Reflections on service areas; rural festivities; plumbing problems again

Was up bright and early on Dec 23^rd to collect hire car and fill it with petrol. Discovered that, despite the roads largely having thawed, the lane at the back of the house looked icy so I had to park down the road (thought of attempting the lane, getting stuck and Norman appearing to help was just too terrible). We delivered the bunnies to Reading Rabbit Rescue and were greeted by an uncharacteristically cheery Steve, who gave us a Christmas card (cheeriness also odd given that he had apparently just had to make an overseas phone call to a bunny owner to inform them that their pet had died). Went home, loaded car and were then ready for the excitement of setting off for Ruth's family home in Norfolk. Left about 11.30am, traffic and weather both fine, stopped once at Birchanger Green services on the M11, and arrived (I think) about 5pm. I mistakenly assumed that leaving the M11 meant that we were nearly there, but no - took the best part of two more hours to drive the rest of the way to Ruth's parents' home near Scoulton, not helped by driving in darkness on country roads for the last part of the journey.

Returning briefly to service stations: according to the Wikipedia entry, in 2006 Birchanger Green had the lowest overall rating of all UK motorway service areas on the independent Motorway Services Info website. Can't say it struck me as that bad - but it sounds as though proneness to congestion was the cause of the ratings. We obviously lucked out. Over Christmas, I had a brief conversation with Ruth's father about service stations. He seemed to think that they've gone downhill, but this is of course wrong. If my memory serves, a typical service station in the 1970s would feature one enormous refectory-style eating area with fixed plastic seating and stinking of chips. At least these days, you can get a nice coffee and toastie in Costa and leave the sweaty masses in their tracky bottoms to go to Burger King. One that stands out particularly in my memory is the one on the English side of the (now old) Severn Bridge, which I remember having a huge dining area where I recall eating on several occasions, as it would have been on my family's route to Gran's house in Cardiff. It had a view down to the Severn, but according to this, that's now gone. See here for fascinating facts about UK motorway service areas.

We occupied ourselves on Christmas Eve by driving to Attleborough, the nearest town of any size, and having a quick look at Ruth's old secondary school and at St Mary's Church (with its ancient rood screen, dontcha know) before catching the train into Norwich for a lovely few hours mooching about. It was a very cold day but Norwich was awash with old buildings (probably always is) and twinkly lights (probably just for Christmas) so the atmosphere compensated. Our mooching included a visit to the Assembly House (apparently gutted by fire in the mid-1990s, but you'd never know now) where we had a lovely tea and slice of cake next to the Christmas tree.

Got off to an energetic start on Christmas Day by chopping vegetables, hoovering and helping to hump a table downstairs, before breaking off exhausted for a sherry. We were joined for lunch by two couples from Mrs Millard's bell-ringing group, who made for good company. Post-lunch featured the usual slumping on the couch, reaching sluggishly for yet another Milk Tray, before I feared I was about to doze off and retired to my room for an hour or so, where the ambient temperature rendered me awake again in short order.

Boxing Day luckily proved a nice day and Ruth and I went for a walk in the morning to the nearby villages of Rockland All Saints and Rockland St Peter and then back across fields to the house. We made our way back home again on the morning of the 27^th, once Ruth's mother had triumphantly filled our car with several boxes of Ruth's possessions which one suspects she had been trying to rid herself of for years. The drive back was tortuously slow, thanks to the M25 and people presumably either going home after Christmas or heading to out-of-town retail parks to the sales.

Caused some minor damage on the Tuesday evening by turning our annoying hot tap in the bathroom too far to the left and causing water to spurt violently from somewhere under the basin. We managed to stop the flood temporarily by turning off the water supply to the bathroom, but I was forced (with gun to head) to phone our friends Allwrights the plumbers the following morning, who came round and fixed the leak. In the interests of economy we opted not to have the tap replaced, given new bathroom plans, so have covered old tap with a plastic bag for the moment to remind ourselves not to turn it on (as apparently flood could resume if we do). We have both concluded that the house mocks us.

Took the train to Abergavenny on the morning of the 29^th to visit my parents (in fact the first part of the journey was by bus to Swindon, thanks to the complete festive closure of Reading station). Met up with Dave and Hazel for lunch at the Beaufort Arms in Raglan, and that evening Mum and I had a delightful dinner consisting entirely of nibbles (and wine), before tucking in to roast beef the following night once Dad had returned from a brief trip. As the weather was a bit pants we didn't go out much. Played a couple of games of Scrabble; true to form, Mum walloped me both times, though the second time slightly less shamefully than the first.

Arrived home late afternoon New Year's Eve. As is my practice for the last ten years or so, I eschewed New Year's Eve celebrations and stayed in for the evening. Cooked a few tapas dishes which Ruth and I ate while dozing in front of the TV. Rock on.

Ruth and I went for a walk along the river on New Year's Day, thinking we should get some air - turned out to be rather a longer walk than intended as I could have sworn the footbridge by The Roebuck Hotel used to be much closer to Caversham than it was this time. We were forced to stop for a hot chocolate at the big new Tesco on the old Battle Hospital site (plumbing the depths) before trudging home. In the evening we went for dinner at Ray's and admired his Christmas decorations, including cute little tree on the rear deck (pictured).

Took the train over to Hungerford on Monday 3^rd to have lunch at The Bear to celebrate Ruth's birthday. We had meant to invite several members of her family, but didn't quite get around to it. As the bar was packed out we had to dine in solitary state in the formal restaurant, but it was a very nice meal and luckily the staff didn't hover over us. Before the meal, we went for a mooch around the antiques arcade - still can't summon up much interest in antiquing but enjoyed browsing the books and old postcards.

Back to work on Tuesday and our team's first day with Ann at the helm as Director. Fay, our former Director, has now left to take up a post at UWE - I arrived to find a lovely email from her thanking me for my expertise, which I shall refer to in self-doubting moments, and suggesting keeping an eye out for openings in Bristol. Onwards and upwards.