In eight days’ time the hut will close for two weeks, while its guts are ripped out and the refit happens. First it’s being tanked (like a swimming pool in reverse apparently), then tiled, rewired and filled back up with stainless steel things that shouldn’t get too trashed if the anti-flood measures fail and the river sneaks in.
There’s a lot to plan considering it’s such a tiny space – but Hector and I still managed a bit of downtime in these last two weeks, while Phil went on safari to Uganda (as you do).
On Monday I spent the morning with a brilliantly talented artist, Helen Peyton, who happens to live in the next village. Helen has been collecting letterpresses for years and she let me have a go on one, to create a greetings card. I have a personal challenge, to start offering handmade non-food ‘things’ to Riverbank customers and the ‘RIDE IT LIKE YOU STOLE IT’ card will be my first, experimental, ‘thing’.
Tuesday was a gorgeous day and there were real signs of spring in the air, I noticed blossom for the first time outside the village church before picking up Hector’s mate Alfie (golden Labrador) to walk the two of them to Burnsall for yet more measuring up. I was greeted by a bunch of valentine’s flowers that had been left at the hut – no clues and not, it seems, from my African-adventurer…
On the way back home first we were a source of intrigue for three very frisky horses who I reckon thought my flowers looked like lunch, and then we happened across a very famous actor who regularly comes to stay in our beautiful little village. So all in all, quite an eventful little dog walk!
On Wednesday Hector and I went to collect Phil from the airport. He was tanned and a bit tired but it was lovely to have him home and hear his stories and in amongst the little treats he’d brought me was my favourite, some Ugandan coffee.
I’ve attempted to visualise these few days in the pictures below. Some were taken by me, and some by Phil. Guess who took what…