It’s only fair. I’ve complained often enough about a lack of company aboard the good ship Chariot. So now I must say how pleasant it is to see so many cherished shipmates with plenty to say. It warms the cockles, wherever they may be.
Good ‘ere, innit?
Boadicea's Chariot 
I expect everyone is home from their summer travels, the weather isn’t too good outside and an amusing conversation is better had here than down the local grocery or whatever!
I have a nasty head cold. Have had bad luck this year. Got a cold going on the bloody airplane, then one coming back and an attack of pleurisy getting too cold in Brum! So the whole seven weeks was more of an endurance test than required by half!!!
Plus everyone I visited was either seriously ill or had some serious problems. Lovely to see everyone but all a bit agonised all round. Unfortunately none of us are getting any younger so it is to be expected really. A bit grim though knowing that you might well be seeing people for the last time.
I have been nipping out for an hour or so every afternoon and planting up tubs of tulips, but 1-2 hours is all I am capable of at the moment. Have had to cancel loads of things, nobody need this, so am in self inflicted purdah until better.
Chin up, Christina! We’ve had coughs and colds too – and no energy. Good hot soup is called for.
I found my walla walla sweet onions beginning to rot, they are not keepers, so made a vast vat of french onion soup! Been going for days!
Definitely ‘put hairs on your chest’ stuff.
Made equally vast vat of chicken stew with fresh veg. With the two haven’t had to cook for days!
I’m feeling particularly “good ‘ere” since we’ve spent today travelling to South London to meet third grandchild and first grandson. Named for two great-grandfathers, he seemed totally underwhelmed with the grandparents and slept all the time. Poor daughter-in-law stopped work on Thursday, collected new car on Friday and baby arrived, three weeks early, on Sunday. Her leaving party ha
has had, as I was saying, to be postponed. London shops are decorated for Christmas and the street lights are up. La vie est belle!
Cfredit where credit’s due. Longer nights, cooler weather, cosy evenings in the Chariot .
Wot Gazoopi said. I’ve now got rid of the summer complaints for this season and can now settle back to enjoy log fires, roast chestnuts, one’s own way of life, the conviviality of The Chariot, boar casseroles and The Cave, but, most importantly, one’s own way of life.
I had never thought of it this way before, but summer complaints always turn up in July and August for a fortnight of Algarvean sunshine, OZ’s barbies and the pool without any regard for the fact that their two week fantasy has to be kept operating for their presumed benefit for the other fifty weeks of the year. I may well do a ‘Christina’ in 2016 and tell them all not to bother.
OZ
Do what I have done in the new place, get rid of the spare bedroom! Let them sleep on the floor that will see them off in a couple of days!