Phew, where did it go?
Well, in the end, the non-appearance of summer again meant that plans were changed and in the end, not much actually happened. An old friend of Jools’ came to stay, and so after the weekly bearpit of a run round Tesco to get the week’s shopping, it was back home to wait for Em to arrive and so we could eat. She arrived just before half eight, just we were ready to eat anyway. But, all was good; grilled maple syrup chicken with salad and fresh rustic bread; delicious.
Saturday and as ever, apparently, the wind began to blow and so more butterfly searching was pretty pointless. Jools and Em went for a walk to the cliffs and I stayed behind to mow the lawn. I did manage to find something to photograph as I disturbed a big moth from the hedge and managed to snap it before it hid again. At lunchtime, we headed to Deal for some shopping and to look around, as despite the wind, the sun shone brightly and it felt almost like summer.
Deal was packed, but we did manage to find a place to park, and I set off to the record shop to get a couple of recent releases. Only to find it closed. Stunned isn’t the word, I was shocked. I mean, I know I haven’t bought much music recently, but we have always tried to support the shop when we could, and I have not bought that much from Amazon recently either.
Oh well, I’ll make do with visiting the book shop to see if any interesting new local books had been published; and that was closed too! This really is getting beyond a joke. Deal is a nice town, full of small and independent shops, and has many visitors, so it should be able to support shops like these, but clearly that hasn’t happened. And I guess that with the economic squeeze tightens, more people will be shopping online to save money so killing more high streets up and down the country…..
And then I was being serenaded by three women dressed in oilskins and sou’westers.
Again.
The Deal Festival is on, and there were a few more odd sights to see, and a fair on the grass near the lifeboat station.
We called in at No Name Shop and bought a couple of nice looking unpasteurised cheeses and a loaf of wonderful bread before we walked to the seafront to have a walk down to the castle and back. We passed many others doing the same; and then we sat down on a bench to watch the world go by. The world seemed to be wearing flip-flops and updating their Facebook accounts on smartphones rather than looking at the fine vista of azure blue sea and shingle beach, and look, a castle just over there! No, just saw a dog in a hat, LOL, was much more interesting.
Oh, talking of Facebook, my account was permanently deleted last Monday, June 25th, and to be honest, after couple of days of missing it, it seems so ludicrous that I spent so much time and effort into it. I have replaced it with Twitter, at least on occasion. I don’t do that much, but have found a few interesting people to follow, and if you want to follow me, #jelltex is my Twitter account.
After sitting on the bench a while, we headed back to the car and then home for lunch of bread, cheese and wine.
And then chill for the rest of the afternoon, either sitting in the garden or messing around on the computer. I’ll leave you to guess who was knitting in the garden and who was editing photographs. Sometimes it is important to keep up a degree of mystery.
For dinner I cooked a crown of lamb stuffed with spiced fruits and almonds. It took a bit of messing round to prepare, but all in all, it was wonderful. I did sautéed potatoes and steamed vegetables to go with the lamb. And best open a good bottle of wine to go with the feast. Afterwards we all mucked in with the clearing and washing up so we could sit in the back garden to watch the end of the day.
Sunday morning, despite the BBC saying we would see lots of sunshine, the rain did fall. By lunchtime it was clear the plan to go to the steam fair in Preston would be cancelled; Em headed home and so Jools and I got the house to ourselves once again. I watched the first stage of Le Tour whilst catching up on my reading. I enjoy watching the landscape passing by as much as the cycling. No, I enjoy the passing countryside and urban landscapes much more than the cycling. Anyway, it passed the afternoon gently, and I caught up on my reading, just what am I going to do in the evenings now the European Championship has finished?
Oh yes, football.
It was the final of the Euros last night, and expectations were high for a great game. And in the end, we did get that, but a very one sided one, as Spain ran rings round Italy and romped to a 4-0 win, which was about right, although they could have scored many more had they put their mind to it. Italy, just looked tired and it was a game too far after their tricky games in the previous 7 days. Oh well, six weeks until the new season begins and the whole circus begins again…….
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