The House Husband

This place is beautiful. Of course it helps that the weather is just about perfect and it’s very quiet. Even so…this place is beautiful.

The owner's house, just across the drive from us

The beds are a bit weird, it has to be said and the whole place is a bit damp after a wet winter (we are the first of the season to use the place) but nothing that a jolly good airing won’t fix.

The shower is FANTASTIC! Powerful and hot and enclosed in a screen, exactly what one wants from a shower. This differs from the one at Mestre, which I considered was so awful it didn’t even warrant a mention…but let’s just say it dribbled, the shower head was about three feet off the ground and there was no curtain.

Today was all about doing very little, apart from going for a walk around the village and along part of a country walk. It’s a lovely village with a gorgeous old church.

Liorac-sur-Louyre

We popped into the Bar/Tabac/Restaurant in order to buy some water (Mirinda reckons it may have been the guy’s only sale of the day) and then set off on the yellow route which wound around the top of the village and then off into the countryside.

The countryside around here is absolutely alive with insects and small mammals, lizards and birds. As we walked along, we had a few, what I think were baton blue butterflies playing leapfrog with Mirinda’s runners. I think it was the bright cerise laces they were particularly attracted to.

At one stage she stopped, avoiding crushing some by a fraction of an inch and a quick yell from me. Her heel raised, two blue butterflies frolicked around it, not a care in the world but for each other. I tried to get a photograph but they were just too quick.

We walked for around three hours, returning exhausted and quite hungry. So, while I prepared a lovely, light and tasty French lunch, Mirinda jumped in the pool to cool off. She reckons this is possibly the best view she’s ever swum to.

Swimming in a wonderful background

Just to finish off this day of doing very little, here’s a short video of the house we’re staying in. It may not work very well because I don’t have the right software on my netbook but, hopefully, it’ll give you some idea.

Tomorrow we are going all prehistoric…

After yesterdays boot purchasing failure, I decided to try Winchester today. There is a Millets and a Blacks there and I figured one of them might be keen to sell me a pair of hiking boots. So, after chatting to mum about Audrey’s navigation skills and overwhelming desire to go to Brisbane even though it’s underwater, and after Mirinda had been to the gym and after we’d had lunch…we drove to Winchester.

We both love Winchester and today showed us why. It was wet and drizzly, grey and murky. Not at all pleasant. Arriving and parking then, disregarding any discomfort, we took our usual walk along the river, admiring the strength of the ducks, holding on against the rapids of the Itchen. We wandered beneath St Swithin’s cute little attic chapel. We strolled around the cathedral.

The Itchen River, just after the City Mill, Winchester

In the high street we popped into Nero’s for a coffee. Or rather, I had a coffee (my usual latte with hazelnut a habit my mother has also embraced) and Mirinda chose something sage green in a plastic cup which turned out to be a glorified milkshake. Actually it just turned out to be a milkshake but it had a glorified name. She said it was very nice…if you like minty milk.

Nero's in Winchester

And then the hunt was on. First up was Blacks. What a total waste of time and effort. The girl there (and I say ‘girl’ because I think she was an 11 year old on work experience) when asked if they had the boot I wanted in a size 10, ran off up the stairs. She returned to ask which boot I meant and took off again. I managed to ask her to bring down a size 11 as well if she had it.

Eventually she returned to say they didn’t have any of the boots I wanted. I asked her why they were on display then. She suddenly acted as if I wasn’t there. She wandered back to the pricing job she’d been engaged in before I rudely interrupted her with a purchase query, and put her head down.

I was aghast. I was tempted to say something but a man holding a couple of thick jackets asked her if he could pay at her till. She grimaced and replied that he could pay her or the guy downstairs, it was up to him. She then turned her back on him. He went downstairs. I shook my head in astonishment to no-one in particular and left the store. A little while later I saw the same guy walking down the high street with nothing in his hands. He clearly hadn’t bought anything.

I spotted Mirinda wandering aimlessly – something she calls “waiting for my husband” – and explained my empty hands with as much invective as possible. We started to wander back to Sidney, sad and disconsolate. And then I spotted the Millets. I didn’t want to be disappointed yet again but Mirinda insisted and, eventually I agreed to try one more time. I mean it was that or never go walking again.

