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.

One or two of you may occasionally look at my latest photo in my “365” project (click on “365 project” top left). Well, my Mrs has joined the club. See http://365project.org/shepherdmanswife/365/2013-06-24# and then “Next” option on the site to see Chantal’s photos so far. Maybe I’ll ask Simon to add an Oakstump link to Shepherdmans Wife’s latest pic.

Matthew’s birthday is on 27^th June, and Steven’s on the 29^th, and so for some years the closest weekend has been the excuse for all the “children” (and nowadays grandchildren) to join us for a family get together. This year Chris, Lucy and the girls had visitors but otherwise it was a full turnout. The Hands travelled down from Leeds on Friday night – Si wanted to watch an England-Australia rugby game on Sky on Saturday morning. He tried to persuade me to join him, but with family arriving at lunchtime this was never an option. Si went off to watch the game at Hinckley Rugby Club, leaving Chantal, Claire, Bess and Florence to join me on a dog walk. The ladies of all ages managed the first half mile and then turned back while the dogs and I had a longer walk.

Matthew joined us soon after 1, followed by Simon and Kate, Si, after the Rugby game, and eventually Steven, Sherry and Keith, Keith having collected them from the station. It was a glorious afternoon, and we sat outside on the patio enjoying a meal

before sitting in the garden chatting, drinking and playing with the girls.

By the late evening Simon and Kate were at Kilworth House Theatre, and the Hands had headed back north, leaving the birthday boys, Sherry and ourselves enjoying a glass of wine or two (or was it a bottle or two?) sitting around the chiminea at the end of the garden, chatting until bedtime.

Today Matthew went mountain-biking in Shropshire with a couple of local friends, leaving by 8am despite the late night, while the rest of us had a relaxed day. We sat outside playing “Times Up”, a board game given to Steven by Simon and Kate. We played in pairs, with one person trying to establish the identity of a famous person on the card from clues given by his/her partner. I use the word “famous” in its loosest sense – has anyone heard of Gumby? Or Anderson Cooper? Turns out that one is a weird American cartoon character and the other an American TV journalist. However, the cards get put back into the pack until someone eventually works it out, and as a result the skill is remembering what you may have read on a card earlier, or remembering earlier clues and building on them. It’s quite clever really.

The girls had trouble with the 30 second time limit. I have long known that Chantal does not use one word when 20 will do. This is not good in this game. “Right then, it’s a man, and he’s got two names, a first name and a second name, only the first name is in brackets and so you don’t have to get that if you can’t and I have never heard of him so I’m not sure how I’m going to do this and what is that noise?” That’s the 30 second alarm, dear. Sherry, on the other hand, is minimalist. Typical clues included “Oh My God Oh My God!” and “Its two words”. It all got a bit raucus, which was a bit embarrassing, since three of the neighbouring gardens were taking part in Croft Open Gardens, and were filled with genteel horticulturalists. Chantal and I won comfortably.

After Steven and Sherry had been dropped at the station Matthew returned from his mountain biking trip, joining us briefly for a cup of tea, before visiting grandparents and heading home. More photos will appear in “Recent Photos” in due course.

Les has mailed some photos from Ippany’s Graduation from High school last week. Ipps – tell us what you are doing next! Oh, and by the way – Happy 18th birthday for 3rd July Ippany!

During our recent weekend in London with Steven and Sherry I decided that the Navigation App on my phone wasn’t particularly user friendly, and so I’ve been trying out some alternative mapping apps. I discovered ViewRanger, and tried it out on a dog walk. It seemed quite good, with detailed maps that included contours. The only problem seemed to be with the GPS, which didn’t seem to following my location as I walked.

I walked up Croft Hill, knowing that my location should have moved across the contours as I ascended, getting closer to the smallest circular contour around the top of the Hill. When I got to the top, my location on the map should have been in the middle of this circle, but it remained stubbornly near the bottom of the Hill.

It wasn’t until I switched to satellite view that I realised that the small circular contour didn’t represent the top of Croft Hill. It represented the bottom of Croft Quarry. And my GPS location wasn’t at the bottom of the Hill; it was at the Quarry edge. That could have been embarrassing for a stranger using their phone to climb the Hill on a dark foggy night……

I think I will stick to big paper maps, and keep practicing with Navigation App.

I persuaded Chantal to walk with me and the dogs across the fields to the garden centre at Thurlaston on Saturday morning, where I promised to treat her to tea and a slice of cake at the café while enjoying the morning sunshine.

We sat on the café patio, drinking tea, eating cake, and watched the rain sweep towards us across the fields – since we had the dogs we had to stay outside. It wasn’t quite the reward that Chantal was expecting after the walk

On Sunday we had breakfast in bed, as we do, reading and watching the news on TV. Eat your heart out, all of you with children who demand breakfast. Not that we are totally without demands for our attention….

This morning I had an early(ish) meeting at a Sikh community meeting room, to discuss a festival that they will be holding. A large plateful of freshly baked samosas was served for “breakfast”. Well, it would have been rude to refuse one. Or two. And it did make a change from toast and marmalade.

Incidentally, you may have read about my call to Rumanian trumpeters last week. Today I was called to move on a Spanish speaking pan pipe group. The visit started badly. Well, I didn’t realise the microphone was still switched on, did I? The entire city Centre heard loudly and clearly who I was and why I was there. The group couldn’t understand what I was telling them (or so they said) and the onlookers were getting loud and vociferous with my colleague, accusing us both of being “Nazis”. There are times when it is best to just walk away, and this was one of those times, even if Phones4U did lose a sale or two.

It’s been an interesting  week at work.

On Monday I was chased by a 4 wheel drive BMW. I had been called to witness noise from car repairs affecting an elderly couple. As on many previous calls to this address, there was no noise as I arrived, but as I was chatting to the elderly couple I heard an engine revving, and the activity visible over the garden fence was certainly not horticultural

Decided to take a photo – it wasn’t really a reasonable use of a garden, which resembles a scrap yard, and maybe Planning or the Housing Department may be interested.  I left and pulled up a short distance away to tale notes. A 4×4 BMW that was behind me pulled alongside and the driver promptly gave a full and frank opinion of what he thought about me photographing his private property. I calmed him down, and he was eventually OK about it – just as well since I knew who would come of worse in a chase between the BMW and the office Focus.

On Tuesday I accompanied a colleague interviewing someone who had played loud music. The perpetrator was a big black bloke, clearly gay and very camp. The conversation between him and my somewhat macho colleague, each trying to speak over the other, was most entertaining, especially when the bloke announced that he had to play loud music when his friend visited, because he “didn’t want his neighbour to hear him moaning and groaning” during his love making. My colleague struggled to keep a straight face – he’d seen from his notes that the music at the time was by REM; “Everybody hurts sometime”….

On Wednesday we got called by several town centre businesses complaining about a Rumanian busker band.

The music is enjoyed by shoppers, but not by adjacent businesses trying to undertake banking and phone contract transactions. I persuaded them to move from this prime spot, despite extensive Rumanian grumbling, but within 2 hours they were back. I returned with a colleague and Policeman and this time we persuaded them to go home. We got a lot of “verbal” – not only from the band, but also from passers-by enjoying the music. I don’t like these jobs, especially since our powers are somewhat dubious.

Thursday was a reasonably routine day, and on Friday we attended a meeting to be given details of the latest cuts – it seems that we still have to have a car available for work, but must pay for the privilege of parking near the office. Oh well, at least no-one is suggesting redundancies this year.

Chas knows it’s summer when she stops putting a tree on the log burner at night. Apart from the occasional fire-free evening, “we” are still burning trees. Simon and I know Its summer when we enjoys our first al fresco pub lunch, which we did yesterday

It was a fine luncheon, unlike this morning’s breakfast. I have been invited to my local Health Centre for an “MOT/health Check for the over 50’s”. Well, it’s only 6 years overdue. It’s in two parts – giving a blood sample, and then a consultation 2 weeks later. I booked the blood sample for 0835 this morning, which was bad planning. I had to “starve” for 12 hours prior to the appointment, and Tuesday night is dog-walking-to-the-pub night. I managed 11 hours starvation – just 1 pint and maybe a few peanuts after the 8.35pm deadline last night. But I did have a very spartan breakfast

I worked last night, got in at about 2.45am, and was looking forward to a nice relaxing day without my usual post-night shift grumpiness  – waking up without the alarm, a lie in, potter in the garden with Chantal until Matthew arrived, and then Sunday lunch at The Elms in Lutterworth with Matthew, Simon and Kate.

When I work nights Chantal also enjoys a lie in, without me leaping out of bed before she is awake, but we were both woken suddenly at 8.55am by the phone. We were too bleary eyed to answer it before the answerphone cut in. “Hello, this is Lydia’s husband. She won’t be going to Church this morning.” Bugger! I am on Transport Duty!

I had a rushed shower and was dressed before I was awake enough to realise that at least the early (ish) morning call had given me plenty of time before I had to leave, especially with one passenger less, and consequently Chantal and I had a lovely relaxed breakfast on the patio in warm sunshine, and I even had time for a very brief garden potter after walking the dogs.

At least, I thought as I settled into my seat in church, I can relax for an hour or so during the service. Unusually any children had to stay in the service instead of leaving for Sunday School, and so our Minister, Andy, prepared a service suitable for children – a theme of pharaohs, kings and slaves. “I need a volunteer to be Pharaoh” said Andy. There was only one child in the service, and he didn’t volunteer. There was a silence. “Neil will do it!” pipes up someone in the congregation, and so, having worked the night before, been woken suddenly, and starting the day before my first cup of tea, instead of relaxing I found myself at the front of the church, a crown on my head, a staff in my hand, telling the congregation, who were supposed to be slaves and doing appropriate pyramid-building actions, that they had to work faster. Told you it was a children’s service.

At the end of the service I discovered that I had forgotten that I was a “finance steward” for the day – in other words I had to assist counting the collection, while taking old folk home, and rushing home for lunch with the family, all at the same time. Someone kindly relieved me of monetary duties, and I arrived home shortly before Matthew, we all headed for The Elms, meeting Simon and Kate there.

The day improved dramatically – the boys treated us to dinner, and we had a lovely time chatting and catching up on news.

Naturally I had some nice cards, and Simon and Kate, who went to the Food Show at the NEC yesterday, bought me some lovely speciality cheeses and pickle. I might just sample them later…. Matthew’s present has still to arrive – I don’t what it is but presumably I may get delivery of it when he is next over in a couple of weeks for his birthday.

Matthew came back here for a cup of tea, cake or ice cream (actually, I managed both…) and a chat in the garden, and then joined me for a dog walk around the fields and up Croft Hill. We had more time for a “gossip” over another cup of tea in the garden, before Matthew headed back to Bedfordshire.

It’s been a lovely Father Day, and I only got a bit grumpy….just briefly….

I’ve posted some photos from our London weekend with Steven and Sherry in “Recent photos”, and also some of Chantal’s photos from Cornwall, which show that I was there too!

We spent last weekend with Steven and Sherry in London, arriving late morning on Saturday after dropping off dogs with Dave at “Best Buddies”, and an uneventful journey down (apart from a brief urgent deviation for fuel – apparently when Chantal says “I don’t mind going in my car” she means “my fuel tank is empty and we should go in yours”). We left the car outside Ian and Rachel’s flat, with enough time for a very brief chat with Rachel and Dan before catching the train to Stevens.

Steven came to meet us as we walked from the station – Sherry was still doing what women have to do between getting up and achieving what they consider to be an acceptable standard of respectability. She appeared shortly after we got to the flat. Well actually not that shortly, but the wait was worth it, obviously. Sherry then looked outside, made a meteorological forecast, and disappeared again having re-assessed the suitability of her chosen attire. As I recall this process was repeated once more before we were able to head out onto the streets of London.

Steven had booked a Thames cruise and so we headed for London Bridge, boarding a City Cruises boat after queuing, while being entertained by a wedding party boarding another, presumably privately chartered, boat. We just missed  the first boat to depart after we joined the queue, which had the advantage that we ended up at the front of the queue for the next departure and so were able to find seats on the open top deck.

The boat sailed east to Greenwich, a trip that took a couple of hours including stops. There was no professional or recorded commentary but the crew provided their own excellent commentary, noting the sites, including less obvious ones, with a bit of history and even the odd social comment on the apparent insatiable demand for yet more luxury apartments.  One of the crew pointed out that he was fortunate in passing similar pieces of art to those at Tate Modern as he walked through the estate where he lives – piles of bricks, bits of car, and dubious wall art. You get a flavour of the nature of this amusing commentary. We were fortunate in seeing Tower Bridge open as a sailing ship passed beneath just as our boat was mooring at one of the riverside piers.

