Fri-da-doodle-do!Follow

Free lunch today at work, so that's kind of awesome. I have no real plans for the weekend, so I'll probably spend a fair bit of it just wasting time.

I had my offer on the prospective new home accepted today and the Mortgage people gave me the thumbs up aswell so i'm meeting my soon to be flatmate for coffee later to celebrate and pass her, her birthday pressie and card.

Tomorrow i'm taking teh kids (and maybe the ex wife to be) to watch the Lord mayors parade and then i'm off out in fancy dress (as rambo) for said soon to be flatmate's birthday night out.

Sunday I will be hungover and hopefully not in the wrong bed, life is complicated enough... That said assuming reasonable levels of brain activity i might pop down to the local Magic the gathering tourney and play a couple of drafts later on.

Start New Job Monday 8am.

Kid's are gone for the weekend(fingers crossed nothing happens that requires us getting them early). Dinner and movie tonight. Farmer's market and car shopping tomorrow.

It's going to be sunny and warm and quiet this weekend. I picked up a nice bottle of wine. I have 'fun' yard work to do, and only a Sunday afternoon bbq that calls for any real preparation (but it's not even at my house).

I think I'm goin' for a saturday afternoon nap in the hammock.

I think I'm going to spend most of tomorrow cooking and cleaning the kitchen.

We're leaving for Fall Creek Falls tonight, and we'll be there until Sunday. Then both my husband and I have all next week off so we can do some sprucing up on the house. We'll be bleaching our deck and resealing it, probably do a little painting, all that fun stuff.

This



And that.

Also, shopping on Saturday. Monday is a holiday so I'll be attending a Lost/Drink your face off party on Sunday night.

Kao,

Going to be raining a lot here as well. Good for the garden but can't get much yard work done when it's like that. Do you have any pics of your irrigation system?

With Jonwin working all weekend, my days will be spent relaxing as I hope to recover some more from last Saturdays accident with the gazebo falling over and on me.

I have some Roxicet that I'm alternating with my Ultram for the pain as needed. I'm hoping as my eyes feel better, my shoulder and other bruised areas will have healed enough that I won't notice them much.

Meanwhile I still have lovely purple around and on my eye lids. I wish I had the right make up to paint around my eyes, so to look like butterfly wings.

Unread posts will have to wait, as my right eye and sudden need for sleep is pulling me away from the computer. I forgot how hard a concussion is on the body. Roxicet taken and now back to bed.

No, not at the moment. I should take some, but given that everything is in mainly 18 inch deep trenches there isn't much to see. The side yard run is by necessity shallower since it is over all the power and gas lines. Everything else in the yard is also pretty tore up at the moment under my "the grass was already screwed anyways, may as well fix and level what I can and put in the other retaining walls, etc before I replant" policy.

I'll try to take some tomorrow if I get a break in the weather. The Grape trellis's (trellisii?) are ready to go up on the side of the house, so hopefully i'll get a bit of time to attatch them between storms so I can have my garage floor back.

I knew it all along! Nobby is a cannibal!

Well we did go to Chatsworth.

After a 50 mile roof-down drive in 80 degree sunshine through some of the most majestic countryside, we arrived in a valley that had been designed, manicured and beautified in the 1680s. 16 generations of the Cavendish family (the Dukes of Devonshire) have made it their life's work to enhance the architecture, artefacts and scenery.

[Name-Drop]
In 1985 I had been leading a fund-raising campaign for a charity of which the late Duke of Devonshire was patron. To my surprise, he responded by my invitation to accept the cheque, not only with a hand-written acceptance, but an invitation to Chatsworth to discuss the arrangements. It was an unusual experience to pass the public car park and be usherd to the private entrance. The Duke himself was business-like and affable, but the highlight for me was when his wife dropped in, made some expletive comment about an errant gardener and lit up the room with a smile. She muttered something about dragging dirt into the room on her wellington boots, then thrust out a hand and said something like "Hello. Debo. Not Debbie, and never Debs."

Afterwards, a little research told me that Deborah Devonshire was born Deborah Mitford - a close friend of JFK (his sister 'Kick' is buried near Chatsworth), and one of the famous/infamous Mitford sisters.
[/Name-Drop]

So 25 years later we trundled through the lusciously furnished rooms and the perfectly manicured grounds. My gurly had a paddle in the water staircase and cooled off under the willow tree fountain (A weirdly engineered replica of a willow tree that has spouted water from its branches since it was installed in 1696). As we passed through the souvenir shop, I recognised an elegant old lady wandering anonymously between the milling tourists. I walked to a table containing books of anecdotes and musings by the dowager duchess. Picking one up, I asked the lady if she would sign a copy for me. She smiled, drew a fountain pen from her purse and signed the flyleaf.

***** didn't recognise me

Still, I now have a signed Mitford book

(Eat it, Samira!)

Nobby is a name dropping *****.