Another week gone by in a blur of school and work. The Thursday before last, once I had finished work at 12, I met two friends at our village Hotel for lunch. D has a Daughter the same age as S and was manager of the pre-school I used to work at for many years. K I have known since I moved to the village and her youngest Daughter and D have been best friends since pre-school and now they are 17!. We had lots to catch up on and the food was really good as usual.

On Saturday K went off to play tennis with a friend so we took L over to Teignmouth for a nice long walk along the beach and an ice-cream, then on Sunday we went on a day out to Escot which is the other trip we had to rearrange when the girls got covid. Escot is an animal park the other side of Exeter but also has trampolines, drop slides, a play area and a maze. We took a picnic and had a lovely few hours, the only bad thing being the coffee we bought there which was so vile I couldn't drink it. Afterwards, as the sun had come out and it had got very warm we continued on to Budleigh Salterton which is a lovely old fashioned small seaside town. I didn't even consider putting the beach bag in the car so the girls had to make do with a paddle.

This week has been taken up with cleaning, working, a couple of shopping trips with D, a couple of walks along Teignmouth seafront and taking D to have her covid vaccination, which had had to be postponed because of having covid. Tomorrow we are off up to Wiltshire for the night to see my Dad and my Mother-in-law so it will be a very busy couple of days. 

 Can't believe it's been a week since I wrote a post but being back in the routine of school/clubs makes the days fly by.

Last weekend was exciting because we had our Village Festival. This is held every other year, usually in June, but was delayed this year due to Covid.  I think, off the top of my head, that this is the fourth one to be held. On the Thursday and Friday there were lots of workshops for the Primary School children to take part in. Unfortunately, on Thursday, it was very wet here in the morning when L went on a heritage trail and did an orienteering activity, both outside. She said she looked like she had been swimming by the time they got back into the classroom! 

On the Friday morning I met a friend so that we could watch the cookery demonstrations in the main marquee. The first was done by the chef at a pub in a nearby village and he made a lovely, very calorific, pudding which had a chocolate biscuit base and a chocolate ganache topping. It was decorated with a tuile biscuit and a fruit compote. The best bit, which we were not expecting, was that he passed around slices for us to taste! Afterwards, there was a demonstration by a Lady who owns Shute Fruit pick your own in the Village, and makes all sorts of preserves and chutneys. Her talk and demonstration was 25 things to do with courgettes. She made about half a dozen things, that again we could try, and gave ideas for others. My friend then stayed on to do a pottery workshop but I headed on home. L had taken part in a puppet workshop in the morning and parents were invited down to the marquee in the afternoon to watch them do a short performance with them. All lovely and a bit of a poignant time as the next time the festival is held I won't have a child at the school.

Saturday, we spent most of the day down at the festival, looking at the stalls, watching viking re-enactments, martial arts displays and L's favourite, the dog show. We came home for some dinner and then went back down in the evening for the live music. Our Village is very musical and there are several really good bands. It was lovely sat outside with a glass of wine listening to them all perform.

Sunday, we were up early and away to World of Country Life in Exmouth. When we had to cancel our holiday in the Lake District due to Covid I had booked a couple of days out to try and make up for it. Then K went and caught Covid as well and all those plans had to be cancelled. Luckily I was able to transfer the tickets I had bought for this attraction. We had a brilliant day out, goat walking (twice), bottle feeding animals, ferret racing and animal handling. There is also a maze and loads of play equipment so we were there nearly until they closed. For some reason we had never heard of it in all the time we have lived in Devon, and only discovered it through me going with the children I childmind  in the holidays. Definitely somewhere to visit again.

Monday the most exciting thing we did was order the carpet for our hall, stairs and landing. This means that Hubby now has to speed up on the decorating to be finished for when it's available to collect. There is still a fair bit of gloss work to do. Unfortunately, his part time job as a mortgage broker has become a bit of a full time one over the last six months due to all the craziness with the housing market and so the house has had to take a bit of a back seat. It's slowly starting to calm down a bit so he's hoping he can squeeze in doing the living room as well before Christmas.

Well I think that's everything for the moment so I'm off to find something I fancy for lunch.

 Well we are back in the routine of school and work!

K and L went back yesterday and D goes back tomorrow. I went back to work yesterday after a couple of weeks break and boy was it hard waking up at 6.30.

On Saturday afternoon we decided to have a look around the charity shops in St Marychurch and Wellswood. There was nothing exciting on the clothing rails but I did manage to get four very nice Marks & Spencer soup bowls. When I got home I decided I wanted them to live in one of my glass fronted kitchen wall cupboards so that lead to me emptying it out, washing the shelves and then getting rid of a few bits to make room!

