Another late night, another somnolent night's sleep. When Tucker and I emerged for our walk this morning, it was grey overcast, not hot, but uncomfortably sticky. We encountered another person walking around the neighborhood taking some exercise as well as ourselves, but otherwise it was quite quiet this morning. Even Tucker's bete noires the cats were undercover.

We ventured out before noon to end up back at Costco, but this time just for gasoline, and then next visited the new Hobby Lobby. We weren't there for anything special, but I bought a couple of the plastic totes to use in James' truck for shopping, and we found a cute resin sleeping dragon for half price. There are even more fall items out, and the Christmas crafting items, like blank ornaments and decorated papers, are starting to appear. I found something I had wanted to buy for a friend when she retired, but couldn't afford, on a really nice discount, so I picked that up as well. All their wall decorations were on sale, and we wandered through them noting how many themes you could use in a room: superheroes, baseball, football, Western, military...they had hooks, switchplates, plaques, etc. James ended up buying one can of a new kind of spray paint for his models; it's apparently safe to use on plastics, dries quickly, and is made from sugar cane!

Then it was time for lunch, and this time we were going out for a decent meal (yes, we're looking at you, Burger King): West Cobb Diner. We both had the turkey and dressing, and I had mine with cucumber/tomato salad and James had corn and beans. Came home with leftovers to boot.

Our final stop was at Publix to pick up the stuff we'd forgotten yesterday: eggs, chow mein noodles, and Miracle Whip. The clouds had been thickening and darkening all morning, then the sky had cleared a little and there had been sun, but now they were back, boiling up on every horizon, clear thunderheads off in one direction, looking as if they were rising out of the roof of Target. By the time we got out of Publix, clouds were spitting water steadily, so we covered up the power chair and beat feet for home. Got the chair in the garage just as it started to rain in earnest; James got a trifle damp getting the ramp up.

Spent the latter part of the afternoon watching a British comedy on Acorn TV that Patti Taylor had mentioned, All in Good Faith. I hadn't heard of it before. Richard Briers plays country pastor Philip Lambe, who feels he is no longer challenged spiritually and wants to start fresh in an inner-city church. Barbara Ferris is his wife Emma, who loves the snug country parsonage and the small town they're in. They have two kids, Miranda, a teen, and Peter, who has a pet tortoise and loves computer games. The congregation includes the insufferable Major, who, frankly, would have driven me away from that parish long before. Not as funny as The Good Life, but humorous and charming. We watched the entire first series (six episodes) before and while we ate supper.

Then I hit pay dirt: a lovely three-part series called Vintage Roads Great and Small, which starred Peter Davison and Christopher Timothy, old friends since they did All Creatures Great and Small forty years ago. In three 45-minute shows, they tour Great Britain (Scottish highlands, London to Land End's, Cardiff to Snowdonia in Wales) via what we in the U.S. would call "blue highways," the old two-lane roads, in a vintage Morris 4-4 roadster from the 1930s. It was a delightful combination of two old friends chaffing each other, stunning scenery, encounters with vintage motor vehicles, and even an awww-moment reunion between Timothy and his old friend Ted in Timothy's home town of Bala, Wales. Watched this for the evening, totally enchanted.

Today also marked the end of the saga of the DVD cases. Last Saturday I ordered DVD cases for the Lassie DVDs I bought. Amazon guaranteed they'd be delivered on Sunday. Personally, I didn't care. Well, they didn't turn up on Sunday, although according to Amazon tracking they had arrived in Smyrna at 9:20 a.m. that morning. But I expected them Monday. No Monday. No Tuesday either, so that evening I sat down and had a short chat with an Amazon rep, who said he would expedite them to be delivered on Thursday, and he gave me a $5 credit, which I promptly used to order the huge Kindle-only book about Perry Mason (covers all the novels, the movies, the comic books—did you know there were Perry Mason comic books? I didn't!—and of course the television series).

Anyway, no DVDs Thursday, and today when I went in to look at it, Amazon had canceled the order and was refunding my money. I have reordered them. We'll see if they come tomorrow.

Or I just may have started the cycle over again...

Labels: British, crafts, DVDs, food, holidays, shopping, television, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:16:00 PM

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Yes, yes, I did get up early for the last royal wedding, DVR'ing the first two hours, but live at six. It wasn't that I was so into "Wills" and Kate, but more that I love seeing all those lovely historic buildings, vehicles, and the wonderful horses! (Not to mention those mysterious "fascinators" that the ladies wore; some of them were very pretty or cute hats, and some were just plain strange, like the spider hat Princess Beatrice wore.

Alas, the body seven years ago and the body today are two different things. I let the DVR do the job (recorded BBC America and, God help us, Today) and slept until eight, and then we dressed and ate and went to the Marietta Square Farmer's Market. We haven't been in a dog's age, not since it was cold, and maybe cold and 2017. The days have gotten all blurred.

We took Tucker with us and had a nice time, despite the fact the sun came out and because of the past few days of rain it was very humid. We had veg, so we just bought two big scones for dessert, a little chocolate cake, some pound cake to eat the rest of the strawberries over, and dog biscuits for Tucker. He was overwhelmed by all the dogs he could sniff noses with, including a snobby Corgi, a dog three times his size and still a puppy, and a little half-pit-bull who was being socialized by his girl, not to mention the rescue greyhounds ("Mommy, they're so skinny! We need to get them some dog food!"). Two little girls petted him, and he stopped to be petted by innumerable adults. At one point he was nose-to-nose with a huge harlequin Great Dane! When we were done shopping we crossed the square to the Local Exchange so I could pick up The Best Pretzels in the World, and then we waited a few minutes so I could go into the candy store and stock up on mint julep chews again (I finished the last bag, which I bought in December, just a few days ago; I'm trying to be good with them).

Oh, I saw calendulas for the first time today at a flower booth. I had to ask what they were. The blossoms looked like narrow, pale blue teacups with fluted edges. I also saw real snapdragons, yellow and orange. They looked like larger versions of butter-and-eggs (toadflax) and were quite lovely.

We brought Tucker and the goodies home, then gathered up our coupons and went up to Town Center, stopping by Bed, Bath & Beyond to get a new fan for James (his just died out of nowhere), and then went to JoAnn with coupons. I didn't have anything I needed except for Scotch mounting tape, so I bought some things for [censored] for [censored]. (Sorry, the person won't get them for a couple of months.)

We had lunch at the Twisted Noodle, then climbed the hill to Costco to feed the truck, then headed home.

Now I am on the DVR watching the BBC coverage...I wish they would stop talking about ladies' hats and identify more of the crowd. Of course they pointed out Idris Elba, Oprah Winfrey, and George Clooney, but who was that neat guy with the Georgian beard?

[There wasn't even enough going on Sunday the 20th to write an entry. We watched the end of Little Women. Unsatisfactory whole, but good parts. I liked Maya Hawke as Jo.]

Labels: British, dogs, food, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 5:01:00 PM

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