What a difference! A young guy served me and couldn’t have been any more helpful. He wasn’t pushy but helped me immediately. He very successfully sold me a pair of excellent hiking boots. I was ecstatic and ran outside to let Mirinda know and we skipped back to the car, whistling a merry tune, dodging the raindrops and generally making people stare.

And, as well as being very successful with the boot acquisition, I couldn’t be happier with them. Very comfortable, water proof and breathable, they guarantee me a good long walk soon! And here’s one of them for you to admire:

One of my new boots

So, the rain decided to give us a miss today. The sky was blue, the temperature up at about the 28 mark and not even a sniff of rain. At last. Fantastic.

Mum managed to dry her 24 loads of washing without any problem at all. I had two swims – the first with two very well behaved children and the second with some noisy Americans – and a lovely walk by the canal.

A lot of people had managed to squelch themselves out of their homes and were gallivanting around the park down by Double Bay beach. I even spotted a wedding going on near the cafe. Talk about lucky! One day earlier, the bride would be wearing a wetsuit. And they don’t look that good in white.

This morning we went into Caloundra again so we could change the slowly deflating airbed I’ve been sleeping on for one that remains inflated. It’s very odd on a queen size airbed because the two sides lift up as the air goes from the middle and you end up cocooned. There was no problem exchanging it. In fact, it must happen a lot because the girl on the check-out seemed to be expecting it.

Mum then drove off looking for photographs while I went to Sanity to buy our Christmas presents from mum & dad (a load of DVDs). After buying the shop out, I wandered over to the Coffee Club to wait for mum. She. meanwhile, had pulled into the car-park (it’s a very big, spread out car-park) and, coincidentally parked next to Trace.

Mum then went into K-Mart and texted Trace to see where she was. ‘In K-Mart’ came the reply. And there she was. So they both did whatever they had to do then came and joined me for a coffee. A lovely surprise.

Back at home (which is a duplex rather than an apartment!) we unpacked the shopping (including a few thousand Cherry Ripes for Dawn) then realised the Internet was finally on!

It took me a while, but I updated my blog and blips and FB, read and discarded most of my 300+ emails and downloaded The Archers episodes I’d missed. Mum went through her emails as well, getting rid of lots of rubbish. It always happens.

Because the sun was out, I managed to get some nice shots around mum & dad’s little community. Here’s one of the roads that leads to their place.

The road to mum & dad's

And here’s one of the canal just across the road. Down a few streets and through a small alley.

The canal separating Kawana Island from the rest of Queensland

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In the meanwhilst, Mirinda had to say goodbye to her mum as she left for Singapore this afternoon. In her words, she was ‘utterly miserable’. Completely understandable. She has been with Claire (and Bob, of course) for over two months now so it’s obviously going to be a wrench. For all of them. I hope she has a good time in Singapore over New Years.

And my best wishes to Claire (I’m assuming Bob will be reading this to her) and I hope the damned trachy is gone soon!

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In other medical news…dad is slowly getting stronger. The length of the hallway means he gets the equivalent exercise of an iron-man every time he moves from the bedroom to the lounge. We’ll get him on a surf board very, very soon.

He came for a ride with us in the car yesterday which was a big step.

Apparently it’s a good day to get married. If you add the numbers up in the date, the result matches up with the planet Venus while the number ’1′ represents the sun. That makes it a good day to marry. There are people who believe that. It does make it easy to remember when it comes to your anniversary. On Breakfast this morning, we heard from a waiting groom. I think it was the bride’s idea to get married today. He just wanted to go back to bed.

Honestly, how can any of it have any supernatural influence on anything? I know people like patterns; it’s pretty and easy to recall if necessary (the date of the great fire of London would not be so easy to remember if it happened in 1637) but none of it means anything.

It was the Global Day of Doing today. A day to reduce our impact on the planet. A day to do things differently, showing that even small things can make a difference. The reason it’s 10.10.10 is because it is snappy and easy to remember.

In honour of the Global Day of Doing, we decided to go to Hankley for a walk. Ok, that’s a bit tenuous. To be fair, there’s no link with the Global Day of Doing at all. We went to Hankley because it was a glorious day and we go to Hankley almost every weekend because we love it.

We had considered going yesterday but the day was so gloomy, it didn’t seem worth it, so we walked to the castle instead. Today, however, the promised blue skies were spread out from tree top to hill top like a large ironed, fitted, blue bed sheet. No clouds, no contrails (it was almost as if a volcano somewhere was sending up clouds of noxious gas) just blueness. It was beautiful. And warm. It could have been summer.

