A week away - August 2025

It's the end of August so it's that time of year when we get together with Hubby's extended family here:

It's a converted Oast House in Kent and there were over 40 of us sharing. These pictures were before everyone arrived and we decended into chaos lol.

Sound horrendous? Well not to us it doesn't.  Yes we have to share rooms (but there are lots of bathrooms) and some of the kids are on the floors but we love being able to all be together.  The kids love the pool, we played a lot of games on the lawn, took walks to nearby Scotney Castle and generally had a good time.

We all mucked in with preparing food - each family group takes a turn to be responsible for the evening meal - and everyone helps out with clearing etc.  

We play board and card games, do karaoke, and generally just unwind.

I'd like to say I came home rested but with late nights and then early wake up calls from the under 10s sleep time is limited.  But so many memories made.

I didn't get to do a Friday's Fave Five but the word to some it all up this week would have been Family!

I also gained some more books!

My brother-in-law was having a clear out and a few people took a few books but I ended up with the majority.  I've read a few which I will put in local Little Libraries, and there are some that I'll probably pass on that I don't think I'd enjoy but the rest will be added to the "to be read" pile.

It looks horrendous but I recently added quite a lot of them to my Good Reads site and I think in the house there are about 50 books.  There are also about 30 in our garden room but given that I read over 50 books a year I will get through them sooner rather than later.

As long as I don't keep adding to the pile!

Hopefully I'll get around to catching up on blogs later today.  Apologies if I don't manage to leave many comments, I'm getting ready to spend a few days away later this week with 3 of my cousins and their husbands.  Organising food etc for 8 will seem easy compared to last week!

Friday's Fave Five - 15/8/25

Susanne reminds us each week to look back on our week and find the blessings and the things we're grateful for.  We join up here to share them.

1)  I'm thankful that whilst I am close enough to my daughter and her family to be able to help out with their children, our two sons also have good in-laws who do the same for them.  This week our eldest son and DIL celebrated their wedding anniversary and his in-laws took their two boys out for what looked like a fun day.

2)  Talking of helping my daughter out my DIL has her hands full during the summer holidays.  Grandchildren Nathan and Ella have a bit of a love/hate relationship at times so it's good to be able to take one of them for an hour or so to give her a break, which we did today - having Nathan here all day.  Particularly needed now because:

he has fractured a bone in his foot.  As you can imagine he is not happy about having to wear the boot!

3)  We had a short break away this week - staying in Marlow which is on the river Thames.

Our room - we were upgraded!

The bath was lovely - but we didn't use it

There was a very adequate shower in the bathroom!

Boats going through Marlow lock.

This is the Compleat Angler - just across the river from where we stayed and where we ate on our second night.

The bridge across the Thames

Marlow Church

The War Memorial - just in front of our hotel.

We stayed at The George & Dragon which is a Heartswood Inn which is the same chain as the Royal Forest near us which we've been to a few times.  The menu was quite similar but I'd say the food was slightly better nearer home.  The service was excellent though and the room was very comfortable with air conditioning.

4)  We were really glad of the air conditioning as it has been very hot this week so we didn't do as much sight seeing as we would have liked, it was just too hot.  Although of course we did browse the charity shops along the high street and I couldn't resist these:

The Crossword jigsaw is brand new - it will be a challenge though - it's double sided and both crosswords can actually be completed! (well hopefully lol)

I managed to load all my TBR books onto Goodreads today so that I won't end up buying books I've already got waiting to be read.  I used the scanning feature which made it quite quick.

5)  On our way home on Wednesday we visited Cliveden House, a National Trust property.  The House is actually leased out to a hotel group so tours are limited but the grounds and woodlands are lovely.  We took a long walk through the woods and down to the river (Thames) and then up to the House and gardens.  We stopped for refreshments in the cafe and then intended taking the easier route back to our car.  Somehow we got lost and ended up back down by the river.  Which necessitated another climb back up - it's a steep incline with lots of steps.  Thankfully my knees held out!

The views were lovely and it was reasonably shady through the woodland areas.

It was a lovely break and thankfully we made it home without being impacted by this:

Picture taken from the BBC website.

