Seeing as it was May Day Bank Holiday yesterday, the weekend lasted slightly longer than its usual paltry length. So, after spending Sunday night relaxing, I concocted a picnic of chicken and sweetcorn and mayonnaise sandwich, veg crudites, cucumber and mint yoghurt dip (home-made) healthy crisps, boiled egg, tomato for Colin, parkin (home-made), malt loaf, fruit salad and pop. Colin went to the shop to buy some of these things while I made the rest (not the parkin, though; that was made earlier).

We then took this picnic to Six Mile Bottom, a place where I have wanted to go for some time, merely because of the name. I have to say, that’s the only remarkable thing about the place. There’s a pub, a church and about three houses. And an excessively large vet’s. The church was shut except for births, deaths and marriages; worse, the pub was shut because it was a Bank Holiday. We had our picnic in the church grounds, which was all very nice, even the healthy crisps. On the way back home, we stopped off at Little Wilbraham to see if their pub was open. It had been, but it was closing at half past three, which is when we arrived there.

We got home, dropped off our bikes and whatnot, saw to puss, who’d been out all this time (I said she should have been inside) (she did have a bowl of water out with her), and went to the Green Dragon for a pint. The Green Dragon doesn’t shut randomly in the afternoon, not like these pubs in the countryside. We played I Spy in the beer garden; only had one go each, because each go (WB and WIG) seemed inordinately difficult. Perhaps we were just tired.

For tea, we had cheese and bacon burger and chips. The burgers were constructed from individual items at home, but weren’t home-made. They were very tasty.

Friday night: got pissed in the Maypole.

Saturday morning: had hangover.

Saturday afternoon: cycled with Colin to the Cambridge pitch ‘n’ putt place, independently of the conversation on said activity the night before.  Pitched ‘n’ putted.  I think it’s safe to say that I was pretty dire and Colin was pretty good, except that I returned the same number of balls that I’d started with whereas Colin returned one less.  That’s not to say I didn’t lose balls.  There just happened to be other balls in the ditch that I repeatedly lobbed the ball into that could be retrieved instead.  One had obviously been there some time.  That one replaced the one that fell directly into the water and was quickly swallowed by the silty ooze as opposed to the one that landed at the edge somewhere.  Colin’s ball landed in the lake and was deemed irretrievable.  That was after he’d played the ball on the previous hole fantastically so it went flying over the lake and through the trees and onto the far edge of the green.  I, after the ditch debacle, decided to tee off from the easy tee, which didn’t involve having to get the ball over said lake.  After that, we cycled to a local nature reserve, where there were bluebells, ivy, yellow flowers, trees, other plants and birds, and looked at Byron’s Pool, then cycled to Grantchester, and decided not to eat at the Orchard because the queue was really quite long.  Then we cycled home again.

Saturday evening: got Chinese takeaway from the pub.

Sunday morning: rudely awakened by Colin looking out the window to see what the noise that had rudely awakened him was.  I looked out and discovered there were two rampant dogs in next door’s garden.  The cat was out.  She goes next door sometimes: there’s a gap in their fence and our hedge she goes through.  I looked out the window and saw her on our wall by the gate, on the opposite side to the hedge.  I went to let her in.  She came in pretty quicksmart.  And just in time, too, because the brighter of the two dogs came through her gap shortly after and went beserk in our garden.  The other remained next door.  Going more beserk.  Colin got dressed and went out into the garden (rather him than me) and I fetched a bowl of water on his bidding.  The dog was really thirsty and it calmed down a bit after a drink.  Colin found a phone number on the dog’s choker chain, so I phoned it up.  The woman who answered said she’d be here shortly to get them.  Colin rang next door’s doorbell; the woman answered it, looking sleepy.  He told her there was a dog in their back garden.  “Oh, that’s what it is,” she said.  Colin told them someone would be coming for it soon.  Some time later, a young woman knocked on our door with a cigarette in her hand.  The smoke wafted in the house, and stunk, even though she didn’t come in.  She said she wasn’t the owner and couldn’t take the dogs away.  I’m not sure why she came round, to be honest.  She did say the owner lived just up the road and she’d be coming soon.  After what seemed like ages, with the dog next door flinging itself against the fence and barking and whining and generally being stupid in the way that canines are and the woman whinging, “it’s wrecking everything!” and the dog in our garden jumping up at Colin, wandering round the lawn sniffing, lying on the lawn eating the grass, flinging itself against the gate and generally being stupid in the way that canines are, the owner finally came round to collect them.  She’d been to next door first, which was probably just as well because I don’t think they’d given “their” dog any water.  After she’d gone, I looked at the clock.  Nine o’clock, on the dot.  In the morning.  On a Sunday.  We went back to bed.

