The Long March

So, other than the visa excitement, what else has been happening chez WithaY lately?  I know you're all dying to ask, but are too polite.  Well, that's my assumption, anyway.

The other weekend was Mr WithaY's birthday.  This year both of us have been lucky enough to have birthdays that fall on a Saturday, so we have both had parties.  Hurrah for us.

Mr WithaY, having a Spring birthday, gets to have a partially outdoor party.  We get the brazier out, and hang lanterns in the apple tree, and light the fire, and people can sit around and look at the stars in a romantic and nature-loving manner.  Or, as usually happens, smoke fags, talk bollocks and sing loudly.  Both are good, of course. 

Mine is usually a smaller, less rowdy affair, perhaps a grown-up dinner party* or a few friends round for an elegant cocktail soiree**.  Always chic and well-planned though***.

Anyhoo.  The party.  We took Friday off work and got the house sorted out, ready for all the guests.  Mr WithaY spent hours, HOURS, tidying his study.  His study has been a bit of a bone of contention for, oh, about 5 years now.  It's normally a cross between a fishing tackle shop, a historical weapons exhibit at a museum, Ray Mears' Winter wardrobe, and the office of a dodgy tax accountant who never files anything to avoid trouble. 

The cleaners were given strict instructions when they started with us not to go in there.  Hell, I don't go in there. You never know what you might turn up. 

A hand-made fish spear?  Some carefully scrimshawed ox bones?  A hundred five-year-old copies of Shooting Times?  A large, lavishly-illustrated book on sausage-making?  A filing cabinet stuffed with telephone bills from the 1990s?  A Victorian chamber pot?  It's all possible. 

He spent the day sorting it all out, and by the time he'd finished, the place was just lovely.  We had a whole new room that people could go into, sit on the futon, have a drink, listen to music**** and chill out.  The carefully-placed coasters added to the total trance-room ambience, I think. 

It needed doing, as we had mates staying over, and unless that room is habitable there is no bed for some of them to use. 

Anyway, the party was a success, everyone had a nice time, or at least told us that they did, nothing caught fire, and nobody punched anybody else.  Always a sign of a good party, that.  We didn't overcater too dramatically, which was a pleasant change too.  Well, I say that.  I found several uneaten platters of party food in the big chiller in the garage the next day.  We had them for lunch.  Nom nom nom.

Party aside, what else?  Very little that I've felt compelled to write about in here.  Mr WithaY is in into the second week of his tree-climbing, coasteering, adventure training course, so the house feels big and quiet and empty.  Not that he usually runs around it shrieking and waving his arms when he's here, but I still miss him.

I went for a Long Walk on Sunday with some friends and their unfeasibly huge dog.  She is charming, well behaved and gentle, and a pleasure to be out and about with.  We drove up to Heaven's Gate, walked through the woods to the amazing stones and then down the path to the edge of Longleat Safari Park. 

The rhododendrons (sp?) were all out, and looked wonderful.

Obviously my photos don't do them justice, but you get the idea.  The stones looked fantastic in the weird kind of half-cloud that was going on.  I like this photo very much.

I didn't know that you can just walk right into the estate for free.  You only pay if you want to ride the gorilla boat or go in the mazes or go round the house or whatever.  We sat and had a drink at one of the cafe places there, walked around the gardens, then back over the fields and then UP the very steep hill to Heaven's Gate again. 

We walked from where I took this pic through the woods and along the road in a big loop to the house (helpfully arrowed) and then back up the hill that drops away in front of the bench in this picture.  By Swansea it was steep. 

It was all very pleasant; despite having to practically crawl up the last part of the hill on my hands and knees, stopping to wheeze at frequent intervals, I made it to the top without collapsing.  The friends I was with are both very fit.  Very, very fit.  The husband of the two ran - RAN - to the top of the hill, stood there for a bit, got bored and ran back down to where I was toiling up in the manner of an ant carrying an entire leaf on its back, and then ran - RAN - back to the top.

I had just about enough strength in my lungs to shout "You're not helping!" at him as he did laps of the hill.   It made me feel better.