Conveniently we arrived at Greenwich just as we were ready for a meal. We haven’t been to Greenwich since the Cutty Sark was re-opened following the 2007 fire. I was disappointed to find that the previously open water front now has a chain-restaurant development, and was even more disappointed when I was outvoted and we ended up in Nandos – Steven and Sherry are Nandos enthusiasts, and Chantal has never enjoyed the experience, and wanted to do so. I have only been to Nandos once. Simon once took me to one in Leicester. The table was sticky, the service slow, they had run out of Pepsi and the other soft drinks were flat. Apart from that it was a perfect gastronomic experience.

At least the Greenwich restaurant was spotless, the service good, and we were able to sit in the sunshine on the rooftop terrace with a river view on one side, and the Cutty Sark on the other and had quite a pleasant meal, despite the beer option being restricted to Portuguese lager. Afterwards we browsed the various “market stalls” on the dock, many selling snack foods from a variety of countries, and I enjoyed some small Dutch pancakes.

We came across London’s last original “Pie and Mash” shop, with the optional accompaniment of draught London Pride ale. It was just 2 minutes from Nandos. I grumbled at length to anyone who would listen…….

It was getting cold, and so we decided to head back to Steven’s flat, arriving part way through the final of  Britain’s got Talent. I have never watched this contest, and I suppose that a final is as good an introduction as one will get. I was actually quite impressed by the acts, particularly the winning act, a group of Hungarian “shadow performers. Afterwards we played “Apples” while enjoying a beer or two – an excellent game. It must be. I won.

On Sunday, at our request,  we headed for the Star Café, a few minutes’ walk from the flat, for breakfast.  This small local café offers a choice of 14 cooked breakfasts, of which 8 could each be described as a “full English breakfast”. I naturally opted for the Mega Breakfast, and only just managed to finish it.

On the previous day we had spotted marquees in a large park close to the flat, and so went to investigate. It was a Turkish Festival, organised by the Turkish community, and we wandered around the craft stalls, and chatted to women preparing food.

Afterwards we walked around the park, stopping to feed grass to Canadian goose goslings

and to talk to a couple who were constructing a floating raft of marsh plants.

We returned to the Festival because Chantal wanted to watch the traditional Turkish oil wrestling. I never knew that she had an interest in blokes smothered in olive oil. She was disappointed when we discovered that the wrestling had been cancelled – the wrestlers hadn’t been able to obtain a visa in time. Instead we watched a Turkish marching band (although the amount of marching was somewhat limited, perhaps just as well, given the advanced age of the musicians).

, and I bought a traditionally prepared flatbread with lamb and spices, which I accompanied with a couple of drinks of dubious  Iranian yoghurt served from a distinctly non refrigerated wooden barrel.

And then it time to head back north, catching a train, and then bus due to engineering works (which caused Chantal have a small panic in a “are-you-sure this-is-the-right bus” sort of way), back to Palmers Green to pick up the car, and have a cup of coffee and a proper catch up with Rachel and Dan (Ian was not home) before heading back up the M1.

I’ve put some of my photos in Our Recent Photo’s – Chantals will follow once she has chosen some from the hundreds that she took!

Had a weekend in London withSteven and Sherry – post to follow in due course.

Summer has arrived! It must have done. Last night was the first time that Chantal has not lit the woodburner.

I have posted a “blog ” of our holiday in Cornwall in “Iceland to Oz”. I promise that it is somewhat shorter than the U.S. epic!! More photos will, of course, appear in “Our Recent Photos” in due course.

Simon and I had trouble finding a mutually free lunchtime for our weekly meet up this week, and so Simon suggested breakfast instead. I was briefly tempted by thoughts of a full English fry-up at a city centre “greasy spoon” café, but Simon suggested the coffee and pastry at Nero’s, a much better option, and so we met up there yesterday.

Since I cycled to work, and then showered, we didn’t meet until 8.30, by which time I think that Simon had already done an hour or so at work, and I had had a brief unplanned “case discussion” with my manager, but otherwise what a wonderfully relaxed way to start a day! We sat in the quieter first floor area, no doubt distracting the three or four gentlemen busy working on their laptops, and just chatted for over an hour.

I’m sure that this will be an option that we will be consider in future, much more peaceful than our usual lunchtime venues. The only questionable bit was why my choice of pastry turned out to be a “pain de raison” (or something like that) when it was clearly a Chelsea Bun. It’s a pastry thing, apparently.

Chantal has been on the Telly!

After her abortive visit to Optical Express in London, when Chantal decided not to have further eye surgery, she has kept in touch with a lady that she met at Optical Express who is campaigning for regulation of such surgery.  Chantal was asked to appear in a news item on BBC East Midlands Today, and a reporter visited her at home on Thursday lunchtime, and filmed a brief interview that was shown during the programme that evening.

See www.opticalexpressruinedmylife.co.uk  , click on “blog”, scroll down to May 23^rd, and click on East Midland s News link. Also see Chantal’s story under the “True Stories tab. Optical Express says that Chantal is still under their care and they will correct any problems. Chantal says “Not flipping likely!”

Incidentally also see Chantal’s item on the quarry fire http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/Quarry-blaze-seen-miles/story-19034665-detail/story.html?ito=email_newsletter_thisisleicestershire#ixzz2TpErtLOT

I am married to a media star!

Simon and Kate bought us afternoon tea for Christmas! We had a voucher for Afternoon Tea, at Kilworth House, and since Monday was our wedding anniversary, it seemed the perfect opportunity to take advantage of it. We duly arrived at 4.00pm, and were shown into the Orangery, a large conservatory. We had a choice  – I opted for savoury afternoon tea with Earl Grey tea, and Chantal, always more traditional, opted for a traditional cream tea with English Breakfast tea.

The delicacies were served on a silver cake stand. We had open sandwiches to start, followed by cakes and pastries, and we finished with scones with cream for Chantal, and pickles to go with my savoury herb and cheese scones, all washed down with endless cups of tea.

Afterwards took our third (each!), and final pot of tea outside to the terrace, and had a wonderfully relaxing time looking out over the countryside and chatting. It was particularly pleasant because not a few yards away someone else was doing the gardening….

We had a late night on Saturday, after a long day in the garden, and what seemed like an even longer evening in front of the Eurovision Song Contest.  I picked up a sweatshirt carelessly thrown onto the bed earlier, and was startled when I was confronted by a large spider attempting to leap off of my sweatshirt, presumably going for my throat. I naturally flicked the beastie onto the floor with a enthusiastic shake of the garment, which elicited a query from my wife as to what on earth I was playing about at. I explained  that I had survived an arachnophobic attack, but reassured her that the perpetrator was safely under the bed. Chantal expressed a full and frank opinion that an eviction via the open window would have been more appropriate.

All was peaceful for a few seconds, but the then there was a loud shriek and Chantal seemed to be beating herself up. The unfortunate flying spider had apparently flown up, not down, from my sweatshirt, and was residing comfortably on Chantal’s bosom, although not for long, since Chantal’s violent semaphore actions sent it heading back towards its starting point. Gingerly we examined the duvet. No spider. Chantal picked up her Kindle and promptly dropped it when she saw the spider crouching on the screen, ready to pounce. Efforts to encourage it onto a piece of paper were unsuccessful – the spider was enjoying the medieval drama that Chantal is currently reading. However even a spider cannot hang on to a Kindle screen that is being dangled vertically out of a window.

I’m glad Chantal didn’t drop the Kindle. It would have been my fault. And the size of the Beastie? A couple of cm, but it did have fearsome spindly legs.

I took the dogs out onto the fields last night, and saw smoke from behind Croft Hill. We changed our route and headed up the Hill, to join a small crowd of people who had already gathered to watch one of the processing buildings on fire!

It was still smouldering this morning. I don’t know what the implications for the quarry are.

The Hampshire Tilleys visited us last weekend. Thanks to a “Teacher day” at the girl’s school, Lucy and the girls were able to drive up on Friday, arriving at lunchtime. After lunch we went for a walk to see a swans nest on the wildlife ponds between our house and Huncote

Before returning via the “New Hill” around the quarry where Megan borrowed my camera for a group photo

The plan for Saturday was to visit “Conkers” for the day, an activity centre in the National Forest, not far from Coalville. I gave the dogs a long walk, and Chris got the girls ready, while Lucy just “popped into Next” at Fosse Park shopping centre. No woman ever just “pops in” to Fosse Park. Lucy returned at 11.30, and actually did us a favour – a perusal of the BBC weather site revealed that we were in for an afternoon of torrential showers, and Conkers is mostly outdoors. Instead we went to Snibston, an interactive museum built at a coal mine site in Coalville. I haven’t been there since my boys were not a lot older than Bridget, and, like my boys, it has grown considerably! It is full of exhibits that can be enjoyed at all levels. Injecting fuel into a cylinder, pumping to pressurise it, and igniting the mixture can either explain how a car engine works, or it can be enjoyed as just a way of making a big bang!

There are outdoor exhibits, which we enjoyed between the torrential showers, and I had a constructive chat with a “master composter” who gave tips on making my compost heaps compost faster!

Sunday was Chris’s birthday. Chantal and the girls had baked a cake

Which we all enjoyed after Chris returned from a bike ride with Keith.

We all, including Andree and Keith enjoyed a full Sunday roast at the Elms carvery at Lutterworth

Before the Tilleys headed back south.

See “Our Recent Photos” for more images.

I hope you’ve all had a nice Bank Holiday weekend.  Ours was spoiled a bit by losing Pudding, but otherwise it has been a good weekend. We managed quite a bit of gardening, but with a few interruptions. On Saturday we went shopping with Andree. Good news – it was to a garden centre. Bad news – it was for shoe shopping at a retail outlet at the centre. Good news – I was able to sit outside and enjoy an ice cream in the sun. Bad news – I would have had time for about ten ice creams and a lot of browsing of plants by the time that shoes were eventually chosen.

Matthew came over yesterday, and we all went to Andree’s to dig up a small conifer. Matthew tried to fix Andree’s computer, which appears to have uninstalled its own Internet Explorer, which would explain why you may have been missing Andree on Facebook. We think a virus has been at work. Matthew couldn’t resolve the problem before we had to head home in time for Matt to go a wedding reception.

Quite a relaxed day today. Matt helped me to fetch a dead tree trunk from the fields – I’ve had my eye on it for a while. Our friends Duncan, Lou and daughter Emily came over after lunch – we three blokes sneaked off to the pub for an hour or so, before Andree and my Dad came over for tea.

All in all a “nicely busy” weekend.

Today we lost Jessie, always known to me as Pudding. She was our oldest cat, almost 14, and had been a poorly cat for quite a while. I will miss her especially – she decided early on that she was my cat, would head-butt me for attention, and at the end of an evening in front of the TV she was an expert at playing “dead-cat”, draping herself across my lap so that it was difficult to evict her! It will be strange without her.

Our friends Ann and Colin came over to see us yesterday, back from a trip touring New Zealand and Australia in a campervan. They are considering buying one to tour in this country (Colin retired last year), and have persuaded Chas that this is an excellent plan for our post retirement years (if we ever get to them…)

Let’s see… reasonable sized second hand campervan…£25,000. Reasonable sized hotel room…£75. So then, that’s 333 nights in a hotel, breakfast included, or 333 nights in a van with windows, bacon butties extra.

Like all those suggestions on how wonderful a cruise is, I’ve yet to be convinced about this leisuretime adventure.

It’s been a long week that started with an innocent, if unexpected, telephone call from Andree “Do you know what is happening in Canada?”, but which quickly unravelled into a surreal mixture of tragedy, emotion, disbelief, anger and heartbreak. But I have also seen a close family come together in mutual, unreserved support for each other, united, and, I think, in some ways strengthened by an experience than no-one outside of the family can understand, for although of course there have been many similar tragedies, each is in its own circumstances unique.

I can add nothing to the words already expressed within the family on either side of the Atlantic, and this is not the place to share the very personal words and thoughts that each of you has expressed this week. I did not nurture Duncan, and did not grow up with him, and he was not my son, father, brother or uncle, and so I cannot share your pain in the way that you all have to bear it. It would be too painful and distressing for me to even try to imagine how I would feel in the same circumstances.

To me Duncan was warm, generous (very generous!), open, honest, funny. Whenever and wherever I visited Duncan, I felt at home as soon as I walked through the door. No airs, no graces, just an instant warm welcome, and a cold beer. And of course a hot barbeque topped with an inch of best steer. Those steaks were a central part of the whole experience. Duncan chose the best steaks that he could find; marinated them to enhance what was already almost perfect, and cooked it exactly as it should be – no mean feat on a barbeque. But I could never quite understand the garlic coating!

Duncan never really seemed relaxed, always busy concentrating on ensuring that the rest of us had a good time, but that warm, almost cheeky, grin never seemed far from the surface. That is the image that comes to mind when I remember Duncan – his infectious grin. Ian’s description of Duncan was essentially of a warm generous enthusiastic fun loving big brother, but with an underlying complexity. I think Ian was spot on.

