Well, Lois and I are still feeling exhausted after the travel across the country from Cheltenham to Newmarket, and the enjoyable, chat-filled day at my niece Maria's wedding to Tom yesterday.
flashback to yesterday: Lois and I check the disco dance-floor
is safe before handing it over to the other guests
Tom and Maria inaugurate the dance with their
"first dance"
some of the other guests join in, while Lois and I flee
the scene with our hands over our ears - oh dear!
Today we start the 160 mile journey home, but we only have to drive 60 miles today, mostly along the A14, because we're breaking the journey again at Harrington, Northamptonshire. The drive is easier going than it was on Friday, because it's Sunday today and so there aren't so many lorries on the A14 - which is the premier route for the Midlands freight transport to get to the big container ports at Felixstowe and Harwich.
Two or three years ago I wouldn't have blinked at having to drive 160 miles at one go, but since lockdown a drive of this length has become "a big deal" - not that I'm getting old or anything haha!
We arrive at our barn-conversion room in Harrington, and then we have a totally indulgent afternoon and evening, 2 hours in bed followed by 2 hours in the pub over the road, followed by the puzzles in the Radio Times, followed by a Proms concert on the TV in our room.
We're not strong enough to do anything else today, to be frank. Not that we're getting old or anything like that haha [You've done that one once already! - Ed]
after a couple of hours in bed, we struggle across the road
to the Tollemache Arms for a G&T (me) and a cosmopolitan cranberry
cocktail (Lois) followed by two fish meals: cod (me) and sea bass (Lois)
18:00 We stagger back across the road to our accommodation and do the Radio Times puzzles, a low score on Popmaster (only 2 out of 10 correct) followed by a more promising score on the more prestigious Egghead questions.
20:00 We go to bed and watch an inspiring BBC Proms performance by the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra. Brahms' 4th Symphony has been one of my favourites since youth. The concert ends with a performance of the Ukrainian national anthem.
Yes, celebrating all that's best in human civilisation, that's what they're doing tonight in the Royal Albert Hall. Putin doesn't seem to mind that his name has become a byword for inhumanity and barbarism.
21:00 We watch tonight's edition of Countryfile,
Tonight's programme features a lot of stories about the countryside around Hadrian's Wall, which is celebrating its 1900th anniversary this year - you don't tend to get many of those 1900th anniversaries do you, so it's good to take advantage when they come along haha!
Hadrian's Wall, completed by the Romans in 122 AD
Lois and I had a lovely holiday touring along the line of Hadrian's Wall in the 1990's, and we visited the remains of the extraordinary Roman fort of Vindolanda, where, thanks to the peat soil in the area, so many remarkable relics of the Roman occupation have been preserved - like, for instance, hundreds of pairs of leather shoes, mostly belonging to women and children, funnily enough.
What we didn't know was that not far from Vindolanda is another fort called Magna, which hasn't yet been excavated, and which was probably 2 or 3 times bigger than Vindolanda.
A drone shows us aerial pictures revealing the rough outline of part of the fort, with its characteristically Roman rectangular shape.
However, the most alarming thing we learn tonight also, is that the remains at Magna are threatened by climate change - the peat is drying out, which means that the remains waiting to be discovered under the soil could well disintegrate before they're uncovered.
Who knew that?
Yikes !!!!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!
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