Oh dear!

Carol, our gardener arrived this morning. She was in tears. Her daughter have told Carol & her husband that she & her daughter, their grand-daughter, are moving south next month. She’s devastateed & worried how her daughter, who is bi-polar, is going to manage without their support. She is daily round their house & Carol often ends up looking after the grandchild.  Oh dear!

Yesterday we did get out to Scorton. The Barn turned out to be not what we expected. I can’t see us bothering to go again. It was a pleasing gift shop, with a plant area & a pleasing café. It was lovely to sit out in the sun, next to an artificially grass-edged pool having a drink. Afterwards we visited the village church – small & very Victorian.

On the way home we stopped for a meal at QSF (Quite Simply French) a French restaurant on St George’s Quay, in Lancaster, alongside the river Lune.

The food was ample & on the whole good. However, we were disappointed in that so much of the food had been anglisized, losing its Frenchness. The baguette with it, though, was some of the best French bread we’ve ever had in this country.

I enjoyed my smoked prawn appetiser, while the Fox had his mushroom soup with brie in it. I then had the Coq au Vin. The chicken was very tender but there was very little flavour of red wine & what peas were doing in it was beyond me. The Fox meanwhile had Pork Confit with cassoulet, to find the pork was dried out, the crackling so tough he couldn’t eat it.

We looked at the dessert menu. As I commented to the French waitress, I would have been tempted by Tarte Tatin, Tarte au Citron or Tarte aux Fraises, but Chocolate Brownies, no. She tended to agree. However, for commercial reasons they had to make the compromises to make the sales. Oh dear!

Would we go again? I’m not sure. I am sure that waitress would have welcomed us with open arms as we were clearly anglophiles. We’d even ordered our food with a French accent, a sure give away. I think she appreciated having people in who really appreciated what good French food could be.

Whatever else it made a pleasant change. It was good to spend time together doing something different, having a bit of an English holiday for the day.

Wedding anniversary

It’s our wedding anniversary today. 43 years. A long life sentence for us both, & yet one we’re both happy to serve.

We’ve not decided what to do to celebrate. We don’t want to go away as we will soon be off to Italy.

We’re debating a visit to a bookshop. We will need some reading for the holiday & it’s always a pleasure to look at books. Or we’re contemplating a bit of a further explore of Lancashire, the county we now live in. One of the till girls at the supermarket recommends “The Barn” at Scorton. It’s a farm-shop-cum-gin-palace - the Fox is into gin these days as is this lady on the till. I’m aware also from a lady from Scorton we met once on holiday in Cyprus – her daughter was disabled – there are many walks made especially accessible for wheelchair walkers with electric scooters available for loan. If the day picks up it may be worth a trip. Either way I’m having a quiet morning, indulging in a box of chocolates that have miraculously appeared, a gift from the Fox.

We’re certainly thinking of dining out. Going somewhere that may turn out to be a bit of a treat. Again we’ve not quite decided on where. Much depends on what we do this afternoon.

One thing we definitely intend doing is pop to the hospital & collect the third tube of ointment prescribed to the Fox last week by Dermatology – all part of getting ready for the holiday & Italy.

And the other thing is I’m going to put a (hopefully) special bottle of wine in the fridge for when we get back this evening. It can accompany the 3 CD collection of jazz music we bought yesterday. And, even more importantly, some quality chunter.

E-mails

I’ve just been to look at my e-mails. I had a phone call earlier form the Breast Clinic, asking me my opinion of the article that had been written featuring my experience of the value of mammograms. Since I hadn’t even seen the article I was rather stuck as to what to say. It had apparently been e-mailed to me on Monday. I just hadn’t seen it. They will ring again on Friday.

Although I feel some of the wording doesn’t sound like me, the gist I’m happy enough with. I think I would stress the fact that I had had no symptoms before the mammogram, no lumps, no secretions, no pain, but that is the only thing I would change. I might have looked to see if I could find a more flattering photo but that’s just vanity.

In the process I found an e-mail from Fred Olsen, the cruise company we’d gone to Norway with, asking for yet another comment on our cruise. They asked me to say what was wrong with the holiday. I gave a brief outline. As for a phrase to sum up the holiday, I put “A nightmare”. They’re certainly one company we won’t be going on holiday with, certainly not for a very long time if ever.