A busy social life

Since arriving back from Parkham earlier this week life has been non-stop with a trip to Ikea with son who has no car, cutting lawns which had grown rapidly with the warm and damp weather and generally tidying up the garden.  There is currently a rain shower so I am taking the opportunity to update my North Devon blog.

Our trip to Parkham this month had a a variety of weather from warm sunshine to heavy rainy and gusty winds bringing down power lines.  Not quite what you would expect in 'flaming June'.

On the way down to Parkham we stopped at my brother's in Upton upon Severn to pick up a wood burner which he no longer needed.  Pick up is an understatement as it is cast iron and needed two of us to lift it into the back of the car.  Fuel consumption rose noticeably for the rest of the journey!

The stove had to stay in the back of the car until a friend was able to call round and help me remove it and place it in the kitchen.  Hopefully we can connect to the existing flue although the installer who called round was not sure about this as he needs to be certain of the type of flue.

I removed the existing electric fire which we have never liked and that has now found a new home with friends in one of their holiday cottages, The wall needed filling and repainting and now is as good as new!

We spent 2 enjoyable mornings drinking coffee with new friends we have made in the village, an afternoon drinking tea with other friends and several evening in the Bell with even more friends.  Hil was delighted to have a sit on a 1966 Ford tractor bought by our friends at Northway -  the engine was not running!

We are coming to realise that our social life in Devon is as busy as that in Stourbridge.

I had a trip to Tiverton to take Hil to get the train back to the Midlands as she had to take her Mum to a hospital appointment.  It is about an hour each way in the car and saved her the slow train journey from Barnstaple to Exeter which is the alternative route.  She came back the next day by car and brought our younger son back to spend a few days  with us.

We did the usual long beach walks every day at Northam Burrows and Instow and we also explored the coast path near Hartland,  generally we managed to avoid the rain showers.

The mild but damp weather meant that weeds had grown rapidly in our small courtyard garden so some time was spent generally tidying up the garden so that it does no look quite so neglected.

All in all it was good to be in Devon again and we are already looking forward to being back in July -  unfortunately it looks like we will miss the Parkham Beer Festival - bad planning!