The Inbetween Week. A lot of reading and relaxing. Some surprise socialising too.
Hello 2023!
Drove over to see dad and Jean on Tuesday, a flying visit to drop off some fruit and strepsils. Back home to potter and read. We spent the early evening sat by the log stove, enjoying one (two) of the Christmas cocktails Phil ordered on the drive back from Wivenhoe.
We got the log stove going again on Wednesday and I spent the afternoon reading while it chucked it down outside.
The Drinks Party in Kerrys Gate was cancelled as the hosts are both ill, so we did some Impromptu Entertaining inviting K&N and recent arrivals J&J over for bread and cheese, olives and pistachios, fruit. And wine.
Neither of us slept well. Red wine, eh? I ended up tucking into a 2am bowl of muesli and yoghurt and finished reading The Kingdom of Ice.
Thursday featured a couple of short walks in between showers – Thistly Field with Phil in the morning and Kerrys Gate and back to return a hat in the afternoon. But I spent most of the day reading, polishing off The Midnight Library in one sitting. Smashing. Thank you LBM.
The sheep are back in Kiln Field and I spotted the first pink tinge on the camellia buds.
Sunshine and showers on Friday. A good day to start looking through my Nepal photos and uploading some to Flickr. I got as far as Sama.
In a change from leftovers, Phil made Friday night pizza.
More Nepal photo-ing on Saturday, albeit only getting us to Samdo. Still, not bad:
Towards the end of the morning Phil and I did the Thistly Field walk then back for Bubble & Squeak for lunch – Christmas Dinner leftovers are the gift that keeps on giving
Talking of squeaks… we found five drowned mice in the bucket under one of the water butts.
On the plus side, there were five long tailed tits at the bird feeder. We don’t often tempt them this far up the lane. We’re seeing sparrows too.
New Year’s Eve = a quiet evening in with cocktails and nibbles, finishing off our personal Manhattans Project.
On Sunday, more Nepal photos in the morning then up to Kerrys Gate for New Year’s Day lunch with K&N, B, K&B.
We walked there – Bacton Backwards – and had a couple of Happy New Year chats en route. J plus parents were building a shed….
K&N served up a festive feast: champagne, then a plate loaded with cauliflower cheese, broccoli, green beans, roast potatoes, red cabbage, mashed swede, stuffing, Yorkshire pud, beef or veggie wellington (tidying up the last of our Christmas Day centrepiece leftovers). Key lime pie and cream was followed by the cheese boards of the gods, and then mince pies…
We weaved home in the dark and collapsed in front of the telly.
A lovely day.
Another batch of Nepal photos on Monday morning (we’ve finally got to the Nar Phu leg!), then over to Dad and Jean’s with a light lunch. Jean’s on the mend, slowly, but trying to get a follow-on amoxicillin prescription proved impossible.
Final tidy up of Xmas left overs for dinner – a three egg tortilla with the surplus veggie wellington filling.
Not leftovers, but one of the tastiest meals we had on trek – dal bhat at The Seven Sisters Lodge on the descent from Bhimtang to Tilche:
TV: His Dark Materials (series 3), Strike: Troubled Blood, The Witcher: Blood Origin (to spot CN1 in ep 1), Happy Valley (series 3 – watching in (almost) real time, partly because it’s so good and partly to avoid spoilers)
Podcasts: Empire, History Extra, Books and Authors, Bookclub, The Essay.
Photos: Herefordshire week 157 on Flickr.
Phil: w/e 2023-01-01.