On a day when a heatwave was forecast to scorch its way across Europe, I carried out my annual charitable duty by waiting on tables at Marston Trussell Hall in support of a charity that helps fund a local Montessori school. The event is organised by rugby pal Jim Crawford’s wife, Kate, together with Peter Howard and his wife, owners of the Hall. This year, 94 guests attended, all dressed in their finest and more than willing to part with their money in exchange for an excellent meal, musical entertainment and, of course, the obligatory raffle.

Although the day was a little too warm for comfort when dressed in a dinner jacket, it was all in a good cause. Sean and his friend Steve collected me from Willow Bank at 10.30 a.m., following my morning cycle ride and a trip to the recycling centre to dispose of the hedge cuttings from earlier in the week.

Our first task was to greet the ladies on arrival with a glass of champagne, before serving each of the three courses and clearing away the plates and cutlery afterwards. Naturally, there were speeches from Kate Crawford and the headteacher of St Joseph’s Primary School, in whose grounds the Montessori school is situated. Meanwhile, a four-piece jazz band provided a pleasant soundtrack as the guests enjoyed their lunch.

By 4 p.m., the soirée had largely drawn to a close, although many guests chose to linger awhile, strolling around the extensive grounds and admiring the magnificent flower borders. Once our duties were finished, the six volunteer waiters finally sat down to enjoy the very same meal we had spent the afternoon serving. For a refreshing change, we were waited upon by the catering staff who had prepared the food. It was rather nice being on the receiving end for once.

Returning to Willow Bank, tired after clocking up just under 20,000 steps, a figure supplied by one of my fellow waiters after consulting his Fitbit, I promptly fell asleep for an hour. Revived by my impromptu siesta, I then opened up the Garden Room for Thursday night’s pool game with my rugby chums.

A sizeable quantity of surplus cheese and biscuits from the afternoon was consumed, accompanied by several bottles of leftover wine that were apparently in urgent need of attention. It was a very pleasant end to a busy and worthwhile day.

Father’s Day this year fell on Sunday, 6th June. For the first time, instead of simply receiving cards and presents from Charlotte, Jamie and Sarah, I was also treated to their company at a lovely lunch at The Shoulder of Mutton in Great Bowden, thoughtfully organised by Sarah.

With temperatures forecast to climb into the 30s, I was up early watering both the allotment and the garden before Sarah and Charlotte arrived at Willow Bank. Sue made her usual Sunday visit to the car boot sale in Saddington, returning earlier than usual because of the rising heat.

Charlotte drove Sarah and me to the pub, where we met Jamie, who had travelled down from Waltham on the Wolds in his Lamborghini. The car was later to take up residence in our garage for the next month while Jamie, Ruth and Joey toured Australia.

Arriving precisely at noon, we were the first customers in for lunch, but being a special occasion, the restaurant and bar soon filled up. After enjoying some excellent and very filling fare, I opted to accompany Jamie in the Lamborghini for the journey home.

Sue had already departed to watch The Sheep Detectives at Harborough Theatre. Charlotte soon left to join Lucas, Ellis and Suraj for a game of pool in Kettering, while Sarah headed off to meet Lee, Alice and Archie for a showing of the new Toy Story film in Leicester.

Jamie then visited his friend Michael Hobbs, who was borrowing the Lamborghini to chauffeur a friend’s daughter to her school prom. About an hour later, he returned, accompanied by Ruth in the BYD, having transported a rabbit hutch from home in readiness for us looking after their two rabbits.

It took quite some time to assemble the structure, but eventually the task was completed. Jamie and Ruth then headed home to host a barbecue for Ruth’s parents later that evening.

In some delightful family news, Sue’s nephew, Simon, proposed to his long-time girlfriend, Mel, while they were enjoying a break in Paris. It was a wonderfully romantic setting for such a special occasion, and, happily for Simon, she said yes!

The engagement was a lovely piece of family news and provided an extra reason for celebration. One suspects that Paris, often called the City of Love, lived up to its reputation on this occasion. We now look forward to hearing all the details of the proposal and, of course, to the wedding plans that will undoubtedly follow.

Here’s an improved version in UK English, with smoother flow, corrected grammar and punctuation, while retaining the conversational style:

Monday 22nd June saw me driving to Blackthorn Woods Golf Course to meet up with Suraj, Lucas and Ellis for a round of golf. It had originally been arranged for a month earlier, but had to be postponed when Suraj’s sister became ill.

With a heatwave in full swing, thankfully our tee-off time was a relatively cool 9.00 am. We met in the car park and, after paying for our round, trolleyed our clubs to the first tee. No sooner had we teed off than we were approached by the groundsman. Perched astride his mower, he informed us that club rules required each of the four players to have their own set of clubs and that sharing was not permitted. As Lucas and Ellis were sharing a set, we only had three bags between us.

