Sophie's Blog

The song says ‘It might as well rain until September,’ well it has. Rained and rained; we had two weeks in the Lake District earlier this summer, you expect it to rain there, in fact it is pretty much a certainty. However, when you talk of two weeks on the Devon/Cornwall border in August, you expect good weather. I must inform you ‘dear reader’, I spent several days by a beautiful beach, so what was my problem, you will ask. Well, the beach was underwater, (high tide) and so was the car park (heavy rain). It was not all bad though, Sandy Mouth Bay is a beautiful surfing beach owned by the National Trust so it is dog friendly and the car park is free to members. As soon as the rain and high tide gave up its strangle hold on the surrounding arena, we and others like us, were like ants spreading all over the miles of sand. There is a fantastic little restaurant that stocks all sorts of surfing paraphernalia my scribe says. I know we spent a few hours there. I can vouch for the biscuits, they did spare me some crumbs. They do Pizza and a bottle of wine for a very good price I am informed. (Cheese I am told is bad for my waist line so I was not given any.) Wiki would do better to get its facts from here; they have what they call a stub for Sandy Mouth Bay with not much of interest included. Should I get my scribe to update it?

The only drawback I afraid is that the current is very strong and dangerous rip currents which make swimming hazardous, but the life guards put up flags everyday and mostly people surf and swim between them. There are some fabulous bays that you can walk to when the tide goes out and we walked miles. Would recommend this area to all my four footed friends. The coastal path above the beach puts my scribe on suicide watch, I am on a lead and that is the end of any pleasure for that day as He moans that I am pulling his arms out of their sockets. So stay on the beach is my advice. My scribe will post some pics when she knows where He has hidden them. Some things do not change, even in the land of super fast braodband, my scribes techy skills for instance.

Have a lovely weekend.

I am of course

La Grande Sophie

Birthdays have a grounding effect on one, don’t you think? Yes I have just had another birthday, please note as some of my presents don’t seem to have arrived yet. I sit on the window sill and watch life go by. What has happened in my world this year you ask besides the advent of the Superfast broadband and the fabulous Rutland Telecom? Well I carry on being the most beautiful that I can be. This is not difficult: I have a fabulous coat; I am well exercised; and loved, what more could I ask. I will tell you the secret of my fabulous life style. Conflict. Not too much. Not too little. Just enough to keep me on my toes, and everyone else on theirs.

For instance there is a cat that crosses my garden. I do not like this; it shows disrespect. Considering he never goes next door where Murphy the terrible lives; shows you the magnitude of my problem. However, I caught Puss waiting for the goldfinches yesterday, underneath the hydrangea, very crafty, this will not be tolerated. I will sleep on this problem and invent a remedy. Trust me, I am La Grande Sophie!

Which dog and owner left a dead baby hare on the footpath Friday of last week, we want to know? There is a small gift for any information! We will of course be discreet. Undertaking is not His choice of recreation it seems, although He was grateful for the sage advice from the two young ladies who requested his services: “Come now! Wear Gloves”. LOL.

I am of course

La Grande Sophie

I have been reliably informed that I can start posting yet again!!!!!! This is due, I am also reliably informed, ‘thanks to Rutland Telecom connecting the village with a fibre optic cable.’ I was impressed to find that speeds of up to 40Mbs around 100 times previous connection speeds may now be achieved. My scribe tells me that all she needed to achieve a post on my web site was 1Mbs We are, she says, only five miles from the Stamford exchange and we have always had problems receiving any sort of signal. She used to pray some days, when trying to achieve her OU degree, for divine intervention. All she needed was the wonderful Rutland Telecom.

We have, I am again reliably informed (I read somewhere that you are only as good as your intelligence network, so I must be very good), a very good Parish Council (it must be, my favourite person is a councillor) and that they were allegedly informed that BT and TalkTalk etc, were not interested in providing fast broadband to rural communities, so investigated alternative solutions. (We were with Sky and I must say they did battle for us with BT and the connection on numerous occasions, we were sorry to part company with them, she says. They were extremely amicable about parting company, and let her keep her e-mail account which she is very fond of. (Oh Dear)) Anyway I digress. Now we can download, upload, watch videos and play games instantly, we are so very fortunate… She can get back into to her Facebook account and meet up with all her old OU pals she tells me (yawn).

I have to report a spokesman for the Parish Council ‘an Ian Collis’ says that ‘We are very grateful to Rutland Telecom for connecting us up and in particular for their patience and perseverance over the last year. We are also very grateful to Alan Duncan MP for his help and support in speeding the project along.’ Ah! it seems patience is a virtue, but it has been a long time. And some of the times have been stressful. It seems the nearer we got to moving over, the further moving over got away. At one stage BT was informing Rutland Telecom that our number did not match our house number and therefore did not exist, while phoning us up trying to sell us a hub, whatever that is, on that very number.

Well whatever Mbs you have and we have maybe the most in the civilized world allegedly; it is lovely to be back. It’s Friday, have a lovely weekend. I can say with some pleasure, and guarantee, that I will be back next week with tales of the footpath.

I am of course,

La Grande Sophie