Friday morning was sunny and beautiful so we decided to go for a ride. I didn’t bring my own bike over so I’m using Colin’s white mountain bike as I did last year when I was here.

We started out on the trails that led north to the canal, then turned right and went as far as Offerton Lane. Unfortunately Colin doesn’t like riding on the paths and canal as much as I do and wanted to go onto the road instead. The road was small and quiet so I didn’t mind. We followed it around and back across the canal at Tibberton, where we stopped at the Bridge Inn for a drink.

When we left to go home Colin chose to go by the road but I made the return trip by canal and paths instead.

We got take-out fish and chips from the Bull Inn for dinner – they were as good as I remembered. Stayed up way too late watching sappy Christmas movies – I think I watched three of them back to back.

Saturday wasn’t quite so nice out – ‘young Neil’ brought both of his kids over for bacon bunwiches. I’d met little Joseph a couple of times before but it’s the first time meeting Olivia. They’re both adorable – polite, intelligent and – most importantly – well behaved.

In the afternoon we took Mo for a nice walk to the orchard – the shopping cart and large pop bottles that were there the other day had been removed, and several of the trees had pumpkins at their bases – there must have an event of some kind yesterday. We continued on to the grange field and past the larger pond – the half-submerged shopping cart and floating pop bottles had not been removed – no event held here, I guess.

On to the Grange Pub for a drink – watched the last bit of a football game on the big screen. Man U won – Mo was suitably attired in her stylish red and black jacket.

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