’d done.
 |
| Stonehenge Touring Park - it's very nice! |
Looks like next step is to take it to them. By a stroke of good luck, we are currently in Stonehenge, moving on to Glastonbury and they are in Taunton, where our availability fits in with their availability. Could take some time for them to find a broken wire, but fingers crossed..... After spending hours messing with this we then moved on to the new aerial for the TV, spangly new one with powered booster, but still no picture! After much retuning, reinstalling the old aerial, which would be easy except the whole tv has to be removed from its cupboard for access, and cursing and swearing we still have no tv. Perhaps we really are in a black hole?
So today, finally, we have chilled, a little walk this morning, reserving a ferry space and blog writing. Tomorrow we will actually go and look at Stonehenge ......
 |
| Orcheston parish church in the village our campsite is in |
 |
| Saw this on a couple of buildings in Orcheston village. They were built after a great flood on 16th January 1841 to help the losses incurred by the poor of this and five neighbouring villages. What a great thing to have done! We took a walk through this and the neighbouring villages earlier and saw the location of the river Till that caused the flood, it's tiny and, in fact it was a dry ditch at the moment, hardly anything. Amazing that it could have possibly caused such damage. I found the story of it on the internet, you can read the full story here. It was caused by a rapid thaw two days after a heavy snow storm, destroying 36 homes, killing three people and making 200 homeless. Ann Doughty wrote a remarkable account of it on the web page above, it's worth a read |
 |
| Fabulous autumn colours |
No comments:
Post a Comment