This is a photograph of the cottage's front door taken earlier today. Recently it has witnessed some interesting incidents. I hope that I shall have the time to write about them in 2011. But for now I wish you all a happy and peaceful Christmas.
Friday, 24 December 2010
Merry Christmas
This is a photograph of the cottage's front door taken earlier today. Recently it has witnessed some interesting incidents. I hope that I shall have the time to write about them in 2011. But for now I wish you all a happy and peaceful Christmas.
Monday, 6 December 2010
Work work work
All work and no play makes Cheshire Wife a dull girl. At the moment the chap that I am working for is in the middle of a five week holiday in sunny Oz, which means that I am working extra days in freezing England. Consequently I am stretched to my limits. Really I could do without this extra work in the run up to Christmas, but this is absolutely the last time that I shall be covering his pre-Christmas holiday. (He goes away every year at this time.) Fortunately or otherwise, we have been lucky with the weather here and have escaped with just one inch of snow, so I can't even take time off work because of the weather. Right now I should be writing my Christmas cards, not this post. Then there are all the other Christmas preparations - making the cake and the pudding, buying the presents, putting up the Christmas tree and the food shopping. I am not sure when it is all going to get done. Christmas will come whether or not I am ready for it and in three weeks time it will all be over.
Saturday, 6 November 2010
Where the grass is greener
Back at the end of June we were lucky enough to have tickets for the tennis at Wimbledon. I have applied for tickets in the Wimbledon ballot for years and when we lived down in Surrey, where we were about 40 minutes drive from Wimbledon, we were never allocated tickets. Since moving to Cheshire, seven years ago, we have now been allocated tickets twice. I am not complaining, but to enjoy just one day of tennis it means three days away from home and two overnight stays.
When the offer of tickets arrived on a very cold day in February, the thought that the UK would be having a heatwave during Wimbledon Fortnight was the last thing on my mind. As we prepared for our trip south I began to ponder the sagacity of driving 200miles in a hot car and spending three nights in stuffy hotel rooms. Fortunately husband's car is air conditioned so the journey was not a problem. We made good time and managed to stop for a long walk around RHS Wisley finding some peace, quiet and cool where the garden backs onto the River Wey, before heading to our hotel.
I need not have worried about the bedroom being stuffy as a fan had thoughtfully been provided to cool the room, which was just as well as the windows only opened a few inches - for our safety so that we didn't fall out!
We had decided to stay in the hotel on the outskirts of the village that we used to live in. That brought back a few memories. The village is as idyllic in its' own way as where we currently live, but it is more of a suburban location than our current country location. The village has always had a slightly dated conservative affluent charm of neat leafy lanes with well maintained houses set back from the road. I was interested to see if it had changed much since we had moved north to Chester, especially as Chelsea Football Club now have their training ground in the next village of Cobham. Many of their footballers live in lavish houses in the surrounding villages.Villages such as Cobham and Esher have always been upmarket and trendy with pavement cafes and expensive shops ideal for the WAGs. This post has been in my draft folder for some time but by chance The Times recently published an article about the prosperity of the area. I had hoped that our old village with its simple shops and absence of cafes would be seen as too dull for the footballers and their WAGs. After seven years away it was inevitable that there would be some changes. However, I was very pleased to see that the changes were limited to a few new shops and some newly built houses and that much of the village remains as it always was. Time has almost stood still in this corner of Surrey. Someone once described it to me as a magical place to live. They were so right. It was. It still is and I hope that it will continue to be a magical place to live. I shall always have a soft spot for that village. So why did we move? Because we had to. Husband had been offered a job 200 miles away in Chester and we had been trying to move anyway, because of problems with our neighbours. Otherwise I would not have been prepared to move from a house and village where we had once been so happy.
To get up to Wimbledon we parked the car at the village railway station which looked cleaner and tidier than I remembered it to be, but maybe that is what seven years away does to the memory. We caught the Guildford to Waterloo train. (Yesterday's accident involving a cement mixer and a train happened just three stops down the line.) At Wimbledon we changed onto the District underground line which runs above ground between Wimbledon and Southfields, the nearest station to the All England Lawn Tennis Club. From Southfields to the tennis is about a twenty minute walk. Once through the gates our bags were searched and we felt that we had arrived. We brought a programme then had a wander around the grounds before buying ourselves a cold drink and making our way to Henman Hill to eat our lunch.
I had thought that we might be getting a bit old for going to Wimbledon but there were plenty of spectators considerably older than us. Just before 1pm, when play was scheduled to start, we took our seats on the No 1 Court. We had seats with a good view and plenty of space around. The present No 1 Court is modern and comfortable and has only been in use since 1997 when Tim Henman played the first competitive match on it. Wimbledon Fortnight is not the same since he retired. Our seats were in the front row of the second tier. Between the first and second tier is the wheel chair seating area. In front of us were two elderly couples who were enjoying a picnic as well as the tennis. Although I do wonder how much tennis they saw, as they munched their way through the afternoon. If you would like to apply for tickets to Wimbledon 2011 now is the time to do so. Details of how to apply can be found here.
