We spent last weekend with the Hampshire Tilleys, along with Steven and Sherry, in Chandlers Ford. The weather was hot and sunny, perfect for a barbeque, once we had spent a couple of hours being entertained by Bridget and Megan. The older ladies, Bridget and Grannie Chas, were doing something quiet and refined in the “family room” – the large kitchen/dining/sitting room that opens directly onto the garden through large patio doors. I’m not sure exactly what they were doing, but it seemed to involve and i-pad.

We young and active folk, that’s me and Megan, were amusing ourselves on the trampoline, playing tag, and “who can jump the highest”.  I never quite got the hang of the various rules, since Megan was in charge of such procedural matters, and so the rules seemed to be somewhat flexible, with the aim of ensuring that Grandpa Coops never had a rest. I had made the mistake of promising to play with Megan until Uncle Steven could take over. Uncle Steven caught a later than expected train, and by the time he arrived I was exhausted. Cycling keeps my leg muscles in reasonable shape, but I hadn’t realised how trampolining exerts the shoulders, which ached by the time we all settled down for a well-deserved beer and BBQ. Grannie Chas did manage some vigorous and stylish trampline excercises later in the afternoon.

After the barbeque we put bikes and scooters in the back of my car, and we all drove to a cycle track/surfaced path that I think links Southampton and Winchester.  We walked/cycled/scooted (wheeled transport was limited to three bikes and a scooter) along the path for a couple of miles or so into Winchester, following the banks of the River Itchen, and then went through the Cathedral grounds to the pedestrianized City centre, where we found somewhere to settle outside for a coffee and cake.

During our return trip, Chris, Bridget and I took a detour, climbing St Catherine’s Hill for some great views across Winchester and the countryside, before we descended steps on the far side to re-join the path and catch up with the others.

It was late evening by the time we got back to Chandlers Ford, time for a late tea, and a bedtime story for the girls, before the grown-ups settled down to an evening of games, wine, and a cheeseboard accompanied by port. Excellent.

The following morning Chantal, Sherry and I joined Chris and the girls, and went back into Winchester where we watched the girls have swimming lessons. No cameras allowed, although Chantal did sneak a couple of photos using her phone – but since she hasn’t provided them for  me, maybe they weren’t up to her high standard. Megan swam first, swimming lengths using various strokes, and learning when to breath. Megan has just been “promoted” to this class, and was the smallest swimmer, gamely following the others along the lane allocated to her class. It won’t be long before she is no longer the smallest fish in the pool.

Bridget’s class followed half an hour later. Much of it followed the same format as Megan’s, although clearly the standard was higher and the swimming faster. Bridget definitely holds her own in her class, and was one of the faster swimmers. Eventually the instructor produced plastic cups, and each swimmer filled the cup with a few cm of water, lay back in the water, placed the cup on their forehead, and set off for the far end. Bridget managed the entire length without a spill – it was heart-in-the-mouth stuff for us grandparents! I had to stop myself from cheering when she achieved a full length – there were several other classes going on in adjacent lanes, and Bridget just might have found Grandpa to be a bit too embarrassing. On the return leg Bridget had a little trouble getting the cup in the right spot on her forehead, and so there were a couple of spills before she successfully completed the final half length with the cup staying firmly in place. Incidentally, the girls had a slight advantage during this exercise – rubber swimming hats. The tension wasn’t over, since the lesson finished with paired back-stroke races. Bridget was paired with a boy, and they were neck and neck for most of the length, but Bridget pulled ahead in the last few meters – once again Grandpa had to supress a cheer.

The afternoon was particularly hot, and we all relaxed in the sunshine, apart for Chris and Lucy. Chris slaved over a hot stove, and Lucy assisted with the preparation and presentation. I got sacked as paper-napkin-arranger, since I got distracted, and left the napkins nicely presented in a neat pile in the middle of the table, and so Lucy had to take over to set them out properly. We had a wonderful roast lamb dinner, perfectly cooked, followed by desert.

After dinner Chris set up the sprinkler on the lawn for child-watering purposes. Bridget and Megan had fun running through the cool water, and soon persuaded the grown-ups to join in. We both managed to dry off before we had to leave a 4 o’clock to ensure that we were back in time to collect the dogs from our dog-sitting friend. We had a wonderfully relaxing time, as always.

Photos from the weekend are in “Our Recent Photos”.

See “Our Recent Photos” for photos from our Welsh trip.

Wednesday was our last day, and so it dawned warm and sunny, with a clear blue sky, and the forecast promised more of the same for the next few days – when we would be back at work. We had planned a walk on one of the Snowdon routes, but Chantal’s knee was still sore from yesterday’s fall, and so instead we headed for Barmouth, where we caught a train across the estuary, explored the footpaths and woods on the far side, and then walked back over the bridge, along the wooden pedestrian deck that runs alongside the rail track.

We had lunch in Davy Jones’ Locker, a small dog-friendly bar with outside seating overlooking the estuary. The sun was warm, the food and beer good, and we just sat and relaxed for a couple of hours, people-watching, and chatting to some locals on the table next to ours, who came to say hello to the dogs. It was a certainly more relaxed than a mountain walk, a nice end to the holiday.

After our extended lunch we walked the dogs on the dogs-permitted part of the beach, and then out into the estuary along a concrete pier, photographing fishermen and boats on the incoming tide. We spotted a heron that posed for a while before flapping off to a sandbank in the estuary.

It was after we had walked back over the beach that Chantal realised that her prescription sunglasses were no longer on her head. We slowly retraced our steps to the end of the pier, where I had photographed Chantal earlier, complete with sunspecs. No sign of them, and so walked back along the pier to the beach, where, to her relief, Chantal spotted them, sticking out of the sand, complete with a footprint between the “arms” – Chantal suggested that it was a distinct possibility that it was my footprint made during our previous sweep of the beach. I denied it.

And that was it – back to the cottage to pack, ready to return home on Thursday. It was just a shame that the summer sun had been too shy to emerge until the end of the week.

We are making extensive use of the BBC weather app to plan our days, which, until today, has meant finding out where the rain will stop first. On Sunday Swallow Falls, near Betws-Y-Coed, was favoured with the last of the rain, and by late morning, after the rain had ceased, we were in the wind blown spray generated by the Falls, as the recent rain resulted in vast volumes of water pouring noisily down the rocky canyon, where a boardwalk and steps allowed easy access to the river. People came and people went, the dogs and I moved up the steps and back down again due to limited space on the waterside platform, until Chantal felt that she had taken sufficient photographs. And then we walked up to the top of the Falls and started again.

Opposite the Falls there is the Swallow Falls Hotel. Well, it would have been rude not to pop in, and we enjoyed a reasonable curry, and in my case an excellent pint of Welsh ale. Afterwards we headed up Llanberis Pass, planning on a stroll up one of the easier paths at the base of Snowdon, just a mile or so, but since it was raining at the summit of the Pass we continued down the other side and had a short walk along the lakeside at Llanberis village before driving back to the cottage.

On Monday we re-visited Conwy, abandoned in heavy rain on Saturday evening. We walked the town walls, and explored the town, although didn’t have time to visit the castle. don’t think that Chantal was disappointed. Steven note – my GoggIebox app identified the castle and directed me to the appropriate informative Wikipedia items.  Later we drove across the estuary bridge and went back to the Great Orme country park, Llandudno, and had a lovely walk in the evening sunshine, much less windy than previously. Chris note – cyclists were training by cycling up to the summit – from the comments made as they reached the car park, it was clearly a challenging ascent.

Last year when we visited the scenic village of Beddgelert, we discovered the Welsh Highland Railway, one of the “Great Little Trains” of Wales, which steams between Porthmadoc and Beddgelert, and then continues through Snowdonia, past Snowdon, and on to Caernarfon. We promised ourselves a return trip on the Snowdonia stretch, and we caught the train on Tuesday morning.

Since we had the dogs with us, we opted for the “open” carriage, which was perfect since we had unobstructed views of the gorgeous countryside. There were quite a few people in the carriage, and they were all incredibly friendly, everyone chatting and coming to say hello to the dogs. Chantal even found a fellow photography enthusiast, was very impressed with his equipment, and he was happy to discuss it with her. The only person not enjoying herself was Lesia, who found the clanking and vibration of the carriage somewhat disconcerting and at one point tried to climb onto Chantal’s lap. The station in Caernarfon was beneath the castle walls, but we didn’t have time to explore since the return train left after 90 minutes, but we had a nice meal in sunshine outside a restaurant, where once again people came to say hello to the dogs, including, while Chantal was inside ordering food, a young lady from Liverpool who said she had never dared stroke a big dog before, but since Lesia had such a friendly face… How would I ever pull if I didn’t have the dogs?

The return trip was even more scenic, since the sun was shining, and as we passed Snowdon the clouds cleared and we had an excellent view of the summit – one of our fellow passengers even loaned Chantal binoculars for a better view. And Lesia was much more settled.

On our return to Beddgelert ,Chantal fell in front of a bus. She somehow managed to trip over Lesia, who is very big, very visible, and I was on the end of her lead! And the bus? Well, Chantal fell over in the car park, in front of a parked bus full of tourists, and her injuries were restricted to a grazed and bruised knee and shoulder. But once I had picked her up, and she limped to a nearby seat to recover, we had a lovely evening riverside walk, enjoying, for the first time during the holiday, warm sunshine.

Last week the weather forecast for mid-Wales during our holiday was not good – rain, with damp intervals, followed by rain. But we were not concerned, since this would be an excuse to do very little, apart from reading, photography, blogging, and in my case watching a few history DVDs. I have promised myself chilling time during holidays before, and this holiday was the same as previous in this respective. After 2 days I could take no more chilling, and needed to get out and about.

Actually day one, Thursday, was fine. We woke to rain as expected, but the   day improved, albeit with heavy showers, and we spent quite a lot of time in the garden, surrounded by the gorgeous panorama of the surrounding hills.

We still did the reading, photography etc, but we sat outside, and I also took the opportunity to exercise the dogs. The cottage includes a field in front, and last year we were able to give the dogs a regular run in the field, but this week it is occupied by sheep and young lambs. I knew this before the holiday, and so came prepared with ideas to entertain the dogs.

We practiced the training that we do in Dog Club, and I brought a book of dog tricks to try. The dogs love this, as we did lots of exercises, and I built a jump and taught Tia to leap over it on command (Lesia already knew what to do!). We did manage a pleasant stroll around Bala, a lovely friendly small market town on the edge of a lake 4 miles away, since we had to do some grocery shopping

Friday also dawned wet, but improved, and by the lunchtime I was getting itchy feet – and so we went to a garden centre, to pay the cottage rent. Steve and Cathy, owners of the cottage, won’t take cash, are awash with alcoholic donations, and so have requested that visitor’s contribute to a “hedge fund”, buying shrubs for a hedge being planted between the garden and field. I thoroughly enjoyed choosing the shrubs, and enjoyed even more planting them later that afternoon. There was no need to water them….

Yesterday, having checked where the driest locations were we headed for Llandudno, where I wanted to walk the dogs on “The Great Orme”, quite a large country park on a peninsular. We drove along the long winding scenic road that led to the summit, and set off with the dogs. It was not a long walk, since it was exceedingly windy, unpleasantly so, difficult to stand, and if the dogs were only a few yards in front they could not hear us call them, even on the lee side of the Orme. We returned to the car, and spent a happy half hour or so photographing seagulls hovering in the wind – thanks to the strong wind they stayed low and photogenic.

After descending from The Orme by a different scenic route we headed for Llandudno’s traditional pier, promenading to the end and back, as Victorians no doubt did, stopping to watch some fisherman, and we finished the walk traditionally with fish and chips and a pot of teas at a pier café – sadly frozen fish and oven chips, but reasonably acceptable.

To end the day we headed for the walled town and castle of Conwy, planning on photographing the medieval architecture in the evening sunshine. This didn’t quite go to plan. The dogs refused to ascend the open steps to the top of the town wall, and had to be returned to the car after a ground level walk. Having found a nice vantage point to view the castle, we saw rain sweeping towards us up the estuary, and we were soon drenched by wind-blown torrents.

We trudged damply back to the car – we will need a return visit to Conway.

I am pleased and relieved to report that the car is behaving itself – well over 150 miles without the engine management warning illuminating.

We are back in our friend’s Welsh cottage for a week, four miles from Bala. The journey here was not straightforward. We set off later than expected, since Chantal had a doctor’s appointment following the results of a hospital x-ray. Nothing life threatening – she has a painful foot which she describes as “like walking with a stone in my shoe”. The doctor still doesn’t know the reason, although old age has been implicated… A scan has been arranged.

Anyway, at least I had time to give the dogs a long walk, which is just as well, since 30 miles into our  journey I began to lose power and an engine warning light flashed on my dashboard. We were on the A5 in a fast duelled stretch, almost a motorway, and so I was relieved when, after a few minutes, we passed a sign indicating that we would reach a lay-by after a further mile. It seemed a very long mile before the lay-by appeared, and we pulled in, browsed Google maps to get an indication of where exactly we were located, and called the recovery company. We were promised assistance within an hour. An hour later the “mechanic” from the garage who had been tasked with assisting us, called to say that he was his the way, and where exactly were we?

Ninety minutes after our first call the recovery vehicle arrived, the mechanic plugged in his diagnostic gismo, and failed to find a fault. I wasn’t surprised – an hour earlier I had moved the car forward to allow an HGV room to pull in behind me, and noticed that the engine warning light was no longer illuminated. He came up with various explanations, none of them particularly convincing, and sent us on our way, promising to follow behind us for the first few miles “just in case”.

It must have been about 4 miles after the recovery vehicle parted from us that the warning light returned. Since the mechanic had assured us that it was unlikely that any fault would be catastrophic, we decided to continue on our journey, and over the next few miles I discovered that the car could be comfortably coaxed along, as long as I didn’t make excessive demands, which excluded overtaking, and limited my speed on any but the most gentle of ascents.

I knew that our route included a long and steady but steep, climb over hills shortly before we got to the cottage, and I was concerned about whether the car would cope with the ascent. With an unfenced steep drop into the valley on the nearside, this would not be a good place to break down. The climb was unavoidable, and at the bottom I couldn’t even start at a reasonable speed, thanks to a sharp bend in a village.

It was a long slow and stressful ascent, with my foot to the floor, and I was relieved when we got to the summit, and began the descent into Bala. Satnav recommended a back road to Llandderfel, the village where the cottage is located, a single track lane that climbed steeply before dropping down into the village. We ignored Satnav, despite its repeated nagging, and stayed on the more level, if longer, detour via Bala, which at least allowed us to stop at the local Co-op to purchase bread.

The lane from the village up to the cottage is steep, and I was concerned about the cars ability to achieve the final half mile, and so I was relieved when, once again, after a brief stop at the Bala Co-op, the warning light stayed off, and the car performance was back to normal, and even more relieved when we arrived safely at the cottage 15 minutes later.

And so here we are, looking forward to a relaxed week. We plan to spend a lot of time just relaxing and enjoying the area around the cottage, and so should have time to update The Oakstump with our recent news, as well as how our holiday is going. And the car? We’ll play it by ear.

We had a niceEaster weekend last week, with a lovely start on Good Friday when the Hampshire Tilleys visited us for the day. It was a sunny spring morning, and so I prepared the garden; swing, two “space hoppers”,  swing ball, tent, childrens croquet and seating. The Tilleys arrived, and Lucy greeted us with a hug and a smile, and the comment “Gosh – isn’t it cold up here?” (or words to that effect). Well, I suppose that was a tad bracing in the garden, with a brisk wind blowing off of the fields, and so the girls settled down in the living room with a recently purchased (from friends who have emigrated) large dolls house, while we grown-ups chatted over a cup of tea.

Shortly afterwards I went off to collect Andree, and when we returned Chris had encouraged the girls into the garden, and after lunch we all braved the breeze to enjoy the bright sunshine, the adults finding a reasonably sheltered spot while the girls played (although I do recall that Lucy and Chantal spent a long time in the warmth of the kitchen, no doubt extrapolating the washing up process and chatting). I organised an Easter Egg hunt, and the girls searched for eggs among the garden flowers, assisted by photographs of the hiding places

Bridget decided to go on to my PC to produce a Talent show poster and programme, and I was roped in as assistant to help with production. Everybody had to take part, which involved running, bouncing on the space hoppers and various other activities. I’m not sure if there was an actual winner, but we all enjoyed ourselves.

We decided to have tea outside, and so I set up a windbreak and lit our fire-pit, a Christmas present from Simon and Kate, and this was its first proper outing. I had saved some small logs which caused a lot of smoke, and we eventually discovered that timber offcuts, which we buy to light the wood burner, produced heat without smoke, but not before we all smelt distinctly smoky. No doubt the Tilley’s journey home an hour so later was somewhat aromatic. Photos of Hampshire Tilleys are in Our Recent Photos.

On Saturday we did the traditional Bank Holiday activity for the middle(ish) aged, and visited a garden centre, where I purchased shrubs using the garden tokens received for my birthday. I had to work on Saturday night, and so was a bit grumpy on Easter Sunday when we went to a lunchtime family “do” in Newton Linford, near Bradgate Park, where my Aunt and Uncle were celebrating a 60^th wedding anniversary, 50 years in their home in the village, and a 2^nd birthday – the second time that my Aunt’s birthday had fallen on Easter day. The first time was the day that she was born. About 100 of us enjoyed a wonderful hot buffet in the village hall, meeting lots of people that I haven’t seen for ages, after which Chantal and I took the dogs for a walk in the Outwoods, near Loughborough, to photograph the bluebells.

Bank Holiday Monday was spent in the garden, before we went to see our friends Duncan and Lou, in Stoney Stanton a few miles away, for dinner. Richard and Chris, our friends and neighbours a few doors away, also went, and three of us cycled there and back. Chantal opted to drive, which at least meant that we didn’t have to carry bottles of wine on the bikes. We had a lovely evening, concluding with a game of Cluedo, which most of us haven’t played for years.

Tuesday was my birthday. All right, not my actual birthday, but as I was poorly on the actual day (not that I made a fuss about it at the time…) we decided to take an extra day off and go for a walk in Charnwood, north Leicestershire. This time it was Chantal who was a little under the weather, and so we stayed at home, but I didn’t mind. I had a lovely long dog walk in the morning, meeting several people to chat to, I spent time in the garden, always a pleasure, and we had a pub lunch. Perfect.

I have put some photos from Bess’s 3^rd birthday celebration in “our recent photos”. The celebration was a couple of weeks ago, but it has taken us a while to choose, edit, and upload the images from the 100’s that Chantal took.

We had a great day out in Yorkshire helping Bess to celebrate. Claire made lunch for us, as well as for Keith who was also there for the day. The party was in a church hall a few miles away, and the centre of attraction was a bouncy castle, as well as the traditional pass the parcel (lovingly wrapped in layers by Grannie Chas) and pin the tail on the donkey.

Claire had packed a “party box” of sandwiches and treats for each guest, as well as plates of crisps and cakes (which, I have to say, some of us who are always found in the kitchen at parties managed to sample before tea was served). And, of course, there was a Scooby Doo birthday cake, and every child went home with a party bag.

A very successful event, I thought.

Those of a squeamish nature stop here. I attended a platelet donation session today – blood is drawn out, platelets separated, and everything else is put back. At the end of the session on of the nurses said that she had noted that some of the cells visible through the various transparent tubes had been clumping together – I hadn’t eaten anything fatty just before had I? Of course not. Unless you count a large sausage roll and a massive baguette containing large slabs of brie…..

Well, I like to eat something substantial before donating. I have been advised to have a chicken baguette next time, although I am allowed mayonnaise.

It’s fairly generally known that I am not good before my first morning tea. Last Sunday we were heading up north to go and see the Hands for Bess’s third birthday party, and so, although we weren’t exactly rushing, we had to walk the dogs before we left, and so I needed to drink my pint of tea reasonably promptly. I also had to charge my phone – a fully charged phone guarantees that we will never need to call our recovery service. A flat phone battery on the other hand…

The charger was in the socket behind my mug of tea. I picked up the cable, started to plug it into my phone, fumbled, and promptly dropped my phone into my pint of hot tea, complete with milk and sugar. I rescued it quickly, but not surprisingly, it sulked, and wouldn’t switch on.

