For as long as I have been writing this blog, February has usually been a very dull month…but not this year! We seem to have crammed an awful lot into the short month. Some of it good, some of it mundane and some downright scary! I have to say I definitely could have done without all of the last week’s adventures but we will get to that episode later!
We have continued to go out for our usual “date day” trips and have eaten lunch in some very nice places this month. The first of these was when we took a little trip into the Scottish Borders and ended up in Hawick, where we found a lovely little restaurant called Adam’s kitchen. It was a great find and we thoroughly enjoyed our lunch there and indeed the whole drive back home. Everywhere we have gone this month we have loved seeing masses of snowdrops everywhere. As you all probably know by now, I love snowdrops but even I have become a little (but not totally) immune to them after this month! Our second Wednesday of the month. saw us driving back along the Eden Valley from Penrith where we had hoped to visit a nice looking pub we had seen on an earlier excursion…but alas it was not open…nor was the two following village pubs along that route. I think this is a sign of the times, when country pubs no longer find it viable to open of serve food at lunchtimes. That day we made a return visit to The Wheatsheaf at Wetheral, where once again we ate very well. This week we met up with our friends Linda and Mike and after a chance encounter and a long conversation with with a lovely lady in the charity shop where I work (she was buying lots of white crockery and dessert dishes), we went to her café and eaterie at Crofton Hall, near Thursby. If ever any of you are in this area, I highly recommend this gem of a place. It was really lovely…great surroundings, lovely staff and truly delicious food. We all thoroughly enjoyed it…. especially Linda, who was nursing her broken wrist. We caught up with all their news including the story of how that had happened and their anxious wait to see if this would stop them going to Australia in a couple of weeks’ time to see their daughter. It looks like all will be OK…but fingers are still crossed at the moment.
For Geoff’s birthday we took ourselves off for a couple of nights to Peebles as a treat, staying at one of our favourite hotels, The Peebles Hydro. It’s a lovely old hotel which has a spa too so we were able to have a swim each evening. We called in to see a beautiful garden which was open as part of a garden open day scheme on the way up to Peebles and thoroughly enjoyed our walk around that. There were thousands of snowdrops …they were everywhere…just gorgeous On Geoff’s birthday itself we went to visit Roslyn Chapel, near Edinburgh and marvelled at all the wonderful stone carvings there, before heading off to Galashiels to see The Great Tapestry of Scotland. My friends, if ever you are in this part of the world you must go to see this…it is magnificent. It is also extremely large with over 165 individual panels depicting every aspect of Scottish history and life. It takes ages to go round it all and in fact, they do recommend you visit several times as it is very tiring walking around it all. But it is a truly fantastic work of art and well worth going to see. All in all, we really enjoyed our little break
I have had a really good time visiting the theatre too this month. The first of these trips was to our local theatre here in Carlisle (the West Walls) to see a play called The Luvvies. I was not sure I’d enjoy this play, but we like to support this venue, and in the end, we did enjoy it and laughed a lot! The next outing was to The Theatre Royal in Newcastle, with my daughter, Hazel, to see the ballet The Snow Queen. It was a wonderful day out with lunch at a great tapas restaurant followed by the ballet, which was fantastic. I do love ballet! Having a full day with Hazel too was a bonus** **I returned to the Theatre Royal the next week, this time with Linda to see The Mousetrap which was also great. I’ve wanted to see this play for years but had no desire to go to London, so it was a dream come true to see it at last. Of course, as tradition dictates, my lips are sealed as to “whodunnit”!
We have had some lovely news this month too…some of which I can share with you and some I can’t share on social media! The news I can share was that my friend’s daughter Georgina had her baby after a bit of a rough pregnancy. The baby was born a bit early…causing my knitting needles to go into overdrive trying to get a little cardigan finished for little Alfie! Happily, all was well in the end and my friend Rose is on granny duties at last.
We have had a quite expensive month this month too. We have had our loo replaced (exciting eh?) after discovering a hairline crack in the cistern before Christmas, which was not causing any problems but we knew if we left it, we would have trouble later. The guys did a great job and managed not to damage any of the floor tiles in the bathroom which had been a bit of a concern. We have also had the trees lopped in our small garden and I am hoping that I can get more things to grow there now there is a lot more light on the border there. That was very expensive but again the guys did a great job and took care of all the debris too. And still in the garden we have had two new fence panels delivered to replace the ones which were broken recently in the strong winds. Our garden looks very tidy and pretty just now with all the spring flowers coming into bloom. I love having this garden…it’s such a bonus for us living here in the flat complex.
Et alors…we come to the final chapter of the month’s news. It’s a shaggy dog story with a vengeance! You will all remember that our lovely dog Xena, who came back to the UK with us but as we cannot have her living with us in the flat she now lives with Hazel and Phil, but we share her still. Geoff walks her every morning and we dog sit frequently when Hazel and Phil go away. Geoff too her out for a walk as usual last Monday morning …and lost her. She never runs off so this was a total shock and it seemed like she had just vanished into thin air. After we had retraced Geoff’s steps, with absolutely no sign of her, we came to the conclusion that she might have fallen into the river which was flowing quite rapidly. We searched every bit of the park and riverside and finally had to give up. We flooded social media sites with pleas for people to look out for her, contacted vets, animal shelters, dog warden and even the waterways agency…again without success. The good people of Carlisle responded with absolute kindness and literally hundreds of them sent messages, and even came out to search for our doggy. Each time we went out…and believe me I walked more miles than I have done in a very long time last week…we met folk we didn’t know, out calling Xena’s name. It was heart-warming. However, there was not a single sighting of her for two very long days…by which time we had begun to think she was dead and probably in the river somewhere between here and the Solway. We were all totally distraught.
And then …some news, just to prove that miracles do happen! Mid-morning on the Wednesday, someone heard Xena howling in a carpark in Carlisle and found her trapped trackside, behind the fence, on the railway. A guy grabbed her collar through the fence and a lady recognised her from all the Facebook coverage and rang Hazel. Needless to say, we sped down there and there was a very joyous reunion of dog and family. The police were called…she was trackside on the railway after all, and the railway authorities were summoned to cut the fence. Then she was back with us at long last. She was very thirsty, very hungry, but otherwise was fine apart from being a bit stiff and sore and having a few cuts on her paws, due to the brambles. And, of course, she was delighted to be back home…and we were too! One last little anecdote from this story. It turns out that Xena is the most famous dog in Carlisle at the moment. When Geoff went for his dental appointment on Thursday, all the staff at the surgery had been following the story and wanted to know how Xena was! We have told him he needs to take a pen with him on their walks, to let her sign autographs!!
After all that excitement, we are now getting back to normality. We are making more plans for our trip to France at the end of March and trying to fit in as many meet ups with friends and family before we go. Glancing at the calendar it looks like we are going to be very busy (yet again) next month. I shall look forward to telling you all about it before we set off hopefully to the sunshine of the Cote d’Azur…although my friends in France are telling us it is cold and even snowing in the South of France just now. It can cut that out before we arrive!
A bientot mes amis…