under another sun

Lorraine and I woke up in Bromyard. Getting dressed looking out the window over the fields and wooded hills, and what looked like a big red kite poised above it all in the completely blue sky. Down for coffee and croissants with Sue and John.  Whiskey the dog being frisky and spooked by something, and barking at vapour trails from planes.  A very relaxing day. Went for a short walk into town, past the now closed down Dr Who museum, Bromyard now Dalek free, and saw an art exhibition a room of one's own at the Chapel Gallery. I was very impressed by the quality of work there -- and we had a long chat with the curator. Then we meandered back home via a couple of shops. Home, and took the opportunity for forty winks. Lorraine and Sue happily chatting all afternoon.   In the evening John drove us to a restaurant called The Baiting House which served gourmet pub grub. Very tasty food -- we all had meltingly good pork belly main -- with cheery service. I would have liked sligh...

Breakfast in Bromyard, John excelling himself again, and mainly Lorraine and I sdoing a great deal of chatting with John and Sue, and lurking in the garden, and for me throwing a ball to Whiskey the dog, whose idea of returning it was to drop it in the little pond, and lap lots of water in the heat. John was telling me about his solar panels and electric car, and how their idea had been to future proof as much as possible. With the spike in power costs caused by Russia, his panels were going to pay for themselves even more quickly. Being able to charge your car from sunlight is a very good thing. Lorraine and I went off and did a little shopping in Bromyard, and we sent a birthday card to Peter Hoibak. There is a mysterious Dr Who museum at the end of the main street, and we made two attempts to be let in. One time a dog barked threateningly through the glass panes at us, the other time there was nothing. Felt like some kind of Ray Bradbury place, the mysterious shop that does not open...

Ambushed by Whiskey again this morning. She stole into the room while Lorraine was downstairs, and seized my watch in its mouth.  I gave chase around the room in my boxer shorts for a bit, before Whiskey thought it would be more fun make off.  I bleated for Sue, who sorted everything out. My watch, when retrieved from under Sue and John's bed, had only received a nasty licking and was unharmed.  After a lovely breakfast, an amble into Bromyard this morning with Sue, marching up Frog Lane (see what I did there) to the Broad Street where there was a variety of nice little shops, even a theatre and... A Dr Who museum.   This afternoon off to Brockhampton, a small National Trust property surrounded by gorgeous hilly land. Sue volunteers there once a week, and we lurked about in a batty building, with half a moat around it. Perfect for fending off unidirectional invasions. The rooms each were time capsules from different periods in the house's history. There was also a ga...

A day with Sue and John, scorchingly hot, and ending in big spots of rain, and thunder north of Birmingham.  Opted not to do anything arduous. I spent plenty of time reading in the back garden under a tree, Pascale Petit's Mama Amazonica, and also reading through a few copies of Supernatural Tales. Mysteriously, I managed to accumulate five thousand paces playing football with Whiskey in the back garden. The day hadn't begun well between us. She undid my laces as I came into the kitchen this morning, and bit my hands. However this little pup is a keen footballer, leaping over the ball and biting bits of surface of it while barking and leaping happily. Something unexpected was happening to me, I found myself positively liking this dog a great deal. I hadn't kicked a football in years, and this was great fun too, and I found myself dancing around the garden and laughing with the pup. Evening, Lorraine cooked curries supported by Sue her Sue chef, and we forked these down ...

A staycation! So Lorraine and I jumped in the car and zoomed north to South Littleton on the edge of the Cotswolds, to see Sue and John. We came armed with bottles of wine, but it turned out that Sue and John decided to have had a booze free year, both demonstrating wills of iron and so on. I am not sure how I would have coped this year without the judicious application of a little booze. Good to see Sue and John again. John had a recent spell in hospital but had been released back into the wild, and put on a few medications and sick leave. He has been under huge pressure at work, but seems in good spirits. Also met their lively little long haired Jack Russell called Whiskey, which is still very much a puppy. Lorraine cooing soppily over it, and Sue slipping on its sports bra for a saunter over the fields in the heat. We walked across what John said were ancient ridge and furrow fields, which gave the ground a  corrugated look, and was done to increase surface area and improv...