It's been a busy few days starting with D's birthday on Wednesday. We had a lovely evening down at our local Hotel and then came home for a glass of bubbles so I felt a bit sluggish Thursday morning.

 The weather was awful, really wet, but S and I decided to go up to Exeter. We started off in Waitrose, in their cafe, having coffees. I actually doubted that they would reopen their cafe as it has been shut, since the start of the first lockdown, and they have used the area as extra display space all these months but I was wrong. I then had a wander around the store and picked up a few things on offer together with their free magazine and paper.  When you are used to doing your weekly shop in Aldi you really notice how expensive Waitrose is but it is such a nice store for a wander around every now and again. We then went into the city centre where S got some new earphones from the Apple store and we had a look in a couple of shops but to be honest the weather put us off staying very long.

 Whilst we were out we had an architect visit to start drawing up plans to have a small extension upstairs to give us an extra bedroom. When we moved here we downsized from a 5 bedroom bungalow with an acre of land to a 3 bed house with a downstairs study which could be used as a bedroom, and which in fact  is D's bedroom. When we moved it coincided with S going off to university, and so we didn't think that she would ever move back in with us so we just put an extra single bed in K's bedroom for when she visited. BUT we were wrong.  In her first year she suffered with bad homesickness and came home a lot and is now hoping to get a job in one of the hospitals around here once she graduates. She wants to do her probationary year around here, whilst living at home, then go travelling for a year and then start looking for a house to buy. So the long and the short of it is she will be moving back home during the summer and in the long term a 13 and a 21 year old sharing,  not huge bedroom, is just not going to work. We love where we live, and house prices have gone mad everywhere, so we think it will be cheaper to extend than move. Finally, as well, the new vinyl flooring was laid in the kitchen as well and it looks great - finally no ripples everywhere.

Today, D didn't start school till 11.30 so we went into Newton Abbot to have breakfast out. We went to the Orsino Lounge, which is part of the Cafe Lounge chain, where D had the full cooked breakfast and I had a bacon butty. Both were really good as was my cappuccino. I dropped her off at school and then came home for a couple of hours peace and quiet and caught up on my ironing.

Tonight I shall be catching up with Kate Humble and then it will be gogglebox. It's an early night tonight as I have to be at Dawlish hospital for my second covid jab at 8.12 am!