Hot & Heavenly Hertfordshire

When it’s raining in Scotland and you haven’t booked anywhere to jet off to on your holidays, your dog is depressed from being permanently damp and you’ve forgotten what your knees look like because it’s been so long since you’ve worn shorts, there is only one thing to do...

Gather up the damp dog, the unworn shorts and anything else that vaguely reminds you of summer, dump the whole lot in the car and head down the M1.

Well, that’s what we did the other week and on arrival in Hertfordshire (after nine hours and one visit from the AA man) we were rewarded with blissful sunshine and temperatures that seemed almost tropical to us.

There’s no doubt that a holiday and clear, blue skies are good for the soul and it’s spurred us on to think about the future. So much, in fact, that we’ve even been writing out our five year plans.

Here’s mine -

Win the lottery and move to Harpenden.

Window Shopping & Wonderful Weather

There’s no better way to embark on a non-shopping venture than with a little bit of torture; or window shopping, as it’s normally known.

Quite why I decided to go trailing round the shops yesterday after work when I knew that buying was out-of-bounds is anyone’s guess, but that’s what I did.

Thankfully, the only things that made it back home with me were vitamins and with our health records, they were definitely essential purchases.

Today was much easier...

Scotland - usually famed only for rain and midges - was basking in glorious, record breaking April sunshine, so it was on with the shorts and up to the ice cream shop.

It’s a 40 minute walk to the ice cream shop, so by our calculations whatever calories we consume there will have been burned off by the time we get back home.

I just need to dig out last year’s fake tan (can’t buy new stuff) and rid myself of my West-of-Scotland blue pallor before I frighten any more small children with my short wearing!

African Queen

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Mother was heading off on the trip of a lifetime and that we’d bought her a journal to record every marvellous moment, but I hadn’t mentioned where she was going.

At the age of sixty six, she has decided to set off on a true African Adventure and flew out to the Gambia this morning.

She’ll be there for the next five weeks helping with the work of the Gambian Schools Trust.

She has assured me that she’ll do her best not to get eaten by a lion, but I think the most hair-raising part of her entire trip will have been her flight out of the UK this morning in some of the worst storms of the year.

While I can’t wait to see her pictures, I have the feeling that I may be the tiniest bit jealous of all that lovely sunshine.

Seven Days of Sunshine

Scotland is a truly beautiful place when the clouds clear and for the last seven days we have been bathed in blissful sunshine; making Hobbs a very happy, little dog.

I realise that my recent rambling about the weather is making me sound like my mother. Also, I’m worried about scaring away the tourist trade and being sent hate mail by VisitScotland, so I promise to stop and will leave you instead with a little glimpse of how gorgeous this country can be.