I'm ready to come home

Well I'm ready to come home - I miss my bed and my massage therapists!!!  My shoulder is killing me.

So what's been up for the past week.  Last Friday I spent the day pull out the "borders" (U shaped) flanking Margaret's back yard, putting down 20 bags of dirt and started laying turf to cover/fill in.  Finished the job on Saturday with the fiddly trimming, because of course the area to be layed was just wider than two rolls .  Also repotted the ruhbarb root I'd lifted out and a few other flowers into pots.   Felt good to be outside even though it was on the cool side but my arse, or should I say my hamstrings, were killing me from being bent over pulling, raking & planting.  It didn't help that the chair I sat on for dinner on Saturday wasn't as wide as my plentiful arse and was as hard as concrete.  Talk about uncomfortable.

Monday we drove west to the town of Chester, near Wales.  Chester is "historic" - which I find quite funny to hear, as England itself is "historic" from my point of view.  Chester was a medieval location and later Roman expanded, with the original walls still existing.  We walked the wall, toured the cathedral, portions were built in 1000 AD, and wandered the town. A lovely day.  We lucked out with the weather, still cool but a few sunny breaks whereas it poured back in Hattersley while we were out and about. 

The other interesting thing is there are no real "restaurants" out here in the burbs - well villages.  Monday after returning we dropped off the GPS to Keith then head up to Tintwistle to an old pub Dave likes, The Bull's Head, operated by a family friend.  We arrive around 7:30pm to find the place empty but for the manager & bartender and their dogs.  Seems it was Jane's b-day so they'd closed the kitchen for the day.  So after a chinwag and a beer we head down the hill and stop at another pub - The Gun.  Again 3 patrons at the bar and a closed kitchen.  They'd stopped serving about 7pm.  Great 'cause now it's getting onto 8:30pm and the odds of finding food after 9:00pm is zilch.  Third time lucky - I was starting to think we'd have to end up at the McD's, but the Inside-Out next to McD's was open and we managed to squeak our order in just before the 9:00pm deadline.  Not sure if the early "Tea" is a function of nothing being open or nothing is open as most prefer an early tea.

Tuesday we finished cleaning out some wardrobe's of Tom's clothes.
Yesterday Dave and I dropped off a couple bags of stuff at the local church, then headed out to put flowers on his grandfather's grave for Margaret.  Problem was her description of how to find the gravestone was vague, Dave's bad with directions to begin with and he hadn't been there is 20/30 years. And true to form we spent an hour and a half wandering trying to find the headstone.  I sat down in the sun for over half an hour as Dave wandered and I fumed at the futility of the excerise as he refused to leave and refused to put them on a cousins grave and give a white lie to his mom - like she was going to be back to know the difference!?!  Okay maybe I'm shallow but really ... how much time can one spend tromping on graves?  Which leads to me to another observation - their cemetry's are pretty poorly arranged, very few walkways, and not very level.  Seems it's the family's responsibility to maintain and it appears that even covering the burial with turf doesn't always happen.  Stones are sinking, graves aren't level or even.  In any case with a bladder about to burst I gave it another try rehashing Margarets vague instructions and managed to finally locate the headstone.  However, this still left the bladder issue which I alleviated by dropping my drawers at the corner of the car  - at least it wasn't in the cemetary area itself.

Aftward we dropped a card off at a friends, Eric & Jackie, who had unfortunately lost a sister just before we flew out, picked up a few groceries and they we found ourselves back at the Bull's Head pub.  This time more luck as we managed to place a lunch order just before the kitchen close at 3pm.

Last night we headed into Manchester, the "big" city.  Actually it was my first foray into the city.  Seems to be a bustling city with some interesting architecture.  Yesterday was Dave's nephew Jonathan's 30th b-day.  The family and a few of his friends gathered at the Akbar for a "curry".  An actual restaurant, not a pub, for a change.  Seems most of the "curry" places are Pakistan / Balti in orgin.  Slightly different than the Indian food I'm used to. The Naan was very good - you can get a "family" order which consists of a very large piece of naan hanging on a skewer/tower on the table.  Two english vs. canadian style differences:  1)  They have chips (as in fries) with their curry, in addition to rice; 2)  No one shares - you don't order for the table, everyone orders for themselves so you end up with just one item instead of a little of a bunch of items.  Overall the food was good.  Dave's first experience with Indian.  I'm not sure he's sold on it but he is a good sport for trying.

Today is our last day here.  We'll have one last family pub dinner, at the place with the uncomfortable chair but this time I'm going to get a good one!  Tomorrow we fly out - hopefully.  I still have to check the airport / airline.  Hopefully the volcano isn't causing too much disruption to the transatlantic flights.

Here's to my own soft bed and I hope Gwen is ready to work my shoulder on Monday.  I'm really going to need it, especially as I have ball on Sunday and it's my throwing arm.

Until next time when we're home, hopefully without delay.