We had a good start to the day, David was up early and the skies where peppered with clouds with mist descending on the mountains and going as quickly as it came. David went back to bed, I hope this is not the start of a downturn. David takes my laptop to his lair each night so I had to retrieve it, as I will do each morning, to write the previous days events. The cottage is a no smoking one so I was a little concerned that David may ignore this rule but very glad he did not I couldn't even detect the the scent from scattered clothes. We don't have many plans, there are a few things we want to do but no schedule; today we will need to go shopping for food for the week and those essential items that didn't get packed.
We where out of the cottage before 11, a bit later than what I would like but a lot better than what it could be. We drive to Newcastle for coffee and a discussion on what we will be doing today. The coffee shop overlooks a weir on a river that flows into the sea; my mum tells David, in hushed tones so as not to disturb other patrons, that last time we where here we saw a rat scuttling around the banks. David is not very talkative, this is not unusual but he seems quite low in mood, and all he wants to do is go and sit in the car. With a little coaxing we take a walk along the beach whilst David explains how evil we really are trying to own pets (officially both cats are his, this is ok because David and the cats are equal and neither owns each other). By the end of the walk we are discussing various TV shows, he explained that Game of Thrones should not have ended the season where it did as it wasn't the end of the first book. We had reached David's switching point.
After our walk we went shopping, I had lots of Ideas of what we might eat during the week, only partially changed by the offers and reductions within the store. Lunch was a mixture of sandwiches, made to exacting specification (the cheese had to be sliced at .7 mm thickness)and yesterdays leftovers; David had a very good appetite which was good as this was all he would eat today.
After lunch we went visiting our family who live in Newcastle, my great uncle and aunt and their daughter, grand daughter and great grand children. The relations confuse me so I will be using gramps to help me work it out and hopefully capture some information before its lost by natural processes (I told Jimmy and Eunice that I needed to do it before they die as my mum can hardly remember any of the family names, even when she can talk in detail about childhood friends). Whilst there we could here PA systems and music coming from a festival within the town, uncle Jimmy said it was a mini woodstock but he couldn't see the stage with his binoculars as the angle was wrong (I did suggest he may see if he stood on the roof of his bungalow but as he has not been well lately, along with his one or two years beyond the three score and ten, he thought better of it; in any event he didn't know the groups that where playing). We left just after 6 and returned to the cottage to have tea (chilli beef pasta bake) and watch MIB2 on TV. When this had finished we went back to Newcastle to a pub at the harbour where we listened to some locals with guitars, whistles and various other instruments in a very traditional session. Mostly celtic/folk singing and instrumentals. My mum commented that Melissa would have loved it, it was the sort of gig where anyone who could hold a tune would have been invited to join in. I think David really enjoyed this especially as he knew one of the songs neither my mum nor I had heard before. This was the perfect end to our first full and relaxed day.