We spotted a group of ramblers at the top, walking along the ridge. People who ramble in groups are a mystery to me. I love the solitude of walking; not having to move at someone else’s pace; being able to see whatever you want; stopping to admire the beauty all round you. It is a large part of walking for me just to be in the landscape.

I understand people walking together for companionship. You find a lot of lonely people drawn out of their loneliness by the promise of a few hours chatting to like minded walkers. But it doesn’t work for me. If I was lonely, I’d go to the pub. If I want to walk, I want to be alone. Except for the poodles of course. And Mirinda.

Anyway, this group of ramblers were ahead of us. On Hankley there is a hill, I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned it before. it affords a wonderful panorama of the heathland bowl below it. It is just off the main path. One of the ramblers went up the hill while the others kept on the track, ignoring it. Madness. Even the person who climbed the hill (it is not steep or difficult!) didn’t stay, long enough to truly feel the wonder. Anyway, I snapped some of them approaching the hill.

Ramblers at Hankley miss viewpoint

In the photo you can clearly see the hill. Rather than turn right and walk up it, the kept going forward. Weirdos.

Speaking of weird and returning to topic I started with and the reason why today is so important…The binary number 101010 is 42 which is, of course, the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything. To be fair, though, it’s not really very miraculous. After all, today’s date is actually 10.10.2010 and not 10.10.10; I don’t think anything particularly special happened on October 10, 10.

Weather-wise, it was a day of all sorts.  Blue skies, grey clouds, sun showers, mud.  Decidedly not cold and the snow has all melted.

The poodles were a bit over excited, growling and snarling over various bits of dead turkey and brightly coloured squeaky toys.  They find Christmas all a bit too much.  Sick of hiding their various presents around the house, I took them for a walk.  Just as the rain started.  Of course, having already attached the lead it was too late to back out so I threw on my raincoat and ventured forth into the park.

There was an extraordinary number of people wandering around the park.  Big family groups, not always with dogs, clearly exercising off Christmas dinner.  These are people who are not normally in the park.  They don’t bother saying hello like the regular dog walkers.  I generally refer to them as city types.  I have no idea if they are.  For all I know, they may be from South Farnham – the snotty part.

Most of the shops in Farnham were closed so maybe these people were lost, searching for an open  store.  I say most but the ones that were open were not the big chains (except for Boots and Smiths) but smaller ones and some restaurants.

One big group was walking with a feisty little Jack Russell.  It was when we were almost home so the poodles were back on their lead.  As usual they decided to snap and snarl at the Jack Russell but, unusually, the other dog snapped and snarled back.  Generally dogs run off when Day-z snaps at them.  She really has absolutely no social skills.  But not this time.

The Jack Russell chased them around my legs, entangling me in the lead.  Carmen started squealing (she is so embarrassing) and slipped her collar off.  The Jack Russell managed to pin her to the ground and was baring its teeth.  Carmen was squealing even louder.  I managed to separate them and calm Carmen down while the Jack Russell’s owner finally ambled over to put his dog on his lead.

He was all cheerful and chuckles as he bent over and scratched Day-z’s face.  I did the right thing and assuaged their fears by saying Carmen was a drama queen.  Did they apologise?  Did they say anything.  Actually, yes.  He asked me how to get back to the cricket ground carpark.  I was very tempted to direct them into the worst, muddiest part of the park but I resisted and told them the shortest way.  Just as it started to rain.

No harm was done.  Carmen really is a drama queen – from her sick bed, Mirinda heard her screams they were so loud – but I really thought these people could have expressed a bit of remorse.  Like I say, city types.  They just have no idea of the rules.

Contrary to this, at the beginning of the walk, we were met by a terrier called Elvis.  We’ve seen him before and he was truly ready to play.  He ran up to Carmen, making her chase him.  When she turned back he’d come up behind her and pat her on the back, making her chase him again.  He was hilarious.  Day-z didn’t think so as she stuck to my side but Carmen was having a great time.  As was Elvis.

Walking with Elvis were three humans who made all sorts of apologetic noises, through the laughter.  It really wasn’t necessary but Elvis HAD started it.  It was far too funny to take too seriously.

Oh, and Mirinda is still sick.  She seems to gain a new symptom each day.  This morning she was sneezing.  She’s getting pretty bored.  She wanders around upstairs like Mrs Rochester in the attic!