Not just a pretty face

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You would think that I would learn, but no...
Today received 18 litres of water....
Also three packets of exotic mushrooms, but that is fine..will make exotic mushroom risotto for supper...

Hot Hot Hot now...summer is here indeed.

Had to take the New Car back to The Shop to fix the aircon.
Very nice people at the Merc Dealers.
Realised that the Poms don't say Merc.
All laughed at me,
Is fine, I am used to that now...

John Irving

ISN'T HE LOVELY?

What a pleasure to see and hear John Irving, he is my hero!
Went to the Shaw Theatre with Dr Lauren to see him. He was interviewed  by  John Boyne  (Boy in The Striped Pyjamas)...but I was so overwhelmed by John Irving that I had no idea who John Boyne was..
So sorry  John Boyne, do love your books, but you cannot compete...
What a wonderful experience. Amazing person.  Wow.
I am so happy. My life is complete.

Jubilee

Goodness, this Jubilee is quite a thing.
I do feel quite patriotic, and indeed will buy bunting, a jubilee outfit (will post pics) and am indeed going to a street party.
The whole royalist thing is very odd.
I happily sing "I vow to thee my country" and feel like a real Pom.
And then I think that they are all as mad as hatters.
Go figure

All Good

Dr Lauren and Darling Simon are back from SA, thank goodness on many fronts.
We missed them terribly.

Looking after Grandcat India was somewhat hectic, we were terrified anything would happen to her, so we are glad she has gone home.
Still, we do miss her.. The Hubby used to come home and say " Grandpa's home! Hello NiNi "
(India  is the reincarnation of Dr Lauren's childhood cat, Tenniel)

The poor cat is probably traumatised seeing as we called her Tenniel and NiNi most of the time , and were too scared to let her out into the garden on her own...

So!
The New Girlfriend has also been over in SA for a month, and returns tomorrow, much to the delight of The Gorgeous Son.
We stayed over with him this weekend and I did emergency clean up detail.

And, indeed, summer is here.
25 plus..I had to get the summer wardrobe down from the loft.
Mowed the lawn.
 Still stupid sissy baby pom grass. Lawn looks like crap.
Big holes where I have removed the moss.
What is it with this moss??

The Poms actually become much nicer and friendlier in the summer.

My tooth was eventually taken out, bit kak actually seeing as it broke FOUR TIMES


The dentist was so nice that it didn't really matter. And at last, the toothache has gone.
Funnily enough, the dentist nurse was Zimbabwean, the receptionist was a saffa, and the dentist was of  Kenyan/  Indian descent. All Africans in da room!

Bargain Books

After my annoying experience with the 20p bus thing, I arrived at Cambridge station.
Bought a coffee to drink on the train, got a free Choc Chip cookie.
Bought a book (£7.99) , only to be told at the till that if  I took a newspaper (The Times), not only would I get the book for £3, but also got a free bottle of water.
Fabulous.
Got on the train and read my free copy of The Metro (newspaper for my saffa friends)
Whilst on the train, logged onto my ipad with the free wireless.
Arrived in London.
Whilst waiting to meet up with SA Sam, saw the stars from the new movie Freerunner , and took pics of  Tamer Hassan.
After a fab lunch at Wagamama's ,went to a pub, nice waiter said "buy 2 glasses of wine, get a free bottle"
Read my free edition of The Evening Standard on the way back to Cambridge.
Got to love London!!

Dear Grandcat India

Has been quite something, having the Grandcat to stay.
We are nervous wrecks in case she runs away , or anything happens to her. It will be way easier with a baby.

The look on Grandpa's face says it all...rescuing her from the tree again...

Walkies did not go down as well as I thought 

India's favorite game.."Stairs Stairs" Involves biting and scratching us between the steps 

Aw...she is lovely

Fun with Grandma, Cat In A Hat

Helping Grandpa do paperwork

Cat Milk. I have nothing more to say....

money money money

 You would think this money was all the same? 20p pieces, Queenie-Poos  on the back, same shape , same colour..but NO!
Snippy Rude Bus Driver refused to take my 20p coin, and accused me of trying to pass off  "dodgy money"
This was 20p !
So, the coin on the lower left, comes from Jersey.
Somebody obviously gave me this coin, and I didn't know enough to say  "Excuse me, this is not legal tender."
I do know that in England they are obliged to take Scottish notes, but not coins.
Did not realise that this includes Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Isle of Wight...what else is there? Scilly Isles? Do they all have their own money??

Village life

Amazingly, the sun was out, and we had double figures...must have been at least 

14 ...woo hoo!

 Comer By The Sea

 Birthplace of Anne Boleyn

So lovely..this is where I would like to retire to, somewhere like this anyway. Not to name drop, but did spend the weekend in the village where Stephen Fry's parents live... But much more important, Darling Simon's parents live there too!

Signs again..

Luckily the Poms did not have to hide Anne Frank...
This sign is in Essex...

Yup...How would we know?? This sign is a bit of a cheat as I downloaded it, but have driven past it so many times and not been able to take a decent pic..

Love this one, is outside a church in central Cambridge...

Perceptions?

Very Very Odd.

When I first came to the UK , there were houses that I would not have spit on
 (spat on?) if they were on fire...now those very houses that I thought were kak ugly have become quite acceptable, even nice...

Whereas I  yearned for a "bungalow" or "normal house " as I previously perceived it to be, I now see a bungalow as being quite an odd and undesirable residence.
Must admit that this was indeed pointed out to me by Dr Lauren, but actually, she is quite right.
Resale for bungalows is impossible, and must admit, still am enough of an estate agent for this to bother me.

Semi detached no longer seems like a foreign concept.
Terraced housing , now, seems quite normal.
Also, I have got used to the idea of paying more than 100 times the price per square meter that I would have paid in South Africa.
Still, I do flinch at the prices here and think of what I could buy there for the same amount!

What I cannot get over , however, is no matter how wonderful and marvelous the house is inside, if it is ugly and has zero curb appeal...nope...can't go there!


There is a limit goddammit!

Garage?

Very efficient, these poms. We have a teeny chip on the windscreen of The New Car...called the insurance this morning, this afternoon auto glass came to the house to repair it, all for free. Because the rain continues (and bloody hell, does it continue) Autoglass Man asked me to put the car in the garage. This is when I discovered that a garage is not always a garage, sometimes it is just a shed. Car does not actually fit into the garage. If I fold back the wing mirrors I may just squeeze it in...but then I would be trapped inside the car. How stupid is that? Nonetheless, rain stayed away and the teeny chip is fixed.

Help! Help! Grandma

 And indeed, if you are going to be so stupid..  so here is me,
standing  on a chair
 ( and these pics were taken before I got in a panic and realized India knows nothing about trees...)
So, standing on a chair saying "India, India, come to Grandma...Please come to Grandma, Dr Lauren and Darling Simon will kill me if anything happens to you... I caught her by the neck seconds before she plummeted into next door's garden... this has been a good thing, as now she loves me. She seems to know that I saved her life. This is week one.
Bloody hell.

Yummy

Forgot for a minute that I wasn't dishing up human food when I licked my fingers, but for the record, tesco luxury chicken pate with tuna tastes quite nice!