We had a crisis yesterday morning. Chantal lost her specs – her distance specs. No distance specs means no driving, it was time to go to work, and she only has the one pair. It was my fault, of course, since she definitely last wore them while checking my latest blog for the Oakstump, which means that you lot are all implicated as well.  We carefully searched all the possible locations and most of the unlikely locations, and all before my first cup of tea of the day, but Chantal kept coming back to the study where she was convinced that I had lost her specs. At one point she convinced me that I had picked them up and had been reading the paper wearing them. I think that the paper would have to have been propped open at the end of the garden, but I still checked that the pair on my forehead were reading specs.

Chantal finally concluded that there was only one option – to drive to work without specs. This was clearly of great concern to me, since she would have the dogs in the car, and I obviously I have to give due consideration to their health and welfare, and so I seriously considered abandoning my bike and taking the dogs in my car.

The specs turned up before Chantal left – in the “other” living room, where, as she suddenly recalled, Chantal had last taken them off the night before, to use her reading specs to look at some information about Optical Express…..

It was Bess’s second birthday party on Saturday, and we were all invited! Chris and Lucy and the girls stayed with us, and we all travelled up to Leeds on Saturday morning. The dogs came too – we found a convenient area of countryside close to Claire and Si’s home in Rawdon for them to stretch their paws (and roll in the snow still present at the field edges).

Claire booked us all in at a pizza restaurant/pub for a lovely lunch, before we headed off to the party at a nearby “play zone” (I’m not sure what its proper name is) – slides, mats, climbing apparatus and a ball pool for the children to have fun. We were joined by Si’s family, and of course lots of Bess’s friends. There was party food for the children and sandwiches for the grown-ups before the dancing and games commenced.

Afterwards we went back to Claire and Si’s for tea (and beer for some) and birthday cake, lovingly baked and decorated by Si and Bess.

Steven and Sherry came back to Leicester with us (a bit cosy in the car with 4 adults and 2 large dogs), stopping over at the Oakstump along with the Hampshire Tilleys. On Sunday the Tilleys headed back south shortly after breakfast, but Steven and Sherry were able to spend most of the day with us, before Ian (who had been staying with Andree) picked them up in the late afternoon.

See 2 pages of images in “Recent photos”.

I had my annual birthday walk on Sunday. Every year my family join me for a local dog walk – those that prefer not to walk join us later for tea. It is usually on the Saturday after my birthday, but thanks to other people’s Easter week arrangements, it was a bit later this year.

This year Simon, Kate, and my sister Pauline and her family joined us for the walk down towards Croft, and then headed off along field tracks and through a “wildlife reserve” and back through the village before walking back up the hill to home. We passed the Heathcote Arms as we walked through the village. Well, it would have been rude not to pop in, and we were joined there by Matt, Chantal and Andree.

Dad joined us after we got back home. After a large chilli, there was a lot of pudding – a birthday cake made Matthew, and cheesecake made by Kate. Perfect.

Traditionally I have organised an Easter egg hunt for the children. I stopped doing this a couple of years ago, and promptly got complaints! And so this year I created a treasure hunt for all 5 children, aged 16 to 27, which they duly followed after dinner. The clues involved following compass bearings – I can confirm that the i-phone compass is superior to those that I was able to download as Android apps. After successfully locating 9 Cadbury Cream Eggs (10 were hidden, but one mysteriously disappeared) they needed significant help to locate the final box of chocolates hidden beneath Chantal’s car.

The day was rounded off with a board game, which I think that my team won. It was a lovely day.

On Saturday we went With Andree to the Curve theatre to see Piaf. It’s had mixed reviews – it is the story of Edith Piaf’s singing career, a gritty, often dark tale, of her rise from a street performer associating with prostitutes, to an international singing career that culminated in drug abuse. It is not, as I am sure many folk expected, just a celebration of her songs.

Chantal booked us seats in row D. This did not turn out to be the fourth row back, as expected, but right at the front, with the stage at eye level. We initially thought that this would detract from the performance – Andree even suggested moving seats, until we explained that these seats were booked, and in any case the theatre was full. In fact I think being almost part of the action enhanced the experience. At times we each individually felt that “Piaf” was singing to us personally.

The performance was brilliant – it must have been, because Andree was complimentary. She felt that the lead actress was an excellent performer of Piaf’s songs, although after some deliberation Andree felt that she must be English, because some of the words weren’t pronounced quite as Piaf would have done. She was, of course, English – the bulk of the dialogue required a certain expression or interpretation that could only have been performed to an English audience by a native English actress. The actor who, later in the performance, played Charles Aznavour, was definitely French – Andree was certainly impressed with his performance.

I thoroughly enjoyed the entire performance – I have always liked Piaf’s songs, and it was enlightening to hear part of each song sung in English.

Just back from a day trip to London for Chantal’s pre-operation consultation for her next corrective eye treatment. More of this shortly.

As is traditional when we are clockwatching, I took the dogs for a morning walk and was out for longer than I should have been resulting in a rushed trip to Barwell to drop off the dogs with Dave at “Best Buddies”, and an 80 mph dash along the A5 to Rugby where we had booked tickets on the 09.59 train to Euston. We drove up to the station at 08.40, with plenty of time to spare. Car park 1 was full, car park 2 was full and car park 3 could not be found despite circumnavigating the area. We found a large “overflow” car park owned by a shop, which, surprisingly offered parking at a reasonable cost, and arrived on the platform 4 minutes before the train.

Arriving in London we had time to spare for “food-on-the-run” and I decided to try the smart phone navigation to find a McDonalds. The phone duly guided us around three sides of a large square passing Euston station, shortly after leaving it. I realised that my phone thought that we were in a car and had guided us safely around a one way system. We returned to the station to take the underground instead, and on arrival at Oxford Circus we took the precaution of asking directions to the nearest McDonalds. After only a slightly hurried meal, we left the restaurant and we asked our phones to direct us to Harley Street, our ultimate destination.  My phone advised turning right. Chantal’s phone’s preferred option was to turn left. Chantal’s phone proved accurate, and we arrived at the clinic (which in fact turned out to be a glorified branch of Optical Express) in plenty of time, although we needn’t have worried – thanks to an administrative cock-up, I mean error, she was booked for the wrong consultation, and we were kept waiting for the right one.

After a series of eye-scans, a young lady went through the procedure with us. Chantal was to have her existing lenses removed, and replaced with plastic ones. Neither of us was comfortable with the consultation, which felt more of a sales pitch, with the risks only vaguely discussed. After discussing  the side effects (glare from lights at night), the reason for this, and Chantal’s particular eye characteristics ( large pupils), it became clear that although the 1% risk of side effects was emphasised, Chantal’s risk of side effects was considerably higher. The consultant didn’t point this out – we realised it for ourselves, but the “consultant” did agree that this was the case, although couldn’t quantify it.

While waiting to see what dates were available Chantal overheard another patient in the waiting room,  and it was clear that he had problem’s, which he was happy to discuss  – a botched lens exchange treatment to remove the need for reading glasses resulted in the loss of both distance and close vision. He was not at all happy with the way that Optical Express had treated him. A lady with him turned out to be a bit of a campaigner for Optical Express customers who had suffered problems, but she had been warned that if she discussed this with any other customer, she would be escorted from the premises. It then became apparent that another customer in the waiting room was also having problems after the sort of operation that Chantal was planning.

So let’s consider the facts. Administratively Optical Express cannot organise a drinking event in a brewery. 2 out of about 30 people in the clinic were there because of problems. This could be explainable (anyone without problems wouldn’t be there), but it appears that Optical Express like to keep the failures secret. If I had been managing the clinic, the problem customers would have been seen very very quickly, and not left waiting. And they are trying to rush Chantal into making an appointment.  Chantal spent the journey home browsing the internet, and is considering her position…

Chantal found some more photos from Claire, Si and the girls visit during last Mothering Sunday weekend, a couple of weeks ago. See our recent photos.

We had quite a relaxed Easter weekend. On Good Friday we had an impromptu dog walk/pub lunch with Chris and Richard, who invited us back for coffee and to continue the chatting. Saturday was retail therapy – we took Andree to Woodlands nursery, about 5 miles away – not to buy plants (the cold weather is still preventing any enthusiasm for gardening) but for the other retail outlets on the site. We all found bargains – in my case a couple of nice “tops” -sort of jumper things that are better than your average sweatshirt. After the lack of snow in Derbyshire on Thursday we found some 4 foot drifts alongside the road just a few miles from home!

After church on Easter Sunday my Dad and Andree joined us for a sunday roast, staying all afternoon chatting, which was nice, after which Chantal and I settled down to watch Argos. Sorry, I mean Argo. I had serious reservations about this, what with all the gung ho fighting and torture. Turned out I was thinking about an entirely different film, and I thoroughly enjoyed this one.

Monday was technologically frustrating. Having orered a “TV stick” for my PC from Amazon, which didn’t quite do what it said on the tin, I went to Curry’s at Fosse Park to buy another. There was a long queue to the car park and I almost turned around. Chantal was a few cars in front, having collected Andree for clothes shopping in M&S – under no circumstances do I join Chantal and Andree for clothes shopping in M&S. I purchased a TV stick, returned home to fit it, broke the aerial connection, went to B&Q for a new one, fitted it (well, Chantal did – she insisted…) installed the TV stick, which worked briefly before falling apart. Today I have had a refund from Currys.

It wasn’t the most relaxing day to end an otherwise lovely weekend.

What a difference a year makes. My birthday 2012;

My birthday 2013;

We normally go for a walk in the Derbyshire Dales on my birthday, but thanks to snow we decided to visit Masson Mill near Matlock, a Victorian textile mill with the machinery still in place. We timed the visit to see a working demonstration of the machinery before we toured the museum, not everyone’s cup of tea, but we found it interesting. Before the demonstration I realised that I had left my camera in the car, and went to fetch it. The Mill is a big old rambling place, and I couldn’t find the car, eventually located it, but then had trouble finding my way back to the museum. The two pints that accompanied the pub meal before the visit may have had something to do with this. By the time I found Chantal, the demonstration was underway, although I don’t think that I missed much.

While standing among the 19^th Century technology, I was introduced to a 21^st century innovation – Chantal told me how to use my smart phone to scan those black and white squares that are increasingly common in various places. In this case there was one by each machine, and after downloading the “app”, I could scan the square to be linked through to the museum web site, where I could read all about the machine using my phone. Of course all younger family members will be very familiar with this – but it was a first for me, and I was impressed.

After the museum we headed for the nearby Cromford Canal, and took the dogs for a lovely 4 mile walk along the canal towpath, as the canal meandered through snow covered fields, before heading off to see our friend Meryl, who lives near Chatsworth Park, just a few minutes from our walk. Meryl bred Lesia, and lives in a very small cottage, and currently has 7 German Shepherds. Those of you who have visited (certainly Matt, Claire and Si) will remember this place – Claire describes, you sit having a cup of tea in a sea of dogs. You have to be a dog person to appreciate it! We stayed there quite a while, eventually getting home at 10, with still time for a birthday G&T or two.

Thanks to everyone for their cards – there is a distinct old-age theme this year…..

Photos from the day are in Recent Photos (and see http://365project.org/shepherdman/365/2013-03-28)

A few snow photos are in “Recent photos” – just scenes, not people. Chantal stayed in the warm! At last the wind has dropped, although it is still distinctly breezy, making the weather feel a bit warmer, even though the temperature is only a couple degrees above freezing. The snow is still 18 inches deep on the field side of the fence at the end of the garden, but is distinctly patchy where the snow is exposed to the wind.

Some photos from Claire – the girls enjoying the snow, plus a photograph that will no doube re-appear when Florence brings home her first boyfriend. The car in the first photo is Si’s – it was parked further back, and slid towards the main road!

From an e-mail from Les in New York State; “This last week we had another storm  dumping 14 inches of snow, schools closed for 1 day”

We’ve had more snow overnight; another 4 or 5 cm. Drove to church this morning; generally the roads were clear, apart from snow blowing across from gateways – sort of very mini snowdrifts, easy to drive over.

We have snow, but it is of the horrible wet variety that eventually covered the ground, but definitely not what could be described as deep and crisp and even.  Yesterday evening’s dog walk was not enjoyable, with a strong cold wind blowing snow at us, which continued all evening, and by the time that we went to bed it was snowing really heavily, still blowing in a strong wind, but with the temperature only just below freezing it was barely settling.

By this morning there was a good covering, but only 2-3 cm deep, with green soggy patches around the field edges in the lee of hedges, where the snow had not settled.  There were a few people sledging on the Hill this morning, but by the time we returned from a shopping trip to Fosse Park with Andree there were just a couple of sledgers left. With the cold wind, continuing snow flurries, and wet snow on the ground that no doubt soaked anyone who fell off the sledge, I suspect that sledging was not much fun.

It is snowing heavily again now, and settling. When will spring arrive?

