A welcome visit, and a disappointing repair

We celebrate a delightful lunch

 A delightful weekend with Ben and Kaz, with a great evening drinking and putting the world to rights. They not only stayed with us, but cooked for us - even buying the food on the way over. We had a delicious full Sunday lunch with all the trimmings, including home-grown carrots and parsnips in honey and orange. Absolutely delicious, and wonderful to see Ann able to rest for once while someone else does all the work. The dogs, normally given only dry food, were salivating with excitement as they sniffed something they hadn't realised existed in their little world - the smell of roasting beef!

Edwin and Andre finally returned from Brazil after a wonderful holiday, only to come back to cold, dark rain, a baggage handlers strike at Heathrow, the Heathrow Express stopped, and full cancellation of the Kings Cross to Cambridge service. When finally through customs at Heathrow, they had to take an Uber to Liverpool Street and pick up the slow stopping service to finally reach Cambridge and rescue their car. To crown it all, Andre was ill and vomiting and now has confirmed Covid, so we won't be seeing him for a while.

I now know how useful en-suite bathrooms are. Our bathroom basin has been leaking since the plumber repaired it. Yesterday, I plucked up courage to tackle the job and succeeded in removing the basin, to find it had small cracks in the base. We therefore decided it was time for a new one, so I was in Sudbury this morning traipsing round every plumbers' suppliers looking for a new bowl. Most didn't have anything at all, but even those that did have some on display said it would be five to seven days for delivery. My final visit was to Plumbers City, which again was negative, but next door to Wine City. I was more successful there, coming out with a box of assorted white wines to cheer us up. Finally, we have found a bowl on Amazon which promises next day delivery, so hopefully only one more night of having to traipse down the hall in the middle of the night.