New friends old friends

Today I went for a walk with the boys in Chievely with my new buddy Carolyn.

Carolyn is 74 she adopted me at the stables. She is possibly one of the most amazing and fascinating women I've ever met.

She has lived through unbelievable heartbreak and had decided the time has come to move back home... Home being Warwickshire.

Carolyn never sits still. I think for two reasons. One being she knows all too well how short life is and she's going all out to live hers. The second reason is i think she daren't sit still as grief will over come her and she's constantly running away from facing that head on. I can't blame her.

She had lit a fire ready for our arrival and showed me some of the treasures she was sorting through. Her mother in laws gold card marking pencil from the dance days when ladies were ladies, intricate foldable cigarette holders, real kid gloves never worn, wild cat fur coats, her husbands oars from his race in the Rome Olympics and his Oxford team mates and framed original vanity fare pages of rowing stars. Just completely fascinating treasure trove... I could have spent days and weeks mooching through this time capsule. A very hard task for Carolyn to have to sort through and a lot of memories to have to finally face. Bereavements catch up with you eventually.

We had a fabulous walk in the wind and rain and told each other as much of our life stories as we could fit into an hour.

We had picked up a neighbours spaniel on the way to our walk. Unfortunately tinks had paid too much attention at her gundog training and bought us a wood pigeon half way round. I'm not sure if it was already injured or if she did it but Carolyn had to despatch poor pige as he was clearly in distress and not going to survive. Carolyn is a lot stronger than me and was able to do the deed... If I were by myself I'm ashamed to say I would have had to leave it then spent the next year torturing myself wondering how long it suffered for.

After our walk Carolyn presented me with her daughters old Barbour jacket. I particularly love the whole in the pocket where one of their pet terriers chewed a hole to get the treats from the pocket. Carolyn's daughter passed away to breast cancer age 38. I will treasure the coat for ever. It's very special.

Shortly after I arrived home husband arrived home with a migraine. It soon became apparent hd was too ill to go out for dinner which would be absolutely fine other than this was the fourth time in a year one of us had cancelled due to illness. First alber was ill in September last year, then I was ill in December for three months with my back followed by bean with a sickness bug in June. Be it was husbands turn.

We all felt very bad husband was ill but as we had all dreamt of the lovely food at The Newbury all day we decided to still meet for dinner anyway and text husband photos of our food fest. Which quite possibly explains why all the piccies in today's blip are of food and not us tipsy crew.

Double baked goats cheese soufflé with beetroot. Alber and bean had crab. Mains mine slow roast belly pork (awesome), monkfish and fish n chips. A few bottles of wine to boot.

Great company, amazing food. Gutted husband missed out.