Longleat House is gorgeous.  If I was Lord Bath I think I'd be very happy living there, despite the hordes of great unwashed traipsing through the garden. 

The gardens aren't half bad either. 

 

There are some excellent bits of sculpture and statues and so on.

Bonkers.

Other news:  Very little.  I have not really felt much like blogging for a few days, I think Mr WithaY must be my Muse, and with him out of the house, I have no ideas whatsoever.  Heh.

*shedloads of wine and hilarious shouting, often with the hostess falling asleep on the sitting room rug in front of the fire
**shedloads of cocktails and hilarious shouting, often with people falling asleep on the sofa and having to be evicted at 3am
***Not really.  Too much shouting for chic. 
****Trance, unfortunately, but hey, at least they didn't have to stand up to listen to it

Compliments of the season

Hello!  Season's Greetings and all that jazz.   Hope everyone is having a pleasant time. 

We've been having a very quiet Christmas here, which has been (and continues to be) lovely.  My hideous racking cough has diminished, although every now and again it creeps up on me, leaving me wheezing, teary-eyed and panicky.  Mr WithaY has gone down with a merry festive head cold and has spent much of the Christmas period so far on the sofa with a box of tissues and the remote control to hand. 

No relenting on the Christmas tree thing, and to be honest, I've not missed having one.  When we were getting all the boxes of decorations out of the loft it felt like only a few weeks since we put the things up there, so maybe a year off will make us appreciate them more next time.

The fabulous free-range turkey was cooked to perfection, along with half a pig's worth of chipolatas, stuffing and bacon.  We managed to get through about 1/50th of it at lunch yesterday, so I can see a few curries in our future.  Fortuitously, Middle Sis and family have sent us some very interesting looking Malasian curry mixes, so we can try them out.

This is the first Christmas I think I can remember where neither of us got books as gifts.  In years gone by, I would get the new Terry Pratchett, and then spend Boxing Day reading it, but over the last couple of years I have been very impatient and bought them when they come out, rather than waiting a couple of months till Christmas. 

We did, however, get lots of DVDs, so we have spent the last few days sitting on the comfy sofas watching them.  Oh, and chocolate, which was handy whilst watching the DVDs.  The new Star Trek is still excellent, and I still want to run away and join Starfleet.  

It's thawed out now.  Tuesday and Wednesday were terrifying.  Coming back from a neighbour's house at about 11.30 at night, everything was covered in thick sheets of ice.  It looked as though a hose had been turned on over everything, and then allowed to freeze solid. 

Walking home was the most scary thing I have done for many years.  I walked along on the grass where I could, clinging to fences and gates all the way, but I had to strike out across the roads a couple of times, and it was really just luck that I didn't end up face down on the ice.  One of our friends was less fortunate and took a slip and tumble on the way to the party, giving herself some very nasty bruises in the process. 

Anyhoo, Mr WithaY was helpful, offering me his arm (which I refused on the grounds that if I was going down I would only take him with me.  Such a hero, me) and some sage advice on how to walk on ice.  You have to "straddle, and walk crabwise" apparently.  At one point I was in the middle of the road, feet slipping wildly, not making any forward progress, when a car turned the corner and headed towards me.  I stayed where I was, unable to get out  of the way, convinced I was either about to break my nose/head/arms on the ice, that or get run over.  The car slid to a stop, and the driver very kindly waited till I had got myself off the road before continuing slowly on his way. 

We went to see Father-in-law WithaY and the roads were like ice rinks, even in the Landrover we were sliding about.  But everything is thawed out now, thankfully. 

Other news:  We have fish in the aquarium!  Some little glowlight tetras, which are small and pretty, and very entertaining to watch.  We started off with eight, but one of them didn't make it, and had to be scooped.  The remaining seven are settling in, chasing each other all over the tank, sometimes swimming in a shoal, sometimes all off in different directions.  They seem to like the pipe where the water comes out of the pump/filter thingy, and queue up to take turns at being pushed away by the flow. 