Rest of Sunday: lounged around the house, recovering from the previous day’s exertions and reassuring poor puss that the nasty dogs had gone and the garden was perfectly safe for her again.

Picture the scene: a group of three people go to Tesco in York on Saturday morning and buy, amongst other things, three bottles of wine. At the checkout - one of those do-it-yourself ones - the wine brings up the message that its sale needs authorising. Fair enough. Up comes this jaqui, and she says she’s going to have to ask how old each person is. They tell her; the youngest is mid-twenties, the oldest mid-thirties.

“Have you got any ID?” asks this jaqui.

No-one does. Only university cards, which are neither use nor ornament when it comes to buying alcohol from Tesco.

“It’s Tesco’s new policy,” she said, when questioned about why someone in their thirties is asked for ID. “If you look under 30, we have to ask for ID.”

“Where does it say that?” asks one of the group.

“There,” said the jaqui, pointing to a sign hidden round the corner from the check-out screen.

“But you’re wearing an if-you-look-under-21 badge,” said another group member.

“Oh,” says the jaqui. “The policy doesn’t start until next week,” she continues. “But we’re doing it this week.”

There was much mind-boggling at this point.

The group ask for the manager. A supervisor comes along. Same story.

“We can’t authorise the sale until you show us some ID.”

Eventually, the staff members are persuaded that all members of said group wouldn’t be holding university cards if they weren’t over 18, and the wine was purchased.

I’m going to start shopping at Asda. I’m not taking my passport to Tesco every time I want to buy some booze!

NPR : Hotel Maids Challenge the Placebo Effect

See me on the sofa being slim and eating chocolate and crisps, thinking myself slim

This is in the microwave instructions to heat up a Tesco puff pastry steak pie:

Caution: Take care as pie may contain steam.

I hope it contains a little more than that.

“Are you going to Strawberry Fair?” I sang tunelessly to The Hubster yesterday.

“If I must,” he grumped, “but they don’t sell strawberries.”

When we got there, around 11.30 a.m. via a trip to Tesco for Irn Bru for The Hubster and Jamaican Ginger Beer, which appears to come in handy small bottles now, for so fewer pennies than other pop, the first thing we noticed when we got onto the common proper were loads and loads of food stalls. As we meandered, they became more interspersed with clothes stalls selling your usual tie-dye, hippy, grungy-type stuff. There was also jewellery, which was also of the same style, which was perfect because I finally managed to successfully replace my earrings, one of which I lost whilst on honeymoon. I tried to get some from the normal Cambridge Market, but, although I did buy three pairs, none were the right ones. I’ve worn the same style for over ten years now.

We decided upon goat curry to eat for dinner (aka lunch) from one of the Caribbean stalls. Very tasty, it was, although there was far too much food for my tiny tum. (I’m serious - it’s like a reverse TARDIS in there.) We also found a bed-spread stall, which was good because I wanted a new one for the bed-sofa in the living room. We got a black one with some sort of crazy psychedelic mushroom and snakes (but no badgers) and another one which is tie-dyed blue and has elephants on it. Maybe snakes as well.

We went to the beer tent, which had some interesting-looking bitters, but it was far too hot for bitter, so we had lager instead. (Lager-drinkers!) The other end of the beer tent was being called the acoustic tent, where we listened to the tail end of of a song at the tail end of an act. We wandered off when they’d finished to sit on the grass near what appeared to be the main stage to drink our beer.

A bit more wandering brought us to the lost kids tent; we weren’t sure if the lost kids went in the tent or in the nearby cage with a boingy floor, which some may have called mini trampolines.

I saw a sign on the grass advertising strawberries and cream, which I couldn’t resist pointing out to The Hubsicle:

“See,” I said pointing to the strawberries and cream sign,” you can get strawberries.”

“Hmph,” he said, and I didn’t dare ask if we could get some!

Around 2.30, The Hubster’s whinging became unbearable, so we headed home, via the Old Spring, for refreshments because it was really very hot, and some of us were getting sunburnt. As ever.

Timmy had left by the time I had the ginger beer. It was very nice indeed. Very gingery.

Yes, it’s that time of year again, when Jesus Green hosts yet another Cambridge Beer Festival. I had some Golden n’ Eye, which was nice - golden, as the name suggests, light and summery; something else; possibly something else; then some French perry (Uren Foxwhelp; John said it was what it sounded like) with an unknown ABV; some Norfolk Cider Company cider, which I believe is what we had on our honeymoon, in Norfolk, purchased at the Humpty Dumpty brewery shop; then Malcolm told me about the ginger beer: Ginger, from the Marble brewery. I might try the Sly Fox next time - that’s more subtly gingery.

Not that I have a thing about ginger at the moment, of course