Good News, Bad News

First the good news. The builders decided to do their quiet jobs early this morning, so I got to drift into consciousness - the retiree's favourite way of wakening. When I pulled the curtains, the builders were on site, but they were fussing around quietly with spirit levels and a saw.  Yesterday's concrete blocks that formed the new wall were lightweight (or the guy who had lifted them one handed was exceptionally strong), but still, smoothing them off with a saw is just plain weird. I still haven't made up my mind yet if it is a wall or an extension, but they filled the inside up to the top with rubble and there are now blue (water?) pipes sticking up in the air. I'm leaning towards a patio with a water feature. 

Last autumn, when I cycled the Sea to Sea (C2C), we had a lunch break at Cafe4Eden in Penrith, a local charity dedicated to providing support (and employment) for those with learning difficulties. When I realised that this year's family holiday was only a short drive from Penrith, I put a revisit on my to-do list. So Jackie, Maia and I went this lunchtime. I just love the idea that these cafés provide a sense of inclusion, acceptance and value for those in our society that may otherwise be overlooked. It was also nice to see the same supervisors there and to have the sense that this was not a one-off but an ongoing commitment to the community. 

A quick visit to Jack's Repairs in Penrith brought the bad news. I had already established that Jackie's phone was suffering from a dodgy volume button and that a replacement part was typically £5. What I didn't know was that for the S21 model, those crafty engineers at Samsung had sealed the part inside the screen module and that repairing it involved replacing the whole module and parting with £170. I suspect that would be throwing good money after bad, even though it is only a year since I bought the phone as a birthday present. I got a good deal online, but I have quickly learned that what seams like a bargain on the internet is often cheap for good reasons. I'd elaborate further, but I don't want to relive the pain of discovery.

Tonight for our listening pleasure, the on-site bar has provided live musical entertainment in on the form of Graham, a middle aged gentleman with an acoustic guitar and a drum machine. One interesting factoid - he played the guitar left handed, a style enmployed by only 10% of the guitar playing community.  I assume that it was also a left handed guitar, but I wasn't near enough to see which order the strings were in. He was good as in 'I got a resident slot in a holiday camp' good, but not so good as in 'I'm currently touring as the support act for somebody famous' good. He leaned heavily on the Eagles (they do have some catchy acoustic numbers) and also did a reasonable job of covering Amy MacDonald, albeit at least one octave lower than the original. Being there with young children, there came a point in the evening when we had to leave him mid strum so we could put the kids to bed.  It wasn't a difficult decision.

When we got back to our villa, Amelia treated us to her own rendition of Nicki Minaj's The Night is Still Young, singing enthusiastically into a soup ladle. However despite the sentiment expressed in the title, she was soon packed off to bed.Baca lagi