Gosport once more

After a very difficult two and a half weeks at work, I decided that the school I am at does not suit my temperament.  For some reason I quite dislike being openly defied, sworn at and pushed up against doorways by delinquent teenagers.  So on Friday morning I handed in my notice. I will stay until either they replace me or I find better work as I did not like to leave my colleagues (who have been wonderful) in the lurch.  However I have begun the search for day relief work instead.  

Nursing a bruised ego, I very much looked forward to our planned weekend with Barbara in Gosport.  We had an easy drive down, after waiting until about 6pm to leave.  Our hope was that we would avoid the worst traffic by travelling a bit later and luckily it worked out.  Barbara had cooked a wonderful meal for our supper and it was just lovely to be looked after.  

We slept very late (for us) on Saturday, not even waking up until after 8.30.  Our flat in Woking has wooden Venetian blinds rather than curtains, and quite a lot of light bleeds in.  We didn’t think it was making that much difference, but clearly keeping the light out helps a great deal in sleeping late!

After a quiet morning, including a walk to the corner shops for the paper, we headed out to The Jolly Sailor for lunch.  This lovely pub is in Old Burseldon and sits right on the harbour so we could watch the sailing boats coming and going.  While it was a beautiful day, especially if you had a boat, the cold wind meant sitting indoors but we still had a lovely view.

 

On the way home we stopped in to see Jane, Phil and Yasmin.  They were all in the middle of getting Yasmin ready for her departure to university the following day, but still found the time to share a cup of tea with us.  Yasmin was very excited about starting her uni studies, and about student accommodation.  Sunday was clearly going to be a very busy day for them!

We spent a quiet evening on Saturday, which was just what we needed.  We had the crossword so we were happy.

The plan for Sunday had been to take Barbara out for brunch, but the day dawned so wet and miserable that Barbara begged off the trip to town.  We really wanted to go shopping though, so we still went and Barbara stayed home to get a lovely roast lunch ready for us instead. 

We were going across the harbour on the ferry to Portsmouth, and managed to find a park fairly close to the terminal.  We still had to do a lot of rain dodging though, even though most of our shopping was done in a mall area, so Barbara was no doubt wise to stay at home.  Grant did find a very lovely shirt to add to his collection, so it was not a wasted trip.

By the time we got back for a late lunch, we had heard that Mark’s girls’ were down with some sort of tummy bug, so our planned early departure in order to host them for dinner was no longer needed.  Given the rain, this was probably a blessing in disguise as it meant we didn’t have to try to race home.  Instead we had a fairly gentle drive home, without too many hassles caused by the sudden terrible weather.  Thank you Barbara for another restful, relaxing weekend.