Mare's Tails

There was an unexpectedly nice start to the day this morning and although the forecast was not good we did actually have a reasonably nice day and it was dry.  I took this photograph just before 7.00am as the sun was coming up - the position has change dramatically over the months - in the summer I would see this happening way more over to the left.  It would be interesting to do one a month same time, same day to see how it changes.

We had organised to go to the Railway for lunch with Mum and Lilian - it's not my favourite (venue) as Stan would say but the food is honest pub grub and not overly priced and mum likes it.  Although, as I learned today when taking Mum, the access to the toilets is up some very very steep steps - she would never have made it on her own.

I think when we arrived at Mums that her sugar levels were low as she was definitely not herself as she went to look for a scarf in the cutlery drawer.  However as soon as she had eaten something she was much more her normal self.

Things didn't start well at the Railway as they couldn't find our booking even though I had the email to confirm it and then they placed us by a rickety table which was holding an even more rickety Christmas Tree which John managed to knock over and destroy!

Mum then proceeded to eat a huge meal, more than I did!!!  She shared pate and toast with Lilian and then ate the best part of her main meal which was roast chicken with roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, Stuffing, carrots, cauliflower cheese, cabbage and mashed potato!!!  Once I realised she was struggling to cut the crispy roast potatoes and got John to cut them up for her she was well away.

We went back to Mum's for a cup of tea before we took Lilian home, calling in so that John could dismantle her hoover and extricate the ball of something which her cleaner had got well and truly lodged in the pipe.

The sky on the way home had an amazing cloud formation which I said to John looked like horses tails - and actually that is exactly right - this cloud formation is called Cirrus Uncinus.  The name is derived from Latin meaning Curly Hooks or more commonly Mares' Tails.  Cirrus Uncinus cloud formations are a crowd-pleaser apparently, this is because of their majestic and distinct look, high in altitude and fibrous in nature.  Unfortunately these clouds can predict bad weather in the upcoming 24-48 hours as they can signify an incoming weather front which turned out to be completely accurate.

We got home in daylight and had a tidy up because we had invited Pete and Gail round for a catch up - we haven't seen Pete since he returned from the UK and he was there for 2 weeks and prior to that we had visitors so it has been ages.

They came around 6.00pm and John had the house all lovely warm and toasty and all the Christmas Decs were up and looking nice so it was a pleasant and relaxed few hours.  I had warned them I wasn't doing food!!!

I will close with this photograph which was on social media - it was taken by the new owners of Mum and Dad's old house - the one that they had built.  It looks lovely and Dad would have been chuffed to bits to know that his dream has become someone else's dream with Nicky and Mark as custodians in between.  It was and still is a great house.