He politely insisted that we return to the ticket office, where we would be refunded. Suraj bit the bullet and offered to drop out, allowing the boys and me to continue with the round. And that is exactly what we did, with Suraj taking the opportunity to catch up on work from the comfort of the clubhouse using his phone.

Having not swung a golf club for the past fifteen years, and with the boys being complete novices, our performances over the nine holes ranged from mysteriously brilliant to predictably awful. Practice really does make perfect. Masochistically, I kept score and finished with a miserable 45 strokes on a par-30 course.

After completing the round, we retired to The Roebuck in Market Harborough for refreshments and a pleasant lunch.

Later that afternoon, Jamie arrived at Willow Bank with Nala, rabbits, Barney and Minnie. They were to stay with us for the next month while he and the family toured Australia.

Every few years, our next-door neighbour Mike and I pull on our waders, paddle downstream along the section of the River Welland that runs through our properties, and clear away any vegetation that might hinder the river’s flow. Rashly, on the last occasion, we left a small willow sprig growing on the bank just beyond where the river passes under the Welland Park road bridge. Today, that innocent-looking sprig has morphed into several small trees, which have a habit of trapping any debris floating downstream during periods of flood.

On 26th June, with a heatwave in full swing, we met at 10.00 am and spent two sweaty hours cutting down the offending trees with a bow saw and chainsaw. The plan had been to work a little further downstream, but the exhausting 40°C heat got the better of us, and the remainder of the task was postponed until a later date.

On the same morning, Sue was due to attend a U3A-organised trip to Belton House, but it was cancelled at short notice because of the extreme heat. Instead, she met up with Bridget at the café in Welland Park, where Bridget was keen to recount the highlights of the River Rhine cruise from which she had recently returned.

That evening, Jamie, Ruth and Joey flew from Heathrow with British Airways, travelling via Singapore on their way to Australia.

As each day passes during this record-breaking heatwave, with temperatures climbing into the high 30s in the UK and soaring into the 40s across much of Europe, stepping outside has become a gruelling experience, while getting a decent night’s sleep is all but impossible.

Sue and I have been entrusted with the care of two dogs and two rabbits, so we regularly check on their well-being. Both pairs of animals have been treated to frequent cooling showers, the dogs in the downstairs bathroom and the rabbits courtesy of the garden hose fitted with its sprinkler attachment. Nala and Mia thoroughly enjoy their refreshing soak, happily standing there as though they’ve booked themselves into a canine spa. Barnie and Millie, on the other hand, regard the whole affair as an outrageous breach of rabbit rights, tearing around their enclosure in a frantic effort to avoid the spray.

During our regular Thursday evening pool session with my rugby chums in the Garden Room, the air conditioning was working flat out, keeping the temperature at a very civilised 16 degrees. Only a month ago, we’d probably have been reaching for jumpers, but on this occasion it felt positively tropical compared with the sweltering conditions waiting just the other side of the patio doors.

What had become a weekly ramble with John Lee was put on hold while the weather witches continued to stir their cauldron over the UK, and we hadn’t been in touch to arrange our next outing.

I was therefore surprised when John rang me with some disturbing news. Just a few days after our previous foray into the wilds of Rutland, he began suffering bouts of dizziness and even fell over on a couple of occasions. When he also noticed that he was dragging one leg, fearing he might have had a stroke, he promptly contacted his GP surgery, where he was advised to monitor his blood pressure.

As the symptoms persisted, he contacted the surgery again a couple of days later. This time, a different doctor immediately referred him for a brain scan at Peterborough Hospital. Following the scan, he was blue-lighted by ambulance to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, where surgeons operated to relieve the pressure caused by a bleed on the brain.

Thankfully, the operation was a success, and John was back home a few days later, albeit under strict instructions to take things easy until the stitches in his head are removed ten days later. As he has also been told not to drive until he is given the all-clear, he has suggested that, when he is feeling up to it, we meet in Stamford instead, as he can get there by bus.

It has been a very worrying time for both John and Cathy, but thankfully, the problem was diagnosed quickly and treated without delay. With a fair wind behind him and fingers firmly crossed, here’s hoping he makes a full and speedy recovery.

 

 

 

 

 

On 29th June, Charlotte arrived at Willow Bank with Lucas. Together we were heading to North Wales to drop him off at an archaeological site in Brymbo, where he will spend the next two weeks quite literally digging up the past.

Discovered in 2003 during work on the old steelworks, the site contains more than 20 towering fossilised trees, their root systems still intact. Plans are underway to excavate, protect and display this extraordinary site and, with the help of National Lottery funding, the project has brought together volunteers and students to uncover fossils dating back to the Palaeozoic Era, around 200 million years before the dinosaurs. I suspect it is Sue’s long-standing enthusiasm for fossils and rocks that has sparked Lucas’s interest and motivated him to volunteer.

