Going For Gold!!!

Oh I am a proud Brit right now. Amazing. Astounding. Astonishing. Awesome (correct use of awesome here thanks) Brilliant. Beautiful . Crazy ... yes yes I 'll stop now just zoming through the alphabet of adjectives to describe the completely nutty unebelievably entertaining & BRILLIANT Olympic Games Opening Ceremony.


I laughed & I cried in equal measure. Best bits? For me HM sky diving with Bond, David Beckham suited & booted driving a speedboat up the Thames & the lighting of the flame.



This sceptered Isle indeed.

I should be so lucky

 .... lucky lucky lucky to quote Kylie. And I am. This is not a moan post, this is a whoo hoo how on earth did I get here? one. Spent today fully achieving the elusive work / life balance. Yup. In the morning I sat at my desk with all doors & windows open enjoying my gorgeous garden and had an hour long conference call, and did some work off the back of it.

Come lunchtime, as the mercury crept close to 30 degrees I then popped my swimmers on & went with my BlackBerry, a good mate, bowls full of salad for lunch & a cheeky cold Rose (can't find how to do the accent, I mean 'rosay' !) to my lovely neighbour with the divine swimming pool & we splish splashed, chatted ate & I checked my BlackBerry regularly. So regularly in fact I was accused of having a CrackBerry (see my commitment?).

Came home, worked a bit more, made calls, had shower & am now contemplating Caesar salad al fresco for dinner, listening to our slightly comedy but quite meditererranean water feature tinkling away in the background .... that is if FauxSurreyHubby's train actually gets back to the faux country on time - not 2 hours late - tonight!

So - as you can see the work / life / fun / swim /sun balance IS achievable ...

The Sun has (finally) got his hat on ...

... yet despite this being the 21st century the trains out of Waterloo most definitely do NOT have the air conditioning on. That's because there isn't any. Seriously. And even with all windows open the temperature on a busy 5pm commuter train was at least 35 degrees. Disgusting. Revolting. Ridiculous!!! I felt as if I were melting after about 20 minutes.

And poor poor FauxSurreyHubby has just called from the station to say all trains to our part of the faux country are cancelled due to signal problems (no doubt the signal melted) so he is playing train hop at Clapham Junction - proud bearer of the banner "Europe's busiest railway station" - yes whoop di doo. I am just reliably informed the omnipresent Boris "Hey chaps it's the Olympics!" Johnson tannoy message has been universally jeered by all the sardines packed onto the hot late train.!! SO it's dinner at 9 & indigestion by 10. Thank the lord we have our aircon marvel or it would be a sleepless night too....

The Time Traveller's lunch

FauxSurreyHubby and I went out for lunch yesterday .. nothing earth shattering in that I hear you mutter ... no nothing shattering at all exept we ended up doing a bit of accidental time travelling ...

There we were starving hungry in the middle of a village high street. Ripley if you want to know, and no not Ripley North Yorkshire, Ripley in Surrey. All manner of culinary delights appeared to be on offer from patisseries & coffee shops to very high end smart restuarants. However most were rather busy what with it being 1.30pm on a rainy Saturday in July. Then we spotted a pub. A lovely old fashioned type pub with hanging baskets & higgledy piggledy doors & windows & a big fancy chalk board outsde that proclaimed "Food served daily 12-6pm".

We looked for the menu outside & couldn't find one (clue #1) so peered though the windows & saw a free table - hurrah huzzah we thought. But that was clue #2. A free table. Then we stepped over the threshold and unwittingly stepped back 40 years. The bar was decent enough with a few people standing around chatting about their day & another couple were sat at a table in small room off the bar. Nothing significant at this point to tell us we had been transported back to the 1970's...

Drinks were duly ordered and the menu which was chalked up at the side of the bar perused. Clue #3; not a single vegetarian option. Reminders of the bad old days in my teens when all I could get was a cheese sandwich, salad or omelette came flooding back. All the food was what I've heard called  "proper" food; burgers, chicken, a mixed grill, sausage & mash, gammon egg & chips ... help I thought I can't eat anything ... then right at the bottom I spotted the soup of the day was mushroom & a selection of "freshly made" sandwiches were available.

Feeling pleased with myself I ordered the soup & a cheese & pickle sandwich on granary please, imagining farmhouse cheddar, homemade red onion pickle & a side salad. "So that's a cheese sandwich on white?" said the barman. No, no I began correcting, then saw he was telling not asking - they only had white. OK I thought could be a lovely farmhouse batch, let's go for white. Clue #4. I would've made a rubbish Agatha Christie detective. FauxSurreyHubby smirked & ordered himself a mixed grill and we found a table.

Sitting down and looking around us more carefully the reality of our time travelling became apparent - and when a bowl of Heinz Mushroom soup appeared with a single slice of Mothers Pride white bread laid carefully to one side the penny dropped. Then my 2 slices of white bread sandwich replete with grated cheese & a dollop of Branston &  FSH's greasy grill appeared & were were left in no doubt we were in a pub stuck in the 1970's.


Accepting our fate we tucked in & pondered ... would we go outside & find the Volvo  miraculously transformed into a Ford Cortina ...?

A Spa-kling Day!

Yes yes shocking headline but have just had a lovely Spa day with one of my best buddies. Venue -  Tylney Hall - was suggested by FauxSurreyHubby who had been there on a bit of a works do & had spotted the pool which was tucked away in its own walled courtyard and was described by no less an authority than The Times as being one of “the coolest pools in Britain."  After a wonderful 20 minute swim in there (after the gym session!!) I can agree wholeheartedly with that. We managed to find the one spot of sunshine that was available in the UK today & swam about, almost as if it were summer (!) in turquoise blue, really deep water which was heated to the perfect temperature plus my mate & I were the only swimmers - for a short while we imagined the house was ours & we were ladies of leisure, wondering what cook had dreamed up for our lunch and whether the gardener was dead heading the roses. Hey we can dream ...

Post swim we headed for lunch. I had a stunning salmon & mango salad - sounds odd but was delicious - and mate had a blue cheese & walnut salad and then we wandered to the Gertrude Jekyll water garden where we were harassed by a bruiser duck & his mates who were convinced we must have food with us & refused to leave our sides!

Then the 1 hour luxury facial. Bliss and of course we look at least 10 years younger!! After ensuring the nice lady would massage neither my hands nor my scalp (hands?? a hand massage as part of a facial? I don't think so. Scalp I understand slightly more but scalp massages make me feel nauseous!) anyway after that I sank back on the couch in the dimly lit room whilst she worked her magic. All very lovely but one slight fly in the ointment. The music. It was shockingly bad! Plink plonk new agey cr*p basically. Why oh why can't they play birdsong or waterfall noise or waves crashing on a beach or even flipping whale song - why do they have to play the worst kind of inane elevator music?!

Hey ho. To be fair that was the only thing we had reason to complain about - it really was all very ladies who lunch & lovely. And must be repeated soon.