Saw “Emma” tonight. Lovely locations, wonderful horses and carriages and scenes of actual UK summer that seemingly far off land- green lawns, tweeting birds, blooming horse chestnuts and people walking about with no coats, hats or gloves on – so alien a landscape and so strange to behold in this bitter, cold, relentlessly foul winter.
Truth be told bit of a dull film except for delicious Johnny Flynn who at one point stripped off naked with his back to the camera, full length. There is a God.
Storm Keira approaches but gorgeous day today. Calm before Keira? Snowdrops at zenith and violets amd wild hellebores by Broadley Farm
Weighed in at WW last night Lost 6 and half lbs since Jan 3rd. Hooray. Feeling so much better for it. Back into skinny jeans again.
Bad day at work yesterday.
Feel may have been rather half hearted and spent a lot of time on phone to wretched gas company sorting out complaints and tariffs. So dull and sure I neglected things at Office. Bad. Highlight of day however was orchestra practice in Ashburton. Such bloody fun and feel am at last getting to grips with flute again also noticed a cheeky belly dancing class poster. No stopping me now….
Also left work in full daylight at 5.20pm. The end (of the vilest winter) is in sight.
Good things today. Got my car cleaned/ Valeted in the most marvellous car wash in Plymstock. Kurdish team. Most wonderful guys spraying like hell. Afterwards I wince everytime I go thru a puddle on way home as my car is so darned clean.
Another good thing.
I have 2 people interested in my Carriage not withstanding damage. (And there is a lot). End of an era but good to move things on. So sad and so much fun had over 10 years.
Another good thing. Some great cheese and onion pasties made by River Elf in Home Ec. at school. Delicious.
Finally am immersed in brilliant book . Way we Live now Anthony Trollope. Spell bound. Cant wait to get back to it . Audio of course. Read by Timothy West. Bliss
Thank goodness after so many bitter battles since June 2016 we are out of the sclerotic, bloated, soon-to-be chaotic and financially inept EU .
British Independence Day. We can take down our Leave means Leave sticker from the street facing window of our house. We have left.
Misty day at Forder Farm today.
A day of ghostly shapes and passing trees wreathed with lichen – pale green fronds.
Made a new friend “Anna”. A good bit of galloping about on the Moor for 1 hr 20 mins.
I have realised hunting is a guuided tour of Dartmoor on horseback . So much more fun than walking it and terrain would be impossible on a bike.
A horrible person has left the household and we are all thrilled.
We engaged a Mary Poppins type, via an agency, in Oct.
Great interview. 2 references checked out well. Well ine was a little guarded… Was congratulating self on smooth transition from outgoing M Poppins to new but oh! how wrong we were.
She commenced mid December and was Nanny McPhee (the fierce, ugly version), Qu
Mrs Danvers and Dot Cotton all rolled into one.
She was lugubrious, dour, loud, bossy, graceless, grim and talked at every opportunity about bodily functions – see accompanying pic – to a grotesque level and in front of all family members. She was judgmental about all, even in speaking to and about the family pets.
…. UGH. I shudder with relief that she abruptly resigned this week and removed herself citing that she felt she had been treated as a “lesser person” and a “Maid”.
So much for our chummy chats about WW then – which we both joined in New Year. So much for the Christmas fruitcake we gave her, the sausage rolls and 2 bottles of wine. Meanwhile we are a great deal of money down in recruitment fee and Agency refusing to refund. I feel a stinking review on social media coming on….
At work and Mandatory, pronounced “Man-DATE-ory’ – (shudder) I wanted to club myself to death at one point so boring and repetitive was it and am afraid I did a lot of eye-rolling. Rather rude. The only way to divert myself was to volunteer to be the pretend, sick person in the hoist. I lay down gratefully and shut my eyes felt my colleagues fastening straps around me, heard various pullings of velcro and was hoisted up in the air slowly across the room from bed to chair but at least I got a few seconds kip laying flat on the hospital bed.
Oh dear. Thought I was ordering 1 x pack of Brussel sprouts. Instead this arrives. All tuppence worth of it. Wonder what the poor person who picked it out thought?
Good news today. Brexit Bill us winging its way through Parly. About time too.
Also lost weight in W Watchers. 2 and a half down from…. last week! Hooray
Birthday weekend and so happy. Makes a change from recently gloomy posts this dark, wet, mud caked and vile winter. Perhaps is because OFT is away. My shoes are caked in red, west country mud at all times as the rain persists and grows ever more typhoon-like but the snowdrops are up on the river bank. First sign of hope. Also actually heard a buzzard, which will be the soundtrack to our summer, the other day.
On Dartmoor today at Princetown. On a Navigation Course with ex-marine type. The weather is vile, horizontal rain strong winds practically blowing my water proof hat off, gloves, waterproof trousers needed, wind ripping the laminated OS maps out of the walkers hands. “If your map blows away, don’t go after it!” cautions our Leader who looks remarkably like actor David Tennant under his beanie” That is how people topple into ravines and over cliffs let the map go” He is charming and knowledgeable and has unlocked the enduring msyteries of the OS map Parish boundaries, Boundary stones. Remnant bridges. Manmade quarries. (Symbol on map like a thermometer) Stone walls (straight, black lines), embankments aside disused railway tracks and bridges over streams. We huddle round him in the bitter cold oir compasses swinging wildly from our necks on red strings. I am hampered by having to put on reading glasses to see anything on the ma0 at all. Glasses on glasses off. They too almost snatched by wind and sent skittering along the path. Think I shall have to invest in a Wodehousian monocle suspended from the neck to put up and down to my good eye. I however am not cold. I am for once wearing the right clothes. A mixture of technical tops, snowboarding trousers, new boots, a size bigger than normal, I have bought this week but spent the time wearing in and a special cycling top that keeps wind out,
heat in. Stupendous. I am in the bitter cold and wind but warm. Loving the sound of the rushing wind through the forestry commission planted pine copses. Seeing the native ponies huddled against the forest edge out of the wind. The sheep. The babbling brooks, the bogs. I am with eldest child and learning about compass bearings. Onward and upward and head down into the wind…
The River Files 