Damp Squib

Not that I'm complaining, but the a weather alert for thunder. lightning, and torrential rains turned out to be a bit of a damp squib. Though we had some heavy rain overnight and into the early part of the morning, we didn't get any "fireworks". This was a good thing as we were expecting Jan and John and they had deferred their decision until the morning in case of any flooding.

Rain or no rain, I still had my morning Zoom call with the cousins. The attendees list was a little sparse this morning, but we still had a good chat. It would appear that though we didn't get too much rain, Maggie did over in Margate. Her water storage in the garden went from empty to 630 litres overnight. She was delighted as they had a hosepipe ban in the area.

When the call was over, I returned to the refresher exercise I had started on video editing. Bizarrely, the basic edit process for the media is not the problem. It is the consistency "branding" of the videos that I'm trying to achieve (which I had clearly managed the last time I did some editing). I didn't get very far before Jan and John arrived. We sat down for some coffee and biscuits, and an initial catch-up on health and family news.

I had booked a table at "The Ship Inn" at Itchenor. Itchenor is on the eastern side of Chichester Harbour, just north of West Wittering. Though it isn't far, as the crow flies (7 miles), we didn't have a crow and so we took the car (12 miles). Itchenor is an affluent and picturesque village of some 500 souls. It is quiet, scenic, and quintessentially English. The Ship Inn is on the main road that leads down to the small harbour.

We took our seats in the pub and selected from the menu. There wasn't an extensive choice, but we all found something to our liking. Diane had scampi and chips (the first time she had had scampi for years), and I had cod and chips. The portions were huge and extremely hot and crispy. We all ate well, and the bill was extremely reasonable. It wasn't exactly fine dining, but it was more than adequate. 

We left the pub and strolled down to the harbour where we could gaze across the water to Bosham Hoe (though we couldn't see as far as the picture-perfect Bosham Quay).

The tide was out, and the view towards Chichester was a forest of sailing boat masts. Maybe the dire warnings about the weather kept many of the weekend sailors at home.

After strolling about, we headed back home and settled down with some tea and desserts. While they were here, we got Jan and John to witness our signatures on our Wills so I can now get them sent off for finalisation.

John was tiring, so they left us just after 16:00.  We cleared away and grabbed our Kindles, retiring to the Orangery for the rest of the afternoon and evening.