Comings and Goings at 'ours' . . .

Sometimes it does feel as if a stranger walking into our house might think they'd walked into Croydon Bus Station (for want of a better example!) by mistake.

The Pater Familias travels a lot on business, and friends, seeing me on my own, are in the habit of asking me, 'so where is he this time, then?'

This evening the PF is, as I type, on his way back from Heathrow, Our Eldest is busy packing for a pilgrimage leaving tomorrow and Our Youngest is due back at the end of the week. Sr Anastasia was with us last week and will be back to see us some time in the next 3 months, we hope.

Update: Since I began this little post, I have discovered that the PF has squeezed in another little trip in between his usual monthly disappearances - he coyly informed me as he put down his flight bag that he's off again on Monday until the end of the month.

Is it worth even laying the table for him, I wonder?

I'm not complaining, you understand. Our married life has been 'ever thus' and I don't know that I'd know quite how to deal with a stationary family!

¿Habla usted español? . . .

Regular readers of this little blog, and of course family and friends, will know that the Pater Familias travels a little bit - at this stage, the aforementioned family and friends will be spluttering into their cocoa at my use of the phrase, 'travels a little'.

The latest trip was to the beautiful city of Barcelona (hence the title of the post - d'oh!).

Over the years, we have come to an understanding that I really don't need a gift from each port of call - there are only so many hand-crafted 'greetings from . . . (insert the destination of your choice)' trinket boxes/teatowels/plastic gl0w-in-the-dark statues of Our Lady/garishly-painted whatnots that one can find house room for.

We have hit on a good solution which suits us both. The PF nowadays picks up one or two of the complimentary glossy magazines offered by the airlines and purchases a little edible something that is typical of the place he has visited. Thereby he feels he's doing his bit by thinking of me and bringing a gift back with him and I have gifts that I enjoy and can share and don't need to find a permanent home for. Everyone's a winner!

I have to say my Spanish is very limited but women's magazines are pretty universal and as so much of them is pictures anyway, it doesn't really matter and it's always amusing to see how certain words and products are translated into different languages.

The edible delight this trip was a filling-extracting box of delicious Turrón (Spanish), torró (Catalan), or torrone (Italian).

Sorry, no photo of that - there's not enough left to photograph!

The next trip will probably bring a booty of censored OK magazines and dates - I'll leave you to guess which part of the world that might be.

The Storm before the Calm . . .

Yes, I did get the words of the title of this post the correct way round!

The 'boys' are busy packing for their trip which begins tomorrow. I have been 'advising' the paterfamilias what to take and I use the word 'advisedly'.

Number one son is no problem. He just reads the guidelines offered by the pilgrimage organisers and makes his decisions accordingly - so simply really!

I'm sure they'll be fine as they'll manage with whatever's available and I'd rather not be held responsible for all the wrong advice anyway!

The paterfamilias has spent a large part of his working life travelling to foreign parts on business and can pack his own case for business trips in a matter of minutes, with only a few minutes' notice too (and probably could do it in the dark, if necessary!) Probably quite a useful skill knowing some of the places he travels to.

The Holy Father arrives in Amman . . .

I know lots of bloggers will be posting about Pope Benedict's visit to the Middle East but I thought I'd add my three ha'p'orth as, by coincidence, the paterfamilias and number one son are also off to the Holy Land on Monday on a pilgrimage with others from Surrey and Sussex. I do hope they leave the red carpet out for them when they arrive! Hopefully too, all the Holy Places will be in tip top condition having received extra special treatment in preparation for the Holy Father's visit.

This picture shows Pope Benedict being met at the airport in Amman by Jordan's King Abdullah and Queen Rania.

The BBC's David Willey says, 'the Jordanian royal couple broke protocol to greet the Pope in person. Normally the monarchs do not go to the airport to welcome visitors. '

A Jordanian army band with bagpipes and drums played the Vatican and Jordanian national anthems before the Pope and King Abdullah inspected the honour guard. More details may be found on the BBC news page here.

Update . . .

I realise I haven't written anything for a few days so thought I'd let you know how our weekend went. Grand Designs Live was good fun; plenty to see and also plenty of time to sit and chat too.

I hadn't been to the ExCel exhibition centre before and we were lucky that despite the earlier weather forecast, we had good weather for the drive up and back on the coach. It was interesting to see the 'regeneration' of London's Docklands first hand. Traffic wasn't too bad either although we were slowed a bit at one point by workers putting out barricades in anticipation of the London Marathon the following day.

We saw the great Kevin holding forth in front of an audience but decided not to stop but to try and see as much as possible. I had to nudge my friend a few times as she was getting stopped by salespeople keen to 'make a killing'. I had to repeat the Mantra, 'don't make eye contact, just walk purposefully by' several times!

And I managed to leave without buying anything except a few delicious home-made sweets, how about that for self-restraint?

Sunday's family visit also went well. We made such good time on the M1 (yes, no traffic problems on the M1, can you believe it?) that we had to stop and have a coffee (oh, I really suffered!) as we would have arrived too early otherwise.

It's a long time since I've been on the M1 as we don't usually have reason to go directly Northwards and my memories of the past times I've travelled this way are constant roadworks and continuous convoys of HGVs. Not this time. We couldn't believe how few goods vehicles we actually saw. The paterfamilias put it down to the recession - how sad if this is the case.

Even more snow ..

I know I've already posted pictures of the snow last night but how can you not take more photos when it's so beautiful outside?

The view from my window told me straight away that I wouldn't be going to work today.

Having spent an anxious evening worrying about whether or not my husband would make it home last night, I was relieved to hear that he was within half an hour of home at about midnight, having left Manchester soon after 7 pm.

Half an hour in ordinary driving conditions, that is ... however, a later phone call at about 1am told me that he couldn't get any further and he had made it as far as the office and was going to try and get a few hours' sleep there (home from home anyway!) I was happy to hear he was in the warm and dry at least.

It really is just like a scene from a Christmas card here.

And finally, this shot taken at about 8am shows just how much snow has actually fallen. It looks a bit surreal, almost as if a snowman is slumped in the chair.

I'll try not to mention the snow again for a while!

A quiet weekend ...

It's been a quiet weekend this weekend as both Adrian and Mark have been away on a company trip to Lisbon. I've been alone. Note I said alone, not lonely! I've been used to spending various periods of time without my husband, thankfully usually only for a few days at a time, for most of our married life and you do get used to it after a while.

It's not so often that Mark goes away though, and to have them both away at the same time is a very rare occurrence. I must admit I quite liked being on my own, just for a couple of nights though it was lovely to have them both safely home again. (Even though they arrived home at about 1.30 in the morning!)

There's something very liberating about having nobody else to fit in with for a little while; eating what you like and when you like, going to bed and getting up as early or as late as you feel like.

Back to normal today and that's very comforting. I'm not sure how much I'd enjoy being on my own for much longer than a weekend. Knowing that it's only a temporary separation makes a big difference.