When Chantal bakes, I get to scrape the bowl, but there is competition….

18 months ago a large mature tree at the end of a neighbour’s garden at the top of the Lane fell into wheat growing in the field behind our house, and lay there for a couple months. The farmer pulled it onto the grass strip at the field edge before the autumn ploughing, since when it has remained blocking the grassy strip, which we sometimes use as a mud-free short dog walk. I saw it has a minor inconvenience which entailed me and the dogs walking into the cultivated part of the filed to navigate around it. Chantal saw it as firewood, and last week asked Mike, the neighbour in question, whether he minded us having the tree. Since he didn’t know that the tree had fallen (he has a very large garden with what is almost a spinney at the bottom), he had no objections, and we planned to remove it to our wood store this weekend.

Yesterday, after our meal at The Elms, we headed out to the tree, just as it started to rain. By the time we had put everything that we need over the fence at the bottom of the garden (chainsaw, wheelbarrow, bow-saw, large plastic bags) and walked along the Lane and back behind our house the rain had become torrential, as we removed the smaller branches;

Chantal isn’t out of focus – the camera lens was wet! Having removed the branches, I made a start on part of the trunk with the chain saw. The weight of the fallen trunk trapped the saw blade twice, each time necessitating me getting my shoulder under the trunk to take the weight while Chantal tugged at the chain saw to pull it free, not without considerable effort by both of us. The second attempt stretched the chain, making it unusable. We were cold, exhausted, very very wet, and we still had to put the wood over the garden fence and into the wood store. By the time we finished we just slumped in front of the 3 hour film Django (which, incidentally, is only really a two hour plot).

This afternoon we headed back to the tree, having re-tensioned the chain saw, to  tackle the trunk, this time in sunshine.

In better conditions it took an hour to turn the trunk into logs, and another hour to transport the logs around the field edge, over the garden fence, and stack them in log store;

Based on the stock of delivered wood, we reckon that the tree has provided us with over £50 worth of logs, and an awful lot of exercise! We will be buying Mike an edible gift as a token of our appreciation.

We promised Andree a trip to The Elms in Lutterworth because we know she likes a nice carvery, and The Elms has an excellent one. Plan A was a Mothering Sunday Treat, but since The Elms doesn’t allow table booking, we decided that we could be waiting for over an hour (since we didn’t want lunch at 11.30). There was a favourable outcome – Andree joined us for dinner on Mothering Sunday, along with the Hands family, returning from a trip to London, and so we had three generations of mums around the kitchen table.

Plan B for a visit to The Elms was to take Andree there this weekend, and once again everything worked out favourably, because Matthew was stopping with Kate and Simon, and so all three joined us at The Elms for lunch. Dad was also invited, but was busy dining elsewhere with friends. The food must have been excellent – Andree was very complementary.

With the help of a self-timer we managed a family photo outside. It took a couple of attempts, since the first shot took us by surprise; Chas didn’t get into place, and I haven’t a clue what pearls of wisdom I was disseminating at the time…

I had a “licensing hearing” at the Town Hall this morning. We were applying to have music removed as a permitted activity from a Bar where we seized the sound equipment a couple of months ago, and this involved me presenting the case to a panel of Councillors, who would also hear the licencee present his case and then decide whether the Bar should no longer be permitted to play music. I’m normally quite relaxed about these hearings, and have been to many of them – a hearing is held whenever a Bar wants a new licence, or a change of licence, and someone either objects, or wants the licence to have specific conditions if it is granted.

This morning’s was a bit different. I didn’t want to ask for music to be taken away from the Bar, since they have behaved themselves for two months, and taking away the music would effectively close the bar down. However my manager instructed me, as the case officer, to request the licence review, and told me that I was arguing for the sake of arguing when I attempted to suggest that maybe a warning be given that any further nuisance would result in the potential loss of music. Presenting a case that you do not believe in is not easy (although solicitors and barristers manage it). I also knew that I would face some stiff questioning from the Bar’s solicitor, again something that would not bother me, but in this case I would have to answer carefully. “How do you justify the consequences of removing music from the licence?” “My boss is fierce and it’s best to do as she says…”

Anyway, you will understand that I was not as relaxed as usual, as I was gathering my files and paperwork before heading for the Town Hall, with a colleague who was presenting a separate case. As I turned to leave another colleague exclaimed “You can’t go in those trousers. They have a big hole in them!” “You’re joking!” “I’m not. There is a big hole in your arse””. Well, that is obvious, but I think he meant the trousers.

Sure enough there was a big very visible hole, and, having cycled into work, I had no second pair to rely on. Bugger. By this time some kind sole had shouted across to Chantal that her husband was not properly dressed. Chantal sits on the far side of an open plan office, and consequently the news spread. One of the Team Assistants offered Chantal, who had come over to enjoy the fun, some needle and thread.   By now, with just 6 minutes before the hearings, I was getting flustered, and put on a fleece to try to hide the hole. It worked as long as I stood bolt upright, and preferably didn’t have my back to anyone.

We walked quickly to the Town Hall, and up to the anti-room leading to the Council Chamber, where the hearings are held. Everyone involved in the three hearings that morning were gathered and preparing for their cases. I quickly located Rachel, the Licencing manager who co-ordinates the hearings, and interrupted her conversation with a brewery representative.” Rachel!” I said, “When is my hearing?” “You are in second.” “Have I got 15 minutes?” “Yes, but no longer”. The people involved for the first hearing were already heading into the Council Chamber.

I shot out to the town centre and went straight to Marks and Spencer, collaring the first assistant that I found in menswear. “I need a pair of these!” I said, pointing to my trousers, “and I need them quickly!” Without batting an eyelid, she went straight to the right rack, and found the right size – I had taken the precaution of visiting the Town Hall toilet to confirm the correct waist and leg length, because I never have a clue. I tried them on. Perfect. I ran to the checkout, which for some illogical reason was as far from the changing room as it was possible to be, and paid for my purchase, before running back to the changing rooms, bag in hand. No assistant. I searched, and found one polishing picture frames, who was a bit confused as to why I couldn’t just go into a cubicle without help, but I explained that I needed her to cut off the various labels so that I could wear my newly purchased trousers. She quickly did so, and shortly afterwards I was heading up the Town Hall steps, just 10 minutes after descending them, this time wearing smart new trousers.

The hearing went well; I was closely questioned by the licensee, his solicitor, and by Councillors, without me revealing that I was only there under duress (and without revealing my bottom). After a long session, “my” application was refused, which I was pleased about since otherwise it would have meant an appeal in the Magistrates Court – the Bar just have to “within three months take whatever steps are necessary to prevent a nuisance, including a sound insulation scheme”. In other word, Keep Calm And Carry On. But I didn’t care.

Claire, Si Bess and Florence stopped overnight – a chance to see us on their way to London see Si’s brother and partner. For various reasons they didn’t arrive until about 11.30, and so the girls (and Si!) went straight to bed, but we had a chance for a drink and chat with Claire before heading for bed at 2/00am – for me it was like working two consecutive night-shifts!

It was good to see the girls this morning, with time to play and read a story or two before they headed south. I’ve put a few photos on Our Recent Photos.

I was working last night, and at about 9pm got a phone call from Chantal. The lights have all gone out! Well, actually I think that just some of them went out – the ones plugged into a socket. But in practice the situation was a lot worse than just the lights going out. The TV had gone off, and by the time that she phoned me the TV had been off for an hour. It takes a lot less than an hour without TV for Chantal to start suffering from cravings.

When the power went off Chantal sensibly headed for the fuse box, flicked the switches back on, but they promptly flicked off again. Clearly there was a faulty appliance on the ground floor that had to be disconnected. We have an awful lot of appliances on the ground floor, and Chantal systematically unplugged every single one. For some she had to use a small hooked crowbar to reach deep behind furniture and haul at the plug to lever it out of the socket, before seeing if the fuse box would allow power back into the circuit. On each occasion the switches stubbornly returned to “off”. She even turned off the security lights (which run off the first floor circuit).

An hour and about 40 appliances later she was getting desperate, and resorted to an absolutely last-resort plan of action. She phoned me. She went through everything that she had done so far, and said that the only thing she couldn’t unplug was the outside light on the Oak Stump. She said that she was about to go out with a screwdriver to see if she could take the bulb out. I think that she was tempted to go out with the aforementioned crowbar and give it circuit testing that it would never forget. I reminded her that the light had a simple plug into an outside socket, and she trotted out into the rain, eventually managed to open the waterproof cover, and switch off the light. She kept me on the phone until she had re-set the fuses, and successfully tested a few appliances – starting with the TV.

I wonder what she was watching, and what she said when the screen when blank? Any visitors trying to find our house after dark will be relieved to know that the Oakstump light has now been fixed – it just needed a lot of damp detritus clearing out from the bulb holder.

The horse chestnut trees on the path down to Croft have sticky buds – spring is springing! At least it felt that way yesterday. Today has been cold again, and no sign of warm weather for a while. But at least it’s been dry, and I am regularly cycling to work again – 3 days this week. In the cold short days of winter it’s amazing how many reasons I can find to justify a commute in the car. The wind is currently remaining a stubborn northerly, with a distinct chill, but this suits me in cycling terms.  It’s generally uphill on the way home, especially the last steep half mile climb up Croft Hill, and a northerly wind is a following wind for the homeward journey.

A head wind on the way into Leicester and a following wind on the way home balance the terrain, resulting in the same journey time each way, which has been precisely 42 minutes, although today my homeward journey took only 40 minutes. I only keep half an eye on the clock though, and definitely don’t try to beat my times – I just potter along, listening to Radio 4 in the morning, and an MP3 audio book, borrowed from the library, as I cycle home. All quite relaxing.

See “Our recent photos” for some images from our recent weekend in London

A busyish weekend commencing with a sheepish dog walk. We have sheep in the field on the far side of the river, which means taking care with the dogs as we approach the bridge. On Saturday morning I kept to the fields on “our” side of the river, with the sheep some distance away on the other side.  The dogs started barking at something across the river, and I rounded some shrubs to see a single sheep, away from the flock

I don’t know how it got itself into this position, but sheep, once they are on their back, cannot roll back over. We walked along the river to the bridge, crossed and turned back on ourselves, dogs on leads, and rolled the ewe right way up. It promptly ran off away from the flock, and we had to shepherd it back to join it’s mates.

Matthew was up for the weekend, and with lovely mild and sunny weather we enjoyed a couple of nice long dog walks and caught up on news.  Matthew has just been given his first “case study”, a job for a client that he should see through from beginning to end, essential experience for his career progression. On Sunday my Dad and Andree joined us for an excellent Sunday roast, enjoyed by all despite the only photo that I took indicating the contrary

This was during a deep and meaningful conversation between Matt, Dad, Andree and Chas about the best way to stop shirts from staining in a washing machine…. Oh what lively and enlightening discourse we enjoy at the Oakstump.

We had a great weekend in London with Scraggies last weekend, 11 of us altogether. We caught the 8.30am train on Saturday – £15.90 return, a bargain!

We arrived at Euston to find a huge queue for Underground tickets, but we had noticed a smaller queue at a ticket office back “upstairs” on the station concourse, and so three of us went there to bulk buy day tickets for all of us. We stayed in apartments in Camden, having been moved there because of a maintenance problem at the originally booked apartments neat Tower Bridge.  We had two 2-bed apartments, each with a sofa bed and so each sleeping six.

We managed to lose each other during the second tube journey of the trip, after picking up the apartment keys, eventually arriving at Mornington Crescent tube station (very significant to those of us who are radio 4 fans – Wikipedia it) in three separate parties

with one group initially ending up back at Euston.  First destination – a London pub, naturally, for a couple of pints of London Pride,

before we explored Camden Market, which Chantal and I have visited before accompanied by Steven and Sherry. Then it was back on the tube to travel to the main destination of the weekend, Tower Bridge. Once again the journey was problematic, thanks to the closure of an unavoidable part of the District line, we had to catch a bus, which got snarled up in traffic, and we were a bit late for our 4.00pm appointment at the Bridge. We had a guided tour of the Bridge Exhibition, which in itself was quite interesting, but the main event was a “behind the scenes” tour. We visited one of the control rooms, by the South tower, where we met one of the engineers, who took us down the various levels in and below the Tower. The tour concentrated on the Victorian engineering originally used to “drive” the bridge. Each half of the Bridge is raised by allowing a 400 ton weight to fall which causes the road on the other end of a “see-saw” to rise. The engineering is needed to push the weight back up so that the road to fall back into place. Essentially a steam engine

forced water into an “accumulator”, a sort of giant tank, or piston, with a weight on top:

When the 400 ton bridge weight needs to be raised, the accumulator weight is released, forcing water through another engine that pushes up the bridge weight.  Originally all steam and water, the engineering is nowadays all electric motors and hydraulic oil. We went down into the massive chamber into which the 400 ton weight descends when the roadway is raised.

