Useful message this morning.
I slept well. I had a fair few chores to do this morning because today would be full on. Art, home by 14.00, and then straight off to Devon. its a full three hours from here. We needed to be at Pen’s exhibition by 16.30 and it closes at 18.00. So all very tight timewise.
Therefore, I got on with a heap of chores: emptying and refilling the dishwasher; clothes washing; brekkie; packing a wheelie bag and sticking it in the car; walking H; and a few more… all done by around 08.35. Just time for a cuppa before leaving for Art.
It was a serene morning.
Then it came through. The email to say that Helen (art teacher) has Covid and so they are cancelling the classes for today and tomorrow. Well that made things a whole lot easier!
We could get away around 10.00 instead of 14.00. We were not taking H due to the nature and speed of our trip. She would be with the Illis for a night. And it gave us time to stop off at Basildon Park for a plant. No euphemism – a real pot plant .
And T still couldn’t get his act together in a sensible timescale. If he spent less time talking to himself, life would be so much easier. And I would be less irritable.
However, we were up and away soon after 10.00, dropping off H, plant in the back of the car, and we headed towards the A303.
The skies were cloudy/ sunny / blue. The roads were not clogged anywhere and a sometimes, fraught, journey was smooth and trouble free. But, as Devon came closer, the skies became more grey and the sun more shy, until it gave up altogether and hid behind the grey blobs.
We stopped for a break at Otter Valley Farm Kitchen. And then on to the airport hotel.
We were given our old toom. Or even our old room. Well, it looked like our old room. I have a feeling all the rooms look like our old room.
After a cuppa, we visited Sidmouth seaside, and then Pen’s school and the exhibition of GCSE and A Level Art and Photography. The school has had a revamp with a smart new entrance and car park since we were last here.
There was an unfortunate incident as I parked, involving two crusty very old buggers in an enormous, huge, fat, squat, shiny, white, gas- guzzling 4×4 Mercedes, pig ignorant shits, with more money than sense. I really had to control my tongue. Their monstrosity barely fitted within its parking lines. My car door tinged its aluminium running plate as I exited. Hardly made a sound. Their hearing aids must have been on full volume. I could see their facial expressions shrivel in distaste as a little nobody, such as myself, might have caused damage to their £100,00 white, serious environmental polluter. I don’t know why I wasted my breath on them.
I was amused to note they were in the exhibition, and by the time we picked up our car, they had moved theirs across so my car door was out of range of their white squat monster.
Dave suggested I should have moved my car closer to theirs. Very close.
The work at the exhibition was amazing – especially bearing in mind, these are practical subjects, ravaged by Covid over the last two years.
By now the weather was quite evil. The rain was determined and heavy. It became even more determined and more heavy. Relentless. But I have a sneaking feeling that Wallingford will have only had a lighter sprinkling. And it was cold.
We ate with P and D at Greendale, which appeared to be enjoying yet another incarnation. It now has a magnificent covered area, with heaters. And blankets. Quite cosy as the rain beat down.
Sad to hear of the death of Dame Deborah James yesterday. However – update- Weds am – they must be short of News. There has been nothing else on the mornings’ programmes.
Thought for the Day
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