Wrong day, Ilse of White and France for the day

25 August

Oh dear, another senior moment on my part I’m afraid to say. We have Kile with us at the moment because we were expecting to go out to our surprise venue tomorrow. And that folks is where the senior moment comes in. I knew it was on the 27^th, but I put it down in our diary for tomorrow, not Wednesday. We’ve explained the mistake to Kile and he’s happy about it, thankfully. Mind, he does keep dropping hints to be told where he’s going but we’re not falling for them. Jan has suggested we blindfold for the last mile or two so he won’t know until we park up outside. We’ll see … … …

Today is a damp and miserable day here in Dorktown, pretty much as the whole of the country I think. I remember one August Bank Holiday Monday when our son Tom was about 8 years old. We had just dropped him off with his gran for a few days and we drove off. I suddenly felt like a run our somewhere but Jan said we should go and get Tom to take with us. That my reader friends was 11 o’clock in the morning. We ended up on the Isle of Wight would you believe!

It turned out to a bit of a wasted trip really seeing as when we arrived in East Cowes there was nothing there. So we got a ferry over the little estuary thing there over to West Cowes. And guess what? The only places that were open were a couple of pubs and few cafes. Bank Holiday Monday and the place was closed! We caught the hydro-foil thing back to Southampton instead of the ferry. A wasted trip or not, we still enjoyed it.

Another trip we did was left to me to organise again. We knew were going off for a day but couldn’t decide where to go. So I suggested Jan trusted me; she agreed and we ended in France for the day … with the car! We arrived at Dover to collect the tickets and I was asked if we were taking our car, we weren’t planning on it. So the guy on the desk said that we could take it for just an extra £10. We took the car. When we got back home without incident were happy but shattered after our trip.

The car was a VW Golf and it was leased by Motability. They send us a magazine a few times a year; so when the next issue arrived after our day trip I read a question sent in by a reader. That worthy wanted to know if he could take his car to France. Well, yes he can – but he need … and there followed a list of bits of paper and kit to do so, stuff we don’t need here in the UK. Opps; we didn’t have any of it. Good job I didn’t hit anything as I drove about then ;-)))

The saddest part of remembering that trip is that we don’t have any of the photos we took while we there. So I will have to look for another one for today. So, how about this one … 

The Mad Hatter at Llandudno in North Wales.

And today’s funny …        

“So, Jimmy”, said Grandpa, as they stood on line at the local grocery store. “What did you learn in school today?” “To tell you the truth”, answered young Jimmy, “I’m not exactly sure”. “My teacher was going on and on about something called ethics, and I still don’t know what she was talking about!” Jimmy replied. “Ah, ethics” responded Grandpa, “very important indeed”. “Well, let’s say the cashier gives me back too much change, ethics would be whether I keep the change for myself, or if I give it back to Grandma!”