The 2 hour tour was fascinating. Afterwards we emerged back onto the floodlit Bridge

and found a convenient pub, which, even more conveniently had a large table free, for more beer and food.

On Sunday we all split up again, intentionally this time. Many in the group wanted to visit another steam engine, this time one in full steam, near to Kew, and others went to Kew Gardens, but Chantal had had quite enough engineering for one weekend, and so we both spent a happy day, despite a bitter wind, pottering photographically around Camden Market,

before heading to St Pancras to enjoy (and photograph) the wonderful architecture of the station.

We all met up again at Euston for our journey back to Rugby station, and eventually home. More photos to follow eventually

Just a brief post and a couple of photographs from last weekend, when Steven and Sherry joined us, having taken advantage of a lift with Ian and Daniel who were up to see  Andree.  It was a really laid back weekend – it must have been because even Chantal didn’t take any photographs! Steven and Sherry arrived on Saturday lunchtime, and we spent the afternoon just chatting, catching up, and making use of Steven’s technical experience to add a new version of Photoshop to Chantal’s laptop, and give me some pointers on making the most of my new smartphone (which, incidentally, I now love – any derogatory comments made about it in previous posts should be ignored…)

Andree, Ian and Daniel joined us for dinner – well actually they watched us eat, since they had actually eaten, and later Steven and I comfortably beat the ladies at the board game “Logo”.

On Sunday Steven and Sherry just about dragged themselves out of bed by the time I returned from church, in time to join Andree Ian and Daniel for a carvery Sunday lunch in Blaby – a lovely meal, especially since the beers were on Andree!

Afterwards we all went to Whetstone cemetery to visit Jake – it was four years since we lost Jake – before the “Londoners” all headed home.  On the subject of London, Chantal and I have just returned from weekend there with Scraggies – news and photos to follow in due course.

I had the day off yesterday after working the night before, and so Chantal braved a very cold wind to join me on a dog walk. I am pleased to say that she was fine heading down towards Croft, particularly since she had to keep stopping for photographic purposes.

After almost an hour, we hadn’t walked far, what with stopping to take photographs and to chat to other dog walkers, and we were both getting cold. Chantal said those words that every man likes to hear from a woman; “Shall we go to the pub?”  An excellent plan, I thought, especially when, as we approached the pub, I could see from the smoking chimney that Andy, the landlord, had lit the fire. And so we settled down in front of the fire for lunch and a pint/coffee. Chantal proved that she still has all her womanly charms – she pulled….

We are warm again! A delivery of 850 litres of oil was delivered on Monday morning, not filling the 1300 litre tank, but enough for quite a while. I’ll be keeping an eye on it this time! Unfortunately we had to have the boiler maintenance company out to “bleed” the boiler to get the air out of the pipes and other bits and pieces (it seems that we have one of the few modern oil boilers that doesn’t bleed itself), which incurred a callout charge, and I won’t tell you what our revised monthly oil payment is now. Ouch. Thank goodness Chantal is feeling better, and we think will be returning to work next week – her illness has been costly! Good job she’s worth it.

Makes you realise how a sudden illness that turns out to be long term can cause financial problems to families who are in less fortunate circumstances than we are.

We’ve run out of oil! This has never happened before. We woke this morning to cold radiators, and I remembered that the hot water wasn’t actually hot last night. After briefly suspecting a boiler breakdown, I popped out to check the oil tank. Empty. We have a “top up scheme” – our supplier uses software to monitor our use, monitor the weather, and calculate how much oil is in our tank. We don’t normally have to worry about it – a tanker just pulls up every now and then and fills our oil tank. Unfortunately no-one told the software that Chantal has been poorly, and that the heating has been on all day for the past 6 weeks. A delivery has already been arranged for tomorrow. Thank goodness for the log burner.

Ian and Daniel came up for the weekend to see Andree – it has been 4 years since today that Jake died. Steven and Sherry took the opportunity of a lift to stay with us for the weekend – a post and photo or two will be published in due course.

Chas woke up in the early hours last night, as she does, to go to the toilet. She heard the screeching of a fox outside, and decided that she must remember to close the bedroom window so that she wasn’t disturbed by this continuing un-nerving eerie noise. It wasn’t until she returned to the bedroom that she realised that it wasn’t a fox. It was me, snoring…

At last – photo from Les to confirm that the odd flake of snow falls in Upstate New York. These photos of Leslie and Ippany, were, I think, taken on Lake George, about an hour north of Leslie’s home

After most of a day of snowfall yesterday, the temperature here rose to a balmy 7C, and we have floods (and I have no idea why the web site insists on incuding this image above and below…):

It is Dad’s 85th birthday on Monday, and so we had a family gathering at the Elm’s, Lutterworth for a birthday meal on Saturday evening. As usual when we attend this venue,we had an excellent meal (the pub does an excellent carvery) before we went back to Dad’sfor a chat

and to play The Best Of British, a sort of general knowledge game around the British culture. The Ladies won, but there was some rather dubious nods, winks and headshaking when it was the turn of one of the Ladies team to read questions to the others. And there was some dubious questions for the menfolk. What TV programme ends with” Duff Duff Duff”? This is what was read out, which aurally bore little resemblance to the first bit of the Eastenders theme.  Name the person that a picture of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding reminds you of? Not Aunt Bessie, apparently. The answer was “Mum”.

Unfortunately Matthew couldn’t make it to grandpa’s birthday meal due to a combination of food poisoning, a potentially broken nose and concussion! Having been ill all morning he slipped dashing to the bathroom and as he describes it, ‘face planted the bath’ in the process. After 3 hours at A&E he was back at his Aunties (his now current residence) to recover. Needless to say he wasn’t up to the drive to Lutterworth, or socialising or food for that matter….

I now have a smart phone.  I knew it would be trouble, and the trouble started even before I got my hands on it. It was due for delivery between 12.30 and 4.30 yesterday, not a problem since Chantal was at home.  By 4.30 it hadn’t arrived. It transpired that the house number on the package was wrong, and of all the house numbers that they chose, they selected 5. There isn’t a 5. Richard and Chris have converted 2 semis, originally 3 & 5, but now just “3”. The driver asked the neighbour if he knew an N. Cooper, but chose a neighbour that only knows our first names. No, said the neighbour, there are no Coopers on the Lane, and so the driver phoned me. 15 minutes earlier this would have been successful, but I was driving to work for the night shift, I didn’t answer the phone, and he didn’t leave a message. By the time I realised who the missed call may be from, the driver had gone home.

I have the phone now. I couldn’t turn it on. I jabbed this, pressed that, and decided it must be a flat battery, and it took Chantal to point out the tiny power symbol on a tiny button. Since the new SIM was the same type as my old, at least transferring my contacts was unexpectedly easy.

I had to activate my new SIM on line, and logged on using the password that I have used several times over the last few days, but it was not recognised. I set up a new one, and had to wait an hour or so for it to be registered. After successfully logging on, I went through the activation procedure, only to get an error message requiring me to phone Orange. I did so using my old phone, but the chap at the other end did not recognise my password. The computer said No.  I tried my old password, the one that had been rejected an hour before. Oddly, this was acceptable to the computer. The new SIM was activated, and I was advised that at some point my old phone would not be usable, at which point my new phone would work. “When?” “Between 1 and 24 hours”.

The activation had been completed by the end of the evening dog walk, and I was able to phone Chantal, and she phoned me. I could text her, but her reply took ages to arrive. I do not get internet. I found the Samsung instruction book online on my PC – 160 pages that took 30 minutes to almost download before timing out, but at least I could view it on the web site.  It told me to select the Internet option. What did it think I had been doing?

I still have no Internet. Simon has told me that the phone will give me all that I want, and more – all I have to do is embrace the technology. I can’t even locate the technology, let alone give it a cuddle.

I am tired and grumpy, having got home at 3.00am. The new SIM is now in my beloved old Nokia, which works a treat. Anyone want to buy a Samsung Galaxy Ace?

I’m back on my bike – well mostly. I managed two days this week, Monday and Tuesday. At the end of Monday I still felt quite fresh, getting straight out for quite a long dog walk as soon as I got home. On Tuesday it snowed during the afternoon, turning to sleet, which was in my face almost all the way home. This wasn’t in the plan. By the time that I got home I was really cold and wet, and had to change and warm up before walking the dogs up Croft Hill. Icy drizzle turned to driving rain as we got to the top, but luckily only a brief walk was required, because we would be heading out again later on our weekly stroll to the pub. The walk along the footpath down to the Heathcote Arms was distinctly wet and muddy, and I had the embarrassment of two damp and odorous dogs at my feet – good job they are regulars, and they still got treats from the barmaid, and from one of the other dog owners who frequent the pub on a Tuesday. Despite better weather today, I wimped out and went to work in the car.

Chantal’s improvement continues but she is not looking forward to going back to work next week!

I’ve added Claire’s photos to “Our recent photos” even though she sent them to everyone already! I’m always happy to “post” photos, or indeed any other news, that any of you want to share on the web site.

The days are starting to lengthen noticeably, with some evening dog walks in daylight, provided that I get home early enough, and on some clear mornings it is almost light by the time I get back with the dogs before heading off to work. This photo is from Croft Hill at about 7.00am on Monday, a particularly clear morning.  About the only aspect I don’t like about winter are the short days. I don’t mind the cold, or the wet (oh, alright, I’m not a huge fan of the wet) but I loathe dark mornings. Waking up in the dark is unnatural, and need a good 30 minutes of quiet preparation for the day, with the morning paper and a pint of tea. At the moment I have to clock-watch, as, with Chantal still poorly, I have to take the dogs out and be back in time to beat the worst of the traffic during the morning commute. I am not coping well. Thanks to weather and late shifts I haven’t cycled to work for three weeks, and it will be a struggle when I next get on my bike. Maybe next week.

Update on Chantal – improving, but fed up when the doctor confirmed that the chest infection is still not budging, and prescribed a different antibiotic.

Yours and our photos from the snow are in Our Recent Photos.  I can’t display titles and so you’ll have to keep returning to this page to see who is who and what is what! Thanks to all who sent photos.

1-3 Dog walk around the Oakstump; 4-5 Chantal taking snow photos while keeping warm; 6 Andree in her front garden; 7-9 Chris and Lucy’s garden, including “dunny” & on-going building work;  10 Bess in snow; 11-12 Florence sensibly staying warm; 13-14 The back of my sister Pauline’s house; 15 My Dad in his garden; 16-17 Lincoln, taken by Matt on his way to work – Lincoln Castle, and another, maybe the station?; 18 My Sister Ros, Baildon, Yorkshire; 19-24 around Baildon, Yorkshire; 25 Chantal’s brother Pierre, Canada, Ice fishing, I think; 26; Pierre out on the ice; 27-39 photos around the Oakstump, ; 40 – Les enjoying the winter (without documentary proof we suspect that this is what New York winters are really like…).     Some  bird photos taken by Chantal are on page 3.

I tried to log on to my office PC on Monday only to get a message announcing that my account had been disabled. I wasn’t overly worried, and phoned IT, but “Technical Support” put me through to another Department, who suggested that my manager calls them.  By now my manager had arrived logged in, and found an e-mail advising that my account had been disabled in line with corporate procedures, and that she should ensure that my exit interview is undertaken before I leave.

After a brief-but-to-the-point e-mail and phone conversation between my manager and IT (she is even more fierce than Chantal), I received a call to tell me that my account had been enabled. It turned out that the account of Neil (Social Services) Cooper should have been disabled, although I’m not sure that IT should have told me this. The job of Neal (Transport Systems) Cooper must be safe, as is mine, at least for the time being.

I love snow, especially when it is a snowy weekend!  I had already booked Friday afternoon off, managing to get away by 2, which was just as well, because thanks to heavy snow for most of the day, together with Friday commuters and a Leicester City home game, the city was gridlocked by late afternoon, with people walking home. The snow had stopped by Saturday morning, and so I took the dogs for a lovely long wintery walk, going along routes that had been impassable because of mud before the snow .

As we headed back home there were shrieks and shouts audible across the fields coming from Croft Hill which was very busy with people sledging

We had invited our friends Duncan and Lou and daughter Emily to come sledging, although obviously Chantal stayed at home in the warm. Duncan had recently bought Emily a sledge, and so with the two sledges that are kept at the Oakstump, children of all ages were able to spend a happy hour or so tobogganing down the Hill.

Emily had difficulty steering her new sledge, and so Duncan swapped it for one of our longer ones.  Duncan tried the new sledge and promptly steered it over a rock (that I had already discovered on a previous run when I struck it sharply with my right foot), which pierced the sledge between Duncan’s legs, before the sledge and Duncan continued down the hill. Fortunately for Duncan the rock slid under the sledge rather than sharply upwards between his thighs, but snow poured up through the hole leaving Duncan distinctly uncomfortable, but at least with all parts intact. The new sledge was a write off – we calculated that it’s use had cost £2.50 per descent.