The following day we treated ourselves to another visit to Christopher Lloyd's garden at Great Dixter, on the Sussex/Kent border. Our previous visit had been in May 2009 and we were both interested to see it in high summer. Sadly we were disappointed. Some areas were overgrown and untidy and there was no shortage of weeds. It is still impressive but I think that a garden, which the public pay for the privilege of seeing, should be better maintained. Maybe the grass is not always as green as we remember it to be. That night was spent in a hotel in Sussex. No fan provided but we were able to open the windows as wide as we wanted and we didn't fall out!
When the offer of tickets arrived on a very cold day in February, the thought that the UK would be having a heatwave during Wimbledon Fortnight was the last thing on my mind. As we prepared for our trip south I began to ponder the sagacity of driving 200miles in a hot car and spending three nights in stuffy hotel rooms. Fortunately husband's car is air conditioned so the journey was not a problem. We made good time and managed to stop for a long walk around RHS Wisley finding some peace, quiet and cool where the garden backs onto the River Wey, before heading to our hotel.
I need not have worried about the bedroom being stuffy as a fan had thoughtfully been provided to cool the room, which was just as well as the windows only opened a few inches - for our safety so that we didn't fall out!
We had decided to stay in the hotel on the outskirts of the village that we used to live in. That brought back a few memories. The village is as idyllic in its' own way as where we currently live, but it is more of a suburban location than our current country location. The village has always had a slightly dated conservative affluent charm of neat leafy lanes with well maintained houses set back from the road. I was interested to see if it had changed much since we had moved north to Chester, especially as Chelsea Football Club now have their training ground in the next village of Cobham. Many of their footballers live in lavish houses in the surrounding villages.Villages such as Cobham and Esher have always been upmarket and trendy with pavement cafes and expensive shops ideal for the WAGs. This post has been in my draft folder for some time but by chance The Times recently published an article about the prosperity of the area. I had hoped that our old village with its simple shops and absence of cafes would be seen as too dull for the footballers and their WAGs. After seven years away it was inevitable that there would be some changes. However, I was very pleased to see that the changes were limited to a few new shops and some newly built houses and that much of the village remains as it always was. Time has almost stood still in this corner of Surrey. Someone once described it to me as a magical place to live. They were so right. It was. It still is and I hope that it will continue to be a magical place to live. I shall always have a soft spot for that village. So why did we move? Because we had to. Husband had been offered a job 200 miles away in Chester and we had been trying to move anyway, because of problems with our neighbours. Otherwise I would not have been prepared to move from a house and village where we had once been so happy.To get up to Wimbledon we parked the car at the village railway station which looked cleaner and tidier than I remembered it to be, but maybe that is what seven years away does to the memory. We caught the Guildford to Waterloo train. (Yesterday's accident involving a cement mixer and a train happened just three stops down the line.) At Wimbledon we changed onto the District underground line which runs above ground between Wimbledon and Southfields, the nearest station to the All England Lawn Tennis Club. From Southfields to the tennis is about a twenty minute walk. Once through the gates our bags were searched and we felt that we had arrived. We brought a programme then had a wander around the grounds before buying ourselves a cold drink and making our way to Henman Hill to eat our lunch.
I had thought that we might be getting a bit old for going to Wimbledon but there were plenty of spectators considerably older than us. Just before 1pm, when play was scheduled to start, we took our seats on the No 1 Court. We had seats with a good view and plenty of space around. The present No 1 Court is modern and comfortable and has only been in use since 1997 when Tim Henman played the first competitive match on it. Wimbledon Fortnight is not the same since he retired. Our seats were in the front row of the second tier. Between the first and second tier is the wheel chair seating area. In front of us were two elderly couples who were enjoying a picnic as well as the tennis. Although I do wonder how much tennis they saw, as they munched their way through the afternoon. If you would like to apply for tickets to Wimbledon 2011 now is the time to do so. Details of how to apply can be found here.
The following day we treated ourselves to another visit to Christopher Lloyd's garden at Great Dixter, on the Sussex/Kent border. Our previous visit had been in May 2009 and we were both interested to see it in high summer. Sadly we were disappointed. Some areas were overgrown and untidy and there was no shortage of weeds. It is still impressive but I think that a garden, which the public pay for the privilege of seeing, should be better maintained. Maybe the grass is not always as green as we remember it to be. That night was spent in a hotel in Sussex. No fan provided but we were able to open the windows as wide as we wanted and we didn't fall out!
