Time for tea said Robin

I am back in London, at Candice's - at least until tomorrow morning! I have been very efficient since I got up this morning in Alconbury, at Sarah's, braving the maniacs (myself included) on the A14 and M11 to get back to Hextable by 9.30am. I have found out where it is I am going to tomorrow when I leave for Lucy and Fossi's; booked a flight to/from Edinburgh and a hotel as well as 'meet and greet' parking, who will whisk my car away and park it for me when I arrive at Stansted on Tuesday. I have arranged to meet Eleni and Paul early in October and arranged dates with Candice when I will be foisting myself on her and Geoff. I have done 2 loads of washing and am about to pack my bag for the weekend.

If you remember, I was bowled away by how well everything had gone in Hornsea on the Monday. Well, it continued in the same vein so that by Wednesday the auctioneers had removed the big furniture, the British Heart Foundation had taken the small electrical - and a couple of bookshelves I saw them sequester away - as well as some other household items, the Dove House Hospice took the beds and fridge and Oxfam - courtesy of Derek (bless him) - got all the rest. Well, that is apart from all the dog and cat stuff - why did we have 12 dog/cat beds, including hers and hers in some designs - which went to a pet re homing project that Maureen is part of. Derek managed to get the bike off the wall and the lock succumbed to fierce work with a hacksaw while Gary rode it over to Kidds before going off for his session at the gym. The solicitor was very efficient and we completed 6 steps in the process instead of the normal one in the hour I was with her. I even managed to do all the little bits of house administration, management company and general tidying up that is the fall out from such a complex set of things. And all is well.

I had such fun at David and Maureens with their wonderful dog, Polly, who is nothing like Daisy and in no way reminded me of her. However, she did remind me of what real dogs do - licking, jumping, playing, rolling over - which Daisy does not do. But I think just being with another dog made me realise how much I miss Daisy (and all of you). Of course, as Rob has mentioned, there were the geese - not as scary as I thought they would be (well, actually, Maureen's protection of me probably had something to do with that)- and the chickens, who are rescue chickens. Did you know that egg producers 'discard/kill' chickens who do not lay 'regular' eggs. Maureen took 20 of them but says 1,800 are regularly discarded! And all because supermarkets say the customer wants 'regular' sized and coloured eggs! I collected eggs from the chickens and fed the sheep some cabbage but did not get too close to the pigs who can be quite rough - but look very sweet. Maureen and David have 5 acres on top of a hill overlooking all the land to the coast and out to sea. They are on the edge of the North York moors and the view is spectacular and very English and pastoral. It is a view one would never tire of and Maureen says it is always changing as different things go on in the farm land and as the landscape changes. I particularly liked the variety of garden birds I sat and watched from their kitchen.

Coming there was a joy after a day in Hornsea when I was quite tired and a bit washed out from taking leave of our belongings, house and area. The drive was about 40 minutes through very pleasant, peaceful countryside with nothing to bother about apart from the slowest drivers in the country (Grrrr!). I can so see why they live there.

I was fortunate to finish work early on Wednesday and so I took myself off to Burton Agnes for some visual gardening and a (very) little shopping. The trip gave me the opportunity to make a side trip to Ulrome, and a minor road drive to Burton Agnes through farmland where there were skylarks, hares and a kestrel.

Yesterday I departed Yorkshire by the gentle route which took me through countryside with signs to towns such as Thwing, Fridaythorpe, Holme on the Wolds, Cherry Burton, Rascal Moor and Melbourne before I entered the fray again and drove down to Alconbury and Sarah. And it was quite splendid to be with Sarah again and catch up on what has been happening in her and Charlie's lives (Charlie is going to university to be a designer of shoes). But the time was too short really and I had to be off this morning for London.

OK, now you are up to date and I am going to have some tea. I shall be away for the weekend but will log on again before I go to Scotland on Tuesday. LOTS of love to everyone - and some hugs too. Ann