Happy Sundays

It’s relatively early on Sunday morning. Irish music is floating through from the kitchen, there’s a strong smell of fresh bread and my partner has just bought me a coffee... not a bad way to start your day! We’re off to Leeds Castle – confusingly in Kent – today. Apparently it’s the “prettiest castle” in England. The castle and grounds are lovely and today they also have a Christmas fayre, so we’re going with two friends who have just moved to London. I’m very excited. I do like a good castle!

On Friday after a long week we went to my partner’s parents for dinner. It was a lovely evening. Her brother and his girlfriend were there also, just back from an African adventure where they were filming, and it was a relaxed and fun evening.

Yesterday we had a friend turn up unexpectedly for tea and biscuits. How lovely is that? In a world where everything is planned, put in diaries and consulted on, that you can knock on a friend’s door and end up having a gossip and chocolate biscuits. Then we popped along to the new coffee shop of which I spoke of with breathless excitement in a previous blog – the Blue Moon cafe. It’s lovely! I had two hot chocolates and a slice of passion cake which was bloody delicious. We worked on our Christmas planning: what to cook, who to buy presents for and what presents to buy, decorations etc. Very thorough, very organised... Christmas is very important to me, I like to do it properly!

Then we went next door to the little bookshop which turned out to be terribly awkward as my partner was ordering some books for me for Christmas! So I had to pretend not to hear what she was doing, and then I had to pretend not to say ‘it’s cheaper on Amazon!’ and she had to pretend not to reply (a little huffily I might add) ‘that’s why bookshops are closing!’ and I had to pretend to not concede that she had a point. It might just be easier if she went on her own next time.

In other exciting news we’ve booked somewhere to stay just after Christmas on our 2 week holiday! It’s a caravan park with static caravans in 17 acres of woodland, 7 miles from Bude. The caravans look fab; shower, toilet, heaters, kitchen, two bedrooms...

We’ve decided to miss NY’s and go on the 2nd or 3rd. It looks fantastic, and kudos to my partner, it was her who found it...

Right, I’m off. Enjoy your Sunday!