I took it apart (thank goodness it wasn’t a sealed i-phone), dried it, and left it on a radiator. It also continued to dry on the way to Yorkshire, and I was relieved when it seemed to work after we arrived.

However, the phone has been deteriorating since, and by Tuesday it was almost impossible to use the touch screen, and phone conversations kept breaking up. As Simon said, from his end it seemed that I was talking under water. No, not water – tea.

Several people advised placing the phone in rice, and so that is what I have done – and I haven’t stinted; it is top quality basmati rice, which elicited a minor grumble from Chantal. Further advice has been to leave it there for a few days – and so we will see what the weekend brings.

And in the meantime?  Since the Samsung has a standard SIM card, it’s good to have my good old fashioned reliable Nokia back.

For those that have been worrying, and I am sure that includes many of you, I am on the mend. Just. I have had a week off of work, although it took until Wednesday evening for me to finally realise that I would not be fine by tomorrow, and would not be able to go back to work. With the prospect of working Friday night after a week of disturbed nights thanks to coughing, I admitted defeat, and announced that I would return on Monday, which at least gave time to arrange for someone to cover my night duty. Apparently this was welcomed with relief by my colleagues, at least one of whom claims that she now has a cough thanks to me coming to work last week when I shouldn’t have done so.

The overnight coughing is pretty much the last remaining symptom. I have tried concoctions of every variety as recommended by pharmacists and also by my wife (and the advice from each did not always coincide…).  The first problem was defining the cough. Was it a chesty cough or a dry cough? Well, it was definitely a dry cough from my chest. Where else would a cough originate from?  And what exactly is a chesty cough anyway? Is that the same as a loose cough? At Lloyds Pharmacy I said I had a dry cough, Chantal said no it wasn’t, it was a chesty cough, the pharmacist got confused, and an elderly lady waiting for her prescription found the whole thing most entertaining.

Anyway, having been taking the usually reliable Pholcodine and still waking up with a cough (and I’m still not sure whether this medication loosens a dry cough or supresses a chesty cough…) I decided to try the Lloyds version of Night Nurse. What awful stuff that is. There is absolutely no need to warn against overdoses – it is fluorescent green, tastes foul, and you have to drink a small cup full. The secret ingredient, apparently, is antihistamine, which encourages sound sleep. The result was that I still woke up coughing, but was so drowsy that I couldn’t actually open my eyes to locate a glass of water. But at least I went back to sleep. Still coughing. The following morning I felt as though I’d had one too many at the Heathcote Arms, and the lingering taste of the stuff tainted my morning tea.

Tonight I will try a new tack. I will have a large glass of whisky, and merely medicate myself if woken. But I won’t be touching that Night Nurse stuff again.

It was my birthday on Friday, and what a lovely day I had. On previous years we have had a day out somewhere – this year I decided on a more relaxed day. I was expecting a few garden vouchers for my birthday, and so I thought that we could go together to a garden centre, buy a few shrubs to fill a few gaps in the garden, have a nice steak pub lunch, and then a pleasant afternoon of gardening. Perfect.

Well it should have been perfect.  But it wasn’t.

My week has not been a good one – the man flu that started last weekend has not abated, and as everyone knows, man flu is a serious medical condition. By Tuesday the condition had deteriorated to such an extent that I took a day off work – almost unheard of. I had company though, since, as married men often do, I share everything with my wife, and as a result Chantal had developed a chest infection, and was also off work. Unlike me, Chantal had the good sense to stay off work, whereas I returned to the office, which is why I spent the day that was booked off for my birthday watching TV. I spent more hours in front of The Box on my birthday than I have spent watching TV over the last month – well at least we have caught up with a lot of recorded drama and documentaries. It was my first alcohol free birthday for over 40 years.

Naturally I’ve been making the most of modern science in my battle against disease. I have been taking Pholcodeine for the cough and Sudafed for the catarrh and ibuprofen for the aching legs and head and Lemsip for anything else that I may have missed. I take these things very seriously. Actually a raid on the bathroom cabinet revealed a large quantity of out of date stuff, but most of this has now been consumed and replaced, although I’m still taking Sudafed that went out of date in December. 2011.

And now? Well yesterday I optimistically spent a few hours helping at a Scout event, but the coughing and blocked nose still prevents sleeping, and so today  I am knackered. Maybe the pre-bedtime medications contradict each other. I’ll decide if I’m fit for work on Monday in the morning – possibly 3.00 in the morning.

At least I don’t make a fuss. But don’t ask Chantal to confirm this, or the Scraggies that I spent a few hours with yesterday. All I did was to describe my symptoms a few times, and once or twice I explained that I was a bit under the weather, and I promptly had earache added to my list of woes….

And Chantal? Well, she is certainly being more stoical than me, but like me, will decide on a return to work date in the morning.

News from Ros – I’m always delighted to share family news. For non-Jeremy-Clarksons, its a  pic of a Suzuki Splash!

I went shopping this morning and bought…… a car!

Very nippy – Pete came on a test drive with me and said it goes up hills better than his 1.6 and it’s only a 1 litre. Tax £25 a year, and insurance cheaper than my 206. (£185).

I pick it up on Friday.

Can’t spend on anything other than essentials for a while now, but it’s going to be worth it.

I will no longer worry about what’s going to drop off my car next, and the “Worry Month” – September – when it’s service and MOT time which has cost me £100’s in the last couple of years no longer exists!

It’s 6 months old, 4,000 miles on the clock – so no MOT or service for 2.5 years.

I thought you’d be interested!

Love Ros. x

Well, my family birthday celebration didn’t quite go according to plan. I’d been feeling under the weather for a day or two, just a bit of cough, but I decided that a family stroll to the pub, and a pub lunch in the cosy surroundings of the Heathcote Arms, followed by a brisk walk in the fresh air, was just what I needed. I should have taken note when my morning dog walk left me feeling a bit weary.

Simon, Kate and their dog Phil arrived here shortly before noon, followed by Pauline Rob and Megan. Matthew, and my Dad with his friend Edwina, were to meet us at the pub. I was keen to get going, since I wanted to make sure that we got a couple of tables together in the corner of the bar, although since the pub doesn’t really get busy on a Saturday until one o’clock, I wasn’t too worried.

I peered in through the window as we ascended the steps to the pub door – it was busy. We entered to find a big pre-booked family event with buffet taking place in the bar – certainly no room for us. I asked Andy, the landlord, if we could go into the restaurant with the dogs. This would not normally be a problem, but a large party of walkers were about to arrive, and had booked the restaurant.

I briefly considered driving to the pub in Thurlaston, a couple of miles away, which would have involved walking back home for cars, and I knew that the Thurlaston pub is always busy on Saturdays. Andy offered us the bowling alley, and so we went in there – a large cavernous room on the far side of the car park, and with just 10 of us it somewhat lacked atmosphere.

Thanks, presumably, to the family buffet, the normal bar menu was restricted to just three options, and Andy warned us that there may be a bit of a wait, but at least we had the unexpected option of a game of skittles, which I think that most people enjoyed.

Afterwards I led a short walk, but by the time I got home I was feeling distinctly weary and shivery, and was definitely not the life and soul of the party. The younger family members set off on the Easter egg hunt, which seemed to go down well. I’m afraid I abandoned everyone for a while and went for a lie down, returning in time to blow the candle out on my cake, by which time everyone had decided that, since the planned card games were not going to happen, they would call it a night – as did I, heading for bed as soon as they had gone.

Not quite the fun day that I had hoped for. Photos in “Our Recent Photos”

There will be two groups reading this. If you are not at our house, I am sorry to say that you will have missed out on a family walk down to the pub in spring sunshine, a pub lunch and a pint of this weeks guest ale, followed by an extended dog walk home, avoiding the afternoon spring showers if the BBC weather forecast is to be believed. And I am afraid that you will not be able to take part in the annual Easter Egg Hunt.

It is my annual birthday bash  today (I suppose that most birthday celebrations tend to be annual), when my family join us on  the aforementioned activities. There are four children in the party. Simon is 28, Matthew 26, Kate 25 and neice Megan 17. A couple of years ago I decided that they must be too old for the annual Easter egg hunt that traditionally I have organised for the “kids” on or around my birthday. It was a wrong decision, and there were grumblings.

This year I am enlisting the aid of The Oakstump, and the eggs can be easily located using the photographs of our garden in Our Recent Photos. For the young folk in the birthday party, go find the eggs! One per image. In the meantime we old folk can enjoy a quiet cup of tea. And if you aren’t with us today,but have visited us before, then feel free to try to identify the loctions from your knowledge of our garden. But be quick – the photos will be deleted after a couple of days.

Acknowledgement to www.treasure-hunt-ideas.co.uk  for the idea – Simon’s web site. Have a browse!

Whatever the politics going on at work, I am pleased to say that everyone gets on well with everyone. Thanks to a low turnover of staff (traditionally because the pay at Leicester was good but now because there are no other jobs to go to) most of us have worked together for many years, and we greet each other cheerfully at the beginning of the working week.

But there is one bloke who no-one is pleased to see walking into the office as usual on a Monday morning. At a time when our working life is challenging, he is likely to be greeted with a scowl, and a frown of disappointment. We would rather that Jonathon arrives late and with a letter of resignation in his hand. Why? Jonathon organises the lottery syndicate, and if he arrives at the office as usual on a Monday morning, then we haven’t won. Again.

Of course none of us expect to win, and we only hand over our hard earned pound as insurance against being unexpectedly the only person in the office on a Monday morning. Despite the remote prospects of winning, there were a few of us imagining how we would spend our portion of the £107 million pound British win last weekend.  Until Jonathon arrived at work as usual.

See “Our Recent Photos” for photos from Ian and Svitlana’s wedding.

We spent last weekend staying with Ros in Baildon, West Yorkshire. Since I had worked the previous night, and Chantal was in court where one of her cases was being heard, we didn’t leave until lunchtime on Friday, stopping at Go Outdoors in Loughborough for Chantal to buy a new coat.

Driving north out of Loughborough the Satnav announced that our journey would be delayed by 17 minutes. Then it announced that the delay was 20 minutes. By the time we got to the motorway it was 25 minutes, and shortly afterwards 31 minutes, although, as the Satnav comfortingly reassured us, as we joined the queue of northbound vehicles on a typical Friday afternoon M1,  we were still on the fastest route. The traffic eased as we travelled further north, although the Satnav suggested a significant detour around Bradford rather than our usual more direct route. I grumbled as we lurched from queue to queue in the Bradford rush hour, but was chastened when a local radio traffic bulletin advised of long delays on our planned route, thanks to bus and a lorry becoming more intimately acquainted than is healthy.

We still arrived at Ros’s house in time for me to exercise the dogs before she arrived home from work, and left Chantal waiting in the car as I walked them down the valley next to her home, and up the far side, skirting a golf course and looking back to see my car across the valley, with just possibly some activity next to it, and realised that Ros should be home, and we retraced our steps, to find the car unpacked, and Ros ready to take her dog, Labrador cross Archie, out for a short walk in the fields, to the delight of our two.

We had a nice relaxed evening, chatting over a home cooked meal, as Ros and I emptied a bottle of wine between us, before we enjoyed a game of Rummikub, which Ros won, despite, or maybe because of, being a bit giggly.

As is usual when we stay with Ros, the weekend tended to revolve around food and dog walking, a perfect combination. On Saturday morning we walked along the top of the valley, through fields with horses, returning to the top of the village along a track that passed a field with two very amiable donkeys – oodles of photo opportunities, which all three of us took full advantage of. I got so engrossed that I returned a few minutes after we left – to retrieve a dog lead.

Ros has decided that it is time to replace her aging car, and so on Saturday afternoon we visited a couple of car show rooms, in search of Ros’s preferred option of a nearly new Suzuki Swift. None were to be found, although, as you would expect, at the Suzuki dealer we found some new cars to look at, together with a very friendly and helpful sales chap, and a mother a daughter who were also comparing models. Ros has now decided on Suzuki Splash, a somewhat taller version of the Swift – she now just has to arrange a test drive, and then be patient and wait for the right car at the right price to appear on a forecourt.

Back in Baildon we once again walked along the top of the valley, and Chantal and Ros headed off over a Lesia-proof style (Lesia is getting too old for the required scramble and leap) to investigate an old barn, where Ros had seen a Little Owl on previous walks. I walked the dogs down the valley and located a place where the wall had partially collapsed, allowing the dogs to scramble over in to the field with the barn, just as Chantal, Ros and Archie were returning to the stile at the top of the field – no Little Owl apparently.

We all met up, and continued the walk down to the river crossing stepping stones to return home through the wood on the far side.

We enjoyed dinner at a local Indian restaurant, after which, despite the darkness, it was time for more photography. Chantal and Ros set up their tripods alongside a local roundabout for some time-lapse shots, photographing passing cars to leave a trail of light on the image. Personally I would have been quite happy to return home to digest my curry in peace, especially since my tripod was back in Leicestershire, but I eventually left the car and joined them, and actually quite enjoyed myself attempting the time-lapse shots, using a convenient wall in lieu of a tripod.

Sunday morning dawned sunny and mild, and we walked the three dogs back through the riverside woods and back along the top of the valley, before relaxing in Ros’s garden with tea and cake in the warm sunshine. In the afternoon we visited Saltaire, where we spent a pleasant spring afternoon wandering around this heritage Quaker village – particularly pleasant since it was the first spring Sunday afternoon of the season, and the place was bustling with a lovely cheerful atmosphere. It was, of course, principally a photographic expedition, and Chantal and Ros explored the cobbled streets and the alleys behind the back-to-back houses, as well as the local railway station, in search of photo-opportunities. The dogs and I followed, waiting patiently as required, and taking photographs (me, not the dogs – although I suspect that by now they are trained by experience to stop at a suitable photo-opportunity) of anything that may have been missed by the ladies.

Which just left time for packing and have a cup of tea before coming home – a much faster journey home than the northbound trip just a couple of days before. See “Our Recent Photos” for photos from the weekend.

We celebrated Ian and Svitlana’s wedding in London at the weekend, and had a lovely time, although in our case we had an inauspicious start.

We travelled down by train from Rugby, and arrived at the station in plenty of time to buy sandwiches and a paper – for once we were quite relaxed as we settled into the waiting room 15 minutes before the train arrived. I sat planning the underground route on my phone, not watching the clock. Chantal sat looking out at Platform 5 waiting to the train to arrive. It arrived on time – at platform 6, behind us. We dashed out just as our train pulled away from Platform 6. Bugger. Platform and ticket office staff were only able to offer a later slow train, or the option of paying extra for the next fast train, arriving only a few minutes later than we originally planned. We decide on the latter.

The train arrived on time, and was full. We squeezed in, and resigned ourselves to standing by the doors for the full journey, until after a short while Chantal spotted a spare seat taken up by a large bag, had suitably curt words with the young girl in the next seat, before discovering that it wasn’t her bag, but the bloke on the other adjacent seat decided that he should move it before Chantal turned her attention to him, and she was able to sit down. I stood reading the paper and only once lurched back to tread heavily on the left “Ugg” boot of the young girl behind, which her sister (I presume) found most entertaining.

At least the journey was quick, the subsequent tube trip uneventful, and we even navigated successfully to the Knightsbridge pub where everyone was meeting. Ian, Andree, Chris and Lucy were already there, and others arrived over the next hour or so – with just 20 or so guests, and time for a couple of beers, it was nice for people to chat (and in my case change into smart-but-not-comfy shoes under protest), and, with the exception of Ian who was distinctly fidgety, we were all nicely relaxed in time to walk to the Church.

The Russian Orthodox Cathedral is an impressive Victorian building at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac. Since the Church was in the process of being renovated, we walked along a covered corridor to a modern “chapel” at the rear of the Church, waiting respectfully outside until Robert, Svitlana’s friend who was to give her away, since her parents had not been able to travel from the Ukraine, announced that Svitlana had asked us all to wait in the chapel. The first thing noticeable was the absence of chairs, and so we all stood happily chatting, maybe a bit too cheerfully, since the Priest appeared from behind some screens, and announced that we were all very welcome to his church, but could we kindly keep our voices down.

Svitlana arrived looking delightful, and the service commenced.  Ian and Svitlana stood in the centre of the chapel on a ceremonial scarf, facing the priest. The service was sung, partly by the Priest, and partly by two ladies in anoraks  joining in harmoniously from the back, and was mostly in English. The readings (sung!) differed somewhat from those used in a Methodist, or indeed Anglican, service, and an often used reading about love (“Love is patient, love is kind….” etc) was replaced by one stating that the woman should submit to her husband – a theme repeated in the service. It appears that Svitlana shall be the Handmaiden of Ian. Yeah, right…

Actually, according to the Priest, she wouldn’t be the handmaiden to Ian. She will be the handmaiden to John. Throughout the service Ian was referred to as “John”, or occasionally “Ian John”. If Ian has a middle name it isn’t John, and every time that Ian was referred to as John there were dark mutterings and grumblings from Andree. It was only after the ceremony that Ian explained that when baptised into the Orthodox Church, he had to have a saint’s name, and since no matter how hard you search the bible, you will not find Saint Ian, he adopted “John” – Scottish for “Ian” apparently. The service was getting increasingly multicultural.

The Best Man and Bridesmaid were called forward to hold a crown, suspended a couple of inches above the head of the groom and bride for what must have been 20 minutes, throughout the actual ceremony, quite a feat. Since each was made aware of the duty just before the event, neither had had the opportunity of several days of press-ups in preparation.

The priest paraded the newly married couple around the altar, returning them to the ceremonial scarf where they stood to be greeted by us all, filing past to give them our enthusiastic congratulations. At this point it the couple may have been married in the eyes of the church, but not in the eyes of the law – but this anomaly was quickly rectified by the District Registrar, who had been sitting quietly in a corner throughout the service, and now performed the final rituals with the wedding register.

We gathered outside the church for the traditional photography and confetti, before heading for the restaurant for the wedding breakfast, stopping for more photographs, although Chantal and I missed out on some of these – one of us had left a phone in the pub, and for once it wasn’t me…. We already knew that the bar staff had kept it safe and we went to retrieve it.

We had our own room in the restaurant, and plenty of time to chat, take photos, and mingle before the food was served.  The food was excellent, the company was excellent, the speeches were excellent, the “swing” styled music was excellent, and the beer was…….lager. Oh well, you can’t have everything. I am sure that I can speak for everyone, including me (who doesn’t “do” weddings…) in saying that it was a wonderful evening.

Afterwards Chantal and I were privileged to share a taxi with the newlyweds, and, along with Andree, were dropped at our hotel leaving Ian and Svitlana to go home to their flat, just a few minutes away, for some well-deserved privacy.

All I will say about the following morning is that I could not face the full English breakfast, barely managing a bowl of cereal. This only confirms my opinion that lager is not good for you, even when somewhat diluted with bubbly and red wine. Or maybe especially when diluted with bubbly and red wine. I was feeling a little more human when Ian appeared, and we followed him to their very nice flat, about a 10 minute walk away, where Svitlana produced plenty of reviving tea, pastries, and sandwiches and as a result I was back to normal by lunchtime.

Ian assured us that it was just a 10 minute drive to Brixton, where we, with Andree, would catch a tube for the 20 minute trip to Euston. I forgot that Ian has a tendency to be late.

There was the 5 minute walk to the car. Traffic was as always is in London, and it took 20 minutes to reach Brixton. Andree needed a ticket. The machine didn’t work. There was a queue at the ticket office. On the tube we calculated that we would just catch the pre-booked train from Euston, and then we stopped in the tunnel at a red light. We stopped again to “regularise the service” , whatever that means. At Euston we rushed onto the concourse, and ran as fast as Andree’s legs would allow to the platform. The driver waved as the train pulled away.

We had a Déjà vu moment as we trudged back along the platform, where to our delight we met Olya. Olya, a lovely Ukrainian lass, was one of the guests at the wedding, and I recalled that she worked for Virgin Trains at Euston. As we caught our breath, we explained that the train just leaving Platform 5 should have had three additional passengers on board, and she was reassuringly sympathetic, marking our tickets to state that we had missed the train by less than a minute, including her mobile number for queries, and directed us to the Midland Mainline ticket office, advising us that Midland Mainline should be able to transfer us onto the next available train. Midland Mainline wouldn’t. Midland Mainline just wanted to sell us more tickets.

