Sunshine after rain

So after all the emotion of the past few weeks it feels like this week has brought some peace. It's been half term and while I worked all week, the girls have been variously doing the things they love interspersed with some healthy down time. Izzy managed to get out on her bike for a day's off-roading, as well as heading off to Bristol with her friend Keira - scarier for me than her it seems! Abi of course has spent most of the week at the stables, making the most of the last days of having daylight before we get to the dark days of winter.

We have had a number of biblical storms this week and so it's been nice to get out while the sun has been shining. Somerset is a county of big skies so as soon as the weather clears it's always magical - and to think it took us this long to find our way back here!

Betty has been continuing to make new friends, and on Saturday I took her and her best friend Rufus out on my own for a walk. The original plan had been to take them early but the weather was so abysmal that I waited until after yoga. By this time the sun had come out and we had a glorious, if wet under foot, walk across the fields for an hour with them having an absolute ball in the mud. Poor Rufus hasn't met a hosepipe it seems though as he was traumatised when I took him back and hosed him down - I don't think he will ever forgive me! Betty now wants to wait outside his house every time we go past which is all very well but does make the walk take longer than ever if she has to wait hopefully for 5 minutes before we are allowed to move on! I think we have just about managed now to tell most of the dog walked in the village the sad news about Bertie. It's a sign of having been accepted into the local area when everyone knows the finer details of your highs and lows. 

I'm currently on a run of weeks where i've been staying away for work or fun at least once a week and this week was no different. On Tuesday evening I jumped on a train to Oxford (very easy - change at Reading, 2 hours door to door), to go to formal dinner before the SPC Audit Committee. This is something I've been invited to previously but it was never really an option when I was in Newbury as it felt wrong to stay when I was so close, but too far to do a dinner, come home and then go back in the morning. So this time it was quite a treat. We had a Harry Potter style dinner (think long mahogany tables and everyone but me in wizard style robes), followed by a drink in the Student Bar where we looked completely out of place commenting loudly on the fact that a round of drinks was only £6!! I then had a nice room in one of the Colleges, followed by a lovely run through Oxford in the morning. I very sensibly stuck to the main roads as it was both still dark and I don't know my way around. Definitely a format to be repeated in the future. I should add that I felt privileged that Judith, the Master of St Peters left a meeting with Hilary Clinton no less to host me - as you do!

This week its back to school for the kids and a night away in London for me. Of course there's no getting away from the fact we are now on the run in to Christmas. This week we also have West Country Drains coming back to dig us some proper drains for our drain pipes and we have the cladding being delivered to finish the outside of the bi-folds off.  We also have a planning officer turning up (we think), despite the fact that I have rung multiple times to try and rearrange for a day when I will be here. I've had to write a briefing pack for her (and Glenn) to make sure if she does come when I'm not here she has all the information I think she should have to make a decision. What kind of a system is it when a planning officer plans to come without confirming the right people will be in to discuss what they want to do?!?  In theory we also should see some progress on replacement gutters but that would require the Muppet King to get himself sorted. I finally got a response from him today after threatening to write to his Mum again, only for him to give another excuse that Auldris had been beaten up and so they had got behind on work. I did point out that Auldris being out of action doesn't equal him being able to use his phone, but I think it fell on deaf ears... I will be cracking open the bubbles on the day we are finally shot of having to deal with him! 

 

More dramatic skies