The evening in question was the Village Society annual curry and quiz night which last year was chaired by our neighbours. This year, having done their duty, they allowed the original 'Quiz Master' to take charge and it was a very different affair. The venue was the same, the food was the same and I'm sure most of the people were the same, but the questions had basically been written by a well meaning octogenarian and you needed to be one to have even the slightest clue. It was a bit like being in a mix of Mastermind and University Challenge while answering questions on someone else's specialist subject! He kept urging us to think laterally if we didn't know the answer. To give you an example of this in reality:
Q: Who did Manchester United beat to a 9-0 victory in 1995? (Hint: Think laterally!)
A: Ipswich town. Apparently the thinking laterally bit was to recognise it was the quiz master's favourite team....!
All of this might have been fine had it not been for one of our party (no names, not us!) getting quite drunk because of the questions and more and more loudly exclaiming how rubbish it was, followed by picking an argument with the next table (whose papers we were marking and who went on to win). I thought we'd grown out of that! Oh well - the kids had fun and we have pre-empted that we're busy next year unless we can pick the team!
The better half of yesterday was the fact that the sun shone gloriously and while Abi and I headed down to Cranborne Chase for a day's riding, Glenn and Izzy set out for Salisbury Plain to go (motor) bike riding. We got back to find a text message from Glenn which read "Its OK, I've now found Izzy and Bertie after 15 minutes of looking!" Turns out Izzy has no idea that she's travelling far too fast for Glenn to keep up on foot and had disappeared over the horizon with Bertie as her constant companion. She'd made friends with 3 cyclists and followed them for a while and when Glenn found her she was chatting to another (younger) boy on a motorbike and his family! On further investigation Glenn learned that the boys granddad who was there still lived a couple of doors down from when Granddad Jake used to live and they knew each other! We've tried to get Izzy to understand she needs to check she can still see someone, but I think the day is coming rapidly where Glenn is going to have to either take a push bike or, more realistically, his own motorbike!
Today in contrast is turning out to be particularly lazy. The weather is wet and cold and after walking the dogs this morning in pouring rain I decided to try and allow myself to do very little and not feel I need to achieve something. Not as easy as you would think but what helped enormously was a very well timed call from Amanda. We don't catch up on the phone as often as I would like but its not for want of thinking about each other. Aside from all the other discussions we reminded ourselves we are the product of our upbringing. Seeing Mum and Dad so busy 7 days a week when we were growing up has had the very positive benefit of leaving all 3 of us with a strong work ethic. The downside is we don't find it easy to switch off. Having spoken to Amanda however I am doing quite well today - so far we've mooched around and had an early lunch. Glenn has now gone off on his bike and we are contemplating going to the country stores to buy Abi (more!) wellies, but maybe we wont get there. Today I am going to proudly do nothing... well, except for the 3 loads of washing and all the admin for back to school / work tomorrow.. and those committee papers... not much rather than nothing then!
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