This was the scene on the M25 yesterday afternoon - a lorry caught fire and it was full of tyres, hence the black smoke.  Fortunately no one was hurt but the motorway was shut for 17 hours - resurfacing was required.  The M25 is London's orbital motorway and it's always very busy and closures like this cause chaos.  Fortunately we were able to leave it a junction earlier than planned and made an alternative route home without any problems.

Have a good weekend all.

Wednesday Hodgepodge - 13/8/25

Joyce hosts the Wednesday Hodgepodge blog hop here.

1. August is National Golf month...do you play? Do you enjoy following golf? Have you ever been to a professional tournament? 

No, no and no.  The only golf I've played is Crazy Golf and I'm not good at that either.

2. Astronaut Jim Lovell of Apollo 13 fame passed away this past Thursday. Are you interested in outer space and what's happening today in terms of space exploration? If space travel became common in your lifetime would you go? How do you personally relate to the idea of exploring something vast and mysterious...does the idea excite you, intimidate you, or something else? 

I'm interested to see what's happening but I certainly wouldn't want to travel in space.  Hard enough just travelling by plane lol.

3. Describe your communication style in three words. 

Well that depends who I'm communicating with and the subject matter.  Not sure I could narrow it down to 3 words but if I'm actually  talking to someone hands would definitely be involved!

4. Do you have a favourite cookbook? A favourite celebrity chef? Do you watch any cooking shows on TV? 

We have a pasta cookbook that is well worn from use.  I don't have an absolute favourite chef but I do love following Nancy Birtwhistle  on Instagram.  She was a winner of the Great British Bake Off show some years back and although she still does a lot of cooking she's also moved on to trying to be very green and avoids using plastic or cleaning materials that are harmful.  (She makes her own.) She's also very ordinary and down to earth.

5. As a child did you have any back to school traditions? If so, did you carry on those same traditions with your own children? Do you have any back to school traditions you've started on your own? 

I don't think I did really - apart from perhaps getting a new pencil case and its contents.  I did take photos of the children on their first days of nursery, school etc but that was pre mobile phones when you had to get them printed.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

We've had another mini heatwave here the last few days.  We've actually been away the last couple of nights so we were glad to be in a hotel room that had air conditioning.  Now we're home and back to opening windows and turning on the fans.

#SoCS - 9/8/25 - Towing the line

Seeing as I'm up and about I thought I'd tow the line and do a SoCS post.  Haven't done one for a while.

Anyway it's 7 am now and I've been awake since just after 5.  Not sure what woke me but Hubby's snoring  ensured I wasn't going to get back to sleep in my bed so I decamped to the sofa.

I thought that with my recently acquired eye mask I might be able to get back to sleep.  My brain thought otherwise.  I might have to have a nap today.

I did try to sleep but I could still hear the snoring above me and then my neighbour (or someone passing by in the street) had a prolonged sneezing fit that was probably as loud as the snoring! So of course I started looking at my phone.

I have the NYT games app there to amuse me.  We have (of course - who doesn't?) a family WhatsApp group for Wordle. Kicked myself today - got it in 5 but it should have been 4.  It probably was too early to be doing it.  I also messed up the Tiles game several times - I like to have a clear run on that but I got there eventually.  Doesn't help when you've left your glasses upstairs by the bed!

And now I'm drinking my first cup of tea of the day and I've had a couple of slices of fruit bread and I'm here blogging, wondering at what point my Hubby will stir.  I'm not holding my breath on that one - I'd expire!  He was out with some former colleagues yesterday which will have been a boozy affair that went on until late so I don't expect him to surface any time soon.  Which is a bit annoying as I'm off to take in a delivery for the Food Bank this morning so I'll probably have to make my own breakfast.  

This is not a good start to the day.

Maybe I'll go and give him a nudge with my toe!

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “toe/tow.” Use one, use both, use them any way you’d like. Bonus points for using both. Have fun!

Ooh I think I just earned bonus points lol.  SoCS is brought to us by Linda who blogs here.  If you're awake, like me, pop over and see who's joining in the fun.

Postcript:

See it's too early to be blogging - I wasn't toeing the line at all!