There was a great family atmosphere on the Hill, which seems to have gradients for all abilities. If Chantal had been feeling better then no doubt we would have ended up in the pub, but instead we all came back to the Oakstump for hot soup and freshly baked rolls.

Snow fell throughout Sunday and I had to avoid my usual “back route” to church along a country lane, which was covered with packed snow. Simon and his dog Phil came over during the afternoon, and we both, Simon and I, went for a long walk with all three dogs in the heavy snow.

I couldn’t persuade Simon to go sledging afterwards – the youth of today have no sense of adventure. Or maybe it was the thought of a 27 year old being seen sledging with his Dad…     Where are my grandchildren when I need them?

I have received some snow photos to appear on the site later in the week. Any more?

Thursday: We went into a bar to remove the sound equipment today, only the second time that we have had to do this for commercial premises.  Despite numerous warnings to the bar management, loud bass  music from the bar had kept people awake in the flats above last Friday night, witnessed by a colleague, and so this morning 4 of us from the Noise Team met outside the bar, along with  a policeman, alarm engineer, sound engineer, and locksmith, and a large council van. Some chaps taking away rubbish told us that the owner would be there in 5 minutes, and so we waited. Sure enough a chap turned up with keys, but I didn’t recognise him – as the “case officer” I thought I knew all of the management. He wouldn’t identify himself, and refused to unlock the premises until I asked the locksmith to get to work. As the locksmith’s drill approached the door lock he decided to let us in, although not until he had been threatened with arrest for obstruction, and even then the locksmith had to use bolt cutters to deal with a padlock.  I had the task of trying to keep him calm and out of the way while my colleagues noted details of the sound equipment, photographed it, disconnected it, and removed it to the van; 27 items including 19 speakers. The sons of the licensee turned up next, which resulted in more arguing and shouting, and I was relieved when  the licensee walked in a few minutes later. She had firm words with her sons, who promptly calmed down a bit. No-one argues with Mum in public. The first chap turned out to be her husband. We all sat down, with the various pieces of sound system being carried away behind us, and she accepted the situation, admitting that she had not been on the premises on Friday night.

We removed the equipment to our secure store – this time I had to help with the fetching and carrying, which was a shame because we had to carry the stuff up some stairs! The biggest speakers stayed on the ground floor. The van broke down when we tried to leave, and we had to walk the mile or so back to the office. I am glad that the van hadn’t let us down earlier – I don’t think that the bar management would have pushed the van for us.

See  http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/Bar-silenced-sound-equipment-confiscated/story-17903015-detail/story.html

Chantal may be feeling a bit better, but on Wednesday the doctor, aided by an x-ray, confirmed an on-going chest infection, and Chantal still gets breathless with even slight exercise. To our relief there are no apparent growths in her lungs (always, with Chantal’s smoking history,  a nagging worry at the back of our minds), although the hospital has asked her to go for a second X-ray on 8^th Feb, and neither us nor the doctor is sure why. In the meantime she remains off work with a “sick note” until 14^th Feb.

Some snippets of our converations last night…

“Get that log on quickly and close the stove door. Quick! It’s smoking!”

“Shut the middle door in the Utility room. You always leave it open and the kitchen gets cold”

“Someone has scratched the sink. Did you scratch the sink with your belt?”

“Your socks have left black bits on the bedroom carpet. Why aren’t you wearing slippers? I always have to vacuum after you. And stop laughing. Why are you laughing?”

“I’m not laughing dear. I’m just grinning because I’m pleased and relieved that you are obviously feeling a bit better…”

Chantal is still recovering from her chest infection, coughing if she tries to do too much (which she does) and if she talks too much (which she wants to do). Normally our morning routine is a sort of team work – I make tea, get the dogs out of bed, and feed them. Chas sorts out the cats, and, after breakfast, takes the dogs for a short walk. Mornings have been traumatic with only half of the team. Take last Wednesday.  I wake relieved that we haven’t moved into a terraced house with a triangular garden and no room for veg, but having been woken in mid-dream I am even less functional than usual. As I creep downstairs I am startled by a shout of “Can I have some toast and don’t let Jessie eat anything!” Cat Jessie is due for an op, and I have to deliver her to the vet, dropping off a Chas-sample to the doctor on the way, although the Dr isn’t actually on the way to the vet.

I get an unexpected cold shower when the tap water misses the kettle.  I feed the dogs, make tea, feed the wife, and go to the study for a quiet breakfast, only to find that Jessie has “soiled” the plastic sofa-cover. While clearing this up I see that Tia has donated her breakfast to Jessie who now has her head in the dog bowl. I remove the cat from the dog bowl, and the dog bowl from the kitchen, and seek advice from Chantal who asks why I let the cat eat the dog food. I do not appreciate this query. I am now running late. I walk the dogs in dark, returning to find that I have to defrost bread rolls for lunch, and the car windscreen. I load the cat into the car, drive off, and turn around after 5 minutes to collect my work ID from the kitchen table. The Dr’s receptionist asks if all relevant details are written on the tube inside the envelope. I don’t know – it’s not my poo. At the vets I have to read and sign a consent form for Jessie, but my specs are in the car. The nurse summarises the contents – Jessie might die from the anaesthetic. Great. I sign it, and I am relieved to head for the office.  Jessie didn’t die, and no doubt will be the subject of a future post.

Latest on Chantal – the nursing service has given her another week off work. She is waiting to see the Dr for x-ray and other test results to try to discover the reason for the recurrent infections.

Chantal has been Proper Poorly, with a chest infection. Last Sunday she called the nursing service that the City Council uses for sickness reporting, and the duty nurse decided that she was suffering from pneumonia and wanted to call an ambulance. Chantal declined the offer, but promised to call a doctor out the following day. The doctor visited and confirmed that Chantal had “an extremely nasty chest infection”, and prescribed an antibiotic, with at least 2 doses to be taken that day – I had to come home from work to collect the prescription and fetch the tablets. Chantal is feeling “better but still poorly”, but she is still coughing like a dedicated smoker, despite not smoking for over 3 years!

I am sleeping in the spare room. We have an arrangement with respect to illness – when Chantal is ill, I am banished to the spare room, and when I am ill I am banished to the spare room. I am content with this – I can have the window wide open irrespective of the outside temperature, and don’t get kicked when I snore

Following the retirement of a colleague, I am now appointed as the office compost monitor! I could write a detailed blog about compost, composting and compost heaps. But I won’t. My compost heap at home will now be benefitting  from all those Council Workers cups of tea, and even more so from the healthy 5-portions-a-day types.

Matthew has a new job, and I have his permission to tell you all!

His current job in Nottingham involved fairly repetitive work that did not enable him to gain the experience that he needs to complete the final stage of his practical training, and so he has been “looking around” for a couple of months. Also his existing employer will only give a fixed term contract. All in all it left him in a situation where he was reluctant to move to Nottingham as he knew his circumstances were temporary, and hence left him with a substantial commute from Lincoln to Nottingham. His new job is with an architects in Olney, Buckinghamshire, and is with a smaller firm which will therefore offer him the experience he needs to complete his studies. More importantly it will not involve working on shopping centres! Matthew will need to relocate, but initially hopes to stay with his mum’s sister in Bedford.

Matt should start his new job on Feb 4th

I bathed the dogs yesterday. Today they got their revenge by running at full speed through a squidgy muddy patch next to where I was standing. (Dear Bridget and Megan – the muddy puddle was next to the bridge where I had to walk into the river to rescue Breeze. I don’t like this bridge…)

Today’s haul of bottles left by receding flood water in the fields. This lot was left by Thurlaston Brook along just one side of a field, left there as the river finally decided to return to its original path between the banks after its brief invasion of the adjacent crops . I have been collecting quite a few plastic bottles, for recycling, during dog walks over the last few days, as the fields become merely soggy, instead of partially under water.

I don’t know whether most of the plastic is litter collected by the floodwater further upstream, which otherwise would have stayed in situ, or whether many of the bottles would have been thrown in the river anyway, eventually continuing on a trip to the sea-side had it not been for the floods depositing them onto the fields near our home. Maybe we shouldn’t assume that plastic affecting marine life is necessarily from ships or coasts.

Happy New Year to you all! Last night we did what we have done for the last couple of years – spent an evening in together, and then walked up Croft Hill to see in the New Year from the top. Well, actually thanks to leaving home a bit late, we think we saw in the New Year half way up, when we stopped for Chantal to catch her breath – unfortunately her pre-Christmas cold has returned, and she wasn’t really in a fit state to climb the  Hill at all, only doing so to keep me company, bless her.  But as we got near the top, we could hear discussions “Is it Midnight yet? It must be, because everyone is letting off fireworks. Happy New Year!”  and so we were there for the “celebrations”.

There is often quite a few people at the top – this year there were about 20 folk, some, like us, with dogs. Not as many as last year, but still a nice chatty atmosphere. Fireworks were going off in all directions, with a couple of big displays close by.

Today was the annual Scraggy Crows clay pigeon shoot, at High Noon at our friends farm, always good fun. As always my performance was variable

The shoot was followed by a barbeque. In our younger days this involved quantities of beer. Now it involves quantities of tea.

We hope you all have a successful and fun New Year.

Christmas photos are in Our Recent Photos. Since I can’t label images, some explanatory notes; Christmas Day includes Santa’s fooprints (I wouldn’t like you all to think that it’s me who doesn’t wipe his feet), and Boxing Day includes photos from the “Cooper” gathering with my sister Pauline as well as events at The Oakstump.

The annual Huncote Hash ran past our house today, as it does every year. It takes almost an hour for all of the runners to go by, from the serious competitors at the front, to those just enjoying themselves at the rear.  Fancy dress is optional!

The route is from Huncote Leisure Centre, across the fields, up and down Croft Hill, past our house, and back across the fields to Huncote. We grumble a bit about the event – afterwards, unless it is frosty, many of our dog walking routes have become quagmires, especially this year – most dog walking routes were muddy before the Huncote Hash.

Lucy and Simon – fancy doing the run next year? I’ll be right with you. Behind the camera as you pass the Oakstump.

We went to The Hobbit in 3D this afternoon,  a 3 hour marathon which meant smuggling in quantities of sweeties and drinks to avoid a bucket of popcorn for a fiver. We didn’t plan to see it in 3D, but it was the only show with reasonable seats available. I’m not convinced about 3D films – the scenes look like a 2D image in front of another 2D image, not quite the same, although on a couple of occasions a bird hovered above the people in front of us, and once a troll tooth shot past my right ear. The film is shot in the amazing scenery of New Zealand, and the scenic shots were definitely superb in 3D. Chantal was not impressed by the film, expecting it to be the same as Lord of the Rings – The Hobbit was, of course, written for a younger audience, which is probably why I thoroughly enjoyed it…  Any volunteers to see Part 2 with me next year?

It got even busier at the Oakstump on Boxing Day when the Hands family arrived, and Keith joined us for the traditional Boxing Day lunch of Christmas left-overs. What do you do with left over sprouts and roast potatoes? Bubble and squeak! Chris and Lucy took charge of the kitchen,

and we somehow managed to fit 8 adults and 4 children round the kitchen table. After lunch the two family halves split, as Matthew and I headed to Kettering, collecting my Dad on the way, for a Cooper family get together with my sister Pauline and her family. Simon and Kate were also there. Pauline provided crackers which included numbered whistles, of different notes, but despite careful conducting by Pauline using a numbered “score” the resulting tunes were basically unrecognisable. We had much more success with numbered handbells

These are excellent fun, and I think we should buy some for the Oakstump when the girls are a bit older.

Thursday was our busiest and quietest day. Simon and Kate came for lunch, and the kitchen was bursting at the seams, but this did give us an opportunity for a “team photo” of our children and grandchildren apart from Steven and Sherry who are sunning themselves in the Philippines.

Would we choose Christmas in the sun instead of a hectic family Christmas? Absolutely not. But it was nice when everyone left in the afternoon, leaving us to have a nice quiet game of “Logo” with Simon and Kate. Just 363 days until Christmas….

A very Happy Christmas to all of our family across the globe! From Canada and the U.S. in the West, to the Philippines in the East, and in Yorkshire, Northamptonshire, London and Somerset, as well as those joining us here.

We’ve had presents

Chantal cooked us an excellent dinner, when we were joined by my Dad and Chantal’s Mum

And we walked off at least some of the calories with a walk up Croft Hill

Matthew joined us later in the afternoon. The girls are in bed, the others are watching a very noisy Eastenders, and I am enjoying some peace and quiet.

We hope that you are having a wonderful Christmas.

