It's been a lovely day. Twice, so far this year, we've planned to go to Sarah's, and each time, due to the weather and our leaky back hall, we've had to cry off. This morning (applying the well known principal of Mahomed and the Mountain) Sarah and her two youngsters, Lucy and Guy, accompanied by Ruby and Mango, set of at 6.15 a.m. and drove over to us, arriving at about 8.15a.m. Ann had prepared for them what the hotels call 'a full English breakfast' which we all enjoyed (and lingered over). Above photo shows Ann, Ruby, and Lucy, enjoying each other's company after breakfast, in the drawing room.
Above shows Sarah and Mango taken at the same time and in the same room.
Guy,Lucy, and Sarah. The time flew and at 1.30p.m. Ann reminded me that we'd planned to take them to lunch at our favourite farm shop. We all piled into Sarah's car, and drove out to Hollowtrees, where we lunched. Ann had a pannini with bacon, Brie, and cranberries, Sarah had a sausage sandwich and salad, and the children and I shared a large dish of tachos, with toasted Cheddar, tomato sauce (not the bottled sort) and red peppers (I'd not tried this dish before - rather liked it- and found it surprisingly filling). Ann and Sarah had water to drink, Lucy and Guy had Coca Cola, of different sorts, and I had a ginger beer, which I found went very well with the tachos ( I should perhaps explain, for clarity, that these turned out to be a sort of coarse textured and spicy, potato (?) crisp).
After lunch, which (like breakfast) we rather lingered over, we decided that a long walk around the farm would freshen us up. Above photo (taken by Lucy) shows meself and Guy on a thoroughly muddy farm track, which they'd made slightly more navigable, by placing logs crosswise along the worst of the path. As you can see, a tree had come down in the recent gales, and it always surprises me to see what a small root system supports an adult tree, which, in this case was a good forty foot high, or rather - long - now. Got home just before five, when Lucy and Sarah spent a good deal of time putting a slight problem to rights on my computer for me, then set off for the South Midlands just before six. As I said, it has been a lovely day, and thanks again, Sarah, Lucy, and Guy for coming all that way.
8 comments:
The family is a lovely, lovely unit.
Good to see Ruby and Mango being properly pandered to!
Sounds like you needed a walk after full English and Farm lunch!
Hello Z. Quite agree.
Hello Rog. Yes, they're nice dogs. And yes, the walk was a thoroughly good idea; although the wellies were a good idea, too!
P.s. When I said wellies were a good idea, I didn't mean it was raining today, it was a lovely sunny day, but that the paths were still 'slubby' as they used to say in Norfolk.
Thank you for a super day, a great start to half term week, back to reality today, Guy has all day golf workshop, Lucy has major bedroom tidying and I have a House to clean. Mike has set off for Bracknell but will be heading home to a couple of chilled bottles of Ghost Ship. A friend of ours is holidaying in Southwold, (home of Adnams) and is unable to find any said brew!!
Thanks again for a lovely day, see you soon, much love Stiggy x
Back in the early 1960s I was using a process called 'slub-dyeing' to colour yarn for M&S. Instead of dissolving the dye powder, you whisked it into a thick slubby paste and circulated it through the yarn under high temperature and pressure. This ensured all dye-bonding points on the fibres were fully saturated with dye to give a completely even and very intense colour. Slubbing is still recognised as a high quality process getting everything all slubbed up from neck-hole to breakfast-time! Amazing how widely spread Norfolkian language has become!
Hello Crowbard. I've just been checking the word 'slub' which I always thought was a Norfolk (or, even more locally, a Norfolk fenland term) meaning very wet mud. In fact I think the word must have a more widespread usage than I'd realised. Chambers 20th Century Dictionary gives it as 'to twist after carding, to prepare for spinning, or a lump in yarn, or lumpy, or so soil or daub, or to wallow (which seems to tie in with the fenland dialect word). The only term deriving from slub, which seems to be still in use is slubberdegullion - a sloven; which I find very expressive, although I can't remember ever having used it (and I'm not sure I'd dare to, anyway).
At sixteen letters, what a word for Scrabble!!!
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