One word? When seven would do…

I actually have a friend, Nina, who was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar when I met her. None of the other bits of that song are relevant to our friendship but we had some great times together (eating toast and jam at 4am, topless sunbathing on her garden roof, drinking cocktails til 3am and singing together. We got ‘discovered’ once while singing raucously along to I will Survive by two blokes who wanted us to join their band. We knew they were just hitting on us and they knew we knew but it was a fun evening having drinks bought for us and compliments lavished upon us :). Nina settled down before me – she had her first baby while I was still having my heart broken, but I finished having babies before her – her youngest (she has two sons and a daughter) is a bit younger than Scarlett and is called Rose, because she liked the idea of a daughter named after the colour red too :). Her and her partner took their two boys off travelling for a summer round Europe before they started school and before they had Rose and they now all live on a smallholding and post pictures on facebook of them with newly born lambs and lots of dogs. Weird how lives can run in parallel with people you least expected.

This morning, after Popmaster, which was just lovely as the second competitor was ringing while getting ready for his wedding a couple of hours later and knew his bride to be was listening where she was getting ready and had texted mates on their way to the church to listen too. Not only did he win, he got maximum points so goes through to the winners final at the end of the year. Then he sent a lovely message to his about to be wife and went off to go and marry her. So lovely 🙂

Anyway, after that we walked into Lancing clutching various paperwork. The balance cheque for Macleods for the static, now posted. The cheque for the bathroom flooring, now chosen, paid for and fitting arranged. Our driving licences, now scanned at the internet cafe, put onto a memory stick and emailed across to the insurers which is all now sorted. We had a quick peep in the charity shops and picked up Life After People: The Complete Season One (3-Disc Set) [DVD]
which we had seen bits of on TV ages ago and even have a couple of episodes saved to the hardrive which the kids watched the other day but have never seen it all. Bargain at £2.50 🙂

We got caught in the rain (heavy downpour) and amended our plan to walk down to the seafront to heading back towards home, calling in at the letting agents to firm up any details needed for the tenancy. They need another two front door keys which we’ll drop in tomorrow, the gas safety certificate which Dad is sorting out with his plumber and will need the tenancy agreement signed. I said they can email it to me to look over and then sign it on my behalf so signed something else to that effect for them. The ad was still in the window and the kids spotted it so Hayley took it down and let them stamp it as LET with the big red stamp before putting it back up. Fingers firmly crossed this all continues to go well.

Back at home we had lunch, I emailed the insurance company and got a reply back to say all documents have now been accepted. Phew.

We called over to my parents – Davies wanted to collect the X box which we’re not bringing to Rum so he could have a last play with it at our house before we go. I saw Dad for a quick chat too. Then they dropped me home (I had intended to walk but it was pouring with rain, in the event it was just as well, I was to do far more walking later!).

Ady and the kids went over to Bruce’s, then to a place to get some wheel nuts as the Pajero has six locking wheel nuts but no key meaning changing the wheel would be rather tricky. Bruce has a tool to remove the locking ones but they’d need replacing with non locking. They picked those up and then went over to Chris & Julie’s so Ady could spend some time with Chris. Julie & the kids came home while they were there and they spent a lovely few hours with them all.

Meanwhile I had a cup of tea, enjoyed the feeling of being all alone (such a very rare thing!), took one of those odd facebook tests about how well travelled you are – why does Winchester Cathedral make it on there but not the Menai Bridge, Blackpool tower or Hadrian’s Wall? Most odd. I then cracked on with two of the things on my job list – ordering a puppy crate and writing an article for WWOOF UK magazine. They’d asked for 2000, with only a cursory eye on word count I ended up with 1993 🙂 Need to proof read it tomorrow and add some pictures but that will make her deadline of 20th with a whole week to spare :). I checked train times and headed off into Lancing to the station. A combination of being fitter and probably doing it without children for the first time in many years meant I got there way faster than I’d expected. Retrospectively such striding in shoes I’ve not worn for a long time and were rather on the sloppy side of fitting (clearly I had far fatter feet before we left to go WWOOFing, I’ve noticed several pairs of shoes feeling too big) was probably ill advised, but retrospection is for smug people ;).

