Out of bounds

Summer, or should I say the better weather, is here in the UK and the neighbour's children are out in the garden attempting to hone their football skills.

A few weeks ago I had opened the gate at the side of our house in the expectation of doing some gardening in our front garden after I had done some work in the back garden. I was working in the back of one of the side borders, hidden behind the lilac tree when for some reason I looked up and saw a figure, clad in black, striding down our garden. At first I thought that it was the wife from next door who I had earlier seen in their garden dressed in black. I wondered what she could be doing in our garden, then realised that the hair was the wrong colour. It was not her. It was Del Boy Junior, the neighbour's son, from the other side. I was dumb struck! What was he doing striding down our garden? Eventually my brain engaged my tongue and I managed to stutter out something about asking before walking into some one's garden. He said something about knocking on the door and getting no reply. With an unanswered front door and the gate wide open I would have thought that it was obvious that we were in the garden. He had kicked a ball over the hedge into our garden and wanted it back. This was just one of several incidents that we have had with Del Boy Junior and a football.

The day that Del Boy and family moved next door we had a taste of what was to come. It was November and it was dark and wet but that did not stop Del Boy Junior and friends from knocking a ball around in their new garden, as Dad had rigged up some flood lights so that they could play football when it was dark. It was early evening when we had a knock on the door and a request to look for a ball in our back garden, in the dark. Reluctantly my husband put on his anorak and went out with a torch for a rummage around. But before he managed to get out there one of the football players was already in our garden flailing amongst the plants. There are no lights in our back garden and they couldn't find the ball. At that point we did not have the side gate and I have to say that this incident put the requirement for a lockable side gate at the top of our to do list, otherwise we could see that our garden would become a free for all scavenging ground for balls when we were not there.

We had had experiences of stray footballs at our previous house. Initially the children, who lived in the house at the back of us used to politely ask for their ball back. However, they became bold and one gloomy wet evening I saw them climbing over the fence in an attempt to retrieve a ball. How did I manage to see them? Their white trainers glowed in the dark. The next thing that I remember happened when we returned from holiday. As I walked from the hall into the kitchen I thought something was different. Initially I could not work out what it was. Then I noticed that there was broken glass all over the kitchen floor and a large, round, football shaped hole in the kitchen window. This was before we had done any work on the house and it was an old single glazed window. It was obvious who the culprits were. We never had an apology and they never asked for another ball to be returned to them. By the time that we moved from that house, about six years later, we had a collection of half a dozen balls which I gave to a charity shop.

So now we have some rules relating to the return of stray balls which are that we will return one ball per day before 8 pm in the evening, in response to a polite request for the ball to be returned.

Four Birthdays and Two Funerals

I am afraid that I have been absent from Blogland yet again, but on this occasion it has not been due to problems with my laptop computer. Sunday of last week found us packing bags, yet again, for a brief visit down to Sussex, which involved a family reunion. It seems as if almost every weekend husband has either been getting bags out of the loft or putting bags away in the loft. My husband tends to be a throw everything in the suitcase at the last minute sort of person whereas I like to be organised and work from lists. So I dislike intensely having to pack at the last minute as I have to when husband does not get the bags out of the loft until shortly before we are due to leave. Although in some ways I have had to get used to it, but it does not stop me sitting in the passenger seat of the car and worrying about all the things that I might have forgotten and the constant need to be rummaging in bag which sits on the back seat of the car, to check that I have not actually forgotten anything. In the past we have between us managed to forget comb, hairbrush, toothbrush, glasses, sandals and shirts. Now that my navigational skills have been replaced by a satellite navigation system I need to keep the old grey cells active somehow and there was also the desperate need to take my mind off the tragic affair that we were to attend the following day.

So far this year we have been away six times for one or two nights. There was the lightening trip down to Sussex to collect my mother and bring her up to Cheshire. Then there have been two funerals. One for my aunt in East Yorkshire and the second last week for a child. It was the saddest thing that I have ever been to. Husand and I have been to three funerals in the last nine months, so I am hoping that as things are said to happen in threes that, that is now that. The other three trips away have been to celebrate three of the four 'big zero' birthdays that are happening this year in our family. The fourth is next month when my husband will be celebrating and for a change the family will be coming to us.



On the journey home from Sussex we stopped at RHS Wisley, for a quick walk around, where I photographed these lovely blue agapanthus which will always remind of the events of July 2009.

Three strikes and you're out!

Not long ago I posted about computer problems which resulted in my absence form Blogland when Vista brought my laptop computer to a stand still. Unfortunately I have had more problems which once again have lead to my absence from Blogland.

