1907.14 GOODBYE ST NEOTS

For many years now I've been a regular visitor to St. Neots in Cambridgeshire. It's been the home of Morticia's mother and if I'm honest I've become quite fond of the place.

1801.06 BACK HOME ON MY OWN

Some couples are inseparable, others keep their distance. I like to think that we strike a healthily balance. We love to spend our time together but are free to pursue our separate interests.

1710.29 A CHANCE TO EMPTY MY HEAD

Time to relax is important. It's just as important to relax your mind as well as your body. That was the plan anyway this weekend gone.

1704.16 HOPPY EASTER

So take away the religion and Easter is an almost perfect festival. Perhaps it's everything Christmas should be?

1704.14 EGG-CITING TIMES

As usual at Easter I find myself in the liar of my Mother-in-law as my family travel south to stay for the weekend. I've been lucky in getting Easter off pretty regularly, I'm guessing not that many at work are that bothered about it to compete. We drove down last night which was pretty uneventful, the roads were fairly clear and we made it down in good time.

1612.31 THE END

As year draws to a close many reflect on the events of the year. Some say that 2016 has been a really bad year and in many respects. Political upheaval, celebrity deaths as well as the usual war and terror. It's difficult not to say it's been a bad year. 

1610.10 THIS WEEKEND

We were on a mission this weekend. We have been working on friends' wedding photos (which Morticia had taken) and we planned to drop them off. These friends live close to Morticia's mother so the plan was to combine the two things together.

The drive is just over 2 hours and is quite dull. The A1 South is just a duel carriageway that feels like it goes on forever. We headed down Friday night with the idea of presenting the wedding photos over a late lunch the next day.

We'd booked a table at a local 'Brewer's Fayre pub (a typical chain establishment). I'd not visited a Brewer's Fayre for many years and in the past found them a little generic. The menu was indeed very standard but I was pleased with the fact that you could get free refills on soft drinks (and hot drinks too), a rarity for such an establishment. The photos were handed over to our newlywedded friends who were very pleased with their boxed memories. At the end of the afternoon just before we left the pub I noticed they had Rev James on draught at the bar, such a shame since I wasn't drinking, I'd never seen it this far out of Wales before (except in bottles).

They even had the classic pump clip.

The whole weekend was just the relaxing break I needed. As many know my head hasn't been in the right place recently and this trip gave me the opportunity to (to use old computer parlance) defrag my mind.

The drive home yesterday was uneventful and today I wait for the routine of my life to kick back in. I have the satisfaction of knowing I'll be going with a clear head, at least for now.

1608.06 A WEDDING I'M OVER INVITED TO

I'm down south for a wedding of one of Morticia's family friends. If I'm brutally honest I'm not too enthusiastic about being here especially since I will be missing my cycling club's 100 mile ride to Humber Bridge tomorrow. To add insult to injury the Olympic Men's Road Race is on whilst the service is on (and apparently it's not appropriate to watch sports in church).

The day starts early. Morticia is taking the photos as a wedding present (since she has a half decent camera and a couple of weddings under her belt) so she's going to have to go over to the bride's house before for a few snaps.

11:39 - I'm sat in my car whilst Morticia and her mum are with the bride doing whatever they are doing. It's a hot day but at least my car has air conditioning. 

13:32 - In church. I've not got a lot invested in this event. I'm just thinking about the men's cycling road race which is happening in Rio right now. Physically I'm witnessing a wedding but mentally I'm willing on Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas or maybe even Adam Yates to win gold today. I've resigned myself that I'll find out the result before I see the race. 

15:39 - I just got back from the church. If I'm honest it wasn't quite as bad as I thought it was going to be.  If I'm really honest I quite enjoyed it. I just dropped the car back at Morticia's mother's (I dropped them off at the reception venue) now I'm going to walk back. It'll give me some time to myself before the reception (it'll be about a 30 minute walk).

20:16 -  The reception is in full swing and I'm actually enjoying myself. I even got to watch the Olympic Men's Road Race on my phone (although I was disappointed with the result - gutted for Geraint Thomas who crashed on the final decent). I'm going to enjoy the party. 

23:52 - And we're done. I'm exhausted. Didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did. 

I'm still disappointed that I'll be missing my cycling club's 100 mile ride in the morning. 

1606.11 THE PICKUP

Today, together with my youngest daughter Rags, we headed south to go and pick up Morticia. I woke up 15 minutes before my alarm at 6:45am, Rags had said she was getting up a bit earlier to grab a shower. I couldn't hear the shower. I shouted her.

We set off at about 9am. The cat was sorted with plenty of food and water (and a clean litter tray), the SeaMonkeys were fed. The traffic on the M1 and A57 was a little heavy with loads of caravans on the road. The traffic cleared as we went through Sherwood Forest.

