Why on earth do people buy bottled water? They already pay for the water in their taps which is perfectly good to drink. Buying bottles of water is merely paying again for something they’ve already paid for and have easy access to. And if one turns on the tap and pours a glass of water and drinks it, there’s no plastic or glass bottle to dispose of afterwards. I don’t get it at all.
I had to go to Nero’s today because Starbucks didn’t open until 8:30, it being a bank holiday Monday. I assumed (idiot I am) that they’d be open half an hour before Waitrose, which opened at 8. Anyway, had the weather been nice and pleasant I might have sat on a bench and read for 40 minutes but the weather was wet and dreary so I walked around the block to where Nero was gloriously open. I had my coffee here instead. And it was very nice.
The gardeners didn’t come this morning as Mirinda expected. She thought they’d work on a bank holiday. She had the tea and coffee out on the counter, had moved Max and was up and ready for them. I had mentioned that they probably wouldn’t be working on a bank holiday. Eventually she re-read the text from them and discovered that they had never planned to come today and would arrive tomorrow morning.
Actually they were very lucky because the weather was awful. Lots of continuous rain. I do feel we have had more rain than necessary. It can stop now, please.
Most of the day was, therefore, spent inside. While Mirinda worked on her DBA, I washed the extension floor and started the infinite pile of laundry (no sooner do I get it down than it starts back up again).
I then rehung Mirinda’s art gallery in the Library. She asked me to do this quite a while ago and I thought I’d put it off long enough and so set to it. It was a long, arduous task with quite a few instances of position change and…change again.
I realise the two round pictures need to be moved to the left a bit.
This was so exhausting that we decided to go for a drive afterwards to recover.
Mirinda suggested we head over to the Duke of Cumberland for a drink then drive back. This was all fine and dandy until we reached the Bourne to discover a traffic jam for no reason. Like a fair few others, we turned around and found another way that avoided the blockage. We wound up driving down lanes we’d never seen before. We also discovered an edge of the South Downs National Park which we didn’t know came so close to us.
Eventually we reached the pub and, after a wander around the muddy garden, went inside for a Timothy Taylor’s Landlord and a red wine, relaxing in front of the rather pathetic kindling fire.
A small part of the very green garden around the Duke of Cumberland
Not that they needed a fire. The pub is quite cosy and warm without it and the temperature was not very low. Still, it did make it rather idyllic. (Mirinda had suggested that she sit by the fire and I have the other chair in case I fried but, as she said, the fire never actually put out any heat.) We sat and chatted and listened to the locals nattering until our drinks were finished. We then drove home.
Yesterday Mirinda had asked for lasagne so when we arrived home, I rushed around like a lunatic in my kitchen and made her one.
I was very pleased with it.