Leaving Sue to look after Mia and Nala, the two-and-a-half-hour journey to my old stomping ground of Brymbo passed without incident, apart from one near-calamitous moment. As I was indicating to leave a roundabout, another driver shot around the inside of me at speed, using the inside lane to continue around the roundabout while I was exiting. Thankfully, a quick stamp on the brakes and an instinctive swerve somehow avoided what could have been a nasty collision. It seems my reactions are still up to the job.

We arrived about half an hour ahead of the scheduled time, so while Lucas waited to be registered, Charlotte and I took the opportunity to look around part of the uncovered site. A wooden staircase climbs the hillside, giving visitors a splendid view of the exposed fossils and rock strata. After taking a few photographs and leaving Lucas chatting to another early-arriving student, we headed off to visit Aunt Josie, who lives barely half a mile away on the hillside above the site.

On arrival, we were greeted by her son David and a couple of plumbers who were in the middle of replacing the boiler and radiators. With the house temporarily out of bounds, we settled in the back garden and enjoyed a coffee in the sunshine. Josie had gone to the doctor’s surgery in Coedpoeth for her weekly appointment and should have been home before we arrived, but an IT failure at the surgery delayed everything, and it was another hour before she returned. Despite her various medical issues, she looked remarkably well, was walking comfortably and remained as sharp as ever. Over another coffee we caught up with Josie and her daughter Lynne before taking our leave.

Our next stop was Caergwrle Castle, where my mother’s ashes were scattered and where we later installed a memorial bench at the foot of the castle hill. Before making the climb, we bought a large sausage roll each from the village butcher’s shop. Once at the top, we perched on one of the ruined walls, admired the views and happily demolished our lunches.

After descending, we drove across the village to visit my cousin Cerys. Her mother passed away a few years ago and, although I attended the funeral, every time I had promised to call in on subsequent visits, something had conspired against us. She has a lovely house and garden with wonderful views, and we had plenty of family news to exchange. We spent over an hour chatting before leaving shortly after her husband arrived home from work, mainly because I had parked in his space on the driveway.

My favourite hotel in the area is Peckforton Castle, famous as one of the filming locations for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and numerous other television programmes and films. That was our next destination. I had taken Jamie there a few months earlier and was keen to introduce my two daughters to it, although on this occasion Sarah was away on holiday with her family in Skegness.

After checking in, we made ourselves a coffee in the room before wandering around the grounds and then exploring the interior of this remarkable Victorian country house, built in the style of a medieval castle. We enjoyed a lovely evening meal in the restaurant before taking one final stroll around the grounds to capture a few more photographs, then retired to the Cellar Bar where, over a couple of refreshments, Charlotte cajoled me into playing three games of checkers.

The following morning we were first into the breakfast room. After checking out, we drove the short distance to nearby Beeston Castle, built in the 1220s. Unfortunately, it did not open until 10.00 am and, keen to get home, we decided to give it a miss and set off on a trouble-free journey back to Willow Bank.

Not long after we arrived home, Lee called in to report on their holiday at Butlin’s and collect Mia, leaving us with just Nala and the rabbits to keep us occupied, a considerably quieter household than it had been a few hours earlier.

Here’s a smoother version in UK English with a gentle humorous touch:

Much to Charlotte’s delight, while we were away, Ellis announced that he would be taking his school friend Lily to the end-of-year prom. Of all Ellis’s friends, Lily has been Charlotte’s favourite for the past few years. She thinks Lily is a lovely girl and, more importantly, just the right match for Ellis.

To add a touch of glamour to the occasion, a Ferrari has been arranged to whisk Ellis to the prom. Sadly, with only two seats in the car, there simply isn’t room for more than the driver and passenger. As for Lily… well, I’m sure she’ll somehow manage to find her own way there!

In Australia, Jamie and the family have headed north to Byron Bay. While enjoying one of the local beaches and investigating a nearby shipwreck, they were treated to an unexpected spectacle when a light aircraft landed on the sand. The pilot wandered over and asked whether they fancied going whale watching from the air. Naturally, they jumped at the chance. Judging by the video Jamie posted on Messenger, they were rewarded with several whale sightings. It must have been a truly memorable and rather unique experience.

On the final evening of June, England took on DR Congo in the knockout stages of the World Cup in Atlanta, USA. An early goal for DR Congo and a disjointed England performance made for decidedly uncomfortable viewing, but two goals from Harry Kane were enough to secure a somewhat undeserved victory. My prediction that the final would be contested by France and one of the African nations still looks to have a fair chance of coming true. England now travel to Mexico City to face Mexico in the next round. Playing at altitude against the hosts is hardly an enticing prospect, so I can’t say I’m feeling especially optimistic.