It’s the May Bank Holiday, the last hurrah before G.C.S.Es and A-Levels kick off. A mixed-bag weather-wise (I can’t write a Bank Holiday post without mentioning the weather it’s the law), but enough sunshine to have done all the laundry and all the ironing – the latter taking four episodes of Parks and Recreation – to set us up for the week ahead.

It’s been a bit of a mixed-bag family-wise too. We all came home from Julia’s funeral on Friday very tired. The service was beautiful and the day brought friends and family together. But as with all these moments in time, you wish the one person missing was there. If she had been, she would have loved it.

Saturday was a whirlwind of getting back to grips with life, picking Dolly up from Newbury Lodge, taking a bunch of defunct clutter to the tip, the weekly shop….the usual basically. By lunchtime I was defeated, repairing to my chair for a sleep and waking up an hour and a half later!

By Sunday we were in decent enough shape for Eddie and I to take a drive up to Vicar’s Game in the Mazda, top down in the sunshine, to stock up on their fabulous selection of everything; from olives to lardy cake, sausages to fresh eggs and a lot more in between. It’s well worth the drive. And even better, The Bell at Aldworth is just round the corner, so after our shop we repaired to the pub for pints of 3B and warm, brown rolls filled with stilton, pate, cheddar and ham (respectively). The queue was out of the door, and with good reason. It’s a simple, friendly place which has been run by the same family for 250 years. When you look at the photos on the walls, it feels like you’ve taken a step out of the hurly burly of modern life and into a place that time can’t touch.

Safe to say The Grind has been seriously compromised, and a fry-up to kick-off today hasn’t helped matters. I’m hoping a trip to the gym, long dog walk and cleaning the house will help burn off some of those calories, but with burgers planned for later before Will heads back to school and we batten down the hatches ready to go back to work and prep for exams, I doubt anything I do will make so much as a dent.