Calm?

On Monday afternoon I fainted at work and Husband took me to the doctor. She thinks I am stressed. She might be right.

This is the week that Water Company of the West Who I Shall Not Name but will henceforth be known as WCW decided to start their works. We were given the relevant statutory notice to which there is eff all we can do except wait for them to cause us inconvenience and then try and claim compensation. All very convenient, especially as they then say, whenever an issue is raised, "well, we did warn you it would be inconvenient" as if we could somehow have opted out, if only we'd said something at the time.

To cut a long story short, a bridge is being replaced and so the sewage pipe is running up through some extra large pumps, through what used to be our garden gate, across our garden and up over our dry stone wall boundary and into the road again. The pumps can start at any time of day or night. The pumps are also sitting where six cars used to be parked. These are narrow country roads and there is very little other space in which to park. So, every morning and evening my stomach rages that I have to try and fight for somewhere to park. Next week they close the bridge and start those works too. I think I might cry. Who knows what I might do when the road is closed and the pumps start up at 3am.

Add in a thoughtfully worded letter from the NHS {"your doctor has requested an emergency referral [first I'd heard of it, no mention of the other appointment I had booked]. this does not necessarily mean it is cancer. in fact, over 50% of people seen through emergency referrals don't have cancer"} WOW. way to reassure me NHS. That almost 1 in 2 patients that you do see does have cancer. That you think it might be cancer but it isn't definitely. How f*cking reassuring. *

Stir in two court cases, end of year billing, the person from whom I am taking over from retiring at the end of the week and still having a filing cabinet full of files to hand over to me and it's mothereffing Wednesday already and there you have it. Might the doctor actually be right?

{Edit: Went to the appointment. Doctor apologised for someone referring me to gynae-oncology. I still have a 67mm cyst which is a symptom of my endometrosis but it ISN'T ovarian cancer. I should have just been referred to a normal gynae team and which has now been done. I may have to have another op to have it removed and they are now looking into fertitlity questions but all that is surmountable. As, of course, is cancer. I am just relieved it is not something I have to worry about.}

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Photo by me


*Remember the op I had last year for endometriosis and cysts on my ovary. Looks like it's back.

A weekend in photos

After a morning at work, an afternoon sunbathing in the garden, an evening of drinking around the barbeque and in the pub with London friends, Sunday was spent quietly showing said London friends some of our (new) favourite places.

Blue Anchor beach is not especially remarkable or even pretty. But the parking is free and the light is always beautiful, even when front after front is rolling in off the sea and the clouds pile up, occasionally splitting to allow the sun to stream through.

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Blogging to resume again shortly I hope. We went to London last weekend where I met up with lovely blogging friends Peonies, Marie & C&Z from Hat&Feathers. I also went to a party dressed as a bear, had my hair done and took afternoon tea at the Berkeley with my husband, as my twitter peeps will know all too well as I did nothing but upload photos to twitter the entire way back to Somerset.

Since then work went crazy (in a good but extremely busy way) and London friends came to stay. But I am back now. And more posts and photos to come.

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All photos by me.

Speaking of honeymoons

Seems I missed somehow that the local fishermen who sing in Port Isaac, where we spent the other week of our honeymoon, have been given a record deal...



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via Pasties & Cream via Design Sponge via klovescoffee

Lovelane Caravans

Still looking for that elusive place to go with Husband for our first wedding anniversary. I have three requirements: in Cornwall/Devon/Somerset, falls under the umbrella of 'vintage camping' {i.e. has echoes of our honeymoon yurt} and isn't bank breakingly expensive.

Lovelane Camping is on the Lizard Peninsular of Cornwall and has retro and vintage caravans set up on their site in a semi circle in a field round a campfire. Looks fabulous for a festival type vibe (especially if a big group of friends hired the entire set) and *perfect* for a small wedding celebration.

Lovelane Camping is almost right, but sadly, not quite. For nigh on £100 a night I think I am looking for more than a caravan in a field of other caravans. Pretty though they are.

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Images via Lovelane Camping

via Pasties & Cream via Design Sponge via klovescoffee

Melancholy

PMT makes me feel like I want to stab someone. Not that I ever would, of course, but it makes me angry. {what a good job Husband is away}. Beyond grumpy. And melancholy. Which, by some coincidence, was the subject of The Delicious Miss Dahl this evening. Whilst Sophie made a variety of soups and chocolate dishes I grumped my way through a bowl of potato and leek soup and another one of salad. Our computer must have PMT too as it kept stopping and thinking and it took every ounce of self restraint not to thump it hard and throw it out of the window. And then, yet again, Sophie quoted from another of my favourite poems. Either I am extremely predicatable in my tastes or Sophie is...

