Just When It Was All Going So Well

2019 has seen us enjoying a charmed life - it started with those wonderful three weeks  in Bequia and continued with lots of cultural activities, a break in St Andrews and a fantastic trip to London for Marion's birthday. 

I suppose that all good things must come to an end and, sadly, April has seen a setback to those good times. But more of that later.  

I love a bit of theatre so I enjoyed collecting the new car from Jardine Motors in Ipswich. They really made an effort in turning the collection of the car into an event.

The collection concluded with an unveiling ceremony.

And I have to say that we were very pleased with the result.

I know that this damages our green credentials but we do over twenty thousand miles a year and need something comfortable. Driving to St Andrews is over eight hours so factoring in recharging stops for an electric vehicle just doesn't work.

The new vehicle arrived just in time to use it to collect Sarah and her girls who had enjoyed  a short break in London and were coming to Framlingham for a couple of days.

We met at the Natural History Museum and had a great day in London before catching the train back to Ipswich before the drive home.

The museum is great but the crowds were enormous. 

Until we discovered the new cocoon wing of the building and had it virtually to ourselves.

After the girls' hectic time in London we planned a peaceful few days in Suffolk.

Rose and Melody were delighted with the Harry Potter LEGO set we bought from Bill Bulstrode and I was impressed that they managed to put it all together between them with no adult assistance at all.

Framlingham Castle is a great spot to enjoy a bit of spring sunshine. 

I had to chuckle when this turned up on my credit card bill. After the Barclays "Framlington" sign fiasco a year or so back you would expect the castle of all places to have the right details on their card machine.

And then disaster struck. Disaster may sound too strong a word but I got up from watching TV and couldn't walk. An absolutely excruciating pain shot down my right leg and I thought that my hip replacement had failed. I went to bed hoping that it would correct itself overnight but by morning it was far worse. We had arranged to drive the family to Peterborough station for their train home to Scotland but that was out of the question and we hastily rearranged train tickets from Ipswich, dropped everyone off at the station and drove straight to A&E. When we arrived I couldn't stand to get out of the car and someone kindly brought out a wheelchair and helped to manoeuvre me into it.

I remained in the wheelchair for most of the day but finally was given an X Ray. I made a right show of myself in the X Ray room as I screamed in agony. 

The X Rays showed no problem with my hip and the doctor's examination (more screaming I'm afraid) concluded that I had had a muscle spasm which would ease in a few days. They gave me Diazepam, painkillers and crutches and sent me away.

We were due to have our Kent grandchildren stay for four nights and didn't want to miss that. They duly came, and we loved having them stay on after their mum and dad went home but I was no help at all and Marion kept them entertained while I languished on the sofa. She must have done a great job as Catherine handed us these notes before they went home.

Easter came and went with little improvement. I did manage to get out on Saturday and enjoyed a nice lunch at The Crown with friends but walking from the car park to the pub on crutches took it out of me and most of Easter was spent like this. 

Being laid up doesn't give you a lot of options on things to do so, apart from reading, I've been doing Mr Prendergast's hobby of looking for bargains on eBay. Perhaps I will find my fortune one day (read the book - see link at the right of the blog) like Mr P but I just enjoy spotting stuff.

It's hard to believe that these fabulous hand painted porcelain cups and saucers (listed as Two Pretty Cups And Saucers With Flower Design 0.99p) were made c1790 in a factory that enjoyed the patronage of Marie Antoinette. 

And I just couldn't resist this enormous tankard made c1835.

I'm back to A&E tomorrow. I'll have been in pain for two weeks. It's certainly not as bad as it was on day one but if it eases at the rate it has been doing it's going to be a few weeks before I get the chance to drive that new car. 

At least I've got a new friend who has started wandering around the garden. He's cute but he won't be very cute if he eats any of  Marion's new plants.

Sofa So Good

I don't think I've mentioned it on the blog but whilst we were away in Bequia in January and February we had our lounge decorated and new curtains and blinds fitted. Angie from Ashby Designs has done a great job and the room is starting to look very good. We've decided not to rush the room so still have no pictures up and accessories like rugs and occasional tables aren't yet on order but we need a new sofa after using the current ones for about ten years.

The internet is great but we didn't want to buy a sofa without looking at it beforehand so, in the last couple of weeks, we've been looking around and have visited Westfield and Norwich without any luck. We finally found a couple of sofas that we liked on the websites of Camerich and Sofa.com and headed into London to check them out. Both were perfect.

We opted for Sofa.com purely because it was easier on their system to use our designer's fabric. The alternative involved shipping fabric to China and fairly long delays. On the plus side, furniture in Camerich's own fabrics can often be delivered almost immediately. The sales people in both stores were excellent.

I mentioned Bequia at the start of this post. We've had withdrawal symptoms and checked out the availability for next January/February. It is already booked up so we've made a reservation for January 2021. I know there are thousands of other places that we've never been to and life is short but we love Tropical Hideaway and rather than chance somewhere new and be disappointed we know that will be something to look forward to that won't let us down.

We've met some wonderful people in Bequia and are happy to call a number of them friends. 

Steve and Chris Clarke run an art gallery in the beautiful village of Corfe Castle. We got on like a house on fire sharing their love of art, snorkelling, humour and politics. We arranged to meet up with them for lunch in London this week.

They recommended Gauthier in Soho. You may have seen Alexis Gauthier on the recent series of Masterchef. The restaurant is outstanding and we enjoyed a fabulous lunch. 

We had time to catch an exhibition before catching the train back to Ipswich. Steve and Chris suggested the Martin Parr Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. It was another inspired choice.

As someone who enjoys photography but mostly uses an iPhone I found this exhibition an inspiration. These Brexit themed photos were just a few of the many highlights of a superb exhibition. If you get the opportunity to visit don't miss it.If you are not familiar with Martin Parr, he does all the BBC indents with groups of people (wheelchair basketball, Indian dancers etc etc) and these are included in the show.

In other news, we've got a new car to pick up on Saturday. We've gone for a 4x4 this time. We're getting older and the last Mercedes, though beautiful and stylish, was quite low and difficult to get into. The 4x4 (another Mercedes) is a lot higher and, though not quite as stylish,  has easier access for a couple of old fogies.

You can't beat the view from the garden when the oil seed rape is in flower.

Speaking of the garden, our super robotic mower "Mo" expired. We had the mower for six years (although it was replaced under guarantee after two) and it did a great job but one of the penalties for being an early adopter of this sort of hi-tech equipment is that early models soon become obsolete and finding spares for Mo was nigh on impossible. So we've gone for Mo mark 2.

It's made by Flymo and does exactly the same job at half the price of the original. Apart from the somewhat garish colour, it looks like it's going to be a hit. At least Flymo parts should be easier to source than OleoMak's.

I mentioned my eBay trading in a recent blog. I've had some successes (the beautiful Spode cup and saucer sold very well and a Belleek pedestal bowl also flew) but a fair few have resulted in a break even after costs (including the outstanding pearlware jug I had high hopes for) and I will have to be more discerning in my buying in future. Oh well. It's been fun.