Driving through Sherwood Forest

Rags was a rubbish co-pilot who instead of giving me nibbles and keeping me hydrated just nodded off. We arrived at St. Neots just before 11:30am.

We were reunited.

In the afternoon we had a trip into the town. It looked like there was a Morris dancing convention in town (they were everywhere). Morris dancing isn't something we see back home so it was a bit of a novelty. After tea we headed back to Morticia's mother's house. Tomorrow we head home, tonight however we're off to the pub to enjoy being together again.

Morris Dancing in St Neots Market Square 

1603.28 EASTER BUNNY AND THE GHOST

Our break in St Neots continued into Easter Sunday with a jet lagged wake up following the clocks going forward at 2am.

We met up with friends who are getting married later in the year to visit the church they will be using. Later we sat down to a family dinner and then relaxed for the rest of the day. I do love the fact that all the shops close on this day.

I have an After Eight egg that I will be enjoying over the coming days.

Now I'm going to digress a little to give a little background to something that happened this afternoon. Morticia sometimes comes and stays at her mother's without the rest of us, she does this once or twice a year. She has often spoken of a disturbing presence in the spare room (not anywhere else in the house). She says she feels uneasy and has on occasion woken up feeling as if she is been held down in the bed. This has never happened when I am there, and she says she feels at ease then. This story has been around for many years and on Sunday morning is the first time it has changed.

This morning whilst we were all sleeping Morticia woke screaming. She said later that she had felt that same presence holding her down briefly. I wasn't affected by any of this at all and apart from the noise of her scream. In the afternoon Rags was feeling tired and went up to bed for a nap. She yelled for me about an hour later, I dashed up and she was looking shocked and confused. She told me that she had woken up after feeling that she was being held down, then feeling her arm being lifted. She told me she saw a figure briefly before she called out.

Both are unaffected from the events and are not put off sleeping in the room.

Sunday night Storm Katie raged outside, we had a relaxing evening in front of the TV. The bank holiday is our last day and hopefully the weather will allow us to leave the house.

Storm Katie ravages the country

Monday started late for everyone (except me, I was reading from 9am). When we did go out we drove down to a local chilli farm. The cafe there was closed but Morticia bought a few chilli based condiments. We then visited a nearby garden centre. I'm not a fan of garden centres, they're full of stuff I can't afford and we usually end up buying expensive tat we don't need. We enjoyed a much needed cuppa before venturing on.

We had tea in town at the local Wetherspoons (The Weeping Ash), I'm a big fan of Wetherspoons.

Then after packing up our stuff and a number of cups of tea later it was time to head back home. A1 northbound.

1603.27 THEY TALK FUNNY DARN SOUFF

Like most Easters of late we travelled down to Morticia's mother's for the weekend. We drove down around dinner(lunch)* time and although there were a couple of hold ups along the way, the journey was without note or incident. The day was bright and sunny and we enjoyed the drive, our car has a glass roof so we can really make the best of these nice car trips.

St Neots is a town just off the A1 just below Peterborough and not far from Cambridge. It's a place I've become familiar with over the years and have developed a fondness for the place, even if the people talk funny!

They (the town) have recently acquired a small cinema and with it a couple of chain eateries. Friday night we went to Frankie & Bennys. The service was dreadfully slow and the servers didn't even know their own menu (we had to point). The food when it arrived was poor quality and in the case of Morticia's salad, wasn't as described. The cost I found was on the high side for this type of restaurant, in hindsight we'd have gotten better food at better value at a Wetherspoon's (I'm a big fan of Wetherspoon pubs). A twitter complaint went in as soon as I got back.

Saturday we went into town. It's a small but pleasant shopping centre that's easy to traverse (it's one street and a market square). We had a late dinner/early tea in the cafe in the square (as we usually do) which in all our opinions was better than the meal last night. The town recently (this week) acquired a B & M Bargains store in the small retail area on the edge of town so we were obliged to visit. I watched the locals traversing the store in wonder as I smugly smiled to myself (we have 2 withing 5 minute drives of our house). We got back to Morticia's mother's house just moments before storm 'Katie' unleashed. I spent the evening relaxing whilst doodling cartoons and sipping a bottle of beer.

I went to bed with a slight headache which stayed with me throughout the night. I dreamed that my bike had been stolen (the bike in my dream however wasn't my bike in reality). Maybe this was withdrawal and I was aware of the ride I'd be missing Sunday morning?

*I think it's a northern thing but I call lunch=dinner and what everyone else calls dinner is either tea or supper depending on the time.

1402.28 SECOND HOME

Once again I find myself at my mother-in-law's in St Neots visiting and generally relaxing. We been coming down here for many years now and as such feel I know the town quite well. I've ascended the church tower, visited the fetes and markets and had a few in a number of the local pubs.

