Plunging right back in

[shewhomust]

There are people who schedule their holidays to allow themselves a day or so to prepare beforehand, and to recover afterwards: I am not one of those people. I plan the longest holiday we can fit in, which is why our departure is often rather breathless. On this occasion, our return has been busy too, and not because we intended it that way: we didn't actually go to the pub quiz on the evening of our return home...

It's an easy drive home from Kirkcudbright. We had planned a supermarket shop at Waitrose in Hexham, but as we were driving through Brampton we noticed it was market day:

so we stopped there instead. I bought vegetables (including English asparagus) and bread (a black wheat loaf from Warwick Bridge Corn Mill - and some of the flour, too!) from the market, and random supplies from the very grand farm shop on the corner of the square, and decided that would tide us over until I could place an Ocado order. So we came straight home...

First thing the following morning, durham_rambler had a hospital appointment for a scan. I'm very glad that his progress is being monitored, so although this timing wasn't ideal (and couldn't be changed without substantial delay) I am not complaining. And once it was over, we had a coffee date with - how shall I put this? Old friends? Someone we used to know and her no-longer-new-husband who we hadn't previously met? People who had remained on our Chrismas card list despite our not having met for oh, twenty or thirty years? Any combination of the above? Anyway, that had got in touch to say they were taking a short break in the area, and could we meet, and we had arranged to meet at our favourite farm shop on their way home. I won't say we bonded instantaneously, but it was all very agreeable, and I'd happily do it again. I wouldn't even insist on waiting another twenty years...

The next day, which was yesterday, durham_rambler spent the morning in an online meeting and then dashed out to the unveiling of a blue plaque at the site of Durham's ice rink: I had the sort of staying-home-and-getting-on-with-things day you need after you've been away.

Once you've unveiled one plaque, though, you can't stop, so today we both went to the presentation of the City of Durham Trust's Architectural Award: which sounds very grand, and was grand, but in a good, and very domestic way. The award went to an extension to a domestic house (I can't find anything on the Trust's website, but here's what the architect has to say about it): the lady who lives there had organised a magnificent buffet from the Claypath Deli (which is not somewhere we habitually go, but I should work on that) and we milled about admiring the extension and the way it integrates with the garden and its cathedral views, and had a couple of speeches and enjoyed ourselves generally.