Giddy Kippers!

This little watch has been with me for a very long time - 48 years to be exact as it was my 18th birthday present from Mum and Dad and if my memory serves me right it was purchased from a tiny little jewelers in Glastonbury.

I doubt I have worn it for the last 30 years or so (fashions change) but it has remained with me and recently I looked at it and thought I don't really care if the fashion is to sport a timepiece the size of Big Ben this little watch has stood the test of time (see what I did there!!!) and deserves to be worn.

I asked John if he could change the battery as it had stopped but he had a look at it and said he couldn't see any way to get the back off easily so I would have to take it into Polis.  As I returned it to its box I suddenly had a bit of a lightbulb moment and did something very radical - I wound it up!!!!  How very 20th century but do you know that worked and that little watch started working and kept excellent time until it needed winding up again.  Trying it for the first time I was mindful not to overwind but it did remind me the beauty of a battery is that it last for a lot longer!!!

This morning I nipped down to see Isabel.  She has returned from her (emotional) trip to Scotland and I just wanted to make sure that after her first couple of nights back in the house on her own that she was coping ok.  She is a remarkable woman and has decided that she needs to take control of her future so the first step is going to be to do her own shopping.

She had very kindly brought a gift back for me to say 'thank-you' for everything we had done - I am not sure it is going to suit John but it is right up my street so I was delighted.

We had a good chat over coffee.  She has decisions to make but currently her hands are somewhat tied by the restrictions of Covid-19 - even if she did want to return to Scotland she is currently unable to serve notice on her tenant and wouldn't want to move back to one place only to have to move again.  

She has her dog Andro back from his stay at Hounds on Holiday - he clearly benefited from having the company of other dogs and socialising and Mina had taken great care of him and got him to calm down.

This afternoon I met up with Sonia and we decided to go down to the Gravity Road Diner for a cup of tea and piece of cake.  It was considerably more windy down there than it had been up on top of the hill which took us by surprise.  

It was mid-afternoon and there were a few people there having snacks.  We opted for some carrot cake and a pot of tea and had a long chat about gardening.  Sonia is very keen on her new garden which has begun to take shape nicely.  Around the back she is creating a lush green tropical area and we were thinking about plants which would withstand the hot summer and the much cooler and wetter winter.  

We both agreed that there is a distinct lack of variety in the garden centres here in terms of the plants which are available but some of that might be because the climate has changed over the last few years and so now we are looking for items for the garden which previously would never have survived.  Sonia was telling me about the lovely garden she had created in the UK and how the people who purchased her house ripped it up!!  I remember that in one of our houses we had the most beautiful clematis that ran the whole length of the garden and when we sold that house the clematis was the first thing to go!!

On our way home Sonia asked me about the new little church that has appeared on the side of the road.  I said to her that the building had been there all the time we had lived here and, in fact, there had been a set of pews sitting outside it for years and years.  Recently someone had been doing it up and then a sign had appeared on the side of the road.  We struggled to make out the name of the church from the handwritten sign but eventually worked out that it was dedicated to Saint Euphemia .

We drove up not expecting it to be open but it was and so we stopped to have a look inside.  The work is still to be completed but it is a functioning small church and the surrounding area is in the process of being landscaped.

It was later than I had expected when we returned to Lordos 1 where we saw Richard the window cleaner chatting to Andrea and John at 4a.  We know that Richard is keen to purchase up here for himself and his mum so we were hoping he received positive news, apparently he should get some decision by the end of the week and they were, in his words, "proper giddy kippers".  Fingers crossed.