As soon as I wrote the title of this post, life-related quotes (and misquotes) flew into my head. “Life is but a dream” … “It’s life Jim, but not as we know it” and the phrase which I most associate with those years around the time my Hero and I met, “Life. Don’t talk to me about life” Oh yes, I never really caught on to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but the chatter around that time was frequently about Life, the Universe and Everything and the answer was usually 42.

None of which I set out to write about!

We came home to…well, it didn’t feel very homely. But of course, we were expecting it to be so and in fact, if it had looked the same as it did when we left, we’d have been asking one or two serious questions.

But I don’t think we were quite prepared for life in the fresh air. (Thank goodness it’s Summer)

We had certainly forgotten what life on a building site is like. The dust!!

And though we’d cheerfully said how we could manage without stairs, that was when everything in the house was in its usual place. When the stuff from downstairs is in the spare room, the ironing in Edward’s old room and there is no front door, a certain degree of mental agility is needed to work out how to fetch/put away/find the thing we need right now. And when reaching that thing requires a walk outdoors around the house to use the garden steps and access the house through the building site, it’s surprising how often we manage without!

The temporary stairs which lead from our middle level hall up to the top floor bedrooms is fine. A bit rickety and needs care and a hand on the rail, but fine.

We escaped to London on Saturday afternoon, meeting Edward and Amy for dinner later.

We took refuge from the noise, heat and crowds in a favourite bolt-hole just off Piccadilly and were delighted to see a section of ice-cream floats on the menu. My Hero loves a root beer float when we are in the US and when he ordered one a couple of weeks ago, I was sorry there wasn’t an alternative that appealed to me. But here were four varieties that very much did!

Not your ordinary ice-cream float, but laced with Bourbon, with gin or with champagne! I chose the “Kentucky Morning”, which was made with brown butter syrup, a shot of bourbon, soda and cornflake ice cream. Almost breakfast in a glass, wouldn’t you say? It was delicious.

So was dinner and of course, the company was perfect. *more about that in the next post.

It’s good to be easing back into “normal life”, however abnormal that might be right now. As I was putting things back after our holiday, however, I did ask myself “is it worth putting that away” ? I offer a multiple choice answer:

A I really don’t mind a long trek outdoors up the garden steps and through the building site

B I could leave it just here and take it up/down next time I go

C I could leave it in the suitcase and then it will save me getting it out again

I am sure I have no need to share the stats of the replies!

Fortunately, I know of one totally dust-free spot to escape to.