Our Christmas Eve plan was to join members of my (Neil’s) family for a get together with my Aunt and Uncle at their home in Newton Linford, near to the Bradgate Park – a pleasant, perhaps frosty, walk with dogs in the Park followed by lunch. It poured, and so the pre-lunch walk was abandoned. Nevertheless it gives me an opportunity to introduce you, over lunch, to some of my family that some of you may not have met;

Table 1 L-R; Auntie and Uncle Pamela and Brian, my youngest son Matthew, sister Pauline, neice Megan and, of course Chantal;

Table 2 –anticlockwise, hostess Auntie Marie, cousin Celia (who cooked for us all), her husband Steve, host Uncle John, and my Dad;

The sun canme out after lunch, but Chantal and I had to go, leaving the others to enjoy a walk – we wanted to be home in time for the arrival of the Hampshire Tilley’s, staying for Christmas.

Its nine years to the day since we moved to Oak Tree House, moving my worldly goods from Broughton Astley and Chantal’s worldly goods from storage in Leicester, aided by Simon, Matthew and Simon’s friends Slug and Mick together witha very large hire van. The heating didn’t work, and the first evening was spent under a duvet.

Claire got a bit upset because there was no Christmas tree, and so the first job on Christmas Day was to locate one from the piles of boxes, and then somehow find the decorations.

There followed several traumatic weeks, summarised in a letter to my Sister Pauline at the time, after I forgot her birthday in the following February. I have kept a copy:

Dear Sister,

All right, all right, I know……I missed your birthday. Sorry! And I missed Dad’s. I seem to have had my routine temporarily thrown by everything that’s been going on in the house. So I thought I’d better tell you all about our “house with potential” so you can get some idea of why I’ve been a bit distracted.

Well, first the heating didn’t work. We’ve got this “pot boiler” as it’s called:

Looks pretty, and basically works by dribbling oil into a couple of pots in the bottom, and burning it. Bit like a Primus stove, but less efficient. You couldn’t boil an egg on our boiler, particularly as it wouldn’t stay alight. Luckily we have an open fire, and Christmas was mild, but the days either side were spent with heaters and trailing cables everywhere, because not all of the sockets worked Richard Hayes and I stripped down the oil valve things, and got the boiler working on New Years Eve, and so things improved thermally. We now have warm, but not hot, radiators. The boiler is OK for 4 or 5 radiators – we have 15. And the boiler always smells of diesel. A few weeks later Mr Hackett the Boiler Man came to service the boiler. He took one look at it, said “Oh dear – this doesn’t look good” – it wasn’t safe because of a plastic supply pipe, and so he wouldn’t service or repair it, but he did take it apart with me, and showed me all of the built up carbon stuff which had to be scraped off, and gave me lots of advise and contacts for a new boiler.

After he’d gone, I rolled my sleeves up, opened the boiler door, and got stuck in for an hour or so, cleaned it beautifully, and it’s been working reasonably well (for its size, with a slow and thirsty response) since. Having cleaned the thing, I almost decided to have a shower, but decided that a wash would suffice, which is just as well, because five minutes later there was an almighty crash from upstairs, followed by the sound of running water. I ran upstairs (meeting the cats running in the opposite direction), to find that the bathroom ceiling was now in the bath:

This was not totally unexpected – we’d had buckets to catch drips on the floor for a while, but a job allocated for spring was now urgent. Soon afterwards it snowed through the bathroom ceiling, we had heating that was just about adequate, and very soggy looking roof boards above the shower. Mr Doggett the Builder promised a visit as soon as weather permitted, and sure enough, within about 3 weeks he came with Mr Hodgett the Roofing Man. Mr Hodgett and Mr Doggett said “Oh dear, this doesn’t look good”. The roof was boarded with chipboard, and felted with shed felt. The roof boards weren’t lifted off. They were shovelled off.

Interestingly the other half of the flat roof was boarded with very solid floor boards, and was fine. On the other hand, we have found that Matthews bedroom floor is boarded with roofing boards…..

Earlier, Martin the Electrician called to look at the dodgy sockets and lights. He said “Oh dear, this doesn’t look good” (spotting a pattern yet?). It needed a total re-wire. And so while Mr Doggett and Mr Hodgett were on the roof, Martin and his Merry Men were beneath the floor boards:

While we moved the furniture around as the electricians worked their way around the house. It took 5½  days, but we did take the opportunity to have extra sockets (including outdoors) and lighting

A couple of Sundays ago, Claire, who was down for the weekend, visited the bathroom. “I think that you should come up here” she shouted, “this doesn’t look good”. The toilet cistern was overflowing, but instead of a trickle of water from an outside overflow pipe, we discovered that our overflow pipe stopped just below the cistern, and the overflow was flooding the bathroom. The house stopcock wouldn’t turn, and we’d just had a new water metre and stopcock, which doesn’t look anything like a stopcock, and I couldn’t turn the water off in the road. It was 3.45pm with Sunday shopping hours. I now know that I can get to B & Q in Hinckley in 9 minutes, returning to rescue Chas, who was kneeling in a soggy bathroom with about 50 soggy towels. Replacing a worn out toilet flushing device is not easy with a steady flow of water, especially since the isolating tap that I bought was the wrong one. Everything was very fraught, until Richard Hayes and his bag of tools came to the rescue, although even he had a bit of trouble.

Of course the small sitting room (with the boiler) below the bathroom was also somewhat damp, with a dripping ceiling and waterfalls down two walls. Two days later we realised that the dripping hadn’t actually stopped. In fact it was getting worse, and the ceiling was bulging. A collapsed ceiling is not the sort of thing that one really wants to experience more than once in a fortnight, so we punctured the bulge and released the water, but it still kept dripping. We realised that we had clearly loosened a pipe joint during the bathroom panic, and so had to rapidly demolish some wooden box stuff to get access to the pipes to tighten the joint:

The small sitting room is now drying out nicely, but smells of damp, as well as diesel.

We’ve had several plumbers come to quote for a new boiler. They’ve all looked at the existing plumbing, and said “Oh dear, this doesn’t look good” (I promise that they have all said something to this effect), taken lots of measurements, and gone away scratching their heads, never to be heard from again. I think that plumbers prefer nice new Barratt houses. Luckily I realised that a plumbing friend of ours has fitted oil boilers, and he came to measure up for a quote last week. Of course he said the same as the others, and then said that all the pipes were 15mm when they should be 22mm and the radiators were on backwards and seem to be of various ages and quality and he really recommended starting again. We are waiting for the quote, which we will definitely get, because we know where he lives.

Then there was the telephone. It has always hummed disconcertingly, but it got increasingly crackly, and when it got to the stage that the internet wouldn’t connect, we knew it was time to do something. So I phoned Mrs Beatty the B.T. Lady (oh, alright, I made that name up), who had to phone me back on my mobile because she couldn’t hear me over the crackling. Apparently there was an earth fault, probably at the exchange. So the Telephone Man called, and spent ages tracing wires, and applying his meter (despite big kisses from Josh every time he knelt down). And yes, as he tried to sort out the route of our cables he did say “Oh dear, this doesn’t look good”. But he found the earth fault, and he put it right, but it was inside the house. That will be £50 call out sir, plus £50 because I was here for an hour, oh and by the way I’ve had to disconnect the extension in the small sitting room (which is now dampish, has a small hole in the ceiling, smells of diesel, and has no phone). But he was very apologetic, and we did get a modern telephone point installed.

We have had a huge oak tree taken down successfully. This was a bit sad, but it totally blocked the light to the house, and the light to the neighbours, and so we are quite popular. The “professionals” did an excellent job:

Leaving the amateur to spend a weekend logging the wood for the fire, and shifting the woodchips for the garden before the professionals came back to collect what was left:

So you can see that its been a bit of a succession of time consuming events for the last few weeks. Which is not an excuse for forgetting your birthday. Merely mitigation…..

Sorry!

It’s 0800 hours this morning, it still quite dark, its wet, and we are already at Aldi. It’s time for Christmas food shopping. This is the second “Big Shopping Trip” – the future of Sainsbury’s is already secure thanks to a “Big Shopping Trip” by Chantal last week. The shops will all be open on 24^th December, the shops will all be open on 26^th December, but we must buy enough food to last a month long siege, just in case.

Aldi is already busy, and the plan is to shop and be out again within a few minutes. I can do this, armed with a list, but my wife doesn’t do lists. She likes to browse. Browsing in a shoe shop I can understand, browsing in a clothes shop is to be expected, but in a supermarket? Nevertheless phase 1 of the trip is completed in 30 minutes.

Phase 2 involves crossing the road to Waitrose for a pork pie for Andree. Chantal breaks into an unexpected run on the zebra crossing, taking me by surprise, and I am briefly left behind. At the deli counter (Waitrose pre-wrapped pies were not good enough) Chantal asks “Would you like some tongue?”. “No” I reply. “You like tongue” she says, “How many slices and how thick?” The deli assistant is now waiting for me to make a decision on a product that I don’t want, and I randomly decide on three thin slices. Chantal asks why I only want three slices, and why thinly sliced? Since I am not sure what the correct answer is, I say nowt. Chantal then happily gossips with the checkout operator – we have sprinted to the shop, clearly in a rush, and Chantal is chatting about the duration of the girls shift, and the opening times over Christmas – purely rhetorical, since we have sufficient supplies to last until Easter.

We run back to the car, and we set off for Phase 3 – another trip to Sainsbury’s, arriving just in time to find a parking space. Sainsbury’s is very busy, but at least you get a nice polite class of customer. I get into trouble for wandering off while Chantal browses, but then I am given permission to go to find the toothpaste. I receive a text from my sister Pauline that needs a reply, and when subsequently I eventually locate my wife (I phone her just as she phones me, and I almost drop my mobile when it rings loudly against my ear) she queries how long it takes to choose toothpaste. I resist the temptation to tell her that I was browsing.

I am not allowed to wander off again – I have to stand and guard the trolley while Chantal does the wandering. A passing lady says “You’ve been told to stop there and not move, haven’t you?” Maybe at the end of every aisle there is a husband and trolley not daring to move.

Grocery shopping complete, I treat myself to the best bargain of the day – Sainsbury’s Big Breakfast, £3.99. Chantal opts for a Clotted Cream Tea – an odd choice since it’s still only 10.00am. I feel we’ve earned it.

We’ve just had a text from Steven and Sherry – they have just arrived safely in Manila, Philippines, where they are spending Christmas – part on holiday, part visiting Sherry’s family. Ian will be joining them after Christmas.

Almost two weeks since the last post, and so I thought I’d better write something to confirm that www.Oakstump is still active. Its been two busy weeks – the Rainbows concert, the subject of the last post, is always a timely reminder that its time I thought about Christmas. Of course Chantal was already organised – by the time of the Rainbows concert she had already started food and present shopping.

I don’t mind Christmas shopping. It’s quite pain free, subject to certain rules – folk tell me exactly what they would like, and I do the shopping with mug of tea in one hand and keyboard in the other. I know, I know – we should be supporting the local High Street, but visiting half a dozen stores to find exactly what I want at the best price takes a week of lunch times or 30 minutes online.  I am a fan of the hybrid version though – click and collect. Argos beat Amazon hollow when it came to radios.

Then there are the dinners.  A few years ago these came thick and fast: Environmental Health dinner, Noise Team dinner, Scraggies dinner, Dog Club dinner.  I remember having six Christmas meals one year, including Christnas day,when I worked in both Noise and Housing Teams.  This year it was just Environmental Health and Dog Club, the former starting shortly after noon, and in my case continuing until I caught the 9.15pm train to Narborough.

Its not all commerce though – my church still has a traditional nativity play, involving young people from 5-15 (I guess).  Last Sunday we were treated to a slightly non-traditional version, written by our Minister (which  is what we Methodists call our “Vicar”). Two youngsters played with Dad’s new smart phone, found a time travel app, and ended up in Bethlehem 2012 years ago. After escaping from a Roman soldier, meeting bewildered shepherds, and being evicted from the pub at closing time (by a fierce female inn-keeper) they found the baby Jesus, which was just as well – since the soldier had destroyed the phone, it was only their faith in Christ that got them home…  And yes, tea-towels and dressing gown chords  are still a vital part of the shepherds wardrobe.

Chantal has not been well. She joined us for the office meal last week, but not the after dinner “socialising” (oh, alright, boozing – but these days in moderation). This is just as well – she got home just in time to be very poorly on the doorstep. I was shocked – I haven’t been in this state after a works do for many years. We think that she joined 779999 other people with the Novovirus, with the symptoms remaining until Tuesday, eventually combining with a cough and cold, to keep her at home all week.

BUT she should be fine for Christmas. Tomorrow morning, at first light, I will be joining Chantal for our next annual Christmas traditional activity. Sainsbury’s.

Dad and I went to the annual Rainbows Christmas Concert in Leicester, raising funds for the Rainbows hospice for children and young people. The concert includes carols (obviously!)  sung by choirs and the audience, readings, poems, and some delightful performances by primary school children, with a recorder group, primary school choir, and strings group playing the smallest violins and cellos that I have ever seen!

