Hmmm, not sure if there’s anyone left out there after deserting the place for months! My excuse is quite good though….we have finally moved, from the east of England to the south west….Dorset to be exact. A major move, particularly on my part, having lived all my life (I won’t disclose how many years!) in the totally flat Fens, we now look out to rolling hills and a valley just down the road! We arrived the Saturday before Christmas and have spent a large part of the time unpacking and babysitting as it’s right here that our grandchildren live . So wonderful to be able to help out as often as possible as our daughter and son-in-law are very busy people managing a highly popular pub in the town.

We both gave up our jobs to come here and will be looking for something new in a couple of months time. It was a heart wrenching time saying goodbye to people who I’d worked with for up to 20 years….and also my beloved class who had done so well in their first term at school.

Enough for now, but I will be back, with photos of our new home when I have more time…..still much to do!

Yes, Dave was blown away by Les Mis just like I was all those years ago. Isn’t it one of life’s supreme pleasures when you see a loved one enjoy something you’ve banged on about for years?? I bought the Les Mis CD and he’s been playing it in the car ever since

Something I’ve always wanted to do (even though I know London really well, having spent 3 years close by when I was training to be a teacher) is to take a ride on one of the open top buses. So that’s what we did! We were lucky with the weather, no rain, thank goodness. The bus ride took about five hours, much longer than we were expecting and it scuppered our plans to go to London Zoo but we didn’t mind. I was fascinated to see and hear about lesser known parts of London such as birth places of famous people, wealthiest parts of London etc. Best of all though was seeing all those iconic landmarks. I can’t think of another city in the world that has quite as many as London does (well, maybe Paris?!). here’s a few of them:

We had a wonderful weekend all in all and came home to find our two dogs thrilled to see us (a friend had dog sat for us). Unfortunately just before we went to bed we discovered a leak coming from the cold water tank which is housed in the loft. What followed turned into a total nightmare! I won’t go into details as it’s a long story, suffice to say that we were left with no water for three days by an ill chosen bunch of cowboys. Eventually we were rescued by a thoroughly decent, expert plumber on the 4th day and now everything is back to normal!

We had a day in Cambridge to cheer ourselves up the next day and it did the trick. Lunch in the fab Giraffe restaurant and a good browse around the wonderful shops were just what the doctor ordered! I fell in love with a beautiful Monsoon dress but didn’t buy it. When I got home I kept thinking about it (how often have I done that?!) and ended up ordering it online….it arrived today and is BEAUTIFUL!
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It had been a while since I’d walked the streets of London so it was with excitement and a little trepidation that we set off on our anniversary weekend. I needn’t have worried, everything was mostly how I’d left it with a few changes here and there. On arrival (by train) we easily found our hotel aided by the brilliant apps on my iPhone including a sat nav!  The room and the hotel were as plush and posh as we’d hoped and in the lovely area of South Kensington. A quick drink and we were ready to explore but as it was a Friday afternoon we decided not to venture onto the very hot and even busier tube trains and caught one of the frequent buses just outside the hotel. I’ve always preferred travelling by bus in London, you see so much more and anyway, I’ve never been keen on the underground…..not good for someone who has a tendency to claustrophobia!

As Dave had never been to Harrods and as we were very close, that’s where we went. We only saw a fraction of of the departments but we chose probably the most spectacular…the food halls (of course!) and the luxury gift rooms. My eyes were on stalks looking at the Cartier, Tiffany, De Beers etc jewels and Dave’s were on stalks looking at the astonishing array of fish in the errrrrrr fish department (was trying to think of another word for that!). Here’s a few pics: the hotel, a Chanel window display at Harrods, a sumptuous Marc Jacobs bag and one of the food halls.

Unfortunately we didn’t get time to see more as we needed to get back to the hotel to get ready for our theatre trip. Have to admit to a little apprehension at this point as, after building up the show we were going to see for the last nine years, and finally getting Dave to agree to go, the moment was soon to arrive…..would he fall in love with Les Miserables just as I did 20 years ago????

More to follow……