This is the house called Woodside. We had half of it, as Bob's mother, Edna, lives in the other half. Our bedroom is the top room. Edna's sitting room is the bottom room. Our sitting room in the middle. Three flights of stairs...
Geese, hens, cocks, a rabbit and a guinea pig to be looked after as well as three goats. More than Australia and a bit more exhausting for Brian. Most evenings the geese didn't want to go to bed and sometimes, in fact most times, played him up. It was a bit too much for us I reckon and not the sort of exchange we thought it would be, mostly down to the weather of course. We thought we would be walking on the downs, in the Lanes in Brighton, having picnics, cream teas in lovely gardens, going to see our grandchildren in Brighton on the beach. Oh no, it was rain, rain, dull, dull and the evenings back to put the animals away by dusk as there were foxes lurking. Even so, there was an up on the whole holiday and that was Edna. What a delight and how she saved our holiday by relating tales of the area during the war, after the war and her life. And not a word repeated and she is 95.
It was lovely to see her soft smiling face and listen to her with my mug of tea sitting in her window seat.
The other thing that saved us was the Olympics being on, without them to watch I reckon we would gone slowly mad with the weather.
Brian's sister Doreen and husband Bernard came to the BBQ and they stayed another couple of nights. and we enjoyed that.
