13 November 2023

 1. What have I been up to since end of Aug?

2. What have the girls been up to?

3. What’s to look forwards to

1. So since my last post.....  I have now finished/retired again from working, totally! It was good - good for me - to work part time for the last 6 months. Brought structure to my time and a welcome boost to the bank account. As mentioned before, it was starting to really affect my back and it was clear I had to stop and (touch wood) my back has been pain free since finishing the intense ground work. The deliveries were fun but Cel at Forever Green clearly needed help to do what I was now not able to do. An unfortunate misplacement of an expensive order for plants made things awkward towards the end of my time there but still I am proud of what I did.

Now I am back to my 7 day long weekends, I am really enjoying having all these days to do pretty much what the heck I like. I’ve been walking miles and miles. Some old favourites are repeated (Felbrigg/Overstrand/Wells). My wobbly knees and ankles have been behaving and I’ve gone back to the odd short runs, including notching up 250 Parkruns, at last.  A sore shoulder has stopped cycling for about a month and sea swimming stopped at the end of October. 

Had a great couple of days with Simon and Richard in Winchester and an even better visit to Rosie in Cardiff in early October. The garden has slowed to a manageable level tough there’s always something to do. Had a couple of home wins recently too (not football), surprisingly quickly getting our tank emptied and also getting our hot water working again. Got a good stack of logs in for winter and there’s also a reasonable amount of oil to see us through  

The football had been very disappointing after the promising start to the season. Sadly seems likely that Mr Wagner may have to fall on his sword

2. The girls have been very busy. Jenny has just got back from her Far East adventure. She’s packed in loads in the last 3 months, all over Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines and Indonesia. I’ve collated her photos on to YouTube and will share a link on here when she says it’s ok. Tomorrow she goes back to work - that must be quite daunting - but she always knew it was going to happen. Rosie spent a few weeks working for The Welsh Govt in August before spending a few weeks in Portugal and then back to Uni for year3. She’s on her way back to Cardiff right now after spending the weekend here with us. It was lovely to see her.  Debsie is still recalling from a school trip to 10 Downing Street last week, including chatting to the PM, She’s now prepping for what may well be her last ever ofsted inspection over the next few days. She will be shattered

3. What’s to look forwards to?

Christmas - hope that the 4 of us will be together. 

Sophie’s wedding on 23/12. 

Jenny to visit next weekend with all her stories of where she’s been

Still got a lot of the football season, and I will turn 60 in January. Nothing too grand planned (January birthdays are rubbish), but I’m fully ready to embrace it. Not sure I will do the pink-trousers-in-Holt that most old hits round here do.