Domestic bliss.

The last few days have been mostly about domesticities – getting the car boot struts replaced (our brilliant local garage ‘Tillings’ to the rescue) and replacing a blown up Dyson with a swanky new Dyson.  The company are going to repair the old one as it’s only four years old,  so we will have a cleaner for garage use as well now.

James unpacked the wooden clock, which we bought at the pub in Cropredy back in October, and hung it on the wall where it looks great.  The escapement is a weighted cord which alternately wraps itself round two steel rods at the top of the mechanism.

On Saturday our daughter Vicki and her partner Tom came down to stay for a few days -  primarily to look after Oscar on Saturday evening while we went to see Julian Clary at Worthing with friends Mike and Brian.  It was a very funny evening with the comedy “on the edge” and a lot of audience participation!  They are also here to enjoy a bit of a rest as they both work extremely hard.

On Sunday morning we took the dogs (Oscar and “nephew” Ernie) for a walk around the Pagham Harbour nature reserve which is just outside the village.  We were hoping to find some sloes to make sloe gin.  These little fruits evaded all our efforts at finding them while we were on the boat.  It’s been a very poor year for sloes with many boaters in the same position as ourselves (lots of bushes along the canal side but nothing on them!)  Fortuitously the weather on the south coast has been more beneficial and we were able to pick as many as we needed.  So hopefully we will be enjoying some sloe gin again at Christmas this year.

In the afternoon we took a walk along the sea wall in the sunshine and just happened to end up near the pub.

Vicki, Ernie, Doug and Tom having a Sunday afternoon relax in “The Fisherman’s Joy”.

Today has seen Tom having to return to work with the Wiltshire Constabulary for the day so the three of us made a visit to our very close friends Ann and John, who live at the other end of the village, for coffee and cake.  The cake was to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary during this last week end!

Ann and John (usually much happier looking than this photo shows!) with Vicki and Doug enjoying coffee, cake and muffins – after which James, Vicki and Doug took a ride into Chichester for lunch at “Zizzi”.  The weather today could not have been more different to yesterday – it’s gently precipitated all day!

Vicki and James enjoying a glass of wine with their very large pizzas!