Big Country...

 To my just under ten thousand followers....shall we have a brief update?

Well... daughter number one married  Arthur Daley, and presented us with ourst grandchild almost two years ago.  Delicious Zachary rules the roost in that household for sure, even the husband has resorted to wearing shinpads and a hard hat when he visits,  Daughter number two married Jolly Sock Man in July, and they are now the perfect pair.  Son number one marries Little Miss Tiny next year (our poor bank accounts have been battered mercilessly for almost three years now) and son number two is still residing up north and fighting against gravy with everything.

So that's me succinctly updated. The big news in The Bird's house is that the long suffering husband and I are off on a Big Adventure.  But surely every day is an adventure being married to that handsome studmuffin do I hear you say?  Well, he does have his moments, as all husbands do, but this adventure heralds the start of a new chapter in our life.  

Retirement.  

To be fair, I'm a year in, and still none the wiser as to the art of not working, but the husband is a real amateur with only four lay-ins under his belt to date.  So tomorrow, we are off to Scotland in our Wobble Box for four weeks. This has been on my bucket list for years, and after much persuasion (blackmail, coercion, the withholding of conjugal rights, call it what you will) we are finally off.

Today has been spent paclking up the Wobble Box, It's incredible the amount of utter crap you need to take with you if you're away from your front door for longer than two weeks.  For example, pegs.  I can't tell you how much ribbing I got for having pegs AND a caravan, and whispers of heather and Tarot cards have been circulating around the housing estate the last few weeks. The husband has been out on the drive washing the caravan this morning -just the sides as there tends to be a lack of first floors and ten feet neighbours at campsites.  'No one will see the roof', he explains patiently, in the vain hope that I will stop calling him Half-a-job-Harry in the not so distant future.

Being the more sensible of the two of us, I did suggest to him last week that a safe word might be advisable.  After all, four weeks within the same 32 square feet might become a challenge and one of us might need some time out.  'How about pineapple as a safe word?' I suggested. Not the husband is not known for his frilly demeanour, and after a moment's contemplation, he asked me, 'How long have we known each other? It's just I think it's long enough to be comfortable to say to each other, 'Bugger off, I need some time alone without you breathing down my neck', don't you?'

He has a point, but let's see how it goes.  After four hundred miles in the car tomorrow, 'pineapple' might not cut it.

If you hear a news report tomorrow about a mad frizzy haired woman on the M6 shouting 'FRUIT SALAD!' to a gently weeping, caravan towing gentleman of advanced years, you'll know we didn't get off to the best of Scottish starts...