In Which There Are Friends, Strawberries, Puppies and Other Fine Things

Thursday saw me heading over to Westbury-sub-Mendip, where I grew up, in order to spend the day with a friend who still lives (and farms) there. I stopped off to see whether there were any boks I fancied in the Library, which as you can see, is small but perfectly formed.  It is based on donations of booksand run by volunteers in the village Nice idea, don't you think?

 Last time I visited, they had some very cute, 4 week old puppies; this time, all the puppies bar one have left home, and young W has just started school, so J & I had a pleasant morning catching up on news of both our families before picking W up from school (as it is his 1st week of school, he only does half days) and going out for lunch.

It was odd to find myself back at the village school, which I attended for just over a year, when we first moved to the village. I was horribly bullied and hated almost every minute was not very happy there, but going back has it's advantages, not least as a reminder that my schooldays are well behind me, and no-one can make me go through that again!

We lunched in Wells, at a very nice restuarant called 'The Old Spot' which is one of my favourite places to eat out - they have a short menu, which tends towards fresh, seasonale (and often locally sourced) food, cooked to perfection. Not so good for vegetarians, but otherwise... oh my! 

We then walked up through the market place and round outside the Bishop's Palace, disppointing the ducks by our failure to bring them anything to eat.

We then took W to the park to play before heading back for further conversation, egg-hunting (free-range chickens have so many places to lay their eggs..) and playing with W, who is very much a farmers child - his soft stuffed cow & sheep have proper, DEFRA approved eartags and when he decides it is time to play farms this involves not only setting up model cows & sheep in the appropriate model pens, but also making up proper 'cattle passports', with correct ear-tag numbers and barcodes as well!

Meanwhile, J&I amused oursleves by looking through some old photo albums, including the oh-so-embarrassing "1st day at Secondary School" ones taken by her mum of the two of us at the bus stop, and several of us camping in various back-gardens.

I left laden with egss, and runner beans, and home made jam, and strawberries., and having put in an order for this christmas's turkey, last years ghaving been a great success.

In the evening I headed into Bath again, this time to see  'The Rivals' at the Theatre Royal.

I arrived with time to spare and it was a pleasant, sunny evening, so I collected a few more Lions  (I have all the Lions I have found so far in my flickr set here) before heading back to the Theatre, which has just reopened after some renovations - they havn't changed the auditorium -the changes are mostly to provide better access, improve the bars and (I think) upgrade the lighting etc.

The Rivals is the first production since the theatre reopened, and  of course has a special resonance here being set in Bath.

Mrs Malaprop was layed by Penelope Keith, and Sir Anthony Absolute by Peter Bowles. I enjoyed it - although I think that some of 1775's ideas of what was funny haven't worn terribly well...

As a whole, the play is still very entertaining, however, and there was an excellent  cast. I'm glad I went.

Friends and Puppies..

On Saturday I headed over to spend the day with an old friend of mine, (we used to live opposite one another, from the age of about 9 0r 10)

She and her husband farm, and had agreed to sell me some beef the next time they had an animal butchered for home use, so the purpose of the trip was to pick that up (I now have a large selection of steaks, joints, mince and the like in my freezer, all from a cow which was born and raised right here) and to generally catch up and spend some time together.

And, as it turned out, to meet some puppies, as one of their dogs had pups recently, and now there are seven utterly adorable little bundles of fluff and squeakiness...


They are four weeks old today, and are very friendly, curious and cute. I was tempted to take one home, but (a) they are not yet young enough to leave their mother (b) Tybalt would emphatically not approve and (c) my small, almost gardenless house, and office-based job are not really suitable for a working dog.....

But they are incredibly cute.

It was a beautifully sunny day, so we (and the puppies) were able to spend

most of the day outside, then later, J and I walked through the fields to see her parents (who were our neighbours all the time I was growing up, and until my parents retired and moved away 2 years ago) It was a glorious evening for a walk - the hedgrows were bluebells, cowslips, primroses and cow-parsley, and as well as some lovely views across the levels towards Glastonbury, we also saw lots of rabbits, a hare, and a magnificant dog-fox - the most vivid red, against the bright green grass, and very large for a fox.

I did manage to catch a picture of him, although it doesn't do him justice, and even J, who recently lost 11 chickens in a single night to a fox (maybe this one) had to admire him.

It's days like this which remind me what a beatiful part of the country I live in, and how lucky I was to be able to grow up here. And, of course, how lucky I am in my friends.

Of course, when I returned home, Tybalt was not impressed at me for having been gone 24 hours, and coming home smelling of 9 different dogs.....