A few hours after struggling to post Eros in a Small World my laptop collapsed with a high temperature (it had over heated). I poked it, prodded it, swore at it and nearly threw it out of the window. Husband was out at the time. When he came home he cast his consultant's eye (computer not medical) over it and phoned A&E (the local computer shop), who said to bring it in straight away which he did. I had expected that it was going to be rushed to ITU to be monitored overnight (they have some sophisticated monitoring/diagnostic equipment), so was surprised to find, when husband phoned the following day, that my laptop was still waiting, on a stretcher in A&E, to be assessed. It was not until the next day that a diagnosis of it needing a heart and lung transplant (a new hard drive) was made. Surgery was scheduled for the following day and after a speedy recovery, we had the laptop back home. It then needed a few days recuperation to build up its strength (while the necessary software was installed), before I could have it back to use.

I have told my laptop that to let me down once was unfortunate, to let me down twice was a mistake and that if it lets me down again I shall be replacing it with a newer, younger model.

In the mean time I have been using the desk top computer, in our study, to try to catch up with my visiting, when I have been able to get to it. Every time that I have nearly caught up with my visiting, several bloggers publish posts and once again I slip down the greasy pole. So I have given up trying to get my visiting up to date. Rest assured that if I normally read your blog and have not done so recently, that it will be on my list of blogs to read.

And now for something different - an award!

I was given this One Lovely Blog Award sometime ago by the multi-talented Janine at Sniffles and Smiles and have not got around to doing anything about it, because of being in and out of Blogland, at the whim of my laptop and a few other problems.


I have decided to give the award to fellow bloggers who are my neighbours here in the north west of England.So you see there are a few small benefits to living in this area and the recipients are as follows:

CG - the compulsive worrier who is also a librarian and photographer and mother to two lovely daughters

Helen P - who has recently ghost written the biography of local millionaire Rob Lloyd

Scriptor Senex - who rambles from his chair

and

A Brit in Tennessee

who is a Cheshire expat living in Tennessee.

Eros in a Small World

When I admitted in a tag, last Autumn, that I had met my husband on a Greek island, I was surprised by the curiosity, interest and requests for a post that this fact generated. I have waited until now to post about how I met my husband. Today is our wedding anniversary, so it seems as good a day as any for this post.

It was the summer of 1989. I was a single working girl with a mortgage around my neck and a hole in my finances, after having to pay a string of unexpected bills. I needed and wanted a holiday and worked out that I could afford one week in the sun. I decided on a week's holiday on the Greek island of Alonnisos with the tour operator Small World. I had been with them a few times before. Their brochure advertised 'social holidays for single people' mainly in villas, in parts of the Mediterranean which were only semi-commercialised.

I set off early one Friday morning in July, driving to Gatwick airport at the crack of dawn. The flight was delayed which meant that we were late arriving in Skiathos and missed the Flying Dolphin hydro-foil to Alonnisos. I and my fellow travellers had to sit around, for an hour or two, in the Greek afternoon heat, wearing clothes that were more suited to a grey day in the UK, whilst we waited for the next hydrofoil to Alonnisos. By the time that we reached our destination it was early evening. We just had time to unpack and have a shower before dinner.

Meals, which were eaten outside in a small courtyard, were prepared by the villa girls, known as Muribirds, after the founder of Small World, Colin Murison-Small. Some of the group were half way through a two week stay. For others it was the first week of a two week holiday and for those like myself it was the start of their one and only week. After dinner which was washed down with plenty of wine, all eleven (four girls and seven lads) of us, that were staying in the villa, walked down to the harbour for a drink. Husband to be (HTB) and I hit it off straight away. I could not tell you what we talked about, that first night, but I managed to establish that he lived not far from me back in England.

The next morning those on their second week showed the new arrivals the way to the nearest beach, which meant a 45 minute walk or taking a water taxi. The other three girls opted to take the water taxi but I decided that as I was holidaying on a shoe string that I would walk to the beach with the lads and save myself the cost of the water taxi. There was not much to do on Alonnisos, so most days we walked to the beach. Then late afternoon, on our way back from the beach, after a hard day of sunbathing, we would stop at one of the harbour tavernas for a thirst quenching and well deserved beer. Over the course of the week HTB and I often walked together. We got on very well and I remember thinking what a pity it was that he had a girlfriend back home as we seemed to be made for one another. Our relationship was totally platonic. HTB was the perfect gentleman.

Too soon it was time to return home. We were up early on the Friday morning to catch the hydro-foil to Skiathos where we had breakfast at a taverna before heading to the airport. At the time HTB was a smoker and I rashly agreed to sit with him in the smoking section of the plane. They say that love is blind, it must also have lost its' sense of smell. I have never smoked and HTB stopped smoking at the end of 1989. When we got back to Gatwick airport I offered him a lift home as he only lived five miles from me. We got to his house to find his girlfriend there. Goodness knows what she thought of me. At some point we exchanged contact details. The relationship with the girlfriend did not last but it was not until about a year later that we started to see each other on a regular basis. We got married almost two years after we met.

Although we only lived five miles apart, it is unlikely that we would have met, had we not chosen to go on the same holiday, as our social lives took us in different directions.