We had plenty of time, and so re-grouped on the concourse to consider options. We phoned Olya, as she had suggested in the event of any problems, and she came to meet us, explaining that Virgin had a policy of transferring tickets, but that Midland Mainline could be “stubborn”. Despite our protestations that we would be able to buy tickets once we had decided which train to catch, she said that she would see what she could do. Bless her, she definitely did all she could. She found her supervisor, who agreed, in principle, to allow us onto the next Virgin train to Rugby, subject to the train manager’s approval. She found the train manager and he agreed that we could travel on his train. She called us, and told us to meet her at the gate, where she ushered through with a smile, directed us to the right coach, and waved us off, subsequently phoning us to confirm we were safely seated and to confirm that we would be able to travel on the “wrong” tickets without a problem.

Guess which train company we will use by choice next time…?

It was a lovely weekend, but I was glad that it was a Friday/Saturday weekend. I needed Sunday to recover. Photos to follow – once Chantal has edited the collection to a manageable quantity.

Chris, Bridget and Megan visited at the weekend – not Lucy, who had to work on Monday, when the rest of the family travelled back home.

After arriving early Saturday afternoon we had a relaxing afternoon, sorting out toys to put in a wooden chest that we have recently bought from friends who are emigrating to Australia, and which now lives in the living room, full of toys, freeing space in the large “family bedroom”.

We played board games before Chris and the girls joined me for a dog walk. We were soaked by a passing heavy squally shower, and Chris and Megan returned home, while Bridget bravely stayed with me and the dogs, trudging through the mud, some of which Bridget brought home on her tights and jacket, necessitating a clothes wash by Grannie Chas.

On Sunday Grannie Chas and I took the girls on another dog walk down to Croft, while Chris went shopping for some shirts, although this time both girls returned home with Grannie Chas soon after we reached the village, leaving me to stretch the dogs paws for a little further.

In the afternoon we all went to Abbey Park, collecting Andree on the way. We took the girls’ roller skates with us, and Megan skated quite a long way along the paths, aided by Grannie and Grandpa.Megan nearly lost her skates – well, actually Grandpa Coops nearly lost them, leaving the bag with the skates inside leaning against a post while photographing the girls feeding ducks, and forgetting to pick the bag up when we all went to play on the low walls marking put the layout of the original Abbey. Fortunately the bag was still there when we returned hotfoot and breathless to the river, where a couple were just contemplating whether to pick them up and hand them to someone as lost property.

On Monday Keith took the Chris and the girls to Twycross Zoo, before they headed back south to Hampshire.

See “Our Recent Photos” for more photos.

We went to see Cirque Berserk at the Curve Theatre, Leicester, on Saturday night – it was a sort of less refined version of Cirque Soleil, with a lot more action, louder music, and less arty dancing. In fact there was no arty dancing. After Cirque Soleil I decided that I would have preferred more action squashed into a shorter time, and that is precisely what we got with Cirque Berserk – 75 minutes of continuous action (although this was interrupted by an interval to allow the Curve to sell more gin and tonic).

Unusually, and in contrast to Cirque Soleil, photographs and filming were encouraged – but no flash. Essentially the performance was a sequence of circus acts, a fast and furious acrobatic romp. There were gymnasts

There were high level acrobatics

There was knife throwing, and a strong man juggling tyres

Men flew through the air

And a funny and very clever clown kept re-appearing throughout. Perhaps most amazing of all was the 6m diameter spherical cage with a motorbike riding around the inside. And then a second motorbike. And a third. And for the finale four motorbikes were riding up, down and around the inside of the cage, with, at one point, a young lady standing in the centre – but the only photo that we took was of the cage being dismantled afterwards.

Everyone left the theatre smiling after a mad performance.

I was bit grumpy on Saturday morning. My watch had stopped. Most of you would not consider this to be a big deal – just pop out and buy a new battery, but I bought this watch about three years ago, when Chantal and I went to the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter to buy a nice watch, when I was awarded a moderate sum of money, £250 to be precise, after working for the City Council for 25 long years. I decided against the main brands (although we did see some very nice examples of Rolex watches, somewhat above my price limit) and found an automatic watch in a small jeweller who, as well as selling main stream brands, builds “own brand” watches using Swiss mechanisms. And, after a bit of negotiation, the jeweller reduced the price of the one that I liked to precisely £250.

Being automatic, it told the time reliably for over three years, until last Tuesday, when it stopped. Having cycled to work, I had left the watch at home, and decided that maybe I wasn’t wearing it enough for it to self-wind. The watch subsequently spent every waking hour on my wrist, but then on Friday night it stopped at 6.30am after just 6 hours of inactivity next to the bed. I was grumpy because I decided that a rare Saturday with nothing planned would now be filled with a trip to Brum, and then I would need a further mid-week trip, taking time off of work to collect the repaired watch.

In Birmingham we battled through the very windy streets, and after a one false start, we found the jeweller, who seemed really disappointed that one of his watches had failed after three years. “Can you leave it with us for a while?” he said, and, on our request, recommended a nearby bistro so that we could lunch while we waited.

The tiny bistro, tucked behind some shops and workshops was delightful, perfect for a light lunch (oh all right, in my case, not so light), reasonably priced, with very friendly service, and we enjoyed our unexpected lunch date together.

We returned to the jeweller, hoping, but not really expecting, that the watch would be repaired, but the jeweller presented me with the repaired watch, explaining that a key part had been tightened, which shouldn’t have been necessary, and we chatted about “do’s” and “don’ts” of wearing the watch (if anything, I had been over careful with it). He was clearly disappointed that his product had failed, and after telling me that he had also cleaned and oiled the mechanism, he said that there would be no charge, thus nicely ending what had turned out to be quite a pleasant day out.

It’s Dad’s birthday on Tuesday – he will be 86, and I don’t think that he minds people knowing that. Being mid-week, a family birthday celebration on the day is not possible, well not without empty seats anyway, and so we celebrated on Friday night.

As usual, Dad wanted to celebrate at The Elms pub/restaurant in Lutterworth, and so Dad and his friend Edwina, were joined by Chantal and me, Matthew who travelled up from Bedford, my sister Pauline and her family from Kettering, and Edwina’s son Martin. Unfortunately Simon and Kate were away for the weekend, and my sister Ros was unable to travel down from West Yorkshire.

Dad kindly treated us all to a meal, some choosing from the carvery, and others from the menu. We all ate well, and some managed pudding, including me – I opted for giant profiteroles, a bad move since I was presented with two chocolate covered cream filled profiteroles, each the size of a large apple. I couldn’t manage both, and my niece Megan had to help me out.

The Elms is quite unique, attracting a wide variety of clientele. It is really just a chain pub/restaurant, although being a Marston’s brewery establishment, the food and the beer are excellent. It is quite modern, built on the farmyard of people I knew as a child through church. On most of our visits I either see people that I know from my schooldays, or, as was the case on Friday night, people that I know from somewhere, although I can’t quite remember from where. No-doubt there will be an increasing number of people in the latter category as my mind continues to age.  I have at least two friends whose fathers favour the place, and there are also a lot of young people who eat there – with such a range of ages the atmosphere is really nice.

After quite a long, enjoyable and relaxed meal we all went back to Dad’s for a cup of tea and slice of birthday cake, baked by Pauline.

Simon popped over a week or so ago – for some furniture building.

He and Kate decided that they needed some wooden shelving for wellies and walking boots, and since they had some spare lengths of timber around the house, as you do, there was clearly no necessity of bothering the Scandinavians in Ikea – instead Simon brought the timber to our house for some father and son bonding over a DIY project. And of course Chantal would be available if we got ourselves into a mess. On a dark and cold night we also have the advantage of a large warm and dry utility room.

We were well organised, and Simon drew an excellent three dimensional sketch, with all parts shown, considerably superior to Ikeas flat pack instructions, and we tweaked the design a little by adding bracing in the interest of rigid stability. We decided on the dimensions, and calculated how would make the best use of the three or four lengths of timber that were our raw materials. Simon even borrowed a pair of my wellies to ensure that the height between the bottom and top shelves was adequate.

The timbers were 2.1m in length, and we carefully measured and marked the length of each baton that would make up the slatted shelves. After cutting the first baton we meticulously used it as a measuring stick to ensure consistency of baton-length, and to make sure that what remained of the full length timber was sufficient for 1 leg of the structure, as previously calculated. It was at this point that we discovered that the 2.1m timber was in fact 2.0m, as confirmed by the label that still adhered to the timber, and a minor adjustment to the design was undertaken to ensure that we had sufficient wood.

Work continued apace, and we were impressed with ourselves as the shelving unit grew, looking most professional. Simon picked up the last piece of timber to cut the final baton for the top shelf, and then the bracing piece that would stretch diagonally across the back. It transpired that this length of timber was narrower that the others and the top shelf looked a little odd, with three wide strips and one narrow one. We hid the narrow strip on the bottom shelf, replacing a wider strip which was moved to the more visible top shelf.

We were very proud of the result, which was sturdy, functional, and, we felt, stylish and well designed.

We reckoned that an Ikea equivalent would have been £30, and would have entailed the trauma of a visit to the store. Simon subsequently helped to replace the door hinge on our fridge, a new one having been delivered after the door came away in Chantal’s hands a couple of weeks ago. Since Chantal’s first reaction was to purchase a new fridge/freezer, the overall saving for this evening of DIY was probably over £400. Bargain.

I am in total agreement with the Met Office. This has been the wettest January for 100 years, and parts of many local footpaths are ankle deep in mud. As usual friends turned up for the weekly dog walk down to the pub on Tuesday, bringing the usual winter footwear of walking boots. Richard and I, the two locals, knew better. I donned wellies before we set off, and when we called for Richard, a few houses up the Lane, his wellies were ready by the front door.

Having seen our not quite so local fellow walkers Hilly and Taff leaping to the left and right of the footpath, and occasionally attempting a long jump, all to avoid the worst of the mud, I suspect that it will be full welly turn out next week.

Lesia is now fit enough to join us on our weekly pub-walkies, and has done so a couple of times, but as long as the footpath down to the village remains in its current state, she remains at home, otherwise she will going to bed distinctly damp after a late night hosing. Short haired Tia is no problem – the mud can almost be wiped off of her fur, and she dries quickly.

Roll on springtime.

Just three of us enjoyed a Star Café breakfast on Sunday – Sherry had a meeting of one of the Buddhist groups that she is involved with. Since the plan for the day included a pie and mash we ate relatively frugally at the cafe as we planned the route to the main venue of the day, the Columbia Road flower market. The walk to the market from the nearest station, at the junction of City Road and Old Street, in the East End to the market was somewhat austere, along rather grubby main roads, which Steven advised us was the “silicon Valley” of London, the area where many start-up technology companies are based. At the other end of the historical scale, I pointed out that “City Road”, where our walk started, was clearly the City Road of Pop Goes The Weasel – “Up and down the City Road, in and out of the Eagle” etc. Surprisingly neither Steven nor Chantal seemed aware of the rhyme, and the subject was dropped.

We knew that we were approaching Columbia Road when we met several people coming towards us carrying plants and flowers. The market stalls line either side of a narrow road, and was very busy in the cold winter sunshine, and we had to squeeze through the crowds to see the stall and enjoys the buskers, making photography a bit of a challenge.

It was a nice atmosphere, and Chantal made her contribution, buying two large houseplants one for Sherry and one for herself, carefully manoeuvring them through the crowds.

We found a convenient pub to settle in for a break while perusing our smart phones to find the location of the promised pie and mash shop. The “Local App” synchronised itself with the Satnav App, and provided directions before it delivered the bad news. Closed on Sundays. Steven optimistically pointed out that there is a pie and mash shop in the Angel, on our route back to the flat, which was convenient since by now we were clock watching, with the train journey home in mind. We checked out the details – once again the shop was closed on Sundays. And here is me thinking that London is a 24/7 city. Steven had only partially met the challenge, having located plenty of excellent local beer,and I am now convinced that the “traditional pie and mash shop” is a local urban myth, propagated for the tourists, but which doesn’t actually exist.

Having had a minimalistic Star Café breakfast, we needed to eat, and since the pub where we had settled offered a limited and expensive menu, we headed for Angel anyway and found O’Neills, an Irish theme chain pub where the local Brew, London Pride, was off, leaving me with Cornish Doombar – a multicultural experience of sorts I suppose.

We caught the bus back to Steven and Sherry’s flat using our Oyster cards as we had done on all Underground trips. Public Transport may not be particularly cheap in London, but in general I am quite impressed by Transport for London – on the whole it just seems to work, and seemed quite safe even late at night. On our return journey from The Albert Hall on the previous evening we got on an Underground carriage with two young men who had clearly been drinking for a few hours, and were continuing to do so from bottles of vodka and coke cunningly disguised in soft drinks bottles as simply Coca Cola. Unfortunately, since they had chosen bottles labelled “lemonade” and “mineral water” respectively, both of which are clear drinks, the disguise was not very effective. Both were charming, giving their seats up, and chatting quite amiably to Chantal and Steven. Both were at University in Sheffield, and both were spending a year working with the Metropolitan Police. And both were just starting their evening as we were finishing ours, aiming to get to a night club before 11.00pm to avoid an entrance fee.

Back at Stevens flat on the Sunday afternoon we just had time to pack, grab a coffee, and, in Chantal’s case, download a couple of films onto a memory stick, before we said our farewells and caught Underground to back to Euston Station, after a really nice weekend.

Breakfast, as usual when we stay with Steven and Sherry, was at the Star Café, a few minutes from their flat, which serves a huge variety of reasonably priced breakfasts. From experience we knew that breakfast here relieved us of the necessity of the interrupting the day by the having to look for somewhere to eat. A Star Café breakfast satisfies for several hours.

Afterwards we staggered bloatedly to Finsbury Park tube station and thenceforth to London Bridge, adjacent to Borough Market. We had passed the market often on previous visits to London, but never explored the stalls selling a wide variety of food, not just a huge variety of fruit and vegetables, but also spices, teas, smoothies, beers, ciders, meats and cheeses.  Chantal and I were more interested in the photo opportunities than exploring the international cuisine in the context of catering, but nevertheless, as a cheese enthusiast, I was keen to investigate the wide variety of English cheeses, and perhaps find one that I haven’t tried before. I was disappointed. There were lots of French cheeses. We found some very friendly purveyors of a large selection of Swiss cheeses.

But we had to search extensively to find the two small stalls selling English cheeses. One sold a single variety, suited for melting as an accompaniment to other hot food. The other stall sold just four varieties of English cheese, and as far as I can recall three of those were varieties of cheddar. The fourth was Lord London, a creamy soft cheese, made in Sussex, which Chantal and I tried and enjoyed and so we purchased some for later consumption. It occurs to me as I write that I travelled to Borough Market in an almost fruitless search of cheeses of better quality than those available in supermarkets, when Leicester has quite a substantial monthly Farmers Market, not to mention an excellent indoor meat, fish and cheese market. I really shouldn’t forget my local options.

Chantal wanted to visit Liberty, the somewhat upmarket department store near Oxford Street, having seen a documentary about it, and so, after a brief break for a pint and a sit down in a warm pub,  this was our next destination.

As we stood by Oxford Street station looking bemusedly around us wondering in which direction to go, and attempting to locate the store using Google maps, and very helpful “marshall” or “Street Warden” approached is and asked if she could help. These are a recent, and extremely useful, addition to the London tourist scene, and within seconds we were heading in the right direction. Smart phones have their uses, but nothing beats the human touch.

Liberty has an impressive mock medieval façade, and with the sales floors on wide encircling balconies overlooking a central void the medieval theme continues inside, although the store is in fact 19^th century, and the façade was constructed in the 1920s.

We started at the top, where we were relieved to find a sale on, with furniture reduced by up to 50%. A very nice single dining room chair could be purchased for a very reasonable sale price of £1500. Of course one would need a few chairs if one intended to entertain guests. Steven and I could never quite comprehend why folk would spend such amounts on furniture that, to our eyes at least, may have been of excellent quality, but not sufficiently so to justify table and chairs for the cost of a quality fitted kitchen. I suppose it helps to mop up the city bonuses.

There were some very nice smaller items as we descended the floors in a very plush, if squeaky, lift, but I am pleased to report that Chantal’s credit card stayed safely in her purse. There were, however, dozens of photo opportunities.

With breakfast still fresh in our minds and tummies, there had been no excuse to stop for lunch, and so by now we were ready for a respite. To Steven’s relief, the nearest coffee shop was crowded, forcing us to find a pub with seats to spare, and we settled down with beers, coffees and cokes and planned how we would fill the 3 hours before Cirque Solei, eventually deciding on a  Thames-side walk.

We emerged from Embankment tube station into the dusk, intending to stroll in a westerly direction along the north bank of the river to Westminster. But which way was west? Well, this depended on which bank we were on. We had certainly started the most recent tube trip north of the river, but had we travelled beneath it to the South Bank? Steven-the-local decided that we must have done, me-the-yokel concurred, and so we agreed that should turn left. Chantal disagreed and said that we were on the north bank, and so should turn right, calling upon an adjacent map of the tube system to demonstrate that Embankment Station was north of the river. Steven and I pointed out that it is well known that tube maps are schematic, and so should not be used for navigational purposes, and in any case we could clearly see St Pauls a short distance away, clearly on the opposite bank. St Pauls is north of the river. Nevertheless Chantal trusted her sense of direction and turned right, followed by the rest of us, with Steven and me still protesting. Within a minute or so the London Eye was visible on the South Bank opposite, and the Tower of Big Ben appeared ahead of us on our side of the river.

This caused some confusion for us poor blokes, since we could still clearly see St Pauls behind us and the river was definitely between us and the dome. It seemed unlikely that this great architectural icon could have been moved south of the Thames without someone noticing.  It then dawned on us that we had failed to account for a significant bend in the river which looped back on itself between us and the cathedral. Chantal’s sense of direction is rarely inaccurate. In fact at this point we were heading south along the north bank of a river that runs west to east. No wonder we were confused.

It was time to head for Knightsbridge, the London District that hosts the Albert Hall, where we would be seeing Cirque Soleil. After the lights and bustle of Oxford Street and Westminster, Exhibition Road, where the London Underground system deposited us, was quiet and sombre, with subdued street lighting failing to brighten an avenue of bare trees on a grey bricked road, complementing grey brick pavements, lined on one side with large grey Portland Stone town houses with steps flanked by pillars leading to immaculate front doors, and on the other side with large contemporary office buildings of glass and painted steel. The architecture was impressive, the atmosphere was gloomy. The only life was apparently in one of the houses, where the many lit windows apparently revealed an ongoing party. As we got closer we realised that it was actually a hotel, hosting a function. The hotel sign was very discrete.

The area was livelier as we entered Kensington Road, turning left towards the Royal Albert Hall and looking out for somewhere to eat. The road may have been busier, but offered no commerce, no shops, no restaurants, and no pubs.  The “Local” smartphone app identified one pub within a reasonable distance, and guided us past the Albert Hall, round a couple of corners, directly to the doors of a crowded noisy pub, with no available seating, far too busy to enjoy a meal. The “Local App” had also suggested the Albert Hall Café, and so we retraced our steps, and asked at the main door where we were directed to one of the many other doors around the perimeter of the Hall, where we found a bright spacious café, not busy, serving a wide variety of reasonably priced sandwiches, wraps and pastries, and even offered beers! Perfect, and we didn’t even have to clock watch – we were in plenty of time for the performance, and less than a minute from the auditorium.

After a relaxed meal we were able to access directly from the café the corridor that circumnavigates the circular auditorium of the Hall , handing over our tickets, and being  directed to  our seats, the front row at the side of the stage. I had a “wow” moment as we entered the Royal Albert Hall, often seen on TV for the Last Night of the Proms, which was as impressive as expected, with six levels of seating, including the stalls and velvet-curtained boxes, with a capacity of over 5000, all beneath the impressive dome soaring above the highest balcony. Before the performance began, we had a chance to chat to one f the ushers, who pointed out the Royal Box, tonight occupied by members of staff from the Royal Household, a perk of their job.  He told us that Paul McCartney had been to a previous performance, and had been particularly impressed by the live band accompanying Cirque Soleil, giving the band a personal standing ovation.