Razors pain you
Rivers are damp
Acids stain you
And drugs cause cramp
Guns aren't lawful
Nooses give
Gas smells awful
You might as well live.

-Dorothy Parker

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photo of Sophie Dahl via the BBC website

Weekends, Lunch, sunshine, sunsets

The first true spring weekend. Sunglasses were worn, freckles appeared. Lunch was eaten outside in the sunshine with china and flowers and all manner of yummy foods. Beaches were walked on, sunsets were watched. Sisters visited. Chips were consumed out of paper, laden with salt and vinegar, on sea fronts and high up on cliff tops. Lambs were photographed. Goat babies too. Rabbits were seen to scamper in the grass by the sand dunes as the evening light faded from the sky. Trout was cooked and eaten. Wine was drunk. A good weekend.

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More photos at Somerset Bound

Later, in the countryside

Back in Exmoor after a weekend in the 'shires. Berkshire first, then Shropshire.
The place is quiet without Husband. Who boarded a train at Taunton, London-bound for the week. Where he ran into my sister in the quiet carriage, also returning to London.
Although I do of course love the new job (this whole weeks apart malarky would be pretty effing pointless if I didn't) the first days off I've had since I started made me want to bunk off and focus instead on country living.

I want our house to look like the cottage equivalent of these tents from Feather Down Farms. Or, more specifically, the one done up by Christina Strutt of Cabbages and Roses.
I have her book on green housekeeping, which I love. Now I want my whole house done out like her shop.

Failing that, for the material alone is a little pricey, I might book a weekend at one of the farms near us for our wedding anniversary. A little like the yurt we stayed in on our honeymoon, but a little different too. I could give the booking to Husband as a present. As long as it was printed out on paper.

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Photo by Edina Van Der Wyck via here from Feather Down Farms.

Happy Easter

Wildeve Rose by David Austin

Happy Easter. Here* it is sunny and almost warm. I went to church with my mother-in-law, grandmother-in-law and sister-in-law this morning while our husbands played golf with their father. In the afternoon, we went to the David Austin Rose Garden and I chose a rose plant to put in one of our wedding present tubs to place by the door in our new house.

Every Easter my paternal Grandparents purchase my parents a rose from David Austin. This year they were all looking at the catalogue and my Grandmother and I started looking for pale pink scented roses which did well in containers. I chose Wildeve. Granny then told me that the centre was not far from Husband's parents. So, this afternoon, Husband and I went with his mother and Grandmother to the David Austin garden. We had a cup of tea, served out of a rose patterned bone china tea set, with cut roses on the tables, altogether in the beautiful tea rooms before I went for a walk amongst the roses to choose my wildeve. And there, among the plants, stalked peacocks. Beautiful blue-green peacocks with long trains of feathers.

peacock at the David Austin gardens {image by me}

The rose should flower in June, in time for our first wedding anniversary.

{I must be getting old. This is a new category of posts, gardening...}

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*Shropshire (Husband's parents place)

Around Easter thoughts turn to summer shopping

We have two holidays booked: a week in Gozo and a week on my parents' boat in France. Around about Easter, when the evenings are longer and one no longer (should) need to wear a thermal vest in bed and thick woolley tights during the day, my thoughts always turn to shopping.

Of course, living where we do, shopping is not the easiest. I am trying to resist on-line shopping, as when I start I find I can't stop and the line between want and need becomes ever more blurred.

This summer I am coveting a pair of brown leather chunky sandals which could be worn with dresses or, more specifically, shorts. These would be the ideal:

Cleo Sandals by J Crew

But they are sold only in the US until May, when I believe that J Crew comes to the UK via Net A Porter (but I expect they will come with a price hike, much like Banana Republic), and $165 is a lot for a pair of shoes to wear on holiday.

These are a kind of similar style, from Nine West via Kurt Geiger and a more reasonable £45 in the sale, but somehow just not quite right.

This is the kind of look that I am going for:

Gozo Holiday by peacockfeathersdiamondrings featuring J Crew

{Wishful thinking clearly. I don't own a Mulberry bag}

A sort of sailor chic meets preppy. I know it's an island in the med and I should probably be going for brown leather flipflops and a white dress but there are 7 days of this holiday. I could do a different look every day (if it weren't for the small matter of a luggage allowance...