Friday, 15 October 2010
Tempus fugit
At the moment I normally work Tuesday and Wednesday. This week I am working Thursday and Friday, which means that I have just had seven days off. I thought that I would have plenty of time to do all of the jobs that I needed to do, get on top of my blog, catch up with all of your blogs, spend some time in the garden and have some time to myself. How wrong could I have been? The seven days have flown by and yesterday morning I returned to work with tasks on my list 'to do' still waiting to be done. In fact as one job got crossed off another one gets added. Where has the time gone? I could do with a bit more. Maybe just an extra hour or two a day and possibly another day a week.
You have probably noticed that recently I have been struggling to find the time for my blog. This is in the main due to one of the big decisions that I made earlier in the year. I had decided that I would stop practising and look for something easier to do but, a couple of months before I had planned to stop, I was asked to cover maternity leave of two days a week for about a year, I think. After mulling over the offer, I agreed to do it and I now plan to stop practising at the end of the maternity leave. So since the third week in June I have been working a regular two days a week and I am finding it very difficult to get into a routine, as for about twelve years now I have worked as a locum doing a day here and a day there. It was rare for two weeks to be the same.
I used to work mainly for a well known supermarket, which meant that I did a variety of different shifts sometimes long, sometimes short, antisocial hours and unsocial hours, but it seemed to give me more flexibility and time to myself than working the 9-6 that I am currently doing. On the two days that I work I am lucky to have an hour to myself in the evening. After standing for eight hours I am always tired and often stiff, which means that I need to have a soak in the bath to prevent stiffness the following day and I visit my good friend the osteopath, regularly, for her to keep my creaking body in working order. Then there is the thorny subject of varcose veins. I had two removed from my right leg about ten years ago and have continued to make more for which I have had never ending injections. Soon there won't be any veins left in my that leg!
When I decided to accept the offer of covering the maternity leave I was not sure if I really wanted to stop practising. Sitting at home looking for something else to do, in the winter time, in the middle of a recession, did not seem like a very good idea. Now I know that I am definitely going to stop practising at the end of this maternity leave and I shall do so without a backward glance, as I am now certain that it will be the right thing to do. Covering this maternity leave has made my mind up on this issue.
It is now 35years since I qualified, although in some ways it only seems like yesterday. When I look back at how things have changed I can see where the 35 years have gone. When I qualified labels were hand written and the few drug interactions were carried around in our heads. Now labels are computer generated and it is also the computer that alerts us to an interactions, for there are far too many to any individual to memorise. Most of the drugs used today had not even been discovered 35 years ago. The world and pharmacy have changed immeasurably and in some ways not for the better. I am now looking forward to the day when I hang up my mortar and pestle, but until then I can see that free time is going to be in short supply and I am not going to be able to visit or post as often as I would like, especially as I do not seem to be able to write a short post. I hope that you will bear with me over the coming months.
You have probably noticed that recently I have been struggling to find the time for my blog. This is in the main due to one of the big decisions that I made earlier in the year. I had decided that I would stop practising and look for something easier to do but, a couple of months before I had planned to stop, I was asked to cover maternity leave of two days a week for about a year, I think. After mulling over the offer, I agreed to do it and I now plan to stop practising at the end of the maternity leave. So since the third week in June I have been working a regular two days a week and I am finding it very difficult to get into a routine, as for about twelve years now I have worked as a locum doing a day here and a day there. It was rare for two weeks to be the same.
I used to work mainly for a well known supermarket, which meant that I did a variety of different shifts sometimes long, sometimes short, antisocial hours and unsocial hours, but it seemed to give me more flexibility and time to myself than working the 9-6 that I am currently doing. On the two days that I work I am lucky to have an hour to myself in the evening. After standing for eight hours I am always tired and often stiff, which means that I need to have a soak in the bath to prevent stiffness the following day and I visit my good friend the osteopath, regularly, for her to keep my creaking body in working order. Then there is the thorny subject of varcose veins. I had two removed from my right leg about ten years ago and have continued to make more for which I have had never ending injections. Soon there won't be any veins left in my that leg!
When I decided to accept the offer of covering the maternity leave I was not sure if I really wanted to stop practising. Sitting at home looking for something else to do, in the winter time, in the middle of a recession, did not seem like a very good idea. Now I know that I am definitely going to stop practising at the end of this maternity leave and I shall do so without a backward glance, as I am now certain that it will be the right thing to do. Covering this maternity leave has made my mind up on this issue.
It is now 35years since I qualified, although in some ways it only seems like yesterday. When I look back at how things have changed I can see where the 35 years have gone. When I qualified labels were hand written and the few drug interactions were carried around in our heads. Now labels are computer generated and it is also the computer that alerts us to an interactions, for there are far too many to any individual to memorise. Most of the drugs used today had not even been discovered 35 years ago. The world and pharmacy have changed immeasurably and in some ways not for the better. I am now looking forward to the day when I hang up my mortar and pestle, but until then I can see that free time is going to be in short supply and I am not going to be able to visit or post as often as I would like, especially as I do not seem to be able to write a short post. I hope that you will bear with me over the coming months.
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