Easter Cometh

On Tuesday Pete was off to Swindon for a meeting and overnight hotel stay to allow for a site visit in Reading and a dash into London from there on the train before driving home from Reading on Wednesday evening.

Gemma was only down for a few days and having arrived on Sunday she would be going home on Wednesday. Despite this it was great for Pete to be able to see her on Monday and catch up in the evening. She brought an old school friend, Kirby and her son Jack down with her. It was good to see Kirby again, although she was at Matt's party back in late February it was nice to meet her son Jack for the first time. He's only two and some of the sites of the sea and sand were a bit too much for him.

Julie entertained Gemma, Kirby and Jack in Pete's absence for the time they were down and it's only a shame the warm weather of Easter weekend couldn't have arrived just a little sooner. By the time Pete got home on Wednesday they were gone and we again had the house to ourselves.

On Good Friday the weather looked like being good so we volunteered ourselves t take friends Mark and Sue's dog Rufus for a walk up into Callaton Wood. Mark and Sue were dog-sitting Rosie (Sue's sister's dog) so we took them both for a walk. It was a lovely walk and as Julie has just got her iPhone we took some pictures on our walk and posted them on Facebook while still in the middle of the countryside - the wonder of modern technology.

We were aware that there was a power cut overnight on Thursday and the Electricity Company had to disconnect the power whilst they made the repairs late on Good Friday afternoon. We were unaffected by the problem, although close neighbours were so we decided to get an Indian take-away and invited neighbours Martin and Clara in for the evening.

On Saturday we took ourselves off to Kingsbridge to the Devon Farmers shop to buy the stuff we needed to clean up the patio at the back of the house. The slabs are covered in algae and are very slippery in the wet. The wall at the end f the house is also going a little green and also needs to be cleaned.

On Sunday we went off to the moors for a walk around Chagford with friends Ken and Lin. Chagford is a picturesque little village on the edge of Dartmoor. We then went on to Fingle bridge, near the National Trust's Castle Drogo. We had a circular walk along the valley for a couple of hours where we saw the salmon ladder - it has i-built boxes to trap water that allow the salmon to climb the weir. We then walked back to Fingle Bridge and had a drink at the pub. The weather was intermittent when we arrived, but by the time we got back it had brightened considerably and was really warm at times in the sun. We returned home and had dinner with Ken and Lin at our house.