We had an unobstructed view of the large circular stage in front of us – but no photographs were allowed, even of the Hall itself before the performance began.

The performance by Cirque Soleil was a montage of the surreal and acrobatics, loosely linked by the theme of a young girl falling asleep, and dreaming. Dramatic high level acrobatics was woven into ballet style dancing routines, which included what can only be described as extreme gymnastics. All of the time the stage was busy, and sometimes it was difficult to decide what to watch, with colourful dancers on stage, and acrobats dangling precariously from hoops or ribbons high in the air. As you would expect, the acrobatics were the most impressive. Cirque Soleil is probably most famous for the ribbon acrobats, with rolls and twists, high speed descents and ascents, all performed 20 meters in the air, with no support other than a wide ribbon wrapped around the performer. No safety net. It was very impressive. Perhaps more impressive  for me, if less visually dramatic, was the acrobatics undertaken on suspended hoops. Performers were suspended upside down, not by a strap, but simply by hooking a foot over the dangling hoop, with a second performer suspended below gripped by just one hand, as each performed a series of intricate manoeuvres, even swapping places. Amazing. And there were the gymnastic human pyramids, with a tiny girl leaping from the stage to shoulders of a fellow gymnast, who already had two layers of people beneath him. The surreal ballet continued all around these activities, following the theme of the dreaming girl.

The two hour performance, including an interval, passed very quickly. Both Steven and I agreed that the acrobatics had been unbelievable and amazing, but weren’t too sure about the arty surreal dancing. Personally I would have been perfectly happy for an hour of pure acrobatics, but no doubt many of the audience would equate value with the duration of the event. The company has up to 20 shows going on at any time across the world. We will certainly consider seeing one of their other shows  in the future.

Last weekend was spent in London with Steven and Sherry, the main event being a visit to the Albert Hall to see Cirque Soleil.

Lots to tell you, but I will break it down into bite sized chunks.

We travelled down by train on Friday afternoon, the trip from Rugby station, about 10 minutes away, costing a mere £6. Bargain. The return trip, at £15, was also quite reasonable and the journey was much more convenient than using the car, especially since we coincided our arrival at Euston with Sherry finishing work at the Euston branch of Boots, allowing us to travel together the four stops to Finsbury Park Underground station, a short walk to Steven and Sherry’s flat

We ate locally in the evening. Steven had two ongoing challenges for the weekend; (1) Find at least one pub that serves proper ale (2) Arrange a visit to a traditional pie and mash shop. Steven has form on this. On previous occasions he has enthusiastically ushered me into a pub and proudly directed to a tap serving chilled John Smiths Smooth, which, by any stretch of the imagination is not proper ale. The problem, you see, is that Steven drinks Kronenburg, a corporate lager that tastes the same everywhere, and is chilled to numb the taste buds. With regard to a Pie and Mash shop, Steven did introduce to one of those on our last visit. I had just been forced to consume Portuguese chicken and lager in a Nandos restaurant , and we passed a pie and mash shop, that also sold London Pride ale, about 1 minute from Nandos. “Oh yes” says Steven, “I had forgotten this place”.  A visit to this establishment would have ticked both boxes of the London Gourmet Challenge.

Anyway, this time Steven took the challenge seriously, and having decided that his local pub was convenient, took the time and trouble to not only pop in on his way home from work to enquire about the ales, but also mailed a photo of the labelled beer pumps to me, as we were travelling south, for my approval. With a choice of three ales, I approved and we headed for the pub not long after arriving. The beer was excellent. The food was not. The kitchen had been taken over by a hot dog franchise. This was fine by me, since the beer was excellent, and was fine by Steven, since the Kronenburg was just the same as anywhere else in the world, but the ladies wanted better quality establishments in the area (which is what smart phones are for), and ended up in a local pub where once again the kitchen had been taken over by a separate enterprise, but this time serving excellent Thai curries. And the beer was good. And the Kronenburg tasted the same as anywhere else in the world. And so we were all content and had a very pleasant evening.

Part 2 of the blog to follow!

Over Christmas, my search for a CD of suitably seasonal and festive music provided some amusement for Steven, quite possibly supported by Matthew. It would appear that for their particular generation a CD is the equivalent of what an LP might be for me – technologically superseded. Downloaded music is the thing, with no more jumping tracks, no shelves crammed with discs, and easily located music of the desired genre. I fought my corner well, explaining that the MP3 format is lower quality than a CD, and in any case I didn’t want to listen to music to the accompaniment of the PC cooling fan, but even I decided that maybe I was sounding just a little like my father defending the use of the telephone instead of the internet. And CD’s do sometimes jump tracks on my player

A day or so later I saw that the annual Classic FM Hall of Fame album of 100 favourite classical music tracks was now available for a mere £15.99. Or £4.99 if downloaded……

I noted that my amplifier had a 3.5mm jack plug socket on the front, presumably for connecting to an auxiliary device such as an MP3 player. I have an MP3 player – I use the radio option to listen to Radio 4 while cycling to work, but have never actually listened to an MP3 file on it.  I visited my local Maplin store for a suitable connecting cable (having found the vast selection of cables on Amazon somewhat confusing), and with the assistance of the helpful staff I untangled the differences between USB and jack plug ends on my MP3 player (input and output respectively, apparently), and came away with a suitable cable and adapter to attach the player to my amplifier.

I enthusiastically selected the “buy” option for the downloaded Classic FM album on the radio station web site, and promptly got told that I couldn’t download it because I hadn’t got i-player. And so I used the link kindly supplied to download i-player. Of course you can’t just download i-player, because this is an Apple product, and so you have to register, providing name, address, age, gender, e-mail details and inside leg measurements. And then the site demands ALL of your credit card details, and it’s no good pointing out that you haven’t actually started shopping yet. I admit to having one or two Victor Meldrew moments.

It was almost time for bed when at last I was cordially invited to download the album, and I pressed the download option. The first track crawled slowly onto my PC, and the second and third tracks trailed slowly behind. Predicted download time 2 hours. I went to bed, leaving the download proceeding at the pace determined by the copper telephone wires that loop through the trees to our home.

The following evening I transferred the successfully downloaded album onto my MP3 player, plugged the newly purchased cable between the player and the socket on my amp, selected “play” and “aux” on each device respectively, and waited. No music of even substandard quality emanated from either speaker. I then realised that the amp socket was for headphones – music out, not music in, and remembered that the inputs were at the back. I moved the entire sound system away from the wall, untangling cables and relocating items from the top as I did so, and located the available aux inputs. There were two  of them, one for the left speaker and one for the right. I only had one end on my new cable. It was clear that my amp is too sophisticated for my MP3 player.

Instead I opted to listen to the album on my PC, already connected to the amplifier and thence to reasonably decent speakers, which was successful. I wanted to be satisfied with the result. I really wanted to be satisfied with the result. I’m all for less clutter in my study, and the idea of easily accessible music files was appealing. I even found that the PC fan was not too intrusive, and the music was perfectly adequate. I came to a very familiar choral track, which was OK. I have the track on a CD, and played both almost simultaneously, switching from CD to aux to compare. The CD track was full bodied, rich, clear, satisfying. I’m still talking music, not wine. The MP3 was, well, just OK. And, totally independently, Chantal agreed. To be fair to Steven, I suspect that the problem is my PC sound card, which is not up to reproducing the desired quality.

For the time being I will retain my loyalty to CDs.

A couple of days ago I asked Chantal if she would like a cup of coffee, since I had just made a fresh pot in the cafetiere. Chantal generally prefers an instant coffee, but on this occasion she accepted my offer, since we had some fresh cream in the fridge, which she preferred to the milk that I was using, and so she went to the fridge, opened the door and then shrieked as the door came off of its hinges and slid to the floor. I was flipping glad that it didn’t do that when I got the milk, since it would have been a case of “Neil, you’ve broken the fridge”, as opposed to this situation when it was obviously a case of “The fridge broke”. Miraculously the fridge door and its many contents slid gracefully to the floor, with nothing broken, and not a drop of milk spilled from the open bottle. No doubt that would not have been the case if I had been the culprit.

I estimate that it took Chantal about 4.5 seconds to announce that we clearly needed a new fridge-freezer. However I objected vociferously, pointing out that the fridge was merely 16 years old (I bought it for my Broughton house) and within minutes I was on the Hotpoint website investigating the option of a new door. In the meantime Chantal realised that the door could be “hung” from the alternative hinges on the other side, which would still work with our utility room layout, and we spent a while trying this

before discovering that we still needed a new hinge to replace the broken one. This has been ordered, and although the price seemed high for a small piece of metal, it is still a tiny fraction of the cost of a new model, especially since I have no doubt that Chantal would have chosen an upmarket one with all gadgets and gismos. We are now awaiting delivery of the aforementioned new hinge, and for the time being we have a fridge with door held in place by gravity and the magnetic seal, that must be used with care. All items that are needed frequently, such as milk, have been relocated to the other fridge. As most of you know, “use with care” is something that I have some trouble with first thing in the morning, and so I have placed a reminder on the dodgy door

And in case you think this is merely a note of a humorous nature, I must point out that on several occasions I have taken the milk from the other fridge, and then just a minute or so later I have actually started to pull on the dodgy door when putting the milk back before seeing the note…

Claire, Si and the girls visited on Saturday and Sunday, and we had a lovely weekend.  They arrived on Saturday lunchtime, in time to exchange Christmas presents before lunch. Naturally the girls helped to retrieve presents from under the tree.

Chantal had prepared a full roast, and had disappeared into the kitchen to finish preparing it when there was a loud and un-repeatable expletive.  She was carving the roast lamb – usually the bloke’s job, but Chantal likes to completely prepare a meal from start to finish.  Unfortunately some of the meat that she carved was somewhat fresher than the lamb – she sliced the end of her finger. She fled upstairs to find the first aid box, having refused any assistance from me, the only qualified first aider in the household. Instead Si was permitted to assist with the bandaging. The situation must have been serious- we didn’t take any photographs. However this resulted in an unexpected treat for me, since I was suddenly allowed to be in charge in the kitchen environment, as I took over the carving (just the lamb, no other bodily parts) while Claire served the veg. Despite the previous consumption of beer and wine respectively I think that we made a magnificent team, and dinner was served perfectly.

In the afternoon we headed for the park in Narborough, always a favourite with Bridget and Megan, but I think that this was Bess and Florence’s first visit. It was a lovely clear and sunny winter afternoon, and the girls ran from each piece of play equipment to the next, climbing, sliding, spinning and see-sawing.

The grown-ups had just as much fun, joining the girls on the equipment wherever practical!

Back in Croft it was time for pudding – after dinner we had been too replete to tackle a second course, and after playing, and having a story,

the girls had a bath before the family drove to Keith’s home to sleep, in the interest of Si’s allergy to dogs and cats.

They returned mid-morning on Sunday, and we all drove up to the City Farm Park in Leicester, where we met all sorts of farm animals. A goose got a little too intimate with Chantal, mistaking her bandaged finger for a piece of bread, giving a sharp peck to her camera lens when the sensitive  finger was rapidly moved out of reach.

It was a cold morning, and we were quite glad to retire to the restaurant for lunch, where I entertained Bess with a somewhat restricted game of hide and seek.

Despite a promise of bangers and mash for dinner at home, Si and I could not resist the home made pork and apple pie with chips. After lunch the Hand’s visited Keith’s Dad and Andree, joining us back in Croft later for the aforementioned promised bangers and mash, and time to play, before it was once again time to fill our large bath. Since Claire and Chantal had been on bathing duties the previous evening, this time it was down to me and Si. Despite the lack of recent practice on my part, at all went quite smoothly. My only close shave was removing Florence’s nappy as she lay on a bath mat, forgetting the potential of a significant quantity of poo. Fortunately the poo remained on Florence, rather than the mat. All in all a fun time was had by all four of us.

And then it was sadly time for the Hands to head back north, with the girls fast asleep in the back of the car. It was a really enjoyable weekend.

See more photos in “our recent photos”

As planned we saw in the New Year with the dogs at the top of Croft Hill, joining about 20 other people to watch the fireworks exploding into the air below and all around us.

Today was the annual New Year Clay Pigeon Shoot at our friend’s, Richard and Gail’s, farm, but for the first time ever we didn’t actually do any shooting! The farm is quite exposed to the wind, and heavy rain was blowing horizontally across the fields. Any clays released into the air from the trap would have quickly flown to the nearest village, no doubt followed by the pellets of gun-shot as we tried to pepper the clay discs as they briefly appeared in the gun sights, mocking us as we stood immobile in ankle deep mud.

Instead (to my relief – I was still soaked from an earlier dog walk) we skipped straight to the second part of the event – the barbeque, set up in the shelter of a barn.

We even ate in relative comfort – our friends are having a farm house built, and since it has a roof and windows, and temporary lighting, a table was set up for us to enjoy the nibbles and barbequed food.

Richard even christened his fireplace, destined to be occupied by a wood burning stove, but on this occasion it housed a deep tray with a log fire.

It was all quite cosy.

The Yorkshire Granddaughters are back in Leeds. The Hampshire Granddaughters in Australia. So why did I find Grannie Chas playing with Aphabetti Spaghetti earlier?

It was, of course, in the interest of photography…

So it’s out with the old, and in with the new! We are off up Croft Hill later to join the inevitable group of people who like to see in the New Year under the stars, and watch fireworks around the horizon.

Happy New Year to you all. We are really  looking forward to seeing you all throughout 2014.

As usual Boxing Day was quite quiet – a lie in, dog walk (meeting lots of people on a traditional Boxing Day walk), and then I collected Dad from Lutterworth, and we went to visit my sister in Kettering.  Chantal stayed at home, since Steven and Sherry were due to return to London with Keith on Boxing Day evening. With Rob in bed with a heavy cold, and Simon and Matthew away, it was a much smaller gathering than normal, just five of us including my niece Megan, for dinner, chat exchange presents and games.

After getting home soon after 10pm, I took the dogs for a walk on Croft Hill, returning to find Chantal with her head down inside the recycling wheelie bin, surrounded by wrapping paper, packaging and bottles. Steven and Sherry had got home but were unable to find their tickets to see Cirque Soleil, and a thorough search of our house had been fruitless. That left just one place to search, by the light of the security light. No doubt Chantal had to keep wriggling her bum in the air to keep activating the light sensor as she burrowed into the detritus of a family Christmas. Her persistence paid off, and the discarded tickets were retrieved, crumpled, but fortunately unstained by wine or beer. Chantal will be keeping them safe until our trip to London.

Claire, Si and the girls visited us over the weekend – more details in a day or so.

We missed our granddaughters over Christmas – two were in Leeds, and two in Oz – but at least this meant that we had a lie in on Christmas morning. As always at Christmas I enjoyed pork pie for breakfast – the Christmas pork pie is a local tradition, but I I think that the idea of a breakfast pie originates from my Dads side of the family. The “children” were still in bed after an evening of market research into my stock of red wines (although Matthew did emerge reasonably early) and so we enjoyed breakfast in bed and exchanged presents. Mine to Chantal had been carefully researched, compared to similar products, and turned out to be exactly what she wanted – a high tech belt for carrying her camera and lenses. The research had, of course, been undertaken by my wife who sent me a web site link and detailed instructions. It’s been many years since I bought a surprise for my wife, after exchanging many gifts that were not quite right.

My present from Chantal was a complete surprise. Many months ago I had been told to keep a particular weekend in January free for my Christmas present. Initially I fretted a bit – I’m not good at surprise activities that I then have to pretend to enjoy, but this present was a winner, a front row ticket to see Cirque Soleil at the Albert Hall! I have always wanted to see a Cirque Soleil performance. Chantal also bought tickets for herself (obviously, or it wouldn’t be such a treat for me) and for Steven and Sherry, since we will be staying with them. It’s going to be a great weekend.

After breakfast Simon came over with his dog, Phil, and they joined me, Matthew, Chantal and our two pooches for a lovely walk in winter sunshine. Chantal and Lesia turned back after a while, since Lesia is still on a regime of shortish walks, leaving the remaining five of us to enjoy a longer than planned walk,

which meant that a pre-lunch test burn in the fire pit, presented and constructed on Christmas Eve, was abandoned in favour of present opening.

Both Simon and Matthew had to leave for Christmas dinners with in-laws and friends respectively, Simon just as my Dad arrived, and Matthew shortly afterwards, which left five of us, including Steven and Sherry, to enjoy a relaxed Christmas dinner, and time passed quickly before Dad had to leave to visit my Aunt and Uncle in Leicester.

Later that evening I got to try my, I mean our, fire pit, and I can confirm that it burns logs very efficiently, and eventually produces a nice warming, if smoky, glow,

although the general opinion of Steven and Sherry was that they were sure that the fire pit would be delightful on a cool summer evening, but that on this particular occasion the central heating was on inside, and East Enders was about to start. The youth of today have no stamina. Since Chantal had some sympathy for this point of view, we retired indoors, although at least I managed to avoid a depressing hour in the company of the East Enders.

It was a lovely relaxed Christmas Day.

7.45am on Christmas Eve and I am shopping for a pork pie. It is a local tradition to eat pork pie at Christmas, and the pie of choice is a Walkers pork pie. I attempted a purchase at their city centre shop yesterday lunchtime, and found customers queuing around the corner despite wind and rain. Hence my return visit on Christmas Eve.

We both worked on Christmas Eve – me in the office, and Chantal preparing the house for our Christmas guests. Despite various rumours to the contrary, Christmas Eve was a normal day at work, doing a couple of visits and commenting on a couple of plans, although Christmas music on the pool car radio (Classic FM, obviously…)while out and about provided a festive atmosphere. Oh yes, and those of us working on Christmas Eve did manage a stroll to the pub at lunchtime.

Matthew arrived here in time for dinner on Christmas Eve, followed soon afterwards by Simon and Kate, and we had a lovely relaxed evening. We wouldn’t be seeing Kate on Christmas Day, and so we exchanged presents – Simon and Kate bought us a fire pit, and Simon and Matthew spent time assembling it for us, although we didn’t actually try it out.

Ian and Svitlana delivered Steven and Sherry later on their way to Andree’s, and we stayed up late, well at least beyond our bedtime, enjoying a glass of wine or two (or was it a bottle of wine or two?). Chantal and I eventually left Matthew and Steven in front of the log burner, as they took steps to ensure that the final bottle of opened wine would be available for recycling in the morning.

The last weekend before Christmas, and I had to work on Saturday night – we were moderately busy, but heavy rain and wind meant that we were not as busy as I had expected. It’s odd how the weather affects noise complaints.

On Sunday I went to the annual carol concert at my church, where I did one of the traditional readings, before we went to Kate and Simon’s. My sister Pauline always has a family get together on Boxing Day, but both Simon and Kate, and Matthew will be going away on Boxing Day and so Simon and Kate organised a pre-Christmas gathering for us all. Kate made us a superb buffet (she is an excellent cook) and we had a really nice time just chatting and catching up.

I was briefly impressed when my Dad asked Simon to pass him an i-pad. It turned out that he merely wanted something to lean on while writing a cheque.

For any younger readers a cheque is where someone uses a pen to write an amount of money on a piece of paper, and then you go out and take it to a bank, as long as it’s during the time when the bank in open, and join a queue of people who also have similar bits of paper, and when you get to the counter a nice lady puts the details in her computer which saves you the trouble doing it in comfort at home, and she takes the piece of paper from you to keep in a safe place, and then kindly takes the time to tell you all about all the things that the bank can do for you if you want it to. You still haven’t got your money though. You have to wait three days for that to happen.  Last time that Dad gave me a cheque I tried to pay it in using an ATM. It couldn’t read Dad’s writing. You will have gathered that I am a great fan of bank transfers, although in Dad’s case internet banking must not be encouraged.

We had time for “team photos”, taken by Chantal;

And then by me

The pooch is Phil, Simon and Kate’s dog. We left ours at home, since they take up an awful lot of space.

