ROAD UP!

On Tuesday we awoke to find that the road between our village and the next had been close for maintenance. We had received no official warning of this,there had been rumours,but that's all.

The road closure has made for an interesting few days with no buses in to town and endless problems for delivery drivers who find it hard to locate our tiny village at the best of times.

Pa has a hospital appointment today and will have to take a taxi,then do a very long detour round the county lanes in order to reach his destination, that's going to cost! The poor fellow who delivered our meat yesterday went on a mystery tour and got hopelessly lost. Sat Nav does not work in these parts and mobile phone reception is almost none existent.

He finally arrived about an hour after dark, we had been expecting him in before lunch!

I had better not repeat the remarks of a courier who rocked up with several parcels having spent two hours travelling for half a mile,he was hopping mad and it took quite a lot of shortbread to calm him down, poor soul.

Today were expecting our grocery delivery and this produced still more fun and games , thankfully I filled the cookie jar with toffee biscuits recently,they were needed.

In spite of these minor difficulties I love living in the countryside, our lovely little village is so tucked away among the hills that even the most persistent of tourists cannot find us and we are spared the mess they often leave behind after pick-nics, or worse, barbecues which often cause fires on the heather covered hills in dry weather.

The village church is very old,the tower was built over eight hundred years ago, recently during some renovation work some wonderful old 13th century wall paintings were discovered. They had been painted out on the orders of old Henry 111V after he booted out the Pope and reformed the church. What an old rip he was!!

My family have connections in this part of the world although there are some,and I am one of them who think it would be better if my ancestors had never set foot in the Shire.

During the English Civil War (about the same time our home was built) one of my ancestors, fought for King Charles 1 while his eldest son fought for the Parliamentarians.

Such was this young man's belief in his cause that he took a huge canon called “Roaring Meg” and blew up every one of his fathers castles and manor houses in Cheshire and Staffordshire,about six or seven of them I believe. In so doing he destroyed his own inheritance and left my my branch of the family stony broke!

Not content with this he then turned his attention to Shropshire and blew up both Shrewsbury Castle and Montgomery Castle with the same damn canon.

Needless to say we do not advertise our relationship to this vandal locally!

This morning the sky was pearly grey,exactly the same shade as the feathers of the pretty collared doves which haunt our garden. As I drank my morning coffee by the window at first light, a big Tawny owl who had finished hunting for the night, flew in to a large conifer tree at the bottom of our garden.

I was not alone in noticing his arrival and soon the air was filled with the sound of angry birds scolding the owl and warning each other of his presence. When a pair of Magpies arrived and led the others in mobbing the poor old owl he decided to bug out and flew away I hope he found a safe and quiet place in which to sleep away the day.

Pa returned from hospital with another round of appointment for next month,luckily they did not do anything too awful to him this time.

It is becoming chilly now so I think I shall bank up the fire for the night,feed the cat and then snuggle up in bed and watch a movie...........lovely.

The family photographs appear by request.

I hate having my picture taken, even my mother complains that she has very few photographs of me, but since you ask,here it is Top picture my son Rick, the next one is of me and the last one is Pa,