The visit.

It seems that mother nature had a bit of time on her hands and decided to read my last blog post about the terrible Summer we have experienced. I woke up on Saturday morning half expecting to see a grey glow seeping in beneath the blinds and was surprised to find sunshine, glorious warm sunshine.

Adam was working that morning but I'd briefed him on making himself scarce for the afternoon as my Father had suddenly decided to visit. He used the (quite believable) excuse that he wanted to bring my ferret run up for me that had laid dormant in one of his greenhouses since Christmas but when he arrived and unloaded the car with his laptop and a brand new printer, I realised he had an ulterior motive. My dear old pappa is a very intelligent man with a hell of a lot of common sense but technology has never been his forte. I knew from the moment that he walked across the threshold holding a printer and wearing a grin the size of a small european country, the only thing he wanted was for me to install it.

That done, he had a nosey around the house, making sure that I hadn't lowered myself to living in squalor and quizzed me about money - his favourite subject. I was always awful with money as a child - it entered one hand and left almost immediately from the other; something my siblings never had a problem with. When I told him that I was moving away and had a job and new house, I think he half expected me to end up knocking on his door the following Christmas in financial ruin. He never says much but I think, in his own way, he is extremely proud of me right now - something that constantly panics me for fear of letting him down. It's funny when I think about it how I'm never frightened for myself, it is always the fear of what others may think. Then again, isn't that fear's fundamental basis?

The beautiful sunshine was too much to pass up so I threw on a vest top and we drove into the city and wandered around for an hour or so. Lincoln is such a wonderful place, especially in the basking glow of beautiful weather. More of a city by name than nature, it was once the capital of England and famed for being the location in which the Magna Carta was signed. Its medieval cathedral is magnificent and thought of by many to be one of the best in the country (the Da Vinci Code was filmed there). Graduating from beneath its stunning arches will always remain one of the happiest memories of my life. The cathedral quarter is all up hill consisting of ancient roads meandering between the most stunning medieval buildings and the shops are overwhelming; full of quirky little nick nacks and stylish boutiques - I can think of nowhere better to spend my aimless days.

Seeming like a good idea at the time, we then decided to take a walk down by the river with the view of ending up at a quaint little country pub I adore, The Pyewipe. It's strange how nice weather tricks you into thinking you're invincible and can achieve anything, so much so that I forgot exactly how far the river path actually is. Needless to say, we ended up walking miles, avoiding bicycles at every turn before arriving at The Pyewipe in a state of acute dehydration. At least I picked quite an apt end point right?

It was a great way to spend much needed time with my Father as he rarely comes to visit. When I do find chance to drive back home at weekends to see friends, he is usually busy running the business and it really is a case of ships in the night. As I touched upon in my autobiography post, we were never immensely close whilst I was growing up so this whole 'spending time with each other' malarky is still quite alien - even at the age of 23. It just goes to show that it is never too late to start and we should make the most of these times. It's alarming how rapidly your parents change as you get older too; we fool ourselves into believing it will never happen to the people that we know so well. Trust me, it does.

Now, here I am attempting to tire myself out in the hope of falling asleep early in preparation of another busy week. I'll be honest; I'm not sure that it's going to work - I think I just need to come to terms with the fact that I'm a night owl and I'm not going to be able to change that anytime soon.

I'll leave you with a picture of the Brayford Marina looking particularly pretty in the sunshine.

Good night guys, I hope your Sunday night sleep is full of positive thoughts and pleasant dreams!