I'm back!

Ah, it’s nice to feel all refreshed after just over a week away from the office. Especially since there appears to be very few people around today, my first day back. I’m not sure if this is a result of other people taking leave, or just the first signs of the teams disbanding.

Or both.

At the moment it’s quite pleasant, but I should imagine that it will become quite lonely around here if the number of colleagues in attendance declines much further. As far as I can see, very little has happened over the period I have been off: I have a heap of emails to look at, but in most cases I seem to have been simply copied in rather than being the prime addressee. The main feature of my job these days, and one which shows no immediate signs of slowing down is dealing with slews of letters from people who are pissed off with social rent rises. It’s all very tedious.

Anyway.

It was clear that we needed time off. In the first three days of the holiday we did nothing beyond sleep, eat, watch telly and play Warcrack. Of those activities sleep was the major time sink. I don’t think either of us realised just how tired we had become.

Having recharged our batteries, we did manage to finish redecorating the bedroom, as previously mentioned and on Sunday just past, we hung netting in there so we can, for the first time since we moved in, have daylight in the bedroom without people peering in from passing busses. I think the bedroom is now finished and it looks much better for the effort.

Work on the bathroom proceeds slowly. I have now filled and cemented the gap where we had removed four tiles and scraped out the soggy mess behind some weeks ago. I have also reapplied the tiles with luxurious amounts of adhesive, following Furtle’s Dad’s advice in the matter. Over the next few days we will be marking up and scoring those parts of the grouting that need attention before redoing much of the shower cubicle. Once that has been applied and has dried, it will be a good scrub of all the tiles with sugar soap to remove any accumulated grease, a removal of the old sealant and cleaning of the areas it covered. We have obtained a bottle of luridly blue meths for this, which seems to be the only way of removing it completely. The step after that it seems, is to reseal everything and then paint another sealant over everything, one that will enhance the colour of the tiles and then soak in and fill any cracks or holes with sealant. It seems that this is readily available in the US but hard to get over here for some reason. Happily Amazon do it.

So, house maintenance is on schedule. Next up, the garden and other things we did on our holidays.

I'm back! -again.

On Wednesday last week we popped into town for a mooch around before meeting Furtle’s parents, who had come down to London for a matinee performance of Ladykillers at our recommendation.

Our intention was to take in a gallery or a museum, have a meal and then go on to meet the parents. It didn’t quite work out like that.

As we were in no hurry, we took the bus to Stratford, rather than the train, switched to the Jubilee Line and then switched to the River Bus for a leisurely ride into the centre of London. That all worked out very well and we decided to visit the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden before eating at a Mexican restaurant Furtle had visited some years ago.

We got off the river bus at Embankment, popped into one of the public gardens nearby to look at the displays of late-blooming daffodils and other early flowers, before sloping into the Civil Service Club for a pint. This achieved, we sauntered up to Covent Garden and went for our meal. It’s just as well that we didn’t order starters, since the enchilada I had was near as big as my head. It was very tasty, but I was stuffed by the end of it. We just had room for a coffee before wobbling back onto the street where I thought that belly wheels might be a useful purchase.

We got back to Covent Garden where we were appalled by the admittance fee for the Transport Museum. If I want to look at immobile tube trains, I can do that for rather less than £13.50 a head, by wandering down to pretty much any underground platform with my Oyster Card. We contented ourselves by visiting the London Transport Museum Shop instead and I acquired a model Routemaster to commemorate the museum visit we never made.

On Friday we took the train to Dovercourt, Harwich where we booked into a hotel for a couple of nights. The Saturday afternoon was to be spent meeting and dining with the extended Furtle clan in lieu of actually inviting them to our wedding back in December.

Having booked into the hotel, we strolled along the seafront for the mile or so to get to Harwich town and harbour. That was very pleasant, though the sun went in while we were there and it got rather chilly, which was awkward since I had left my coat in the hotel.

The middle of Harwich is very old indeed, with a very mediaeval street plan. It is very pretty and rather smaller than you might expect, once you discount the container and ferry port on the other side of the river. We looked out the restaurant that we had booked for the Saturday and investigated the town as best we could. This was hampered by the presence of three fire engines and a mobile incident centre, dousing down a fire that had taken the top storey and attic rooms of a house in the most mediaeval of streets, necessitating the sealing off of much of the town centre.


The Harwich and Sheerness Off-Shore Lifeboats moored side by side

We found a second restaurant, the Samuel Pepys, which had been recommended to us and went in for an early dinner. They had just poured us a pint of cider each when the power in the entire block went off and stayed off. Apparently the fire brigade had it switched off so they could search the burnt out house. So that was that; no food and no more drink. Then it started pelting down with cold rain and, as I say, my coat was back at the hotel.

We blew a fiver on a cab and went back.

We ended up in a Chinese Restaurant in Dovercourt called, I think, The Peking House although on the menu it was called “The Peeking House”. The food was very tasty and well priced, though there was not a Chinese face in sight. I assume they were all in the kitchen. Then it was back to the hotel for a couple of drinks and bed. Some Friday 13th, though we got by far the easy end of it in comparison.

The next day was the planned meal with Clan Furtle that went off very well. At least it seemed to: I wasn’t chased out of town, tarred or feathered and we received some splendid wedding gifts, including a set of remote controlled tanks that we can battle on the patio!

That evening we walked along the seafront in the opposite direction, before repairing to the bar for yet more food and drink.

It was a very relaxing couple of days, though when we got home on the Sunday we immediately spent some of the capital by putting up the netting in the bedroom and undertaking a number of other chores.

I think that once our finances are up to it, a few more extended weekend breaks away will be called for.