Friday: Summer Holidays

Today was the end of the school term for TG and the official start of the summer holidays. She ploughed on to the bitter end, and finished off her last bit of school work this afternoon. Huge credit to her for being so hard working and determined throughout this term of school-at-home.  I had a bit of freelance work to do this morning, and now have two weeks off from my archives work to look forward to. Next week we should have been going up to Yorkshire for H's graduation, followed by ten days at Lake Garda in Italy. As it is, we are going to Weymouth in Dorset for a few days, and are feeling lucky to be able to do that. There is no doubt the last few months has made us more grateful for small things.

Yesterday evening we met up with R and went for a dog walk round the parkland at Woburn Abbey. The Abbey (on the site of an earlier, medieval abbey but now the country estate of the Duke of Bedford) has a huge deer park, with footpaths crossing it at various points. Last time we went we walked in a slightly different direction, but this time we walked closer to the Abbey itself. At one point a large group of deer ran across the path ahead of us - just too far away to get a good photo.

I was asked on Instagram how Woburn is pronounced here - the answer is Woe-b'n, although I know someone from a family who have lived locally for generations who calls it Woo-b'n, so I imagine that must be the original pronunciation (now virtually extinct).

Today I woke up tired and aching. Between exercise classes and walks I have been doing a lot physically, and I think it caught up on me. I had planned to do a more challenging exercise class with H this morning, but decided to listen to what my body was telling me and pass. M and I did go for our afternoon walk and I did a bit of stretching yoga with H after that. Definitely feeling a bit less stiff this evening than I was earlier.

A couple of friends came round this evening. We had takeaway fish and chips in the garden and sat outside for a long time chatting until it got cold and dark. This was the first warm evening we have had in a while, so it was good timing. I have a feeling we had the best of our "summer" weather was in April and May. Sometimes I am very jealous of people who live in countries where they can rely on getting sun and warmth during the summer. There was one summer a few years ago which was unremittingly cold and dull. I vividly remember sitting in the car on a sunny September day soaking up some warmth, and realising just how long it was since I had felt truly warm - I suppose we couldn't bring ourselves to turn on the heating in July and August.  At least this year we had a lovely warm spring.