Chantal undertook her first “interview under caution” on Tuesday, a recorded interview with  a suspected offender  who is cautioned at the beginning of the interview so that the evidence can be used in court. In this case it was a landlord who had failed to licence his “House in Multiple Occupation”, basically a large house with shared facilities, often favoured by students.  These are a particularly risky type of accommodation, because shared houses generally have a greater risk of fire, and it is further to the nearest escape route, hence they are licenced and inspected to ensure adequate fire precautions, as well as facilities, are being provided.

In the Noise Team we regularly undertake such interviews, sometimes before prosecuting a commercial establishment, but much more commonly for domestic noise nuisances when previous warnings haven’t worked, and we are  using the interview to “focus the mind” of the offender, since the next step is to obtain a Magistrates warrant to enter the property and remove sound systems etc. – quite a serious invasion of privacy.

Two of us do the interview, one leading and asking the questions, the other operating the CD recorder. I always have a problem if I am operating the CD recorder, when my last job, after ejecting the CDs, is to seal the “master copy” using a large wrap around sticky back label. First I have trouble peeling off the backing paper, and then it sticks itself to the table, my elbow, the other half of the label and to the wrong bit of the CD case. It doesn’t exactly encourage a serious and professional atmosphere. I’m not very good with Sellotape either. I always ask Chantal to wrap my Christmas presents.

It is Tuesday night. Tuesday night is “dog walking night” when friends call, coming around to the back of the house to collect me and the dogs before we all walk down the hill to the Heathcote Arms. We all enjoy ourselves, but especially the dogs, who  get different and enthusiastic company to walk with, and doggy treats from behind the bar at the pub. Thanks to Lesia’s poorly knee, Tia has enjoyed exclusive rights to our company for the last few weeks.

Unusually everyone was busy this week, what with pre-Christmas activities, and in one case the preferred option of a trip to the Caribbean. Beats a trip to the Heathcote Arms, apparently.

I had received the various apologies in advance, and so the evening has been spent as any other evening at home, with dinner, followed by a longish walk with Tia along one of the normal non-pub-night routes around the fields, before I settled down in the study to catch up on a few things. As far as the evening routine was concerned, it could have been a Wednesday or a Thursday or any other week night that isn’t a Tuesday. No normal Tuesday night routine whatsoever.

So why, just before 8pm, did Tia bark and repeatedly push the patio door curtains aside with her nose, to look out for her Tuesday night drinking buddies? That dog is too damned clever…..

Our house has been surrounded by road works for the past two weeks, and it’s all our own fault. Our drive is immediately behind the traffic light (taken in the dark because at this time of the year was are rarely at home in daylight)

A couple of years after we moved here the Lane was resurfaced.  A couple of years ago it was resurfaced again. On each occasion the new surface was laid directly upon the previous one, and consequently the height of the low “dropped kerb” at the end of our drive was at almost at the same level as the road surface. Since the road sloped up to the junction below Croft Hill, and our drive sloped up to the road, any heavy rain, or even moderately heavy rain, caused surface water to flow off of Croft Hill and down our Lane, flowing down the gutters, as it should, and thence flowing down many of the drives, as it most certainly shouldn’t.  The result was regular puddling in front of houses.

Our friend Richard suffered the worst – his was the first drive encountered by water descending from Croft Hill, and the river flooded his back garden, via his garage.

We pointed this out to the County Council, who didn’t believe us, advising us that, apparently, the height of our kerb met regulatory requirements. They undertook site visits, but they never coincided with the right sort of rain.  And then summer arrived, the driest summer for a while, and everyone forgot about the puddles, just enjoying the warm sunshine instead.

As is traditional for a British Summer, the season ended with a thunderstorm, and then another thunderstorm, and then we suddenly remembered the puddles, as we swam out to the car. Three of we residents made a formal complaint to the Council, and at last the Highways Department agreed to install drains on our side of the Lane that would divert water though a gulley beneath the road into the ditch on the far side of the Lane, which has been dredged for the purpose. Hence the traffic lights as one side of the Lane is closed for gulley constructing purposes.

Driving off of the drive between the traffic lights is interesting especially in daylight when you cannot actually see the reflected colour of the controlling light. One has to shut one’s eyes, and “go for it”. A couple of mornings ago there was quite a queue of traffic waiting at “our” lights”, and the car in front kindly flashed me out he pulled away from the lights. It wasn’t until I met a couple of cars coming the other way that I realised that the lights were all stuck on red. Being a “local” I merely pulled into a neighbours drive, and out the other end, leaving the kind soul behind me who had allowed me out to meet any oncoming vehicles on his behalf, to manage the traffic management situation as best he could.

As usual last Tuesday was our weekly “Dog Walking Night”, when a group of us set off with the dogs from home at around 8pm, strolling down the hill to Croft, and without fail we end up in the Heathcote Arms.  This week, thanks to various apologies, it was just Richard, me and Tia who donned head torches, and in Tia’s case a flashing collar light, and headed out into the winter darkness. Lesia is still on shortish lead walks, thanks to her sprained knee, but should be able to join us for the regular dog treats from behind the bar before too long.

This week the regulars, including us, were huddled at one end of the bar, since a chess club (Blaby Chess club, I believe) were meeting at the other. Four games were going on, with five players. The chap with his back to the board in the photo above was simultaneously playing four other players, moving from board to board. I don’t know the final “score”, but after buying a pint he challenged Peter, one of the regulars who by is all accounts an enthusiastic and competent chess player, to a game. The twist was that the “challenger” had his back to the board while Peter described to him each of his moves, and subsequently moved the challenger’s piece as instructed.

Peter won the first game. The second game was still in progress when we set off back up the hill, Tia and her flashing light leading the way home. It’s all edge-of-the-seat stuff at The Heathcote.

I visited the pub again the following evening. When heading out of the door to go to work that morning, I discovered that I didn’t have a wallet (can you “discover” something that isn’t there?). After a frantic and unsuccesful search of the house, I was late and grumpy, having concluded that the wallet was either (a) still in the Heathcote Arms or (b) somewhere along the country footpath between our house and the pub. I made a call to Andy, the pub landlord, who fortunately found it under the seat  in the corner where we had been sitting, and Tia and I walked down to fetch it after work. Much as I was tempted to relieve  my wallet of a couple of quid for a swift half, sadly I had to rush home for an appointment with the vet for Lesia.

I went to the first Christmas event of the year last night – the annual Christmas Concert in aid of the Rainbows Children’s Hospice in Loughborough. Kate (above!) and her Mum are in the “Lancaster Community Choir”, quite a large choir from Leicester, who always perform at this event, and consequently I have joined Simon at this event for several years, along with Kate’s Dad and her grandparents, and often some of Simon’s friends. For the last two years my Dad had come along, and this year my Dad’s friend Edwina (my ex-Mother-in-Law!) also joined us.

As usual the concert was excellent, starting with Lancaster Community Choir both leading the audience in carol singing, as well as performing Christmas songs and carols.

The concert continued with readings, stories, performances by local schools, the Rainbows choir fom the hospice, and by a professional singer, as well as plenty of opportunities for traditional carol singing. It was an excellent evening, a really nice start to the Christmas festivities.

We were on the second row with some of the performers seated in front of us. I had a Deja vu moment when the professional singer stood up to perform accompanied by a second singer and a guitarist. I am convinced that the guitarist was a young man who had visited our office earlier, and, along with his mates, had been given a “severe dressing down” for undertaking a band practice, complete with electric guitars and a drum kit, in the living room of a house, and who expressed surprise to hear that the neighbours were not very happy. Since the guitarist at the concert was not acknowledged by name in the programme, I will never know for sure.

For many years now Scraggies have had the job of maintaining the outdoor chapel on our local Scout camp site, a few miles from home. The chapel is a peaceful spot, among maple and pine trees away from the two camping fields, and from the busy area where the various wooden buildings and camp fire circle are located. Last Saturday morning was our annual autumnal leaf clearing session, raking and brushing fallen leaves, moving them outside of the low wooden fence around the chapel. This year the seasons seem to be later than usual, and there are still leaves on the trees, possibly necessitating a second visit is a couple of weeks.

But the highlight of the day was the annual beer and pie festival at the Elephant And Castle in Thurlaston, the village a couple of miles away that you can see from the end of our garden on the far side of the M69 across the fields. Since it coincided with the planned camp chapel maintenance it was an obvious venue for lunch. Most Scraggies drove there, but Richard Hayes and I collected Tia from home, and walked across the fields on a gorgeous sunny autumn afternoon.

As soon as Scraggies had all gathered, we each chose our respective homemade pie from a choice of at least half a dozen varieties – my choice was mixed game, and Chantal, who had driven to the pub to join the rest of us, chose beef and ale. All were properly encased in short crust pastry (none of the exploding puff pastry nonsense) and served with chips and mushy peas.

And, possibly of greater importance, there were the beers;

Ale aficionados can click on the image for greater detail. The northern branch of the family will be pleased to hear that the best option by far was the Leeds Brewery offer of “Midnight Bell”. For those across the Big Pond, I must advise that, having tasted “American Pride” I can confirm that the Americans have still not got the hang of this brewing business. It’s a shame that in 1773 they turfed all those tea bags into Boston Harbour (or technically Boston Harbor, I suppose) since a nice cup of tea is most certainly preferable to American Ale.

Most Scraggy Crows members were driving, and so gently drifted away after sampling 2 or 3 halves of various ales, leaving Richard and I to ensure that we tried at least one of each sample (with the exception of the Everards offerings, which we can sample at any time), plus a few extra half pints of the Midnight Bell, just to demonstrate our hearty approval of this brew.  The sun was low in the sky when, guided home by Tia, we wandered contently back across the fields in the late afternoon sunshine.

Chantal spent the day in Leeds last Thursday, visiting the Hands and having a lovely time with Claire, Bess and Florence, as well as seeing Dave, Si’s Dad, for dinner. I have tried to persuade Chantal that it is time for her to write a post for the blog, but she won’t do as I tell her. No change there then. But she did tell me that they all went to the White Rose Shopping Centre to visit the “Build-a-Bear Factory” so that Bess could create her own unique bear to give to Florence for Christmas, but shhhhh…..don’t tell Florence. It’s a secret. While Bess was undertaking Bear Building, Florence was touring the rest of the shopping centre with Grannie Chas.

Chantal’s favourite moments were apparently spent in the bathroom – enjoying an enthusiastic “High Five”’ with Bess every time she (Bess, not Chantal) successfully did a wee in the toilet!

Photos from the day are in “Our Recent Photos”

I got stopped by one of our neighbours on the way back from yesterday afternoon’s dog walk. He had left a bucket full of apples, picked from his tree, on the lawn, and woke up in the morning to find them all gone, apart from a few chewed scraps. Despite the gathering dusk he showed me cloven hoof imprints, about 2” long, in his lawn, and what can only be described as a small cowpat to accompany them. The hoof print was distinctly deer like, but the poo was most definitely not.

Later, at about 10.30 last night, I took the dogs onto the front drive, as we do, for a final pre bedtime “comfort visit”. Lesia calmly set about the task in hand, but Tia gave a “WOOF” and promptly legged it down the road. Having grabbed Leisa’s collar to stop her following, I peered down the road, calling Tia (who, surprisingly, came straight back to me) and was surprised to see dazzling car headlights with the distinctive silhouette of a bullocks tummy, recognisable from what dangles beneath.

Having returned the dogs to the security of the back garden, I strolled down the lane, and was greeted by a voice from behind the headlights “Is this your cow?” The “cow” was a very young bull calf, standing in the road, which would explain the hoof prints in our neighbour’s garden; the calf was clearly a serial escapologist. The car had had to take avoiding action, and had turned round to investigate further. The calf was exceedingly friendly, and allowed me to approach and scratch his head.

We needed to get him off of the road, and so I returned home to fetch a dog lead, which I fashioned into a halter which the calf happily let me put around his neck, but he put his hoof down at being led. I walked down the lane to investigate a gateway which I knew led to a barn and yard, with an adjacent field that has cows in it. The gate was locked. I felt a nudge to my arm, and there was the calf, which had followed me down the lane, like a very large dog. I decided that the only option was to enclose the calf next to our house, behind the gate, even though we keep a lot of stuff there that could be knocked over. I walked back up the Lane, with the car in front, hazard light flashing, and I phoned Chantal to ask her meet me in the front garden with an enticing apple. The calf followed closely behind.  However before we got to our house the calf suddenly turned right though a large gap in the hedge, and headed across a field planted with young cereal plants, and disappeared into the darkness. Chantal was a bit disappointed – she was at the font door, apple in one hand, and, naturally, camera in the other. All that was left to do was to block the gap in the hedge – the wooden frames with chicken wire, originally used to make a cat-run at Coalville have been remarkably useful over the years.

This morning I left a note on the gate to the barn, and the farmer phoned me at lunchtime. The calf had originally been part of his herd, but who lost its Mum shortly after birth.  A young couple at Hilltop Farm, on the far side of the field opposite our house, now a family house rather than a farmhouse, had taken pity on the orphan calf. They keep it as a pet, living in their garden, which would explain why it followed me everywhere. It was clearly heading for home, after a tiring adventure, as it set off back across the field.

We will know where to send it next time.

I cycled to work yesterday, as usual taking clothes to change into when I got to the office – a nice neatly folded white shirt, to accompany the dark trousers that permanently reside in the office, a matching tie, and I finally grabbed a pair of folded dark socks from my sock draw. My choice of socks was not fully revealed until I went to change into them in the office;

The socks caused some amusement in the office. Rather than be in trouble with Chantal for stretching them, I opted to spend the day in my light grey and white cycling socks, which, I am told, do not coordinate well with dark trousers.

On a totally unrelated issue, I was strolling through the city centre yesterday lunchtime, when I smelled the delicious aroma of roast pork and crackling. I looked up to see that I was passing a tanning salon….

Hopefully the odour was wafting from the hotel several doors away, rather than a customer who had been left just a tad too long on a sunbed.

We went to See Agatha Christie’s murder mystery “The Mousetrap” last weekend, at De Montfort Hall in Leicester – part of its 60^th Anniversary tour, after more than 25000 performances in London.  Chantal, who only went because I told her that we were going, decided that it exceedingly obvious that it was sixty years old – it was dated and boring.  You would have thought that a lifetime of soaps would have made her immune to what she considered as somewhat forced acting.

I enjoyed it, although I have always like Agatha Christie dramas, preferring plays and films/TV to reading it. I have to admit that I am a bit of a Miss Marple enthusiast (although this is second to Inspector Morse). Perhaps I should have lived in the 1930’s when most of the Christie plots seem to be set. The Mousetrap is classic Christie, with the entire plot unfolding while the characters are trapped in one place, in this case a snowbound hotel, a tendency for characters to be unexpectedly murdered, and the murderer eventually being revealed by a process of elimination.

Want to know who did it? We can’t tell you – it a tradition of the play that, at the end, the cast ask the audience not to reveal all….

If you get the chance, go and see it, just to say you have done so. For those brought up on spoon fed entertainment from the box in the corner, it is the antidote to special effects and compute generated images.

Lesia is on the mend but not there yet. The swelling on her back leg has almost disappeared, which has revealed a small skin wound – maybe she caught her leg on the steps in Dad’s garden. If she hasn’t fully recovered by next week it is back to the vets to see if there is a more serious underlying injury. In the meantime she is having 10 minute walks on a lead, which both dogs find disconcerting as Chantal heads back home with Lesia as I continue on the walk with Tia. Both dogs stop in their tracks and look over their shoulder at the other until each is out of sight, but yesterday even after Lesia disappeared into the darkness, Tia suddenly decided to go and join her, sprinting back across the field, her flashing collar light receding into the distance. She did come back when I called, but she ran quite a way first.

At least Lesia is still able to join us on our car journeys without risking further damage as she jumps in and out of the car – we still have a ramp that was no doubt originally bought for Breeze.

We went shopping for shoes a couple of weeks ago and bought a bird feeding station. Well, that is what happens when Chantal takes me shoe shopping. The shoe retailer of choice was an outlet in Woodlands garden centre, which is how I was persuaded to go along. The shoe shopping was not a success, since it appears that the style that Chantal wished to purchase, a replacement for some shoes that she already has and finds comfortable (Chantal is a martyr to her feet) was a summer stocked item.

Naturally I had already wondered off browsing elsewhere, and found the bird feeding stations. For a while we had hung various bird feeders from a tree above a path, which were popular with the birds, but the fallen uneaten seeds were sprouting profusely and uncontrollably between the slabs. No doubt with a bit of careful selection we would have found a weed or two suitable for drying and smoking. We wanted a proper feeding station on the lawn, in close view of the kitchen and study windows, where sprouting seeds could be simply mown. Woodlands had a reasonable selection, and after spending even more time browsing than Chantal had done in the shoe shop, we chose one with a lot of places to hang feeders. In fact we can now hang up six types of food and have a seventh in a feeding tray, and have bowl full of nice clean water. I’m afraid that “our” birds don’t get offered a 7 course meal – some of the food on offer is duplicated elsewhere on the feeding station.

Unsurprisingly at this time of the years the feeding station gets very busy, with a queue of blue tits, coal tits, long tailed tits, greenfinches, goldfinches, yellowhammers, a nuthatch, and a woodpecker, and they are just the ones that I recognise. Last week a sparrow hawk landed on the top. Sparrow hawks don’t eat seeds. They eat the birds that are eating the seeds. On more than one occasion we have seen a sparrow hawk swoop down and snatch a blue it from the bird table while we were in the garden. On this occasion the entire flock of seed feeding birds sensed the incoming predator, and fled into an adjacent prickly bush. The hawk was disgusted by this unfair play, did a large and disdainful poo on my lawn, and flew off, too quickly to be photographed.

The feeding station is a great source of entertainment for Chantal and her camera, and several bird shots have appeared in her 365 project including the arty oil-paint effect one below.

Last Monday we had planned to spend a day in Yorkshire with our friend Liz and her partner Tracie, but we got an e-mail on Saturday night cancelling the trip. We were left with an unexpected and rare day to ourselves, and so we did what most folk do on a sunny and perfect day to be outdoors. We went shopping. We have been trying to find time to buy a decent walking jacket for me, and a quality tripod for Chantal, which in practice meant a trip to Jessops photographic shop in Nottingham, via Go Outdoors in Loughborough. I quickly chose a jacket and we drove to Nottingham where Chantal found that the choice of displayed tripods was less than she had hoped. We browed other photographic bits and pieces until an assistant offered to assist, as assistants do. I asked if the display of tripods was all they offered, and Chantal joined us, and explained that she was looking for a “Three Legged Thingy”. I reminded her that it was called a “tripod”, but it turned out that a “Three Legged Thingy” is actually a variety of tripod, which the assistant eventually found on his I-pad. Jessops didn’t actually sell this item, but Chantal spent a happy half hour or so discussing alternative options, before leaving empty handed. Actually, no she didn’t. Chantal couldn’t possibly leave a camera shop empty handed – she bought a new camera case.

On the way back home we stopped to walk the dogs up Bardon Hill, near Coalville, a favoured route over ten years ago, when Chantal lived in Coalville, and I took Josh, Chantal’s German shepherd at the time, for a long walk on a Saturday morning while Chantal did some house cleaning. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed those walks.

Thanks to the time taken by Chantal to research her tripod in Jessops her tripod, it was dusk as we approached the top, but we still managed some photo opportunities.  I turned to see the above view of Chantal as she photographed the view in the gathering darkness. “Wait there!” I said fumbling for my camera. Unusually she did as asked….

On the way back down Chantal returned the favour, “capturing” me and Lesia at the same spot.

Yesterday was one of our annual highlights – a visit to Hinckley Rugby Club to see a game sponsored by our friend Richard’s company and a select group of us are treated to a three course roast dinner at the Club House as part of the sponsorship deal, and Richard also very kindly covers the bar bill. As usual it all starts reasonably sedately, as blokes and girls separate to exchange gender specific gossip, the girls seated comfortably at the table, while the blokes remain in the vicinity of the bar.

As dinner is served and the wine flows, it all gets a little bit silly;

We all know that we would be acting our age, but we’ve forgotten how. After cheese and port we staggered out to watch the rugby game on a gorgeously sunny, if cool, afternoon.