I like it when they all gather in the corner of the tank and watch the TV.  You can almost hear them: "Ooh, CSI!  I haven't seen this one."

Tomorrow we are going to get some more fish, which hopefully will survive the trip home.  I think barbs are next on the list, but we will take advice from the nice young man at the aquarium supply shop.  Mr WithaY did the science stuff today, testing the pH and so on, and everything was ok for a new tank.  The plants are doing well, so we are taking that as a good sign.

It's all very pleasing, watching the fish.  And good for the blood pressure, apparently.  Just as well after three days of TV-watching and chocolate-eating, really.   Aaah Christmas.

Damp

So let's talk about the weather, shall we? It's, what, August now? When did we last have more than 4 consecutive hours of fine weather? Late June, was it? Come on...sort it out, weather gods.

Having said that, yesterday was reasonably dry in the morning, so we were able to get out in the garden. To be fair, we are always able to get out in the garden, it's not like the back door is bricked up or anything. We choose not to use it, much of the time, and prefer to spend our time gazing mournfully through the rain-spattered windows, making tea and bitching about the weather.

Well, we are British, after all.

But Sunday. Gardening. Yes.

The back hedge desperately needed cutting. It was looking like one of those gap year students who spends 3 months hitching round Australia and never quite masters hair management...all weird spikes and bulges and long floppity bits. Between the two of us, using the hedge trimmer, the stepladder and two extension cables we managed to get the majority of the hedge sorted. Sadly, however, there is one corner that was justout of reach, and remains defiantly sticky-uppy. We'll have to ask if we can get at if from next door's garden, if it stops raining for long enough.

Once the fun bit was over, the slash and burn element, we had the boring tiresome tidying up to do. This was enlivened by Mr WithaY dragging a huge tarpaulin out of the garage and laying it on the lawn, rather like someone about to do an impressive magic trick involving Folding.

Then the pair of us, using shovels and rakes and other implements of destruction*, dragged all the hedge cuttings onto it. We rolled the tarpaulin up like a giant swiss roll, and took turns laying on it to squash the cuttings down.

Eventually it was a manageable size, and Mr WithaY deployed his trusty para cord to tie it all together. I couldn't decide if it looked like the corpse of an elephant seal being taken for discreet disposal, or the world's worst Christmas gift ever.

We lugged it to the tip and dumped it, pretending we were Mafia hitmen.

A speedy trip to Homebase after that, where we bought a gazebo tent thing for when we have people over and it rains, as it has done every weekend for about 2 months. While we were there, I got some funky solar lights on sticks to put in the flower beds, and a set of fairy-type lights on a net to put in a tree or in the gazebo tent thing, also solar powered.

Every moth in Wiltshire will turn up, I'm sure.



*Thanks Arlo

Rain. Again.

Well, it's pissing down again. So, that'll be summer over and done with then. A week and a half of sun, in between 5 months of Weather From Hell.

Driving to work earlier, there were big chunks of the road surface washing away on the roads across Salisbury Plain.

I'm betting we'll have flash flooding over the next 24 hours if it keeps raining, as the drains are all overflowing.

In the village there were huge pools of standing water around each drain, and there was a new stream running down from the fields into the road.

All a bit worrying.

Things at work are pretty slow at the moment. It's summer holiday season, so loads of people are out of the office, but even so things seem to have all but stopped in their tracks. Not quite sure why, so have spent the morning deploying my finest and sturdiest poking stick to get things moving again. We shall see.

Found out last week that the party we're going to on Friday has my lovely guitar teacher's band playing. Excellent.

And we had an invite to another mate's party in September. A weekend of camping, eating, drinking, singing and playing the fool (I expect). Really looking forward to it. I might chicken out and see if we can book a B&B though, if it keeps bloody raining.

Many years ago, whilst camping with a huge load of mates, one of said mates rather over-refreshed himself. He was carefully put in the recovery position, outside his tent (it was a warm night), and left to sleep it off. Much later, after everyone had gone to bed, he woke up, realised he was going to be sick, grabbed the zip of the tent door, opened it, stuck his head inside and threw up lavishly.

Heh.