A cheap weekend

A while ago Tim, along with the rest of his team, was given a bonus for exceptional work on a contract. This bonus was given with the condition it should be used to take your husband/wife/partner/family out for dinner. So this weekend we headed up to Rutland to the King's Arms Hotel for a night away and a very nice dinner - all paid for by someone else, which was rather nice. It looks like the next few weeks will involve both of us going away with work, so it was lovely to spend a relaxing weekend together.

Relaxing? Well, Saturday was. On Sunday we decided to Walk all the way around Rutland Water. There were several reasons for this:

1) We'd cycled around it before so knew the route,
2) It was a nice Autumn day and we wanted to make the most of it,
3) We're planning on walking to coast-to-coast walk next year, so need to build up our stamina on longer walks.

Longer walks? We didn't count up the miles before we set out so are feeling very proud of our 18.3 mile loop! We're also feeling very achy in our legs, and poor Tim has blisters on his toes from his walking shoes. But overall we're impressed with ourselves - it was a long, but relatively easy walk and the weather and views were lovely.

Good clouds, aren't they?

I'm looking forward to a relaxing day in front of a computer screen tomorrow!

The big three-zero

This is me at the age of thirty - I think I still look pretty good... of course, the curls hide the grey quite nicely, which is good!

Yes, this weekend I celebrated a big birthday. One of my friends at work told me that turning thirty-one is much worse, so I've got that to look forward to now! To celebrate we headed back down to Reading for some nostalgia, and a bit of swinging through the trees at the local Go Ape course:

Afterwards we headed into Reading and had a meal out, which clashed with the rugby. Still, it sounds like we didn't miss much...

Thank you to everyone who came, or sent a text or an e-mail or a card. I had a lovely day and don't feel too old. Seriously, every now and again I think 'I CAN'T be that old', but then I think about everything I've done so far and where I am in my life right now, and I realise I'm pretty happy. And who can ask for more than that?

Here's to the next thirty years - may they be as fun-filled and enjoyable as the last!

Putting the garden to bed

We have weeded. We have swept. We have trimmed. We have tidied. We have moved the furniture. We have planted the bulbs.

I think the garden is just about ready for winter now. We're busy for the next few weekends, so it was good to get it sorted, especially as the first hints of autumn are in the air. Time for a nice cup of tea and a sit down to celebrate this achievement I think!

How calm, how constant are the hills,

How green and white and golden in the summer light.

Their lakes, their leaping wells are bright

With flower, leaf and rain.

And their profounder rivers run from rocks

That are the altars of the sun.

How calm, how constant are the hills.

Our time's dark gale of ice and fire

Thunders around them but removes them never.

No tempest overthrows their strong humility

They are both god and temple

And their stones are holy, the earth's enduring thrones.

How calm, how constant are the hills.

(Words by James Kirkup - set to music by John Ireland and discovered by me at choir practice on Tuesday).

Cheese and Tuba Medley

I've almost forgotten how to do this blogging lark: Elspeth always seems to get in before me to tell you all about our weekends. Well, Elspeth's been sent to Sweden, and I have to do something to fill those lonely evenings, so here I am.

In truth, this was more my weekend than Elspeth's. We went to Cwmbran to see Mark Carter, a.k.a. Mr Tuba. While Elspeth was enjoying the delights of the largest undercover shopping centre in Wales, I spent many hours talking about tubas, playing tubas, and ultimately buying one. After much debate, I bought one of Mr Tuba's own, specially designed by Mark and built by the Melton people in Germany. It is definitely the best instrument I've ever played, and I am soooo happy to own it! And grateful to Elspeth for not appearing too shocked or unhappy at the size of the cheque I was writing.

Here it is (yes, it's big, yes, it's shiny, and yes, it's loud):

It was good talking to Mark about aspects of my playing too, enough so that I was convinced to spend my part exchange cash that I got for my old student Yamaha on a mute! Practising with it will improve my lung power, and also make me more comfortable practising at home without disturbing my neighbours (too much).

Watch this space for future tuba talk.

Sunday was a marvellous day, with a visit to the Great British Cheese Festival. Last year's was rained off just as we arrived, so we've been waiting for this for more than 12 months, and it was definitely worth it! Highlights included:

• Food from Britain market. More pickles than you can imagine, sausages, pies, beer, cake - brilliant!
• The 'British Cheese - A Revelation' tasting we went to at the end of the day. We happily tucked in to 7 different cheeses from the Lubborn Creamery and Butler's Cheese, accompanied by a nice wine. Even better was the goody bag we picked up on the way out: a whole supermarket chunk of each of the cheese. Each. Fabrielous.
• The Dram Busters - a tasting of whiskies and cheeses which sit well with each other. Mmmm. Unfortauntely, I didn't get a bottle of each whisky to take home.

It's hard to leave out Britain's biggest cheese market, the farm shop, so many free samples of food, fantastic fudge... I was somewhat disappointed though with the location - the farm centre (we had to stop in, since we were there, you understand) is great but everything seemed considerably more cramped than when it was at Blenheim Palace, and it took us over half an hour to get off the site at the end of the day. On balance though, very much a positive, as evidenced by the fruits of our visit, arrayed below:

Beer x 3, Pickles/chutneys x 7, Fruit Liquor x 5, Fudge x 1, Battenburg x 1, Black Pudding x 1, Garlic for planting x 2, Cheese x 19, Sausages x 4, Pie x 2

Anyone care to join us next year?