Matthew stopped over, having been to his Nan’s (Lynn’s Mum) 80^th birthday party. This was apparently a lot more staid than the afternoon entertainment enjoyed by his Dad and Step-mum, but a glass or too of red wine and some canine company soon rectified the situation;

Matthew joined me and Tia for a dog walk this morning (Lesia is on a week of “bed rest” thanks to her poorly knee) before he went off to Lincoln to meet a friend, and Tia and I strolled down  to the village for the annual Remembrance Day service at the war memorial.

Lesia is under the weather. Since I was working last night, I spent yesterday morning gardening at Dad’s, and the dogs joined me. We always go to Dad’s when I am working at night, and in return for some pruning, weeding or mowing I get a full fried breakfast, or in my case brunch, since it is served after 11am. The dogs were playing at the back while I pruned at the front, and when Lesia was clearly stiff afterwards I assumed that, after an early morning walk involving running through flood water and chasing pheasants, followed by a vigorous play session with Tia in Dad’s garden, she had just been a bit over-active for her age. She didn’t want to move last night, and so today I took her to the vet, leaving her there for an x-ray. Her knee is badly swollen, with inflamed soft tissue damage, the equivalent of a badly sprained ankle. And so she now has a week without walks, has prescribed painkillers and anti-inflammatories, and its back to the vet after a week to assess recovery.

We have new lighting in the kitchen. Our builder/electrician friend Bill arrived here at 6.30am last Thursday morning, on the way to another job, to install the fittings, aided by Chantal who managed to combine being an electrician’s assistant and supervisor/quality control into a single post.

Chantal has been grumbling about the quality of lighting in the kitchen for some time – a warm cosy light is OK when sitting chatting over dinner at the kitchen table, but not for dinner preparation – too much gloom and shadows on the work surfaces, apparently. Personally I was quite content with the old lighting, particularly when Chantal told me the cost of her chosen replacement, and so Chantal called in reinforcements to back up her argument, and convince me that I am wrong. Thanks Lucy. It seems that when it comes to the cost of such things I am old fashioned and out of touch. Or as Chantal would put it “You are getting like your father…” Kate, take note.

There is absolutely no doubt that the quantity of artificial light in the kitchen has increased significantly. I’m not so sure about the quality. The kitchen’s high luminescent atmosphere is now reminiscent of an operating theatre. Could save us a fortune in vet’s bills.

We look forward to your (honest) opinion as you visit over the next few months.

Someone forgot about the washing until bedtime. Could have been worse – Chantal could have been in her nightie…

Our local brewery, Everards, has an excellent marketing tool. It is called “Meet the Brewer”. The aim is to encourage folk to visit their local pub, while at the same time promoting the brewery and the method is a lecture enlightening attendees on the history of beer, brewing, and Everards. Sounds tedious doesn’t it? But not when the event includes the opportunity to sample Everard’s products. The Heathcote Arms hosted a Meet the Brewer event last Tuesday evening, and so, since Tuesday is “dog walking night”, when we would at the Heathcote anyway, we dog walkers went along, and even invited our wives. On this occasion the dogs stayed at home.

In fact the lecture is fascinating, given by one of Everards Master Brewer, and is full of anecdotes, and facts, really amusing. On the tables in front of us were things for us to taste – not beer, but barley grains toasted for differing times depending on how dark the beer is to be. There were dried hops, pieces of fish bladder (used to clear the beer), and various other ingredients used in the brewing process.  There was a quiz, and most of us came home with an Everards T-shirt.  And there was the final product – 150 pints in 4 casks of Everard’s beers, to be shared between about 30 of us. And to accompany the beer, Andy and Trish, pub landlord and landlady, served a magnificent buffet. All for £1. Yes, everything for a quid.

Not surprisingly we are all great fans of Meet the Brewer, and this is our third at the Heathcote. This was the best value yet. Previous events had cost an astronomical £3, with a much sparser buffet.

It was a great evening. Well, as far as I can remember…..

Chris, Lucy and the girls visited last weekend, arriving late Saturday afternoon. They had planned to arrive a little earlier, but Chris found that packing the car in pouring rain took longer than expected. On Monday they were travelling from here to Centre Parks in Sherwood Forest, and so Chris had a lot to fit in the car, especially since he discovered that his rooftop “luggage pod” was at Lucy’s parents  about 20 miles away. And there were four bikes to be balanced and secured on a bike rack.

They arrived just as I was leaving for the evening dog walk, which gave the girls a chance to stretch their legs in the evening sunshine, joined by Chris, leaving Lucy to gossip with Chantal.

On Sunday Chantal and I took the girls to Sutton Cheney Wharf, close to the Bosworth Battlefield site, about half an hour from here. Chris and Lucy went shopping in Fosse Park. I think that we got the best deal. The plan was to go for a short trip with the girls, on the Ashby Canal, followed by a walk up to a restaurant  at the Battlefield site, and, if timing permitted, a walk down to the “Battlefield Line”, a heritage steam railway to see a steam engine arrive.

When we got to the canal, we found that the narrow boat company website was out of date – they no longer operate short canal trips, and so had to juggle our plans. We took the dogs for a walk along the canal towpath against a strong wind which was making waves on the water, and watched the “ducks a dabbling, up tails all”, which the girls found most amusing as the ducks stuck their bottoms in the air to feed on weeds.

I hope you all know the “Duck Ditty” from Wind in the Willows;

We had a pleasant lunch at a canal side café before driving to Shenton Station on the Battlefield Line, where we caught a Halloween themed steam train to Shackerstone and back, about half an hour each way, with time to explore the station at Shackerstone, spotting skeletons and bloody arms without a body on our way to the gift shop. With a variety of railway toys and books, the girls chose a soft toy each – a dog and a koala. I also noticed that the girls revelled in the novelty of our own compartment in the railway carriage, especially one decorated with spiders and webs,

but didn’t seem to share my enthusiasm for the steam engine, despite being invited onto the footplate to meet the driver.

We returned home and had time to make pumpkin lanterns before the Tilleys left to go to see Andree, Ian and Svitlana. I told Chantal that I would buy a couple of pumpkins from Leicester, and had already purchased them when Chantal texted to tell me not to bother because she had bought two at Aldi, and so the girls had 4 pumpkins to hollow out and turn into Halloween lanterns. Having drawn the faces to be cut out, the girls found that playing on the Wii was much more exciting than scraping out pumpkins with a spoon, and so in the end this was left to Daddy and Grannie, while the girls has more high tech fun.

My Dad joined us for part of the afternoon and evening, seeing the girls briefly before they went to Whetstone. It was 3 years to the day since we lost Mum, and so we invited Dad over to join us for tea and a chat.

The Tilleys left us on Monday morning to drive up to Sherwood Forest, seeing Keith on the way.

More photos in “Our Recent Photos”

It has been 3 years since we lost Mum, and so Dad invited us all for a family meal at The Elms in Lutterworth, a favourite venue for him and Mum. The actual anniversary is on 27^th October, but for various reasons the meal was on the Friday before. This year the meal was “childless”. The weekend coincided with half terms, and we seem to have a lot of school based links. By the time that the meal arrangements had been made, Simon and Kate were committed to a weekend with Kate’s sister in Watford, Matthew had booked a holiday in Croatia with a teacher friend, and my niece Megan had an end of term engagement with friends. I, like Dad, am perfectly happy that the “kids” are getting on with their own lives. My sister Ros wasn’t able to travel from Yorkshire, and so there were 7 of us; Dad, Chantal and me, my other sister Pauline and brother in Law Rob, Dad’s friend Edwina, and, her son Martin, a small enough gathering to be able to chat and catch up with news.

We had a nice meal, and went back to Dad’s afterwards where carried on chatting over a cup of tea.

We’ve had a glut of tomatoes this year, the weather has been ideal, Chantal has been keeping up with the watering, and the crop has been supplemented by tomatoes from Andree, donated in spring as young plants. It was my idea to accept Andree’s offer of tomato plants, leaving Chantal to spend the summer watering them, and the autumn dealing with a glut of fruit. Or are they vegetables?

There are only so many tomatoes that one (or in our case two) can consume in salads and sandwiches. Some were given away, but there was still a large quantity of tomatoes left, and so Chantal combined the  excessive tomatoes, and various other ingredients, together with an I-pad and the internet, using modern technology  and traditional preservation techniques.

Anyone for tomato chutney?

Chris, Lucy and the girls were here at the weekend – a posting and photos will appear in due course.

Leicester is getting a new Sainsbury store – the biggest in the UK apparently. Naturally it is close to a lot of potential customers, and adjacent to one of the city’s busiest road junctions, which will allow easy access by customers from further afield. Tesco must be trembling in its competitive shoes.

The road junction is being re-built, courtesy of Sainsbury, with new lanes and slip roads to separate shoppers from commuters and from people just trying to drive around the top of Leicester, and the result is long queues in all directions all day, and lots of frustrated drivers. The local MP, Keith Vaz, a big cheese in national politics, steps in and leans on the local councillors, who lean on the Highways Department, who lean on the contractors to do whatever is needed to get the job done quickly.

We promptly get complaints from local residents about very noisy construction work taking place all night, and we ask the contractors what on earth they think they are doing? Stop this night work at once! But, they tell us, it is the City Council who told us to work all night. Of course there is no actual written instruction, and we have to untangle who said what to whom.

In the meantime the local residents complain to Keith Vaz about being kept awake, and he demands that all parties, including my manager (thank goodness I didn’t apply for the post when I recently had the chance…) have a site meeting, during which he asks what on earth the Noise Team is doing allowing road works to take place at night, and what are we doing about it and it really isn’t good enough.

Well, we had already considered serving a Notice, which the contractors would ignore, and we would prosecute, which would get to court after Christmas, and the contractors would have several valid defences, and even if found guilty would be fined considerably less than the penalty payments that would be due to Sainsbury if completion is delayed (and the maximum fine would be the equivalent of about half an hours trading by Sainsbury). There was no point is explaining this to Keith Vaz.

A cessation of noisy work by 11pm was agreed, although, as we already knew, what we consider to be quieter work, and what contractors consider to be quieter work, differ considerably, and, argue the contractors, what can you do when the City Council Traffic Management won’t allow a road closure until 7pm, and then two waggon loads of asphalt arrive late and has to be laid and rolled while still soft even if the 11pm deadline is imminent? But not to worry it will be done by midnight, with just a bit of road sweeping to be done. Have you ever heard one of those road sweepers in action? Noisy jet engines come to mind.

Which is why at 1am yesterday morning I was marching up and down Melton Road in Leicester, taking noise measurements, and “negotiating” with Highways Officers over what operations are going on and why, and it really should move away from houses as soon as possible, especially since earlier local residents had ambushed me earlier to complain at length that nothing is being done to allow them sleep, and someone will die because they will be driving while tired.

By 2.00am everything was as quiet as is reasonable under the circumstances (which most people would still consider to be noisy for the time of night), but there was a road sweeper sitting discretely in a corner, engine running, ready to roll. I decided to go home.

On Monday night it will once again be my turn to put on my high vis jacket and safety boots and leave home at 10pm for 4 hours (or 3 if all goes well) of monitoring.

I have uploaded some photos from our recent weekend with Chris, Lucy and the girls (which have been somewhat mixed up by the uploading software…) in Our Recent Photos – a few more still to be added by Chantal in due course!

The dogs and I came across this chap a week or so ago – I think that it was a pipistrelle bat, but only because this is the most common bat on the UK – proper identification is by wingspan, and I wasn’t going to risk being bitten by spreading its wings out. It was on a neighbours drive as we were heading down the lane to the fields, and so fortunately the dogs were still on their leads.

The bat was crawling around in broad daylight, and the weird thing was that, instead of trying to get away from us as you would expect a wild creature to do, it kept turning to face us and crawling towards us as I kept pulling the curious dogs away. Scary. Presumably it was suffering from some sort of disease – I trust it wasn’t rabies…

It had gone by the time that we returned from our walk.

We have a new internet phone system at work – the Microsoft Lync system. When a call comes it is your PC, rather than a phone, that rings, and to receive or make calls we need to use a headset. When we were first told that we were going to be using Lync there was uproar because everyone thought that we would be permanently tied to our PCs by the headset. In fact since the “call notification” is via the PC speakers, headphones are only used when on a call. I think that most people are now quite happy with the system – I certainly am. Although there was one thing that threw everyone for the first few days. Without a telephone hand piece to hold, what do you do with your hands? There was a lot a lot of flapping of idle hands for a few days, although we are slowly getting the hang of multitasking – using a keyboard while on a call.

Our friends Taff (aka Dave) and Elaine got married last Saturday. It was a bit of a rush job – no shotguns involved, it was merely that they wanted to marry in the small church on the country estate where they live in a stables conversion, and when they discovered that the church was closing after Christmas they had a wedding to organise in 8 weeks. Taff is, as many of you might know, a “Scraggy Crow” and “Scraggies” rallied round. Between us we provided the orders of service (by Scraggy who usually prints funeral services!), the car, and it fell to Chantal and me (well, mainly Chantal) to do the photography

We didn’t really realise this until the Thursday before. Taff had previously asked whether we were bringing our cameras, and if so, would we mind letting them have a copy of any photographs taken? He didn’t want any of the fuss of actually organising the guests – just shots of folk enjoying themselves at the wedding.  On Thursday Taff told another friend that we were taking the wedding photos, which was a little more involved than shots of folk enjoying themselves, and so on Thursday evening I had a chat with the bride and persuaded her to provide a list of particular groups that she wanted photographing, especially since it appeared that we would have just a 15 minute window between the service and reception!.

Before the service Chantal took quite a few photographs of guests arriving, the groom and best man, ushers, and the arrival of the bride, she managed the signing of the register and the newlyweds walking up the aisle, and went outside for the group shots. After two photographs, the sky darkened and the heavens opened, with torrential rain. The guests refused to leave the church porch, and Chantal had neither the time, nor equipment, to organise everyone within the church.

I don’t think that Taff and Elaine are expecting formal shots. They certainly won’t be getting any….

.Despite the weather, it was a really relaxed wedding and reception – a lovely day with plenty of time to drink and gossip.

And, I am pleased to say, there was no music of a popular nature….

It’s been a bit busy since my last blog, what with looking after a poorly wife (despite what she might say to the contrary), some church reports that I had to do, and some long days at work catching up after our holidays. But things are calming down and normal service is resumed.

We had a lovely weekend with the Hampshire Tilleys last week, managing to drop of the dogs at “Best Buddies” and be in Chandlers Ford soon after 11 on Saturday. We had a guided tour of the new house – it’s lovely, with lots of space, functional and stylish at the same time. A bit like me, really. I’m not going to describe it in detail – I’m sure that Chris and Lucy will be delighted to describe it with the help of photos for those who haven’t visited yet.

On Saturday afternoon we drove to the coast and had a stroll along the sea front in lovely warm sunny weather looking across the Solent to the Isle of Wight. The girls cycled along the “promenade” – at one point Megan fell off, and by the time Chris caught up, she had been picked up by a couple walking nearby. Chris dusted Megan down, put her back in the saddle, and asked her if she had thanked the kind people who rescued her, “No!” said Megan “Because you told me not to talk to strangers…”

  Naturally the cycle ride included time to enjoy ourselves at a playground overlooking the sea

Saturday evening, after bedtime stories, was, of course, spent in front of Strictly, apart for me who spent the evening being told by Chantal to put my paper down because she couldn’t see the TV.

Sunday was warm and sunny, and we made the most of the garden, playing on the swing,

bouncing on the trampoline, playing swing ball (Chris has strung a tennis ball to the bough of a tree – I must try that here),

helping Bridget with the homework (as much as she allowed us to), reading very impressive school reports, beading hair (doll’s and Granny’s) and applying nail varnish. Granny applied varnish to girls who then applied varnish to Granny – guess who was next in line?

The new kitchen/living room/dining room has large patio doors that floods the living room with sunshine, allowing garden and house activities to take place without participants being separate

The only break was in activity was to enjoy a superb Sunday roast prepared by Lucy while we were enjoying ourselves.  As always time flew by, and we were sorry when it was time to leave late on Sunday afternoon.

Alain stayed with us until last Thursday, when he travelled to London to spend an evening with Steven and Ian spending the days before then with Andree and then evenings with us. Naturally he joined in the dog walking to the pub on Tuesday night. I asked  Andy, the landlord, whether he had any spare beermats for Alain to take back to Canada – Alain collected some from Cornwall for his basement, which, apparently, becomes a local pub in winter, for friends and neighbours in Sioux Lookout. Andy came up trumps, presenting Alain with a large bag of beermats, a couple of Everards (our local brewer) bar mats, and an Everards Tiger t-shirt. Alain was very impressed with the freebies, the dog walking company, and the beer – especially since one of the casks of real ale, on a rack in readiness for a forthcoming British Beer and Food Festival at the pub was ready for drawing, and we were able to enjoy pints of Hobgoblin straight from the cask. The rather fuzzy image below was taken with my phone after at least the first pint…

Chantal has been poorly with a chest infection, but on Friday evening we did manage to get down to the pub, albeit briefly, to sample the food and (in my case) ales at the aforementioned Beer and Food Festival.

A boozy weekend after our return from Cornwall! (I initially wrote “busy” weekend, but boozy is more accurate). Ian and Svitlana dropped off Steven and Sherry shortly before 11pm on Friday night, shortly before we were going to bed! It had been a tiring journey from Mousehole. We stayed up for an extra “bedtime drink” – just to be sociable, of course.

On Saturday Les, Alain, Steven and Sherry visited Andree, spending the afternoon at the Kafir pub in Whetstone

before all, together with Ian and Svitlana, returned here in a taxi, had dinner, and they all headed down the road to my local pub in Croft, once Chantal and I had kitted them out with head torches – not a requirement for London based pub crawls! Chantal and I joined them shortly afterwards, once the study had been converted into a bedroom for Ian and Svitlana.

After another visit to Andree in the morning, the pub crawl continued on Sunday afternoon, as all except Chantal and I (other than providing a taxi service) headed for the Bluebell in Stoney Stanton to watch a football match, although Ian and Svitlana spent extra time with Andree and joined the others later. It’s good to see that some of the wealth in London gets spent in the local area.

After the match we had a few minutes to take a group photo (well, several group photos)

before the Londoners headed south leaving me, Chantal Alain and Leslie to spend a very pleasant evening chatting until late under a full moon on our patio (although Les was briefly interrupted by a call from Ruthie).

A late night was possibly a bad move since we had to leave at 6 the following morning to deliver Les to Heathrow. Which just leaves Alain, who doesn’t fly back to Canada until Friday.

We returned from a relaxing break in Mousehole, Cornwall,On Friday. We got home from Wales late afternoon last Saturday, and left for Cornwall on Sunday lunchtime, arriving in time for a sunset dog walk on the beach. We had Monday to ourselves, and enjoyed a pint and a pasty at a pub a few miles away, before a cliff top walk in bright sunshine, finishing the day off traditionally with a Cornish cream tea.

Alain and Les joined us on Tuesday. We arranged to meet them at the harbour side pub in Mousehole, since it was easier to find than my cousins’ holiday cottage where we were staying. Les walked in just a few minutes after we arrived, explain that Alain had gone to park the car. We assumed that Alain had chosen to use the easily accessible car park on the edge of the village, but he walked in somewhat stressed, stated that he’d parked the car and had no intention of moving it until we travelled home, and demanded a beer. In Canada roads are wide, straight, and relatively quiet. Alain had opted for the car park on the far side of the harbour, only a short distance away, but which involved navigating through groups of tourists along very narrow twisting streets, and having to reverse at least once to allow an oncoming vehicle through. He recovered over a couple of beers and locally caught fish and chips, while we all caught up on each other’s news before we helped them “moved in” to the cottage (there is no vehicle access).

Les had a list of things that he wanted to do – see St Ives, visit Lands’ End, and have a Cornish pasty. Alain had a very short list – go mackerel fishing, preferably with all four of us. We only had two full days together, and so on Wednesday decided to head for St Ives, stopping in Penzance to book an evening fishing trip for the following day. We discovered that the only trip available was between 1 and 3pm, not a good time to leave the dogs in the car on a warm day, and so the trip was booked for Les and Alain.

