A Lovely Day Out

Date: 16 March 2012 08:26:54

Yesterday, we had a lovely day out with our friends Mij and Bill, who live about 45 minutes away from us...

I'm not sure if I've mentioned before how we met - through the death of my dearest cat, Pumpkin, and Mij's kindness writing to a complete stranger.

After Pumpkin's death I wrote (on one of my whims...which is how I had a Papal-blessing-through-the-post and a letter from Prince Charles' secretary - and how I met Mij and Bill, the point of this story!) to Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie (then on Radio 2, but now on Radio Six Music) to say I was very sad about Pumpkin's death and could they play a record to speed her on her Last Great Adventure. (Unfortunately the wording that I used - "Last Great Adventure" - did cause some discussion about whether Pumpkin had died or not, but they came to the conclusion that it did!!). My email was read out, mentioning my surname and the village where we live. A few days later, I received a letter from Mij, saying that she had listened to R&M and heard my email, and that she wanted to say that she thought Pumpkin was a great name for a cat and that she was sorry that Pumpkin had died. It also said that her husband said she was mad to be writing to complete strangers (!!) and they lived not far away from us. I looked them up in the phone book and telephoned Mij to say thank you - well, we discovered that she is another Northern lass, and we got on like a house on fire! She invited us for lunch, we went and there you go! We're good friends and although we don't see each other very often, it's always nice when we do.

Bill is a keen cyclist like Mr D - he rides with the Renaison Cycle Club - and so yesterday, we took Mr D's bike with us, and after lunch, Bill and MrD went on a ride while Mij and I took Dog for a walk. Mr D was happy to ride somewhere flat as they live near the plain, and I enjoyed a walk in different surroundings.

There were lovely views of old farms

signs of Spring - my first close up lamb (as opposed to while whizzing by in the car)

(Sorry about the fence, but I couldn't clamber up the bank to get any closer.)

And we met two friendly donkeys, who were obviously hoping for apples, or somesuch delicacy:

Mij made us a lovely lunch of warm asparagus and salmon starter, then vegetable quiche, potatoes and salad, and cheese. We decided to have dessert (a cream-and-jam sponge cake, which I'd taken along) when Mr D and Bill got back from their ride. It was very welcome, with several cups of tea. We stayed sitting in their lovely little cottage garden as the sun went down on a really beautiful day, which was warm enough to be in June.

We had a great time. We must do something similar again soon!

I'm SO glad Mij contacted me after Pumpkin's death.