(no subject)
I do wish the British summer weather would make its mind up. Last week: brilliant sunshine, beautiful blue skies, baking temperatures. This week: thunderstorms, grey skies, muggy AF.
Last weekend we had G's family over for a get-together: MIL, her partner C, BIL, SIL, two of their kids, J and H - eight of us in total. It ended up being too hot to sit outside, and we had to retreat indoors to the aircon after just a couple of hours. We did play a game outside though, and for once I managed not to get sunburn. Was nice to see them, but it was a lot of work for one day. We did have a lot of leftover food to nom though.
Sunday we had our new catsitters come over to meet the cats and show them the ropes - if we're only away a couple of nights we usually just leave timed food bowls down for the cats, but they're smart buggers and they've figured out how to open the bowls, scoff the lot, and then go hungry for two days til we get home. They also know the timed bowls mean we're not going to be home, and it seems to stress them out, so we thought we'd give catsitters a go.
We left on Monday for a couple nights away - still in Suffolk, but in a fancy hotel and not too far from the coast. We visited Sutton Hoo, site of several Anglo-Saxon burial mounds (as seen in The Dig, for those who have Netflix), and the Boyton marshes for a bit of bird-spotting, then Orford Castle (phenomenally well-preserved Keep built by Henry II) and seafood on the coast, and finally, on the way home, Ipswich museum (mummies!!) and the waterfront.
One complaint about the hotel was that they at no point gave us a heads up that there would be a wedding on the second night of our stay. If they had, we would have stayed out longer on that day, or - if they'd given us enough warning - we would have cancelled that night. The godawful music - and karaoke - went on til midnight, and we felt trapped in our room and unable to enjoy the hotel grounds. As someone who suffers from sleep issues, and health problems made worse by bad sleep, I was really pissed off at the disregard for their non-wedding guests. They did refund part of the second night, but they were really flippant about it with no real apology or acknowledgement that it was a problem. Beautiful place, but we will not be returning.
The catsitters worked out well! Obviously, by the time night rolled around on the first day the cats had twigged that we weren't coming home, so were still a little restless, but they were so much better than when we use the timed bowls. They even let the catsitters make a bit of a fuss of them, and Tikal and Shaman played chase with them. It's such a relief to know that we've found reliable sitters who can pop in to feed them when we're away - it means hopefully next year we can have a proper holiday.