During a previous trip we discovered that parking in St Ives is impossible after mid-morning, and that catching a train is preferable. This time we discovered that parking in the closest railway station is impossible after early morning, and so we revised the plan, and went to the pub that Chantal and I had previously visited, so that Les could tick off “eat Cornish pasty” on his list. We spent the afternoon at Lands’ End, arriving just as Search and Rescue helicopter was undertaking an exercise just beyond the cliff edge – very exciting and photogenic!

Lands’ End is a bit commercialised (although, as Alain pointed out, not in the same league as the brash commercialisation of Niagara Falls), and we walked around the network cliff top paths, visiting a couple of gift shops, and, in Chantal’s case, a craft shop, before returning to the cottage.

Les, Alain and I spent part of the evening in the Ship Inn in Mousehole, before going back to Chantal to spend the rest of the evening drinking wine and eating Wasabi peas, an international delicacy only recently discovered by Les.

The following day dawned grey and drizzly, and Alain was suffering a little from the consequences of beer, wine and wasabi peas. Both Alain and Les had lost their enthusiasm for fishing, and so Alain and I went for a walk, partly for fresh air, partly for Alain to purchase his daily take-out cappuccino, and partly to phone the fishing company (there is no phone reception at the cottage), and we were relieved to get a voice mail advising the that the trip had been cancelled due to bad weather. Since the sea was like a mill pond, it was likely that the true reason was a lack of customers – possibly just the two of them. Instead we had a remarkably relaxed day – reading the papers, having a pub lunch, a short walk around the village, tea at a café overlooking the bay, and a beer on the terrace of a pub overlooking St Michaels Mount.

Yesterday’s journey home was not as relaxed. We travelled on Friday afternoon so that Steven and Sherry could visit and see Alain and Les. Thanks to congestion on the M5 it was a 6 1/2  hour journey, and we were glad to get home for a glass (bottle?) of wine or two over a home cooked pasta dinner, generally chatting while waiting for Steven and Sherry to arrive.

We had a return trip to Barmouth today, with a plan to cross the estuary using the small ferry boat, explore the dunes on the far side, catch the Fairbourne steam train into Fairbourne village, and then the mainline train for one stop, before walking across the railway bridge that we had walked across during our visit a couple of days ago. Quite a detailed plan for us. We had to be quite organised to be at the right stations at the right times for each train.

We set off reasonably early, and caught the ferry as planned, leaving plenty of time to be back in Barmouth for lunch. We had a little trouble to persuade the dogs onto the ferry

and even more trouble persuading them to alight onto the beach on the far side via a very narrow gang plank. Safely on the beach, we asked the ferry man to direct us to the steam train station. “No steam trains today!” he said. “They don’t run on Fridays”. We knew that a footpath going directly from the dunes to the rail bridge over the estuary was closed, leaving quite a long walk along the coastline into Fairbourne, which at least was quite pleasant, with the sea on one side and the estuary on the other.

We wanted to catch the train back to Barmouth, with option of getting off and walking across the bridge, and arrived at the station in plenty of time. In fact we had an hour to spare. I am sure that the residents of Fairbourne love the place, but to be honest it boasts little of interest. If you are an aficionado of bungalows, then Fairbourne is your kind of place, and of course on every day except Mondays and Fridays it is the perfect place to admire the local miniature steam train. The only other places of interest were a launderette, the local shop,  and a chippy. Chantal tentatively pointed out that the chippy offered all day breakfasts, and maybe we could partake of one while waiting. I pointed out that this was not the sort of luncheon that I had in mind.

We sat opposite the launderette and chippy, outside the station, with the roar of a dustbin lorry emptying the bins along the street, and the piercing screeching of a road sweeper repeatedly touring the area, cleaning up after the passing lorries that were passing on the way to the flood defence works that had closed the path between the dunes and bridge, and ate some cakes, purchased from the local shop, while debating what to do. While Chantal was shopping, I sat outside with the dogs, browsing Google maps on my phone, and ascertained that a walk to Barmouth would take 31 minutes. Chantal had coincidentally ascertained the same information from the lady in the shop, and so we decided to walk rather than wait for the train.

It was a challenging walk with the two dogs, along a winding and quite busy and fast road, with occasional stops on blind bends, pushing the dogs close against the roadside wall while HGVs roared past. It was not pleasant, and we were glad when we reached the quieter lane that led off to the small railway station at the start of the bridge.

Chantal had had quite enough, and so since we arrived at the station a few minutes before the train that we had planned to catch at Fairbourne, we decided to travel the rest of the way in comfort. We waved the train down (it was a very small rural station), and got on. As the train headed for the estuary we realised that we would still have had quite a long walk to the bridge, even though it would have been on a footpath, rather than a road. Tickets were to be purchased on the train, and the ticket collector arrived as we were crossing the bridge. He kindly decided that we would be at the station before he could issue the tickets, and so we had a free ride.

We had a minor panic in Barmouth. The train pulled up, and not only would the doors not open, but also there was no platform against our carriage. We realised that maybe we had to get off from another carriage, when the train pulled away again, and I had visions of us heading for Harlech, and having to wait several hours for a train back, and so we were relieved when we realised that the train had merely pulled up briefly outside of the station, as it stopped again, this time at the platform.

The rest of the day was uneventful. Having eaten cake at Fairbourne, we weren’t really hungry, and so just had a cup of tea at a harbour side café, opting instead to head back to the cottage, and eat at the local pub. This time, unlike on our previous visit a couple of weeks before, Chantal had her driving specs, and agreed to negotiate the narrow lane back to the cottage. Consequently I was able to properly enjoy the local unpronounceable welsh beer.

The forecast was for rain coming in from the west, and so today we headed east. Chantal wanted some scenic photos from the upland road that we travelled along on the way to the cottage.  Now imagine a road cutting across the moors, mostly fast and straight, but with some sharp bends, and with a steep long drop on one side, and with few stopping places. Chantal wanted me to drive very slowly so that she could get the shots that she wanted. Unsurprisingly we often had cars coming up behind us, and I had to speed up, to Chantal’s displeasure. I had to travel that stretch of road three times while Chantal tried to get the photos that she wanted, and even then it seems that I didn’t drive along the road slow enough or often enough. I did stop when I could, and Chantal took her life into her hands in the interest of her craft

We continued east to Lake Vyrnwy, a very large reservoir with a visitor centre and associated shops and a couple of cafes, plus various “trails”. The “blue trail” described itself as a 3 mile walk, with a couple of “fairly strenuous” climbs and great views across the lake and dam. Chantal agreed that it clearly had potential as a photographic expedition. Unfortunately the trail was mostly along tracks through quite dense woodland, the climbs were definitely steep, and there were no views until the final half mile.

I was impressed with Chantal’s increasing fitness. Its not been long since she would have not have been able to make the ascents without the risk of turning blue with anoxia, and here she was able to walk uphill while at the same time berating me at length for choosing a walk (it had she advised me, ceased to be a photographic expedition soon after the start) with steep hills and no views. I was even more impressed when she told me that she would rather have been walking up Snowdon.

We got to the café at the end just 10 minutes before they stopped serving, and Chantal enjoyed a well-deserved cream tea, and I opted for a more substantial pheasant stew. Afterwards we discovered a hide, with feeders on the other side of a window, and for the first time we had a go at ornithological photography before we headed back to the cottage.

Today was planned to be Retail Therapy day. During our last stay in Wales we visited Betws-y-Coed and noticed quite a few “Outdoor shops” (as in shops full of stuff for outdoors, not shops with stock in the rain) and yesterday we headed to Betws-y-Coed to take advantage of end-of –season sales. We saved a fortune. We didn’t buy anything. Shockingly, all of the retailers expected payment in full, no discounts, and so instead we went on what I’ve learned to call a photography expedition, a sort of marketing term that I use to sell the idea of a walk to Chantal.

We found a very pleasant riverside path, through meadows of sheep dotted with trees, and rocks and pebbles leading down the bank to the river. We spent quite a while photographing an obliging heron, that stayed still for us for such a long time that Chantal was convinced that it was plastic, until it eventually flew off.

It started to rain, and so we found a cosy dry rock beneath the spreading bough of a mature oak and sat down for a picnic. The rain got heavier, and despite the path entering woodland, we got increasingly damp. The path became increasingly uneven, with occasionally rocky scrambles, muddy stretches and slippery tree roots lurking to trip up the unwary walker. I fell over, landing hard, and Chantal was full of sympathy – “Is your camera OK?”.

We eventually reached a high wooden bridge across the river, which at this point was cascading as white water over rocks, and we stopped briefly for just a few photographs, before continuing along the bank on the far side of the river, where, thankfully, we joined a level gravel path. Chantal stopped to take photographs of glistening wet mushrooms, we walked just a little further, and she announce that she was wet, her camera was wet, and she’d had  quite enough of this walk.

I reminded her that it was, in fact, a photographic expedition – technically the walk had only commenced after her last photo, of the mushrooms, just a few yards previously. I got a bit of a look, and decided not to labour the point. Fortunately during the mushroom photo-shoot, I had investigated a branch of the nice gravel path, and found it led to the main road, with a pavement that led back to the village and so we took this easier and quicker option back to the car.

As some of you know we are unexpectedly back in Wales. The plan was to spend two weeks in Cornwall at my Cousin’s cottage in Mousehole, spending a week or so on our own and then being joined by Les, Chantal’s Dad  from the U.S, and her brother Alain from Canada for the rest of our stay. But during the phone conversation with my cousin to make key-swapping arrangements, it transpired that the cottage was double booked during week one.  And so, here we are, thanks to the hospitality of our friend Steve, back in his cosy cottage in Wales until Saturday.

Yesterday was a first full day, and since it was a nice day, we headed for Snowdon. We walked up the “Miners Track”, a relatively gentle route to start with, before, about two-thirds of the way up to the summit, the path climbs very steeply to join another route to the top. This wasn’t actually a “walk” because Chantal doesn’t do “walks”. This was a photographic expedition. I know that this was a photographic expedition because for much of the walk every 10 minutes of walking was followed by 5 minutes of photography. People passed us, striding by, overheating in a t-shirt. I never had opportunity to be warm enough to remove my coat. We turned back at Glaslyn, a tarn just below the steep climb – I went ahead for a few hundred yards to see people going up the steep track, and it was clear that neither Chantal nor Lesia would have made it up the rocky scramble to the ridge at the top. Nevertheless I was proud that Chantal had managed a 7 mile return trip, including a quite steep and very rocky path up to the tarn.

A much quieter day today – a trip to Barmouth for a wander around the town, an excellent lunch

and a return walk across the 850m long Barmouth Bridge across the estuary, a railway bridge with a pedestrian path running alongside the tracks.

We finished the day with a short dog walk on the beach.

We’ve had a really nice couple of days – just as well as its going to be a trifle wet for the rest of the week.

We had a great few days in Wales staying in our friend Steve’s (and wife Cathy’s) cottage. After a couple of hours on the road, we ascended the lane that led up from the village, and found the short track to the cottage. Pulling up in front of the cottage was a real “wow” moment, with panoramic views of hills and forests in three directions, and a steep slope populated by trees and sheep rising up behind. After unpacking we spent a long time just sitting on the patio, with the lawn and a hayfield before us dropping down to the village below, and watched the ever changing light and shadows on the hills over the village roof tops. Obviously we took a lot of photos!

On each day it was just about warm enough to enjoy breakfast on the patio, making vague plans for the day. On the first full day we visited Bala, a small lakeside town 4 miles away – pleasant, but not particularly exciting, and then had a very enjoyable walk around the local village, ending up spending time sitting by the River Dee, which flows past the bottom of the village, photographing the water – sounds boring but there are endless photogenic variations.

We walked back up to the cottage where Chantal discovered that her distance specs, which had started the afternoon on the top of her head, had decided to wonder off on their own. I walked back down the lane to the village – Chantal had looked up several times along the lane to photograph a red kite hovering above, possibly losing the specs in the process. No specs. Chantal then walked the entire route to the river, and I followed in the car (we were driving to a pub afterwards). We searched the riverbank, and as much of the field as we could. No specs.

We gave up after an hour, and headed for the pub, where I enjoyed “Bara bread” – a large cottage loaf with Welsh beef casserole, recommended by all who visit the cottage. Chantal managed the children’s version – “Baby Bara”. Since Chantal was unable to drive without her specs, I had to limit my consumption of the excellent local beer.

The following day started with a repeat of the spectacular search, in the hope that the morning sunshine would reflect off of lenses, sending a flashing Morse code message – “Here I am”.  No specs, and so we headed off to Beddgelert, a small picturesque village, famous for a tear jerking 13^th century dog tale. Google it. On the way the road ran alongside the Aberglaslyn river, and stopped for a pleasant riverside walk and, obviously, to take photos.

I have to admit that when we got to Beddgellert we did visit Gelert’s grave,even though rumour has it that the story and grave were created by an enterprising 19th century local hotelier to drum up business. It worked

and had a general wonder around the village and shops, but we actually spent more time on the Llanberis Pass on the way home. Chantal wanted to drive up this pass, apparently a traditional Tilley family route to holidays in Snowdonia. We ascended into low level clouds, stopping for photographs of the valley below through gaps in the mist, eventually reaching the highest point of the pass. Chantal got her tripod and camera out of the car. This was clearly going to be a long visit, and so I got the dogs out of the car and we went for a walk. Actually two walks. Two routes up Snowdon commence at the car park, and we headed up the Pyg Track, but since this soon became quite rocky, with mist blowing across the path, we returned to the car park, briefly greeted Chantal and her trusty tripod, and then walked along the much easier Miners Track for about half an hour, returning to find that Chantal (and her trusty tripod) had started to come and find us, but had been distracted by photo opportunities.

On the final day, we headed for Dolgellau, which I remembered as a pleasant traditional Welsh town. I remembered wrongly. It is a very ordinary Welsh town, and we decided to look for alternatives in the area. At this point we realised that the maps were still at the cottage. After a brief browse on the smart phones we headed for Portmeirion, an Italian styled village further north, but after driving for an hour, we arrived to discoverthat there was a £10 entrance fee, and dogs were not allowed. Next stop was the seaside town of Portmadoch, which was quickly rejected in favour of Harlech, which was also not as picturesque as I remembered, although we did locate a nice pub lunch. The pub itself was average. Finally we had a pleasant drive to Betws-y-Coed, which was actually better than I remembered. In the hour left before the shops closed, we managed to find a present for our friends who own the cottage, and I was persuaded to allow Chantal to buy a nice candle-lantern for our house from the same shop. I will not elaborate on the price – sufficient to say that Chantal always chooses quality, and the staff were very attentive.

It was a delightful few days, and we are pleased to say that Steve has agreed that we can use the cottage again.

We’re off to Wales! We are borrowing a cottage for a few days from a friend and colleague at work, about 2 miles from Bala, mid Wales. Back Sunday.

We went to Florence’s first birthday party in Leeds on Saturday,, held in a children’s “play zone”, similar to the one where Bess has held her birthday parties, although Florence chose a different one. Florence was the perfect hostess, with plenty of time to play, and lots of sandwiches and birthday cake, and of course “goody bags” (at least I think that there were goody bags – I didn’t get one). Keith joined us as the “Southern Contingent”, and I have to admit that Keith and I spent considerably more time talking about cycling and middle aged health than actually playing. Afterwards the Southern contingent was invited back to Claire’s for tea and cake. Keith was staying over – unfortunately I was working on Saturday night, and so we were clock watching.

Photos from the party are in Our Recent Photos.

On Sunday we joined our friends Hilly Lou and daughter Emily for a BBQ at their home in Stoney Stanton, and naturally the dogs were invited too, and consequently we had no choice but to make room for pudding by taking the dogs for a walk. The planned route was not a success – none of the stiles from the road had gaps large enough for our dogs, and there is no way we would lift all 42kg of Lesia. As a result we kept walking until we found a suitable footpath about a mile further on, which headed in the right direction, but most unusually led nowhere. The map confirmed this – we should have checked first. And so it was quite a large circuitous walk that eventually delivered to us back to our pudding, and since this photo was taken half way round, you’ll appreciate that it was also almost dark by the end of the walk. But we had definitely earned the cheesecake.

I was sort of on standby on Bank Holiday Monday – not for work, but for Matthew, who was car hunting. Problems with his current elderly vehicle made the purchase of a replacement urgent, and this weekend was dedicated to the task. If none had been found by Monday, I was going over to Bedford to assist, but he found one over the weekend, and so I was able to spend a more relaxed day with Chantal in the garden.

Chantal has become a 365 addict. She has started uploading a photo a day onto the 365 project web site, as I have been doing for a couple of years, in June, and it has become life changing! Who would have thought that EastEnders, and all the other evening soap operas that have dominated Chantal’s evenings for as long as I can remember, would take second place to sitting quietly at her laptop at the kitchen table, selecting processing and uploading images?

The kitchen TV is still on of course, quite possibly with the EastEnders characters arguing and fighting among themselves in the background, but maybe this is part of the weaning-off process – the TV addicts equivalent of an e-cigarette.

There are other advantages to Chantal’s enhanced interest in photography. Last Tuesday my friend Duncan Hill and I returned after dog-walking to the pub with the other dog walkers, Hilly intending to collect his bike before cycling back home to Stoney Stanton. As he was about to leave, Chantal spotted the photogenic potential of the bright full August “harvest moon”, bathing the garden in silvery light. Hilly was off on holiday the next day, and I was working the following night, and so neither of us had to get up early. And so while Chantal was busy on the patio with her tripod and camera, Hilly and I settled down at the table overlooking the moonlit garden, and watched Chantal in action while enjoying a night cap or two. Perfect.

Click on the images near top left for our latest 365 uploads.

As many of you will know, each year Scraggies head for Swanage for a spot of water sports, although in more recent years I have tired of being drawn through the water in a foetal position while trying desperately to get up onto skis, or being flung across the waves on a knee board or doughnut until I am bounced off and skim across the water, and have instead opted for a sedate cycle ride or walk. The forecast this year was not good, with heavy rain and a strong south westerly predicted to create a 1.5m sea swell, and so, after a discussion at the pub during “dog walking”, the expedition was abandoned. However a big part of any Scraggy weekend away is the camping and Saturday night BBQ, and we decided that there was no need to miss out. And so we went camping anyway – on Richard’s farm about 3 miles away.

Since rain was forecast for Saturday, we all arrived on Friday evening, much more relaxed with 177 fewer miles driven, and we spent a long evening eating, drinking and being merry. We are very good and eating, drinking and being merry. I commend it.

And since we had not spent a day bouncing around on water, or exploring cliff tops, we were even able to stay up until after midnight.

Richard grows Christmas trees, and since most people buy rootless trees, he has a lot of roots to dispose of. We had an excellent camp fire, with woody roots delivered by “Teleporter”;

We were all home by Saturday lunchtime, and so Chantal had the unexpected bonus of my company in the garden for most of the weekend. And even better, she joined me for dog walks, which on Sunday somehow ended up at the Heathcote Arms.

Has the world of media and entertainment gone mad? A significant chunk of yesterday morning’s Today programme on Radio 4 was devoted to a third rate boys band (I believe that coming third in a talent contest justifies the term “third rate”…), who, apparently, are deemed successful merely because they have a large following on Twitter! And what is Radio 4 doing playing music of a popular nature, more suited to a fashion outlet, first thing in the morning? Spoiled a perfectly pleasant bike ride. I’m more used to details of international conflict and national economic crises’ to set me up for the day.

Am I the only one who, until this morning, had never heard of One Direction?

I am pleased to note that a commenter reported that this band has a very long way to go before the numbers of real live fans match those of the Beatles.

Photos from Denis,, Keith’s Dad, 90th birthdaya couple of weeks ago are in “our recent photos”. These are just a selection of the many that Chantal took – a disc with all of them is available on request.

Did anyone else stay up to see the Perseid shooting stars? I tried to – the large back “family bedroom” looks out across countryside in the right direction, and of course we don’t have street lights. I managed half an hour or so before there were rumblings from the bedroom… “It’s well past 11, and we’ve got be up early”, and so I didn’t stay up to see the peak display, which would have been in the early hours. I saw a few though – 4 or 5 faint streaks, although none were as spectacular as some that I have seen before, usually when appearing unexpectedly in the night sky.

