English sheep and other bits.................

There is a hurricane type wind blowing outside. Think hair standing on end. Yes. I look like a wild woman right now. That is because Jean sent me a message to say that she has acquired another free pallet and what did we want to do with it, so I had to go and inspect it. Well, we can dismantle it and make new slats for the compost bin all the same width. See? I am a genius when it comes to making stuff out of nothing.

This is just as well after spending an hour on the phone to the gas and electricity supplier to get accurate figures on a bill I received today. I could buy an oil well with the final total I need to pay them. We will now do all the cooking on the BBQ, have cold baths and the heating is off forEVER.

Moving swiftly on..............

We all went to aquazumba this morning, and danced in the water. And then I had a head massage - Glynis is trained in head massaging, and I am her practice head. But she doesn't need to practice at all. She is wonderful. However, I am not going to encourage her to stop - it is such a lovely way to relax and de-stress. Apparently my muscles/tendons/bones/whatever were very tight today. I nearly fell asleep. 

If you have never had a head massage, start a savings jar and go and have one. (And then encourage friends to train so you get to have free ones!!)

On Bank Holiday Monday, I think I mentioned that we went back to Market Harborough to take the box of stuff we couldn't sort last week, to the auctioneers. After we were finished, we wandered around town for a little while and then Diana called a friend of ours who lives in a village nearby, and asked if we could pop in for coffee. Of course we could. So Diana cheerfully announced that we would be there in 20 minutes. As she put her phone down, I did mention that we were about 5 minutes from Tessa, so we had to slow down a bit. 

English country lanes are just so beautiful at this time of the year, aren't they? Mind you, a maniac in a fast car did screech past just before I took this photo. 

We passed a fence in the hedge and the scene was so lovely we had to do a U-turn and backtrack to see it again. Cows in a field...........

We had to use up that 20 minutes, you see. Sheep everywhere - white sheep, brown sheep, black sheep..........

It was so pretty..........

The fields seem to roll away into the distance. Hedges. Greenery. Trees. Just so perfect. It was a stunning day. So, so hot. England is very beautiful at the moment.

Anyway, I thought I would share the photos with you. Little jaunts around the countryside are lovely. 

Tessa and I have known each other since university days. At the advent of the Internet many years ago, I was searching for her, and found her brother in California. And I called him. I knew Tessa had gone to New York in the 1970s. 

Well. He remembered me from those long ago days, and said, that no, Tessa was now living in the UK. And do you know, she was living just 20 minutes away from me. Amazing. In global terms, almost in my back garden, seeing I was talking to California. 

And so we met up again, and we have stayed in touch ever since. Diana spent many a summer looking after her son. Who ever would have thought all this would happen so many years after that time at university? 

As I said, AMAZING. 

On a completely different not, please look at the next photo of the Flickr home page. Every time you open Flickr, it tells you how to say hello in a foreign language. This was yesterday's offering. I had to look at it twice to believe what I was seeing. 

Meow. I can speak Cat. 

Of course.