Mum rang while I was on the train to say Dad’s best friend’s wife had passed away 🙁 She’s been very ill for several years with cancer and in constant pain for quite some time. Roy is not in great health himself, having Parkinsons and has done all her caring. I don’t know if the end of a life can ever be called a relief but at least suffering has ended. 🙁 This will hit Dad hard, he is feeling his age and has lost several friends and acquaintances in recent times, another friend of his has a brain tumour and is terminally ill. I think what almost disturbs Dad most is that people in their 70s are considered to have had ‘a good innings’ and news of their death received with no great shock. When you too are in your 70s this can be hard to deal with. Mum was mostly concerned it would clash with when we were having the carpet fitted and Dad had said he’d be there…

The other bad news she had to share was that my Granny was taken to hospital this afternoon, having been ill since Monday. The doctor had come to check on her and rung an ambulance to take her in. Mum was ringing the hospital for further news but seemed mostly put out at the inconvenience 🙁 I will go and see her tomorrow or Saturday and take the kids in if appropriate too.

Ali met me at the station and was witness to me somehow putting the train ticket in wrongly and the barrier eating it. I got waved through anyway. We walked (note further foot transport) down into the town to find somewhere to eat and ended up in an Italian restaurant I’ve eaten in at least once before. We had a really nice meal, shared a bottle of wine and enjoyed talk ranging from ranting to sympathising, surreal to silly. Was lovely :). We left there and went on a cheesecake hunt. We had no luck although did find a very cool coffee house where we were most e.ntertained by the bloke behind the counter and the very quirky decor. Would have loved to hang out there if they only had alcohol and cheesecake. We tried a couple of other places to get in for dessert including Ask where the guy told us he had no tables. I said he should get some if he was running a restaurant, which I suspect made him mightily relieved he’d not had room for our sort anyway 😉 We ended up in the cocktail bar of Browns, which leather smell aside (fine for me, less welcome for my vegan friend!) from the seating was all very nice. We decided rum cocktails would be appropriate and chose one with chocolate and lime too and they were delicious and far better than cheesecake in my opinion. This is why I was talking of Nina in the first paragraph as I went off on a memory lane kick about my cocktail drinking times and also shared a tale of coming over to Brighton to watch one of the waiters from the cocktail bar in panto (he was also a dancer). He got promoted from his dancing role to being the woodcutter as Eddie Kidd who was supposed to be the woodcutter had fallen off his motorbike and broken his leg. It was all very exciting :). Scary to think that was all 20 years ago now…

I walked Ali to her bus stop and waved her off then walked down to the seafront to meet Ady and the kids who were on their way to collect me. Ironically I’d not got a train home as I was cautious of walking home from the station in the dark. Ady rang me after a while to say the rear lights on the Pajero were not working so he was going to go home again and I should call a taxi. The coast road is very well lit and has a 30mph speed limit, his brake lights were working as were the front lights so I told him to carry on coming to get me as I don’t know any taxi numbers, wouldn’t know where to ask them to collect me from anyway and would probably have been half way home by the time they arrived. He carried on and I told him to ring me when they reached the King Alfred swimming pool along the front so I could tell them how far I’d got. They rang me just as I reached there too – I checked later on googlemaps and I’d walked 3 miles from leaving Ali, bringing my walking tally for the day to about 7 miles. No wonder my feet ache!

Back home again and the kids went off to bed, I had a bath and Ady read an email I’d got from someone who used to live on Rum and knows all about statics and off grid living. He’s been following the blog and made contact to offer advice and potential one day assistance. He signed off by saying leaving Rum was one of the hardest things he ever did but he needed to go and see the wider world. I reckon he’ll be back at some point.

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Cheers Ali, it’s been lovely having you as a local mate. Thanks for a fab evening and see you in Scotland xxx