Chantal woke up soon after 4.00am, having been bitten by an insect, and disturbed me by rummaging around looking for some antihistamine spray. I find that the best precaution against insect bites is stay near to Chantal – insects find me relatively unsavoury. Having been woken, I returned briefly to the back bedroom, but found that it was already getting g light, and so returned to bed.

Chantal is very tired today – all my fault, naturally.

We had surprise visitors yesterday – Ian spent the weekend with Andree, and brought girlfriend Svitlana with him. They popped in to see us yesterday afternoon, stopping for tea and cake. They left in time for Ian to attend an important appointment. Leicester v Leeds on Sky in the Kaffir, Whetstone. Svitlana is already long suffering….

We’ve had company on our dog walks for the last week – Richard, my friend further up the Lane, has been looking after Chase for his sister, who is in Australia for three weeks. Odd name for a dog – when he was named they couldn’t possibly have known that he would have a tendency to be deaf to commands, combined with a lack of road sense. There has certainly been some chasing going on. Earlier today, on a walk around the quarry, all three dogs went running after a spaniel, the companion of a runner who came up expectantly behind us. My two came back after a bit of barking, which understandably the owner found a bit disconcerting, but Richards dog responded even less promptly. I don’t know what the owner thought when apparently, from Richards shouts, our dogs were being instructed to chase his.

For the first couple of walks Lesia and Tia ran around together while Chase did his own thing. Now they are mostly playing and interacting together quite happily.

Chantal got a puncture last night – but at least only the bottom of the tyre was flat. Fortunately she was almost home, and managed to get it on the drive before the tyre finally deflated. I was working last night, and so she decided to see if our local garage would come and change the wheel – and bless them, they said they would, after they closed. We have a wonderful local garage. However, when she phoned me, I reminded her that we have paid for Recovery but have rarely used it, and so they were summonsed instead.

My job today was to deliver the wheel to the garage for a repair. That’s the trouble with being available for jobs after working the night before. I get tyred…

Chantal stopped at the garage on her way home, and they fitted the repaired wheel in the spare wheel holder, despite having to remove and replace the dog cage to do so. I bet a Kwik Fit Fitter wouldn’t have done that.

In most years a small herd of cows graze on Croft Hill to control the thistles and encourage wildflowers. They also deposit tasty snacks for our passing dogs, who quickly scoop a sneaky mouthful, knowing that they are about to be told to “Leave It!”

I thought that this was going to be one of the occasional “cow free” years until we were taken by surprise by several heifers (for the townies among you, these are young cows yet to have a calf) as we went to cross the stile onto the Hill. That night we (well Chantal) were disturbed by the cows on the Hill bellowing to a herd across the fields in front of the house – presumably the Hill heifers had been taken from this herd.

Having met the cows, we took an alternative route, however Croft Hill is a very convenient early morning walk before work, with grassy paths cropped by rabbits when the paths around fields behind us are overgrown with tall, and, in the early morning, very wet, wild grasses, and so the following morning found me and two dogs peering inquisitively over the stile.

An initial assessment indicated a heifer free zone, but then the herd came trotting across in front of us, fortunately heading at a reasonable pace for the gate in the far corner of the hillside. Once they were out of sight, at least as far as the dogs were concerned, I let the dogs through the small dog gate in the stile, and we headed up the Hill. It became clear that one cow had enjoyed a lie in, and we met her as she emerged out of the woods, on the trail of the rest of the herd. Lesia came close to me on command, but Tia decided to investigate further, and ran after the cow, who was not in the slightest bit bothered, and after a brief run, Tia returned to me, to my relief – even a young heifer can deliver a sharp kick.

Since then the herd has always been together, and we have avoided them on our morning walk.

We’ve had a wonderfully socially busy weekend with family and friends. On Friday evening we visited Simon and Kate for dinner. Chantal kept Kate company while she cooked a wonderful paella, and Simon and I went for a pre-dinner dog walk around the local fields and Brocks Hill Country Park, just a short walk from Simon and Kate’s home. The dogs got on well, with Tia and Simon’s dog Phil running around together, with the slightly more staid Lesia joining in from time to time. We had lovely relaxed meal afterwards, generally chatting and “catching up”.

On Saturday we went to a 60^th birthday party – Maggie, one of the Scraggies held a BBQ in her garden in Stoney Stanton, about 3 miles away. Steven and Sherry were stopping with us before going to Keith’s Dad’s 90^th on the Sunday, and so they were both invited too. It was an excellent afternoon/evening, with about 50 guests to chat to. As is traditional, the girls settled down for a serene gosspip

While Steven found a new friend or two for drinking games

Chantal provided a “taxi service” for herself and Steven and Sherry, while I cycled with three other Scraggies, and so by the time I got home I felt reasonably sober, although just a tad tired. It must have been all that exercise. …

On Sunday, as many of you will know, it was another “birthday bash” – Denis’s, Keith’s Dad, 90^th, at “The Odd House”, a pub near Shackerstone, a few miles away.

Family gathered from Southampton, Leeds, and London, as well as the locals, about 20 guests in all. From my point of view it was great to see all four granddaughters! And their parents, obviously.

We all had an excellent carvery meal, and stayed talking and catching up and news for over 4 hours, before we had to leave to take Steven and Sherry to Rugby Station. More photos from the weekend to follow in due course.

Back to work today for a rest!

I’ve added photos from our trip to see Ros in “Our Recent Photos”.

Just back from a weekend with my sister Ros in Baildon, West Yorkshire. We travelled up yesterday, planning to leave by about 8am, but by the time that Chantal had re-packed the car that I had carefully packed (I didn’t realise how many combinations there were of two rucksacks and some dog food and bedding), and had two attempts to leave because Chantal forgot her specs it was 9am before our final departure. A fast and uneventful journey (apart from a traditional wrong turning in Bradford) meant that we were at Ros’s enjoying tea and cake in the garden shortly after 11.

We had brought a bottle of Pimms with us to celebrate Ros’s new patio, but not lemonade, and so Chantal and I drove into the village centre for a brief shopping trip, and a look around the Farmers Market where I found a black pudding and red onion chutney pork pie. Absolutely irresistible.

Back at Ros’s lunch was served outside, but I was not allowed to satiate my pangs of hunger. Ros is an even more enthusiastic photographer than Chantal, and despite my grumbles of protest I had to just sit and watch while lunch was photographed.

After lunch we spent the afternoon in the garden consuming a couple of jugs of Pimms and chatting

while taking photographs of dogs, flowers, butterflies, bees – in fact anything that caught our eye., before we decided that it was cool enough to take all three dogs (Ros has  a black lab cross) for a walk across the fields behind Ros’s house. It was, of course, more of a photographic expedition. Chantal is hoping to have some images accepted on a “stock photo” web site, photos that are used by magazines etc. Ros already has some on the site, but wants more. They needed a suitable model, and there was apparently only one candidate…

I think that I was told to look serious. Look out for me illustrating Short Walks for the Elderly in a forthcoming issue of Saga magazine.

That evening we had an excellent curry in a local restaurant, before retiring to bed while listening to torrential rain, and in my case wondering whether it was worth disturbing the dogs to close the car windows. I didn’t, and I should have done.

This morning it was another photographic dog walk – this time the object was a high railway viaduct, to be photographed with a train crossing it.

Trains leave the nearby station every 15 minutes. After 45 minutes we hadn’t seen a single carriage. Maybe we should have checked for Sunday engineering works, but at the least the dogs all had a good run.

Before lunch there were a few gardening jobs to help Ros with, particularly pond maintenance and pruning

This still left time for a pre-lunch Pimms, before heavy rain forced us to retire inside for lunch, where we noticed a rather odd odour. Someone had been rolling in something obnoxious, which had to be dealt with.

We enjoyed another dog walk, not so photogenic thanks to damp overcast weather, which just left time for a leisurely drink before we headed back home. It was a lovely weekend, with plenty of time to relax and catch up with news and gossip.

More images in Our Recent Photos

The problem with our cameras is that they take big photos, which limits the number of images on the average photo sharing site, without upgrading which involves the use of a credit card. The good thing about our cameras is that they come with photo sharing software. I obviously don’t need this for you lot – I just upload photos onto the Oakstump, but since there is no equivalent for Scraggy Crows I have used this to share photos from croquet.

It wasn’t easy of course – I’d forgotten the password, but Canon kindly mailed it to me, since they had my address registered on their database.  I logged on to the Canon site using my password that Canon had just mailed to me, and entering my e-mail address, that they had just used and Canon promptly assured me that this e-mail address, that they had just used,  didn’t exist. I somehow got around this, although unfortunately I can’t remember what I did, and so the problem will recur.

To make life easier Canon offered an option that no password is required to see the photos, but I wasn’t actually allowed to select this option. Instead I had to make up a secret password, which Canon then included in their e-mail that was sent from the site to all whom I wished to view the photos.

Of course I had to add each e-mail address separately onto the site, but before I pressed “send” I had a phone call, and the bloody Canon site timed out before I sent the “invitation” and I had to start all over again.

Thank goodness there is the Oakstump for family photos.

Yours grumpily (I worked last night ) Neil.

It was the annual scraggy croquet tournament on Sunday.  It is hosted by our friends the Underwoods, who have a farm at Dunton Bassett about 4 miles away, and have a croquet lawn beside the farmhouse. I use the word tournament in its loosest sense. We all turn up, drink Pimms, eat nibbles, drink Pimms, have a barbecue, drink Pimms, and some of us eventually start knocking a ball around the croquet course that is already setup. It is a very good afternoon, and even more so by the evening when we are all distinctly relaxed. This year the girls didn’t even bother to stop gossiping for a game leaving the blokes to carry on with the spirit of the event and we managed a couple of games between Pimms. The girls did do the cooking though – very sexist, but they seemed to prefer this to the rigours of the croquet course.

It is a vicious game and the rules are complex resulting in some interesting discussions during the games. My play generally improves in proportion to the quantity of Pimms consumed but this year I think I was too constrained since I merely moved from last to third out of four places over two games, and I really cannot remember what happened in the third. By then I didn’t really care.

Simon has kindly created a link to Chantal’s 365 project – see bottom left. Her images are much more creative than mine and she already has had a lot of the viewings and quite a few followers. She is doing much better than I did after only a few weeks with the project

Chantal and Lou regularly look after each other’s cats to cover for holidays – Lou lives in Stoney Stanton, about three miles away, and they “cat sit” for each other, ” visiting daily to feed, water and give the cat (or cats in our case) a few minutes company. It is usually straight forward. Last week Chantal looked after the Hill’s cat Marley.

We got a call on Saturday morning – Marley had caught a fledgling and was to be kept in solitary confinement for the week to prevent him catching another one. The “victim” was currently still alive on the patio. In our household the bird would have been either carried to a suitable sheltered and safe place, or humanely dispatched (always my job) as appropriate, but neither Hilly nor Lou “do” birds, alive or dead, in the same way that some people don’t “do” spiders. We decided we would go straight over and sort out the bird.

Hilly was still packing the car, and the bird was still on the patio – well sort of since it had hopped around a bit and fallen down a drain gulley. It was clearly a healthy blackbird fledgling, but too young to fly. Daddy was swooping around calling frantically, and so we decided to place the fledgling behind a shady shrub with a shallow bowl of water, leaving daddy to provide the occasional grub.

On Sunday Chantal noted, while watering the garden as requested, that the fledgling was still alive and well, with Daddy clearly undertaking parental duties. In fact that he was so paternal that he was having no surrogate mother anywhere near his child. He promptly started to repeatedly dive bomb Chantal, who dropped the hose, which fortunately had a trigger and so stopped spraying, and fled indoors, where she and Marley sat watching Daddy check out the fledgling. No doubt Chantal, Daddy blackbird and Marley all had different ideas about what was the best thing for the fledgling.

Chantal returned home, forgetting that the outside tap was still turned on, and in her absence the hose nozzle flew off, and the hose, without human assistance, continued with the task of watering the garden, all of the garden, extensively, continuously and at length. Eventually water flowed under the garden fence, and the neighbour peered over to see the hose leaping and writhing around the garden like a demented snake, liberally spraying everything in sight. He had to lift the fence panel and crawl beneath to turn the tap off.

Meanwhile, down in Kent, Hilly and Lou had discovered that some of Emily’s essential medication had stayed at home, necessitating a return trip by Hilly who arrived back home to find he had the only garden in the neighbourhood that  resembled a steaming swamp after a hot day. There was an exchange of text messages (whatever happened to phone conversations?) as Chantal explained what had happened, much to the amusement of Lou and Emily.

On Monday and Tuesday the fledgling was continuing to do well, and Chantal left care duties to Daddy, who was clearly doing a grand job, but sadly by Wednesday the hottest days for a few years had taken their toll, and the fledgling had succumbed. Nature is tough, especially when aided and abetted by a cat.

Si Hands kindly invited me to be his friend on Linked In. Maybe friend is not the right term since Linked In is a sort of professional version of Facebook. Anyway I agreed to be Si’s friend expecting the arrangement to be simply a way of keeping track with his career, and sure enough I found out about one or two of the courses that Si has been privileged to attend which at least keeps me updated with the sort of things that he deals with.

But then someone else invited me to be their friend – a young lady who runs a dance school in Leicester. No, this wasn’t turning into a surrogate dating agency. This young lady had applied to organise an event with live music outside a bar and adjacent to  some flats and I, being the miserable bugger that I am, had blocked the application. Under the circumstances I can’t see why she wants to be my friend. Anyway I declined her kind invitation. I am so glad that I restricted my details to my office contact e-mail address.

I have since received several other invitations to be a friend. In most cases they are from licensees of city pubs and bars, and if my details are in their address book it is unlikely that they will consider me to be friendly.

I’m not sure that linked in will work for me but I will continue to be Si’s friend if he will still have me.

Pubs really are getting noisier. Tuesday night, as you know, is pub, I mean dog walking, night. With the current wonderful balmy evenings our favoured spot is at the elevated front “patio” overlooking the village, but last night, since these seats were taken, we headed for the pub garden at the rear. No chance of a peacefully undisturbed pint. Rest assured, the Heathcote Arms has not adopted the city bar habit of loud music. Our pints were consumed to a cacophony of discordant church bell ringing (they really must keep practicing) a large flock of cawing crows flying past, and around the adjacent table the local amateur dramatic society were practicing their next production, much to the consternation of Tia, who wondered what all the raised voices were about.

Incidentally the bell ringers used to be regulars at the Heathcote after Tuesday night campanology practice, but since January 1^st, when they arrived at the pub earlier than expected after a New Year’s Day ramble and Andy the landlord refused to let them in before opening time, they have boycotted the establishment.

Who needs The Archers?

I love smoked food of most varieties, whether meat fish or cheese. Chantal kindly bought me a couple of fillets of smoked mackerel which were excellent, although not a particularly remarkable event in itself.

For some reason the taste and smell of these particular fillets instantly took me straight back to the days when I worked in a fish farm near Stratford upon Avon over 30 years ago. I ran the practical operation of the place, and we hot smoked trout, dozens of them at a time, each soaked in brine, and then skewered and placed on racks in the smoking kiln. We sold them them as smoked fillets and also as absolutely gorgeous smoked trout pate. We also cold smoked salmon, buying sides of fresh salmon, laying it on bed of dry salt, before placing the sides into the smoking kiln. Smoking salmon was almost an art – the kiln, with its bed of smouldering wood chips, had to be kept cool, otherwise the expensive side of salmon would be cooked, instead of smoked but raw. Slicing the smoked salmon was also a skill – slices had to be wafer thin, and I was never very good at this.

The tapered ends of the sides of smoked salmon were never saleable – the slices were too small – and so pieces of these were a staff perk. I have been a fan of smoked salmon ever since.

I’m not sure why these particular mackerel fillets were so evocative. Maybe they were smoked with oak , which was the wood that we used at the fish farm. It was a demonstration of just how subtle our senses of smell and taste are, and what an important part that they play in our memory.

We went to the Hinckley Soapbox Derby last weekend. My friend Andy from work told us about it – it’s been taking place for 4 years, and his Scout Troop normally takes part. They decided to opt out this year, but Andy was still enthusiastic, and so he built a cart and co-opted his son to drive.

We went for photographic purposes, obviously. It was a challenge getting sharp images of carts as that careered past heading down Castle Hill in Hinckley. Luckily we had several to practice on before Andy’s cart descended;

no images were found

There were over 30 carts, and each descended 3 times, with the fastest time being recorded. We lasted for two of the three “heats “ in the hot sun, before we decided that we’d had enough for one year. I think that this event will now be an annual fixture in the Cooper Calendar though.

Home made pea and ham soup, apparently. Not quite what I was expecting, and not quite substantial enough for an 8 hour night shift. Thank goodness for a local Tesco near to the office.

No, I don’t know either, which is a bit of a blow since I’m having it for tea. I’m working tonight, and had a rummage in the freezer to see what I could find. During a telephone consultation with my wife, we decided that it could well be a curry. Probably. But possibly not. It may be an interesting meal.

I know, I know – I look like a Big Boy Scout… Well, if the cap fits, as they say.

Scraggies were car park attendants at Ullesthorpe campsite, marshalling parents dropping off kids on Friday, and collecting them on Sunday. With a small drop off area off of a country road, the parents had to be kept moving. We thought it was a cub camp, but it turned out to be a camp of almost 100 Girl Guides! They were probably more organised than a similar Scout Camp would be, with parents allocated a half hour slot, so that the 80 or so arrivals were spread over 2 hours. We were still kept busy though. Tia didn’t join us – she just wanted to be in the photo.

Scraggies have just been given scarves to wear on such occasions – it sometimes helps to be identifiable. I had a problem with regard to a woggle. I hadn’t used my woggle for quite some time, and couldn’t remember where to find it. I phoned a friend from work, a Scout Leader in Hinckley, and asked whether I could get my hands on his woggle? He was quite happy to oblige, and brought his into the office for approval, thus saving the day.

If I’m going to be making more use of a woggle from now on, I will either have to rummage around to see if I can locate my own woggle again, or will have to invest in a nice shiny new one.

I was woken a couple of nights ago by the “bong” noise announcing that we had now reached cruising altitude, and that  consequently it was now safe for me unfasten my seatbelt. This was a little strange as I was in bed at the time. Despite the bleary confusion I drifted off to sleep again.

After an indeterminate amount of time I was once again disturbed by the “bong” – clearly we were about to encounter turbulence, and seatbelts must be fastened. Once again I was somewhat bemused, since the only turbulence expected was when Chantal returned to bed after a nocturnal visit to the loo. Some people drop back off to sleep counting sheep. I fell asleep mentally going through the various audible alarms in the house. None go Bong.

The following morning I asked Chantal whether she had had a vivid dream that involved a aircraft, and if so, was I a part of it? Unsurprisingly she asked what on earth I was talking about, but when I explained about the “bong” alarms, she had a fit of the giggles. She realised that they were merely her new mini I-pad notifying her of an e-mail in the middle of the night. Chantal, who is woken by a sparrow fart two fields away, had slept through them.

The I-pad now spends each night downstairs.

There are some photos from Matthew and Steven’s birthday celebration in “Our Recent Photos”.

It’s 11.00am, hot and sunny, I’ve walked the dogs. I am mowing the lawn, and am keeping myself hydrated with pints of water. Chantal, on the other hand, has decided that it is summer, the sun is shining, we are enjoying the garden, and so it is time to start serious drinking. Well, serious for her, anyway. What a role reversal this is! It’s usually me on the beer while Chantal is drinking fizzy water.

Chantal discovers a bottle of Corona in the fridge (Thanks Keith!), adds lime, and takes swig. She doesn’t like it because, apparently, it tastes too much like beer. No comment. And so we are now in the unusual situation of Chantal insisting that I drink beer, when I would prefer water.

It’s a shame about the lime – I don’t mind Corona, but fruit and beer is never a good combination, not even these continental strawberry beers or similar. I even avoid light ales if the description includes the phrase “just a hint of citrus”. Only one drink needs to be accompanied by fruit, and that is a G & T, and even then it must be lemon, not lime, something that some bartenders have trouble understanding.