On Sunday we walked down to our Village Hotel for Sunday lunch as a belated birthday celebration. We were meant to be in the Lake District for my Birthday travelling back on the Saturday so we had booked lunch on the Sunday as we could all be together. Due to Covid the holiday had to be cancelled but we decided to leave our meal out plans as they were. The lunch was really good and it was especially nice not having the work of cooking a roast myself. When we got home S left to travel back to Bath ready to start her new job the following day, D went over to her boyfriends, and so as the sun had come out we decided to squeeze in one last trip to the beach before school started back. We had a very very pleasant couple of hours sat on the beach while the girls swam in the sea and finished off with ice creams.

Monday morning the girls wanted to go into town for a couple of last minute school bits and we had drinks and toasted teacakes out. We then came home and I got on with jobs while the girls packed school bags and got uniform out ready. 

                           

Tuesday we were up early getting ourselves ready for work and school. K's day didn't get off to a good start as her school bus broke down about five miles from us so all the children from our village that get it were hanging around for half an hour or so and consequently late on their first day back. Hubby walks L down to school on a Tuesday when I work as I start at 8.00 , and then she just walks home by herself. I cannot believe she is now a year 6 starting her last year of primary school. My little baby has grown up! Anyway they both had good first days back so that's always good. 

I started off today with a bit of pampering by having a cut and finish at our village hairdressers which was lovely. When I got back D was up and dressed so after getting a couple of food items in our nearby Morrisons we came back to Jacks Patch, our village garden centre, and had a coffee. After that I came home and just got on with a whole lot of jobs that needed doing. 

We have a village festival starting tomorrow so we shall be busy with that over the next few days. It is held on our village green just over the road from the primary school so they will spend a lot of time over there tomorrow and Friday doing different workshops. There is a play Friday night and live music Saturday night with a bar and different food outlets available. During the day Saturday there are stalls, a dog show, activities to take part in etc so we shall spend most of the day down there I expect.

That it is for now, back soon.

 Happy Birthday To Me!!

Today is my Birthday and, although I detest getting older, I have a lovely day with Hubby and our girls.  As the sun was shining we went to Broadsands beach for the day which is just along from Paignton. It's a favourite beach with us as it has a big car park, somewhere to get a drink and an ice cream and nothing else. The girls all went swimming and we cooked burgers for lunch followed by a slice of coffee and walnut cake. We've had fish and chips for dinner. We were meant to be in the Lake District this week so as we were not due back till late tomorrow we have a table booked for Sunday lunch at our village Hotel. We decided to stick with this even though we are now not away after all.

I had some lovely presents. From my Sister I had some toiletries and a lovely crystal angel which is already hanging from the window in front of me as I type this. From youngest Daughter L I had chocolate, pink fizz (which is going to be opened when I finish this post!) a new bath puff, a face mask and an air freshener for my car. From K I had some perfume and a gift card for Next which will be spent in the next couple of days as I've already seen a top in there I like. From D I had a hot cloth cleanser and some shower gel and from S the new Jamie Oliver cookbook which although was released yesterday and pre-ordered from amazon weeks ago has been delayed. Hubby excelled himself. Recently Vix on her blog showed some pottery they had purchased which included a utensil drainer. The pottery is from Westbury Pottery and I was born and grew up about 3 miles away. Anyway on Wednesday Hubby and S went up to Wiltshire to look at some flats for when S's current rental comes to an end and they went to the pottery and he bought me the utensil drainer and a storage jar for pasta! It is absolutely beautiful and I was so surprised to find that, yes, he does listen to what I rabbit on about sometimes!

The rest of the last week has been pretty quiet. K came out of isolation Wednesday so we went for a walk at Decoy Country Park in Newton Abbot. The council have just spent a fortune completely refurbishing the play park and they have done a brilliant job. We walked all around the lake, then got ice creams and they had a play in the park.

Yesterday we went to National Trust parkland in Bovey Tracey called Parke for a nice long walk. We finished up in the town and visited The Jolly Roger which is a company that makes life size resin and fibre glass models and characters for advertising etc. You can go in and walk around for free and outside they have a big courtyard with nice seating where I had a coffee and the girls had ice creams. We then walked across to the playpark and had a picnic lunch and a play and then walked all the way back to the car. It was a lovely few hours.

Well, the pink fizz is calling so back in a few days.