Time for Treats

 Things are hotting up. Well actually the weather is getting mighty cold but my social scene is filling up quickly. This weekend I am in Brighton visiting Anne and my son, Sammi - two people who knew of each other but it was so long ago it was like a new introduction. Despite there being a chill in the air, the sun was gorgeous and walking along the prom really is something special any time of the year. So a big thumbs up for both the company and for the location. We even went dancing. What a wonderful weekend!

Oh, I do like to be... etc in nippy weather

Catching up with Anne

Last Friday I finally got to treat Danielle for her birthday which was a long, long time ago. We went to Bannatyne Spa in MK city centre. Top marks for the treatment and the G&T I had at lunch time but a definite, "Could do better" on everything else. The entrance to the spa was shabby, seedy even. The swimming pool needed a bit of a tidy up and paint job too. The man who was doing an aqua exercise class looked bored as he waggled his arms and legs half-heartedly - he learn a thing or two from the guys at my pool who have me singing along as I swim my lengths! To me, his attitude and demeanour summed up the whole feel of the place. He was just too weary to make an impression. 

Along with the venue with bits drooping, the menu left me with few choices. Remembering that this was a birthday treat and not a cheap one, I bought us both lunch which was mediocre to say the least; and at one point potentially a problem for me. Danielle had the korma - OK.. I think. I ordered a Jacket Potato with cheese and salad. The waiter / chef asked me if I wanted butter. I asked if it was butter. It wasn't. It was the worst sort of margerine laced with chemical additives. I told him I can only have butter. He shrugged. 

Also, being a jacket potato I expected it to be hot. It wasn't. It was a yesterday's not very appetizing, luke warm one where the butter would have remained solid if only they had butter. I complained. He gave me another slightly more luke warm one. Then was about to serve my G&T without the T... He was about to put dry ginger in it. What a Dick! I thought!!!!. This experience alone would stop me from returning... The massage bit and the facial were lovely but I won't be going back to that Bannatyne or another one.

Tesco on the other hand really put the show on the road with Santa centre stage. Danielle spent over an hour booking a slot to see Santa at Wolverton and it was well worth every moment she was left hanging on the phone. By the queue to the grotto were pop-up tasting stalls - lots of alcohol and chocolate! We were pretty stationary for some time so one of the stall holders started a conversation about my Furoshiki caveman boots. I ended up taking one off to show her the inside. She loved them. I loved her meat and cheese tasting stall - especially as I had got to Tescos straight after my swim and was very hungry indeed. 

Ezra-Mae loved the whole experience. This year she really knows what Christmas is about. It is the one where she will start her memories. Not being the shy and retiring type, she chatted away to Santa and he mostly understood her. Hilarious!! Thank you Tesco. You have scored some big points with me for that grotto. 

MK Centre

Ezra- Mae also went to MK Centre to see the Christmas stalls and fayre outside John Lewis. Again, this was done so nicely. Ah, the joys of the season.... and so much more to look forward to. Who said Christmas is for kids.... eh?

One more cup of coffee for the road

Posing on the roof of a mini

Meanwhile I have so much more to look forward to... more treats... more parties... more everything.... wonderful!

When the sun does not shine...

 

When the sun did not shine and it was too wet to play I stayed in the house and got on with lots of little jobs I hadn't quite got around to. I have now changed a lightbulb, re-potted some of my house plants, repaired a pair of shoes after two attempts, baked and made a most delicious potato soup. I have also tidied my wardrobe and found things I had forgotten I owned too. So now I feel really smug.

There is, of course, always things that could be done but for now that will do. I have been trying to swim the Thames Challenge for a second time this year and I hate to fail but I need to get about a thousand lengths done in two weeks but with everything else, I won't manage it. I have spent ten weeks away over the time of the challenge  as well and if I hadn't had a life beyond MK, it would have been easy. My priorities have been to travel so I only have myself to blame.

I also have my house back to myself for the time being. My Ukranian guests have moved into emergency accommodation with the help of Northants Council as Nataliia is pregnant and expecting a baby in January. The move went remarkably smoothly. The house suddenly feels quite large even though it is actually small. I think my fun time baking was inspired by me having my kitchen to myself but it wasn't a conscious reason for making bread and puddings.

I am also getting a bit excited about Christmas too. I have made space in my living room for a Christmas tree - another of my little jobs! The tree won't go up until December 1st. I have seen houses locally already decorated. If we were more subtle about our choice of decoration we could move seemlessly from Eid to Diwali and then onto Christmas before changing Santa's white beard for a Fu Manchu to celebrate Chinese New Year.

On the subject of celebrations, fireworks have been cracking and popping around here since Halloween. In Singapore we can't have individual fireworks so hearing the nightly whizz bang poppers going off is a wee bit more annoying as I haven't been used to it for so many years. For some reason, this  year has seemed especially annoying, particularly when it makes dogs nervous. 

Another time filler - pub quizzes

I am off to tennis in less than ideal conditions - oh how lucky I was living in a warm country for so long - I will be piling the layers on naturally... 

A Lifestyle Choice

My cousins in sunnier times

At Stoke Bruene 

The Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, has recently said  - among other inciteful things - that living in a tent and being homeless is a lifestyle choice. Who would have thought that anyone prefers to live in a flimsy tent in all weathers. In Milton Keynes there are a fair few who huddle in doorways or under bridges. The weather has taken a turn for the worse this week - torrential rain and dropping temperatures. This must make those homeless people's existence even more unbearable. What a ridiculous woman our Home Secretary is.

