May Round Up

Wowsers. It’s nearly June, guys. JUNE! As in, the halfway point! I can’t believe 2018 is on it’s way go halfway done already!! Spring seems to have seamlessly transitioned into Summer (though to be honest, I’m not sure why we bother saying we have 4 seasons – we might as well call it Sprummer and Aunter and be done with it…) and as much as I’m alarmed at how quickly the year is passing, I can’t be too sad about the fact we finally have had some weather worth shouting about. I started the month with a stinking cold and things weren’t looking too rosy, but then something unprecedented happened – something completely unheard of in this country. We had two – YES TWO – Bank Holidays packed full of gorgeous sunshine! Exciting times!

The first fell in the first weekend of the month, and I can’t tell you how uplifting it was to have such glorious weather after such a rubbish end to April. We definitely made the most of it, with a BBQ pretty much everyday and plenty of lovely walks outdoors with the pooch, which was particularly lovely as bluebell season was finally in full swing! On the Saturday we decided to head over to Melton Mowbray for their annual cheese festival, because CHEESE, and I ate my body weight in free samples. Now, I’m not very good at this kind of thing, because I feel cheeky taking the samples, so I have to hang around chatting to the vendor for about half an hour at a time, trying to look convincingly like I know my cheese and might splash out and buy all their stock any second, but the truth is, after about the third one they all started to taste the same (and a little sweaty from the heat) and I ran out of things to say (how many things are there to say about cheese, I ask you??) So eventually I admitted defeat and just started grabbing the freebies on the move, expecting to get collared and removed from the premises any minute. What is that about? Is it that typical English politeness everyone always goes on about, or am I just a wuss? Who knows, but a little bit of chit chat was a fair price to pay for my belly full of cheesy goodness as far as I’m concerned, so no harm done!

The same issue affected me the following weekend, though this time it did cost me…. A dear friend had planned a rather lovely afternoon at one of my favourite canal-side bars in Birmingham for her Birthday. It’s a gorgeous place with lovely food, a fantastic drinks range and a huge beer garden right next to the water, but it is a little on the pricey side. I was the first to arrive, and having selected a bottle of beer in a panic pretty much because it was the first thing I saw, I soon realised it cost pretty much the same as the huge pints my friends appeared with shortly afterwards, I vowed not to order another and go for something better value for money since we’d be there all afternoon. So I walked into the bar, and being the numpty I am and completely mesmerised by the impressive selection of spirits on the back bar, without even thinking I found myself saying to the bartender, ‘I really fancy a gin, but I’m not sure which one….’ Clearly, this guy saw me coming. I mean, I’m pretty sure pound signs flashed in his eyes as he grinned and produced a bottle of the humorously names and delightfully pink Schnoodlepip Gin. Did I sceptically ask him if I was going to have to remortgage to buy it? Of course not, because I didn’t want to take the wind out of his sails, in fact, WHY NOT MAKE IT A DOUBLE?! So I handed over £10 with a smile and slunk back to the table with my tail between my legs, pretending not to care that I didn’t get any change. Still, it was bloody delicious and well worth every penny, even if I could only afford one….!

The following week passed in a bit of a blur, because the long awaited holiday was on the horizon, and oh doesn’t time fly when you feel like you have a million and one things to do with your time before then?? I had a tough time keeping my attitude acceptable in the last couple of days, but we finally made it to the end of the week and the light at the end of the tunnel – finally time to get away and have some time to ourselves! We almost didn’t make it – after smugly declaring in this post that having to run through the airport in my wedges would be an unlikely occurrence thanks to my insistence on getting to the airport with at least the recommended 2 and a half hours to spare, a disaster struck that made my confidence there look pretty darn stupid. As my Dad drove us to Birmingham airport, Dan suddenly declared that his passport was still in Loughborough. I think we will all agree that I am not the sensible, grown up one of the two of us, so I genuinely thought he was joking until I saw the horrified look on his face – just a couple of days before I’d refused to let him give me my boarding pass because normally it is totally me that loses or forgets something critical! Given my reaction to our flights home from Barcelona getting cancelled a couple of years ago, I’m sure you can imagine that what ensued was complete panic on my part, followed by over the top tears, followed by a quiet acceptance that there was no way we would possibly be getting on that plane. Luckily for us though (and our relationship!) we have a rather brilliant friend who probably broke some speed limits getting it over to us and we checked in with 10 minutes to spare! The rest of the week was just as wonderful as I’d hoped (even if I did make Dan spend half of the first day in the room watching the Royal Wedding…) and I can’t wait to tell you all about it in a couple of posts I have planned. We spent a ridiculous amount of time snoozing and reading in the late afternoon sun by the pool, drinking and eating far too much and I almost didn’t want to come home.

I had to admit a part of me wanted to be back though, because after getting our planning permission approved last month, the builders had started working on the house while we were away and I was very excited to see how they’d been getting on. We arrived home to…. well, a bit of a mess actually:

Obviously it isn’t looking like much right now, but I’m excited to see things finally taking shape, and us getting the chance to make it feel like ours!

Thankfully our arrival home coincided with another sun filled (for us – Birmingham was completely flooded after crazy rain storms which seemed to pass by us completely just 50 miles away) Bank Holiday, which really helped us to ease back into the idea of getting back to reality. Sadly that weather didn’t last, and work has been, well worklike, but other than that life is good and that is all that really matters!

Here’s hoping June is just as happy!

Love,

Follow my blog with Bloglovin