What a glorious Sunday it was today. A light breeze, no rain, sunshine and lots of blue sky. And not only that, we also went for a delightful walk beside a river, followed by a late lunch at the Holly Bush. We took complete advantage of the fact that we kept Freddy for another couple of days.
Originally, we were going to have brunch at the Holly Bush but, when I rang to book, they were chockers. So I booked for 2:30 and we headed for Arlesford for a walk along the river.
We have always seen millions of ducks and sometimes a swan but today marked the first time there’s been a whole bunch of cygnets. There were so many. And only one swan. There was either a lot of egg survival this year or the swan was the cygnet day care centre owner, taking her charges out for a float down the river while their parents were swanning around town somewhere.
Lots of people stopped and gasped with delight as the flock waited to be fed from the seed bags left by locals. Little kids fed both ducks and swans, the braver ones from their hands. Dogs were held in check. It was all an absolute delight.
What wasn’t delightful was the woman who walked by and told the woman sitting next to us that she should stop her dog chasing the ducks. This was before the feeding frenzy and, besides, the dog only chased them when they came onto the path. And Freya did the same thing. In fact, she was a lot better at it. Had I been alone I might have asked her why. If anything, she was disturbing the ducks’ environment more than any of the dogs could ever manage.
But, of course, I didn’t. Instead, we all just looked quizzically and let her walk by. Fortunately, it was merely a blip on an otherwise perfect rest at the halfway point of our walk.
The walk back to Freddy was equally lovely, as was the drive back home.
We had a short rest at home, during which I tried to get my spare phone to work.
It was then I discovered that SIM cards lose their numbers if you don’t use them at some point during 180 days. The last time I used the phone was when we all went to Florence, and I gave it to Denise, so she could keep in contact with me. I thought I’d do the same this time while she visits Kay, but the SIM card was dead. What a waste of a resource.
Denise contacted Kay this morning, before we went anywhere, and arranged to go and spend the week with her in Essex. It would seem that Kay’s will be party central.
Eventually, we headed over to the Holly Bush for linner.
It was a bit of a challenge, finding parking. Frensham was full to overflowing with cars. There was cricket on both pitches, but I couldn’t see anything else going on. Of course, the players would all have driven over in separate cars. And the Holly Bush was doing a roaring trade, which filled their car park.
Eventually, we managed to squeeze Freddy into a Fiat 500 sized spot, overlooking the cricket, and we headed to the pub.
The menu has changed slightly to include Japanese style chicken, which was delicious. Naturally, I had the salt and pepper squid first. And Denise actually had a starter as well, opting for the satay chicken. Of course, by the time we left we were totally stuffed. There’ll be no more food eaten today, we said.
Finally, back at home, I made a batch of apple and walnut muffins, ahead of my ‘interview’ tomorrow with Anya.
An almost all round perfect Sunday.