 I have been back in the UK nearly four years and still miserable skies make me think twice about setting off on my bike. I did so the other day. I set off for the swimming pool to do my lengths, got splattered with mud, pedalled through the sort of rain that makes you very wet, swam and then cycled home in the same conditions. I was annoyed with myself. Why do I do these silly things time and time again. I never learn. Maybe this is my lifestyle choice?

Also, wrapping myself up in my winter coat which friends say makes me look like Nanook of the North or wearing warm scarves causes little problems for me. I might be protected from all weather but I now have a collection of odd earrings. I have lost so many odd dangly ones as they get caught on the fur or my scarf that I am in mind to make wearing odd ones a lifestyle choice. Having said this, I once lost an earring on a bike ride and found it in the middle of the road on my way home and I lost another one a couple of weekends ago and found it outside two days later. So all is not lost. I can match up on ocassions still. 

Being wih friends and family has filled this week with joy. My cousin, Adrian and his wife Chris stayed for four days and then on Friday I spent a night at Jeremy and Diane's. This is a really good lifestyle choice. Making connections is so important for us old folk. We certainly had a laugh playing games while my cousins were around - Spoons with an international twist! My friends from the arse end of the village came over to make up the party. 

I heard it on the radio that as we get old we need to socialise and exercise. I am seriously working on both. Someone please tell me how much exercise is necessary. 

I am about to lose my Ukrainian guests after nine months. Nataliia is pregnant and of course wants to be in her own place and this will happen next week. In some ways I will be glad to have my kitchen all to myself but I know I will miss having her and Nicholas around. Nicholas has said that they are my pets and also that I run a free Airbnb as so many people come to visit. They too will be back to to say hi, I'm sure. This is a lifestyle choice I wish to keep up - always happy to host!

Hobgolblins and ghosties

 'Tis Halloween so it was not surprising that my planned train trips were blighted by delays on all four trains. The spirits from the nether world were clearly at play and wanted to aggravate my trip to and from Sheffield for Anita's Halloween party. Having a new phone found out I hadn't uploaded my old dears' rail pass and it took an age with a bad connection to prove I had really got one.  At least arriving at Tamworth after my connecting train should have gone would have been a whole lot worse. Apart from being rather wet weather, waiting outside for a train wasn't too bad. 

I like Sheffield and, of course, I love parties so I really looked forward to my visit to Anita's. When I finally got there (no thanks to Avanti) we started the decorating. We shrouded the house in cobwebs for atmosphere and put out some expertly carved pumpkins. All we needed were the guests. Duly, the Grim Reaper, Dracula, a few witches and other suspect characters turned up along with some "Trick or Treaters". The mark of a good party is how long the guests stayed. A couple let themsleves out after Anita said she had to go to bed. So on that note, it had to have been a really good one! Something even changed in me over the course of the evening. My name changed ever so slightly. To Sheffield, I think I will be an Angela for this day hence. Definitely there was magic a foot.

On Wednesday morning it was clean up time. The two cuddly Kittens, Babet and Bobby - recent additions to the Ingham household - ran amok, attacking brooms, and darting around. I mopped the floor and then slipped on the wet - ouch. I came out of that remarkably lightly. The worst was I hurt my wrist, I now have a faint bruise on my thigh as well but no other damage. 

In fact, I woke up on Thursday morning wondering why my wrist hurt and then I remembered. Is this a sign of demetia? I asked myself. Nothing too untoward or lasting hindered my day so I conclude that the Good Fairy looked down on me this time round. My wrist held together for tennis and swimming so I am back in action.

The area in Sheffield where Anita lives is full of character and characters. We stopped off at an Italian coffee shop, run by a Yorkshireman with a flat cap and a strong Yorkshire accent. Anita and he started talking in Italian - apparently he has a house in Italy. Then a lady came in and asked for her coffee in hesitant Italian. The coffee shop is small so without much effort the whole place joined in the conversation in both English, broken Italian and fully fluent Italian. I told them I had come up from Milton Keynes just because I had heard what a lovely cafe it was  (In English) .Telephone numbers were exchanged and more Italian will be practised in the near future, no doubt.

Then later on in the day in the very same street as the Italian / Yorkshire coffee shop, Anita nearly knocked over a fairly famous aging rockstar. It was his fault. He opened the door of his posh car without looking and stepped out right in front of us. If anything had happened it would have made it into the national obituaries but we couldn't recall who it was other than someone from Simply Red. You must have heard of them?

The Hobgoblins certainly made it difficult for me to buy two Wouchers for a Bannatyne Spa Day for Danielle and Me. I tried to do it up in Sheffield but it booked a Barnsely Spa. I have since managed to get both vouchers booked for MK but I am in need of a good rub down as the whole experience has been fraught with hitches. The front desk at Bannatyne MK is run by two of the most obnoxious of people who couldn't give a toss because it wasn't their pigeon. They made me feel like I REALLY want to have a good day out in their spa or perhaps just hit my head against a brick wall until the memory of this encounter with them fades sufficiently.

Ezra-Mae the Witch in search of sweets

My grand daughter really got into Halloween this year. She has all the words for Halloween things too. She came and spent a night with me, got a little over-tired and said she wanted her Mummy. I said she could have, "A Squash and a Squeeze", "Winnie the Witch" or "The Cat in the Hat". She said she wanted her Mummy. I told her to listen carefully to the options again. Her Mummy wasn't one of them. I kept a straight face, read Winnie the Witch and all was well. In the morning the first thing she wanted was Winnie. So I can conclude that through the grumps she actually liked the story when the option of Mummy was off the table. The Good Fairy was by me once more.