Wet and dry weekend...

Wet. Chips, washed down with a quantity of cheap pink wine. Enjoyed amongst friends at gate-crashed Di's, with a riotous, and very hilarious, impromptu game of.... Scrabble.

Dry. Probably best too. Never learnt to say no, and I end up on stage at the Norwich Beer Festival playing with a band I've never met but an hour before. Loads of lovely real ales, nothing but a name on the end of a barrel to me. No matter - I was high enough without the need for Oatmeal Stout, Barley Wine, or cider.

Wet. Moving borrowed Chevy pickup loads of horrid sticky leylandii branches in all their never ceasing greenery. In the rain. From my parent's place to a sprawling bonfire in the making, for the celebration of burning Catholics and not politicians next weekend.

Dry. Back indoors. Apple and jalepeno chutney simmering. Into the making of big Sunday tea. Apple crumble again, roast spuds, a cashew, pepper and vegetable pie. Livened up with some Jamacian jerky sauce... Broke out the water jug, kids two pints dry!

Wet. Drizzly evening. Cleared up, looked out, first winter clock changed, dark, dark night. Little lonely tear. But lovely, lovely weekend. Guess I was just sad it came to an end. And so. Weary to bed.

Mostly good

Even keel faultered.
Missed some DVLA notification - continuous taxation, my arse.
Bitten by a fine for forgetting to declare one vehicle off the road. Where's my chance to fine MY government agency for making a mistake on the other one?
Exasperated evening scouring for paperwork.
Trying to get the kids to help.
Shopping for a starving cat.
Refreshing cuppa with a friend.
Home to sofa.
Unmade bed.
Tears to sleep.
Up and down.

Taking the lady back home

Wonderful weather. An autumn summer...
And on these warm, dry, days I helped Jenny move house. Fill the van. Drive a few miles. Empty the van. Drive and repeat. Everything in the house, boots off, sliced my big toe open walking backwards onto a who knows where from shard of glass. Fresh blood in her new home. Aaarggh! Oww. Limped to the chippie to be bought a congratulatory tea for a job half-arsed...

Escaped the emptying of boxes into nooks and crannies to slaughter some more years old bramble bushes in my sister's new garden. Make that "garden". Hobble, slash, limp, slash, trip - over all the uncovered hazards amongst the undergrowth.

More blood from my self-harmed arms. Home to watch "Car Wash" with the kids. Drifted off way before the end...

So. Lazy no plans Sunday. Washing on the line, listening to the Archers Omnibus, and a bundle of through travellers to and from the Hemsby Rock and/or Roll Weekender. Teas, coffee, omlettes and cheese on toast. Mmm, balsamic sauce.

Late afternoon, decided to join them. Bundled into the old A Sedan and set off to Hemsby for a cruise of the campsites, checking out the sights and picking over the fleamarket clothes rails. Into Scratby to our favourite Abigail's Tearooms for a meal, and popped around the corner to visit a friend atop the cliff.

And to say hello to my old friend from the cliff edge. Feeling her spirit in the evening sea breeze.

Hazy fading light brings farewell to the coast. A snuggly oil vapour warm trip back through the mists over Haddiscoe. But not before a trip down the Golden Mile. Taking Henry's Old Lady - our Model A - back to where she was once young. Rolling down Great Yarmouth's seafront from the North Denes, past boating lakes and bowling greens, Caesar's Palace, the Winter Gardens and Wellington Pier. Welcome home old dear to the neon gawdiness of it all. Arcane meets arcade.

Busy doing living

Lovely weekend.

Cooked. The seemingly never ending fight against the over active apple tree. Pies and crumbles. Stocking the freezer for the winter months ahead. The last of the beans picked over for stringiness, carrots plucked from the ravages of slugs.

Ate. Big Sunday lunch. Bunny devoid of oven for a week or so following a kitchen wrecking explosion, Sarah, Jenny, and Ryan, made a table of seven for roast potatoes and veggie shepherds pie.

Played. Suffolk Folk Night, baudy tales, songs and stories, real ale and ploughman's err.. tea. Serviced the ol' Sedan after her hard charge to southern places. And played again for a wedding barn full of revellers. Bonfire and fireworks.

Helped. Moving things around, clearing up. Fighting the acres of vicious brambles in my sister's yard. Lost. Cut to ribbons. Bleeding thorn filled hands.

Loved. Days spent with friends, warm evenings cuddled up close. Felt alive. And relaxed.

The Deep South

Spent the last weekend on "interesting" roads in Sussex. For non-locals, that's a county below London on the south coast of the UK, where every leafy lane has a pristine 4x4 coming the other way, and every oak framed thatched roof has a Porsche in the drive.

Enter the hoodlums on the Kopy Kat run. Inspired by the Flathead Meltdown Reliability Runs that have been held in Norfolk (oh for Pete's sake - look it up on Multimap...) we all stayed in a field beside the Bat and Ball public house in Wisborough Green. Spirtual home of lawnmower racing. Took Ratty - a real good friend along as my "map bitch". And the non-stop laughter started from the moment we began our journey south. Met with friends along the way. Sitting on a rain soaked motorway, clockwork radio, giggling at our dampened roadster companions.

Arrived - 2-second pop-up tent and into the bar. Lovely evening, good food, Ferret and Badger ales - and I took cake. Apple and Strawberry.

Next day, loads of tiny roads, trees growing out of the banks, rough flint strewn tracks, long hills that needed 1st gear in the Sedan to climb them, and turned the brakes to plasticene on the way down. A dip through a river. And a dip through the sea.






Brilliant fun. More than three hundred miles on a round trip to do a 100 mile charge through the countryside. Journey home took us to a private car collection - members of the Model A club looking on at our mud spattered jalopy with equal amounts of respect and disdain...

More leafy lanes, and a sprint for home. Home to the warm welcoming arms of loved ones.

Bliss.