We are back in lovely Cumbria and as the title suggests the blue skies and sunshine are fast becoming a distant memory! Since we got back having left Nice where the temperature was 28C, and arriving in Edinburgh where the temperature was 10C, we have had almost continuous grey skies and a lot of wetness! We did however, escape the worst of what storm Babet threw at a lot of the UK so it wasn’t all bad I suppose. My heart went out to all those poor folk whose houses were flooded and businesses ruined. I can think of nothing worse.
Any way I am getting ahead of myself. I’ll return to the blue skies scenario for a while. Our last few days in St Aygulf passed all too quickly. We continued with our usual pastimes…swimming each evening, visiting the market to get some last-minute treats and doing a lot of balcony sitting! Eventually we closed up the flat, put the car to bed in its cosy garage for the winter and caught the bus along to Nice, where we spent our final night in France for this year. We chose to spend the evening, and to eat, in the old town of Nice for a change, and really enjoyed a very pleasant time. There are worse places to spend a lovely evening! As always, we spent the night in the Ibis hotel near the airport and the next day we walked over to the airport as usual where we were soon through security and eating breakfast. As I said above, leaving Nice and the lovely weather there was a wrench and alighting in Edinburgh in the cold and wet came as a big shock to our systems! My sandals looked extremely sick and my poor sun-kissed feet were soon very wet indeed. The rest of our journey home went well and it was lovely to see Hazel and the little one waiting for us at the station 
.
Since then, we have been trying to get back into our normal routines…not to mention our winter clothes! The first full week back was pretty rough…not to mention expensive…as I had appointments at the eye clinic on the Monday, a hairdresser on the Tuesday and worst of all the dentist on the Wednesday 
. The eye clinic session resulted in injections in both eyes and for the first time ever my normally fantastic nurse hit a blood vessel in my left eye which resulted in a very red eyeball and worse than that with red tears running down my cheek as I walked (oblivious to this) through all the poor folk waiting their turns in the waiting room, and which also frightened the life out of Geoff who was waiting for me in the foyer of the hospital! My eye looked a lot worse than it felt and true to form when I sent a photo to Matthew, he suggested I booked some Halloween gigs as it was suitably gory! Getting my hair cut was a bit of a relief as it needed doing but cutting my fringe meant that the bloodshot eye was even more on show for the next week! The dental appointment went fairly well…no further progress with the front teeth for now (review in 6 weeks), two small “top up” fillings on back teeth and a fairly brutal half hour session of cleaning and polishing which I did not like one little bit! It has been a long time since I submitted to that…and it will be a long time until it is repeated! I now have a decision to take regarding the big filling the dentist says I need done and the jury is still out on that!
We have done some more pleasant activities since we got home you will be glad to hear. The craft fair season is well into its swing here in Cumbria as the run up to Christmas seems to be with us. Hazel and I went to a fair at Wigton which we enjoyed and Geoff and I went to a great (if rather expensive and high class) one at the Garden at Eden one Friday. We got very tempted there and ended up spending a lot more cash than we had planned. One of the treats we bought was some non-alcoholic ginger wine which is the closest thing I have found to the stuff my mother used to make and so was very good indeed. My Mam never followed the instructions correctly and so it was always so strong it almost took your head off! We will be tracking some more of that down before Christmas I can tell you .
We have also resumed our Wednesday date day lunches. The first one was with our friends Mike and Linda who managed to squeeze us in between their trip to Poland (they had a great time) and their up-coming trip to Australia to see their daughter. We had a splendid lunch at Upfront Gallery for that one. We went to The Wheatsheaf at Wetheral after the dental appointment which cheered me up as we like it there too. Last week saw us visiting another favourite place, the Kings Arms at Stainton where we enjoyed a great “OAPs lunch” as always! After that one we went to Rheged to see the Libby Edmunson exhibition there. It was wonderful…such vibrant colours…and we narrowly escaped without treating ourselves to a limited-edition print! As usual we couldn’t fully agree as to which one was our favourite!
We really enjoyed our visit to the Playhouse in Penrith one evening to see the Penrith players perform The Rivals. It was very well done and I was in awe of the cast learning all those complicated lines! Geoff also managed to get a ticket to a classical music concert at the Fratery one evening which he really enjoyed.
Our normal activities such as my Op shop shifts and Geoff’s pickleball playing and CYZ sessions have also resumed. Geoff did a session, planting crocus bulbs one morning, at Hammonds Pond to help out our son-in-law’s Rotary Club community strategy. And I, being horrified by the situation and bloodshed which is going on in Israel and Palestine, went with Hazel one evening to a peace vigil in the grounds of Carlisle Cathedral, which, although it was sparsely attended was no less moving for that. Standing in silence for a full five minutes was very moving and really made me think about all this awful suffering that is going on…on both sides of this dreadful conflict.
I have been busy doing some crafty things too this month. I still love doing my craft stuff! As well as painting some rocks (not quite the same doing those in Carlisle as it was on our balcony in St Aygulf!) I made an Autumn wreath for the door and I have been busy knitting …wait for it…pumpkins! Hazel requested one first and I knitted a full sized one, then I knitted two small ones for the wreath, and then Matthew also requested some too. Six pumpkins later….! I have now moved on to sparkly critters ready for the Christmas Fayre at church. So far, I have made two owls and a hedgehog and have more to do in the next week or so. As well as all that, I have started prodding folk into action to make up shoeboxes for the annual appeal which Geoff and I will take to a local collection point in Carlisle next month, I hasten to add I am also in the process of making up two boxes myself in case you were wondering!
So, as you can see, we are keeping pretty busy! We are taking a couple of days off this next week though to go away for a break, to Gatehouse of Fleet which we are both looking forward to. And we have started to think about, and plan, our next trip to France in February maybe…we will be finding out about routes and possibilities for that in the next few days. For now, though I’ll bid you farewell and stay safe tonight. Watch out for all the witches and ghosts that might be around!.
A bientot mes amis…