My big weekend.
Great weekend, long weekend, lovely. Four days without updating the blog, nor checking emails and things. Mum and Dad's 40th wedding anniversary yesterday, we had a big family dinner and then drinks after at Kerry's house. So nice to see all the family and it not be a funeral... The meal wsa at the Lysses Hotel on Fareham High Street, it is muchly recommended. They did good special vegan food for me, without the usual "oh, vegan, what do you eat then, tell us exactly what you want" that I often get in restaurants. They had vegan menus they had done before so I could choose my food like anyone else, lovely!
Not a great journey down there on Saturday morning, some of the M20 was closed so we were delayed there, then proper delays at Hindhead. We hoped to get straight to Portchester without a stop but it was hitting the boy's lunch time so we stopped at the Devil's Punchbowl. It was lovely, not stopped there before. We didn't see much more than the cafe, but we will make the effort to do a proper stop there again. It's National Trust so Clare got us a discount on the food too.
Hade a takeaway for tea at Mum and Dad's and then off in to Fareham to meet up with some chums (Andy and Chris). Had much booze in The Crown in Fareham and a great time reminiscing about things we had done, like the three old men that we were.
Sunday evening after the meal and the drinks and so on Clare and I were not ready to pack it in, so we headed down to The Seagull for a nightcap. We played some pool, Clare slayed me, and had a few drinks while watching the karaoke there, very entertaining actually. The Seagull has had a bit of a refurb recently though nothing much seems to have changed it's much the same as it was before the "Hungry Horse" refit. Bumped into some people who were regulars when I used to work there in 1990. They say most of the other people from those times are dead now.
Today had a better journey back. Went in to Fareham again in the morning to see and exhibition on the 1970 Isle of Wight festival at Westbury Manor museum. Small but perfectly formed. Spoke to my aunt about the festival, I had been told she'd been there but thought for some reason that she did not really remember it, but I was wrong. It's a fairly amazing lineup to look back on, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, The Who etc, I can't see your Muses and Florence Against The Machine being looked back on with such esteem, but then it's easy to pick and choose these things with forty years hindsight.
Lunch at Nandos, nice, and bumped into a friend in town with their children which was another bonus. It was Market day in Fareham and heaving.
Raced back for our shopping delivery and also an arranged viewing of our new house. Was slightly trepidatious about this, I have only been in this house we are buying once, and not for very long and I was starting to think it might be too small and how much of our furniture we will have to get rid of. It's going to be fine, it was better than we remembered, there is even a front lawn that I had forgotten about (I thought it was all driveway) and room for plants. I have the idea for a bay tree outside the front door, this plan is good to go. I have some pictures and video of the house and some more measurements so I can start to plan out where everything is going to go. Going to be great to have a garage and a utility room and a little room for storage and working in, at least until we eventually convert it into another bedroom and en-suite.
One funny moment when we went in, Clare's mum and dad were with us, and Clare's mum mistook the utility room (no windows, not much else in it other than a sink and a space where a washing machine was) for the kitchen, yes, lovely kitchen, you could have a little breakfast bar there. Lawks doesn't that sound like a snooty anecdote. And then my butler accidentally put your butler's hat on!!! Sorry.
Paul Clarke's blog - I live in A small town, Kent. Wed + father to two, I am a full stack web developr, + I do js / nodejs, some ruby, other languages ect ect. I like pubbing, running, eating, home-automation and other diy jiggery-pokery, history, genealogy, Television, squirrels, pirates, lego, + TIME TRAVEL.