From sea swimming to school shoe shopping

Good morning, and welcome back to the village diary after a summer holiday break.

My week began with sunshine in North Wales. I’m lucky my parents live in this beautiful part of the country, and I took my laptop and children there for the last couple of weeks of the holiday so that I could keep up with a little bit of work on the next issue of Langton Life magazine, while also enjoying some much-needed beach life. It has been a long old pandemic, and it may not be over yet, but after eighteen months away it has been glorious to enjoy some of the good things in life; walking in forests, climbing castle battlements, paddling in streams, gazing at mountains (I’m yet to climb one!) and swimming and kayaking in the sea. Thank you, Wales.

Gwynedd

On Tuesday it was time to come home. Being car free, I normally make this journey by train but this time my parents gave me a lift in their hybrid car as they are going to be staying down here for a week. It felt a bit like travelling into autumn as well as another country, as the skies greyed and the temperature dropped on our journey south-east. Luckily, the very prescient Village Yarnbomber had been at work, and when I popped to the One Stop for some milk I was cheered by the sight of a colourful under the sea themed topper for the High Street post box.

Under the sea by The Village Yarnbombers

On Wednesday morning, my parents were off for a mini-break and rest-cure in Rye, while we took care of some back-to-school essentials. Being seasoned school-lifers at this point, not much was needed, but my daughter did need new school shoes. She chose some patent black brogues with laces she can’t tie, because, in her words, ‘they look intelligent’. I just thanked my stars there were any shoes left in the shop in her size the day before school started - have you seen that episode of Motherland?

By Thursday I was facing the fact that the annoying midge bites on my legs were probably infected and getting worse, so it was a phone call to Rusthall Medical Centre to ask for a doctor’s appointment. It was hard to get through, and there is a recorded message before you do get through forbidding abuse of the reception staff, so these are clearly challenging times for the surgery. Once the phone did ring I was impressed. By 10.30 I had been phoned back by a doctor, listened to, and given a prescription for antibiotics as well as more general advice and instructions to phone back if the symptoms got the worse (at the time of writing I think I’m getting better). As ever, thank you to the NHS. We are lucky to have the surgery in the village.

The first thing we did when my daughter came home from her first day back at school was melt three big bars of chocolate to top the biscuit cake she had made. It was a great ice breaker and unwinder, and she told me some things about her day as the chocolate was gently stirred. After that we went to the local park, where we caught up with friends and discussed plans for future outings and occasions…a lovely thing to do after not being able to do things for so long.

At the weekend we are looking forward to spending more time with my parents, a return to choir practice, and finally going on the twice-postponed 7th birthday trip to Harry Potter Studios.

As ever, thank you for reading. If you would like to subscribe to receive this diary every Friday by email you can do so here, or you can contact me here.

I hope you all have a great weekend.

Jayne

Abermaw/Y Bermow (Barmouth)