The only thing I've never done here is cycle. Cycling here is strange. Because it is so flat there are old ladies, vicars and tubby blokes out on bikes. So different from what I'm used too, don't think I've ever seen anyone wearing lycra here and there are few, if any proper road bikes.

We rarely do much when we're here. We usually visit town, Morticia is quite well known here (she visits more than me and she has brightly coloured hair). Today was slightly different, we visited a local chilli farm ( www.edibleornamentals.co.uk) which had a lovely cafe. It was empty today but I bet it gets busy in the summer, in fact I bet it would be a great cycling stop off.

I have to rely on my tablet computer heavily for entertainment since the choice of TV by our hosts can be not to my taste all the time (thank god for Netflix).

I usually enjoy my time here (apart from the fact that our hosts are smokers), it's a nice community for a bunch of southerners.

1302.17 BACK FROM THE DARKNESS

It's been a long while since I blogged. I wrote posts but never got around to putting them up. It's been hard to sometimes cope, my stress levels have been through the roof but somehow I'm still going. 

We are currently relaxing down at my Mother-in-law's this weekend. It's a much needed break for us all. 

1111.06 BONFIRES, WITCHES & CHRISTMAS TREES

I'm more than a little annoyed that my mobile blogging app, BlogPress, has not worked since I updated my iPhone to iOS5. I am using the native Blogger app to compose this for formatting later on a PC.

Anyway, this is not the purpose of my post today. It's the beginning of November and that means Guy Fawkes night, the traditional celebration of a failed Catholic terrorist plot from 1605. Whilst for us there was no bonfire (we rarely have one) we did set of some fireworks whilst down visiting my Mother in Law.

That's where the witches come in, well one in particular. The aforementioned Mother in Law who returned with us to stay for the week. It's been a difficult preparation getting the house together for the visit. I'm hoping Morticia will get a lot from the visit, at the end of the week she will be returning with her mother to St Neots for the following week. It will mean rest bite for us both, I think we both need it.

I noticed over the last few weeks Christmas trees have been appearing and television adverts have turned to seasonal subjects. I'm not a big fan of Christmas commercialism and I hate how early the 'silly' season starts. How long until Christmas starts in August?

1108.30 BANK HOLIDAY WEEKEND

As we sometimes do, the family decided to go south to visit Morticia's mother in St Neots. Even though I'd already returned to work I considered this part of my holiday. I booked a couple of extra leave days and we went down Thursday evening. We were late setting off because I had to take Morticia's dad and his dog to the vets.

On the Sunday Morticia's mother and her partner took our girls to a local air show. This gave Morticia and me some time together. This almost never happens, we decided to go into town - they were having a little festival or fayre.

There's a pub in St Neots called the Pig & Falcon, we've been past it a dozen times and I've always fancied popping in. Today we could, and did. It was a lovely little ale house which was full of character and looked like it had live bands on at weekends. Whilst there I sampled a couple of local ales;

• Potbelly Best
• Citra

We decided to stay an extra night so we could return and sample the atmosphere of this place on a night out. Sadly Morticia's ME kicked in and pit paid to our plans.

Whilst down there I love to rummage in the local charity shops. Managed to bag myself Stephen Fry's biography for £3.

The original plan was to come home on Bank Holiday Monday. In the end we left on the Tuesday.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

1104.23 ST GEORGE

As usual for this time of year we are all down south visiting Morticia's mother and her partner. I enjoy the break and for a change my eldest is behaving pretty well.

Today is St George's Day, the day we celebrate our Englishness. We visited the town centre today, it's been extremely hot so after perusing local shops we sat outside the cafe in the town square for a cuppa. I couldn't help but look on in envy at the lone cyclist enjoying a break. I really want that, the bike, the journey, the lifestyle. As we enjoyed our break we were treated to some unexpected entertainment.

Morris dancing, how English, how apt. Even Rags had a go. Perfect.

I purchased 2 books from the Cat Protection charity shop and was given a free one from the box of unsaleable book box.

Tonight is Doctor Who night with the premiere of the new series. It's been taped (is it people of my aged group that say 'taped' when they mean Sky+ or similar?) and I'm still waiting to watch it.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

1011.27 ST NEOTS

Once again I find myself a Northerner in the south as I return to St Neots to pick up my wife who is down here visiting and bring her home.

I've been a visitor to this little town very few people I know have even heard of for the last few years now. It's the home of my Mother in Law and her partner and we probably visit 3-4 times a year. I'm starting to gain a familiarity with the place and if you excuse all the southerners that infest it, it's quite a nice place.

The shopping centre is adequate with little in the way of major outlets, still I do enjoy a rumage through the charity shops in the town before a bite in the cafe.

I have yet to sample local beers there and I would like to cycle the area but I have little doubt that will happen in due course.