This is the third time that I have been, and the second time for Dad. Lancaster Community Choir play a large part in the proceedings, which is why I have been going for the last three years – Kate, (who, for those across the pond having trouble keeping up with the cast, is Simon’s girlfriend) sings in the choir, along with her Mum.

For those across the pond, Kate is at the front with red pendant, and her Mum is to her left leaning forward, no doubt listening to pre-concert encouragement from the choir master. Kate sang an excellent solo during the first carol, apparently according to her Mum, without a rehearsal.

Dad and I sat with Kate’s dad and her grandparents – Simon and friends were sitting further back, but we had a chance to chat when we stopped for a mince pie at the end of the concert.

Steven and Sherry came up for the weekend, before their Christmas trip to the Philippines.  Claire and Si joined us on Saturday, arriving before Steven and Sherry, who were being driven up from London by Ian.

We have noticed that the latest parents in the family have their own version of my Tuesday night “dog walking”. When Chris and Lucy visited recently Chris suggested that the children need a walk. This weekend Si suggested that perhaps Bess needed a “walk” in her buggy. In both cases the walk ended up at the Heathcote Arms, and so Saturday lunchtime found us, with the Hands family, enjoying a beer, coffees, cupcakes and mince pies. We were soon joined by Steven, Sherry, Ian, Daniel and Andree and so had some more beer, coffees, cupcakes and mince pies, and a Team Photo

before heading back up the hill for a late lunch – Daniel and I literally headed up the hill detouring via the summit of Croft Hill.

After an afternoon catching up with news, Ian and Andree headed back to Whetstone, leaving Daniel, who stayed with us overnight.

Over breakfast this morning Daniel was telling Chantal and me all about his recent trip to New York with Rachel. We thought he would tell us about the drama of Hurricane Sandy, but apparently he didn’t see much of this. Instead we heard tales of restaurants, diners, smoothies, a film museum and a party. He remembered every detail, and clearly had a good time. Later Ian popped in for a chat before taking his Mum shopping.

After lunch Steven and Sherry told us about their plans for the Philippines holiday, starting with a discussion over exactly where the Philippines are!

Ian will be joining them after Christmas.

This afternoon Dad and I went to my Church for the annual family remembrance service, an annual service just before Christmas to remember loved ones. It is a lovely peaceful service, not sad, with readings, poems, carols, and an opportunity to hang a star on the Christmas tree, to remain in place over Christmas, with the name of a loved one to be remembered. I joined Dad in hanging up a star in remembrance of Mum.

Afterwards we stopped for a coffee, and Dad had quite a chat with some of my friends from Church.

The family were still here when we returned from church, and Dad joined us all for pizza and sandwiches, before the Londoners headed south, no doubt to join traffic jams on the M1. Photos in “Our Recent Photos”

Couldn’t resist a photo of my style conscious wife as she returned from the morning dog walk at 6.50am yesterday. On most days Chantal does the early morning walk, and I do the evening walk – both in the dark at this time of the year.

We toured the Wood Farm Micro Brewery near Rugby on Friday night. It was not really Chantal’s sort of thing, but since someone else had to drop out she agreed to drive Richard and me in return for a free meal. The tour was interesting, if brief (it was a very small brewery after all, and was cold!) and it was followed by a meal including tokens for 6 halves of ale, to sample the products. Since the drivers were also entitled to six tokens, but clearly couldn’t manage six halves, there was a slight surplus of available ale. I was a fragile on Saturday morning.

I recovered in time to go to the Christmas Tree Festival at Church, together with Chantal and her Mum – 19 themed trees, and a Christmas Fair. Following the publication of the rugby match pictures, Chantal took some photos which we hope will be published in the Hinckley Times together with my report on the event. My church were pleased to see Chantal again after not seeing her for a while.

Saturday night was pie and pint festival at the Elephant and Castle in Thurlaston. On previous years this has been a Scraggy outing, but this year, maybe thanks to the previous evening’s brewery tour, it was just me and my wife, which was delightful. From a choice of six pies we both opted for Steak and Stilton. Chantal accompanied hers with a Perry – only a half pint, just as well since it 7¹/₂% proof. I sampled four beers, each chosen by Chantal. With minimal guidance (avoid the ones with “light” in the description) she proved to have quite a talent for choosing good ale!

Part 5 of our journal of our trip to the States is in “Iceland to Oz”. Two pages of photos are in “Our Recent Photos”.

I went to Leicester Magistrates for a Warrant on Monday. After a fourth noise nuisance despite warnings we apply for a Magistrates Warrant to enter the house (or, occasionally, bar or club) and take the sound system. On a good day we get into Court early, smile nicely at the Usher (who facilitates the proceedings), who then tells the court Clerk (a lawyer who actually organises the proceedings and gives legal advice to the Magistrates who are, after all, amateurs). If the clerk is in a good mood and maybe recognises you from a previous occasion, he or she checks the paperwork, and invites you to join the Magistrates in their little room at the back of the Court. You present your case, answer questions, and hopefully are granted a Warrant. Our warrants are heard in private, rather than open court, since we don’t want the “noise maker” to know we will be coming.

On a bad day you have to wait in Court, ready to be called when the Clerk decrees that there is a suitable slot for you.  Last time I had to sit and listen to address after address being read out by a British Gas chap, applying for warrants to change the meter to one with a high unit cost to pay the debt as well as buy gas/electricity. People are generally not disconnected these days. The debts were generally £100 to £300 but when the Magistrates heard of a couple between £1000 and £2000, they refused a warrant until the energy company could provide information how the debt had been allowed to get so high.

Monday was another bad day. “The Magistrates Court” is in fact several Courts. Court 1 suggested I go to Court 2. 2 sent me to 3 who directed me to 6 which seemed hopeful, but then the Clerk decided that I would have to wait, and I went to 9, where the Clerk was optimistic, since a trial was delayed, but then a missing  interpreter  turned up, and I was returned to 6, and finally back to 1 where I found that a Police Officer had sneaked in with Search Warrant applications, after which the “booked” proceedings were overdue, and I had to sit through these, although none were full trials

A woman with an electronic tag, had breached her bail conditions by leaving her flat. Her reason/excuse was that her dog had run out into the grounds of the flats. She retrieved the dog, and returned, less than two minutes, but the tag equipment notified a Security Company, who notified the Police, who prosecuted for breach of Bail. Magistrates accepted her story and didn’t “send her down”, although wouldn’t agree to her request that she be permitted into the garden area to take her dog to the toilet.

A chap appeared who was on remand for assaulting his partner, and had applied to be allowed out on bail until the trial. The circumstances were read out. A domestic argument had started over something minor and escalated via texts when the partner left home, and then verbally when she returned, until the bloke “saw red” and tried to strangle her. It started as the sort of disagreement that occurs in most families, but escalated because one of the parties did not recognise the boundary of acceptable behaviour.  At the time of the assault he was already on bail for a drug related offence. Bail was refused, and he was led back to the prison van in handcuffs.

A woman had failed to pay an instalment of a fine and had been arrested with an application that she pays the full balance. She had given birth and hence missed one payment of £15. All previous payments had been on time. The Magistrates just required her to pay the missed payment. I wonder what the cost of bringing that to Court was?

Over two hours after entering the Court I was granted my Warrant and went back to the office to sort out an intruder alarm before it kept the neighbours awake.

Part 4 of our journal fo our trip to the States is in “Iceland to Oz” with photos in “Our Recent Photos”.

Thursday night was a tad windy here. I went into the kitchen and was somewhat surprised to see a blizzard of red sparks and glowing embers dropping from the sky and blowing around the garden. I looked up at the chimney through the ceiling window and saw an effervescence of red sparks and glowing embers streaming out of the chimney  like a large Roman candle. We decided that we didn’t have a chimney fire – no flames and no roaring in the chimney. The wind was probably so strong that it was causing the soot in the chimney to smoulder, and then drawing the burning particles out of the top. I went outside (in lashing rain) and was perturbed to see that most of the burning material was landing on the flat roof at the back. It’s as well that it was raining heavily. We shut down the log burner, which caused the volcano-like display from the chimney to subside. You can tell we were a little concerned at the time – we took no photographs.

Huncote Bridge was flooded during the week, and when I returned from work after 2.30am this morning further torrential rain was causing lots of standing water on the roads. I avoided Huncote, taking the longer route through Croft instead.  I decided to drive down to the bridge from “our side” before going home – there were no floods, not even a big puddle.

By 10.30am, when I walked down with the dogs, the river was in full flood – the deepest that I have seen it. Occasional 4-wheel drive vehicles were going through, but no other cars

After the dog walk, and after Chantal returned from shopping with her mum, we walked down again. By now the water level had subsided slightly, and some vehicles were confidently ploughing through

While others crept through very carefully.

More rain forecast for tonight.  It may be a longer route to work tomorrow.

We had lunch at Kate and Simons yesterday – Kate cooked us an excellent homemade soup, which we followed by the first slice of Christmas cake of the season (with cheese, in my case, obviously). Then we sat, with all three dogs, and chatted.

Chantal spent a considerable time on the floor taking photos of Simon and Kate’s dog  Phil (who, despite what the photo implies thanks to the lighting, is a BLACK lab)

Kate is enjoying her job at Lutterworth High School. They are both looking forward to Christmas – they are big fans of the Festive Season, especially Simon. 20 years after I dragged Simon and Matthew to the City centre every year to see the Christmas lights, Simon takes Kate annually to see the big switch-on, which took place last week. They are with Kate’s cousins in Norfolk at Christmas, but will be with us on 27^th.

Chantal has had two of the photographs that she took at last weekend’s rugby match published, with acknowledgement, in the Hinckley Times.

She has had an e-mail from one of the reporters asking if she would go to other matches – he would arrange for her to have a press pass. This season Hinckley Rugby Club, next season Tigers….

She’s thinking about it.

Yesterday we visited Hinckley Rugby Club for what has become an annual Rugby Club Dinner. Each year Richard’s lift truck company sponsors a match, and in return gets a table for ten (although yesterday there were eleven) at a dinner in the club house. And what a dinner! Soup, followed by a full roast with all of the trimmings (yesterday it was lamb) followed by a cheese board. Richard kindly covers the bar bill and so there is a three course liquid lunch to accompany the meal – beer, followed by wine followed by port. Of course the ladies are allowed an alternative to the beer. Hilly and I still found space for an after dinner Southern Comfort or two.

We ate

We drank,

We were merry

We watched the rugby

And then it was back to Richards for coffee (and the dogs came too)

Before going home to try to stay awake in front of Strictly Come Dancing. A perfect day.

See

http://www.flickr.com/photos/86314630@N03/sets/72157632041856500/ for more pics – take special note of the photos of the rugby game, all taken by Chantal – the reporter for the local Hinckley Times asked her to submit some for publication!

Dog Walking has been a real pleasure over the last few days (apart from the mud and subsequent hosing of dogs). The autumn colours have been exceptional – we may not have the reds found in North America (although some garden trees currently have red leaves) but there is a fantastic range of orange and yellow hues. Even the after work dog walk in a gathering dusk is enlightened by the foliage which seems to glow just as the last light disappears. Oak trees are a particularly vivid orange this year, and since the oak is the last to lose its leaves (and the last to produce new buds in spring) hopefully there is still a couple of weeks left of colour in the countryside.

Tonight’s dog walk was in complete darkness. I always have a head torch with me, but don’t use it for most of the time. There was clear starry sky, the large crescent of a new moon just above the horizon, the LED lights on the dog collars darting around the field like overactive fireflies, and a string of Chinese lanterns that had been launched from the top of Croft Hill floating across the sky.

Even on a dark November evening dog walking can be a pleasure.

The latest part of our “Journal” of our trip to the USA last month is in “Iceland to Oz. New York to follow in due course! For photos see “Rushmore, Crazy Horse and Deadwood” in “Our Recent Photos”  – just over two pages of images.

Richard Chris and I walked with the dogs down to the Croft Act of Remembrance this morning. I always think that this is an excellent service – all outdoors in the centre of the old part of  the village – the Memorial is below the pub, and it is always well attended. Croft Silver Band provides music and accompanies the hymns, and there are various readings.

Some of it is quite moving. When the names of those killed in the World Wars are read out there are families who seem to have lost most male members.  And of course more recent casualties are also remembered, with young families laying wreaths, presumably in remembrance of a close relative.

There was one slightly disconcerting moment. Half way through the National Anthem Taff, the pub dog, got out and ran through the crowd of onlookers. Lesia will happily bark at any dog, but especially Taff, because Taff likes Tia, and Lesia gets jealous. Consequently, as the good folk of Croft were requesting that the Queen should remain Happy And Glorious, mayhem briefly broke loose on the grassy bank by the pub. Fortunately my two were tightly on leads and singing continued as Andy, the pub landlord, ran out and retrieved his dog.