Holiday Afloat

We have just returned from a super holiday on the Leeds/Liverpool Canal, as guests of Ron and Grace who hired the newest, largest, most luxurious narrowboat available!  The weather wasn't always marvellous, but the company was great, the accommodation spacious - we had our own en suite cabins complete with showers, there was most efficient central heating (and a great little stove on which we burned Martin's HotMax), the galley was roomy and beautifully fitted, and if all that wasn't enough, we ate... and drank!! ... in fine style.   Sadly Ron wasn't too well and took to his bed for some of the time, and Grace was suffering from a nasty cough,  but she soldiered on manfully and was ever cheerful, neither of them allowing their own difficulties to spoil the holiday.

A selection of the photographs we took give a glimpse of the journey we took from Silsden in Yorkshire.

We loved holding up the traffic - this man came to see if we knew what we were doing!

And this craft reminded us of our Ozzie exiles....

We loved Skipton..

And enjoyed a nice walk beneath Castle Hill ....

We spent much time feeding .....

We stopped off to visit Rosie at Nottingham University on our way home.  She took us for a walk around some of the Campus, we met some of her friends, and we drove her out to Wilford Hill, West Bridgford to see the house where her mother was born - very nostalgic for John and I.     We finished off with a 3 course evening meal at the Cafe Rouge in the City Centre which we all much enjoyed.   It was great to get together with our eldest granddaughter who looked wonderful and was great company.

Thank you Grace and Ron for an energetic, yet most relaxing holiday.

(Clever reflection by John!)

Someone Else's Garden.

We went for a fabulous day out this week with our Village Gardening Club to the Abbey House Gardens in Malmesbury, home of the famous 'Naked Gardeners' (though thankfully they were tee-shirted and be-shorted.)

The gardens, in the shadow of the Abbey Ruins, are  really gorgeous, and a great tribute to the Pollard family, who only went to live in the historic Abbey House in 1994 and have absolutely transformed the gardens.   These form a series of 'rooms', with everything from a superb rose garden (JUST beginning to come into flower), knot garden, herb garden, Lady Chapel Garden, spectacular herbaceous borders, laburnum tunnel, and much more.  Unusual water features, and impressive statuary together with clever plantings and very imaginative touches, all made us realise that these gardens are the product of a true artist's eye. 

I just managed to photograph one of the fish about to grab its dinner!

Behind the beautiful old house the land drops away steeply down to the River Avon, here just a quietly flowing stream.   It is truly amazing to think that this extensive area was inaccessible in 1994, covered as it was with everything from brambles, nettles, dead tree limbs, and much more.    Now it is really pleasurable to wander along the many paths through a huge variety of trees and shrubs down to the river, which can be crossed with stepping stones taking one to a whole newly developed area of fishponds such as those originally dug my the monks, where the spoil from the excavations have been used to form a flower covered mound.  A Japanese-style structure sits atop this pretty pile, from where there is a wonderful view of the rear of the house, which apparently Turner sketched when he visited Malmesbury.

We picniced in one of the quiet garden 'rooms' on a day filled with sunshine.   We even had time to visit the Abbey, and take a look around Malmesbury itself, a Cotswold gem.  We MUST go again - a perfect place to take people who come to stay with us.

TREATS!

April has not only brought us lots of lovely sunshine - though we gardeners, having grown flowers and vegetables from seeds, are becoming weary of the need to water all of them each evening, and can’t believe we find ourselves watching the weather forecasts daily in the hope of some mention of rain! - but has also brought us lots of lovely treats.

First there was a great couple of days down at our favourite ‘treat’ hotel – High Bullen near South Molton in Devon. It was my birthday treat for John and this time, as well as the delicious meals, swimming pool and cosy bedroom, we enjoyed a really jolly round of golf. We hired a buggy and John whizzed us up and down the hilly course with complete abandon – I don’t know which we enjoyed most, the golf or the ride!

The Birthday Boy

Looking over the golf course.

Our lovely High Bullen

We meandered homewards, coming across a lovely old train station which had been painstakingly restored by volunteers.   It turned out to be part of the old Lynton and Barnstaple Railway which is gradually being brought back into use couldn't resist taking a look round the station and the little exhibition in an old goods van, and ended up taking a short return journey.   Sadly for us, a diesel engine was in use that day, but at weekends a fabulous old steam engine pulls the carriages.    Still, we sat in splendour in the First Class Carriage, replete with velvet sofa-type seating, and much enjoyed our nostalgic journey.

The old waiting room

From inside the First Class Carriage

We found ourselves at Lynmouth by early evening, and whilst watching mad canoeists riding the boisterous incoming surf, suddenly spotted a group of people taking a heavy 'cage' down to the shore.   It turned out to be members of an animal rescue service who were releasing a young seal back into the sea - it was fun watching its antics, then it's little head popping up out of the sea further and further away till it disappeared completely. 

Kerry came home for a 5 day visit – the weather was hot and sunny the whole time, so she much enjoyed photographic trips to the National Trust’s Kings Wood (just off Shute Shelve under a mile from here), and along the river which flows through our village. She and John were so impressed by the swathes of bluebells and great expanses of wild garlic flowers covering the wood, that they insisted I too went along to see it next day. I have to say it was pretty fabulous – and just on our doorstep too.

We also fitted in a day over at my sister Ingrid’s, and an afternoon strolling along the prom at Burnham, enjoying ice creams.

Having been able to share Good Friday and gifts and cards with Kerry, we took her to catch her coach back home to Wales on Saturday afternoon. Then it was off to Jon and Sam’s in Bucks. on Easter Sunday. Sam has a burgeoning baby-bump now and looks really well as she’s swimming daily and keeping to a very careful diet.

We only stayed a few days but managed to fit in a game of golf (plus buggy) with Jon (whilst Sam swam at their nearby Fitness Club), did some baby-shopping, had a really good lunch sitting in the garden of a pub in Turville (such a beautiful and typically English little village), enjoyed a delicious home-cooked meal on Easter Sunday evening, sunned ourselves on their balcony, and while John went off for a golf lesson booked by Jon, Sam took me for a luxury pedicure together in Gerrards Cross.

                              The churchyard at Turville, ancient cottages, and windmill on the skyline

However, the high spot of the visit was their Golden Present to us, which they had kept as a complete surprise. We went to Raymond Blanc’s Manoir aux Quatr’Saisons! We strolled in the lovely gardens beforehand, and then had champagne and the most unusual, but utterly delicious nibbles before sashaying into the dining room. There Jon ordered the 9-course ‘Tasting Menu’ – every course was OUT OF THIS WORLD, and truly a taste sensation. Though there were seemingly legions of charming French waiters, the service was never intrusive and always really efficient yet friendly. This was food taken to high art, and a fabulous experience. Conversation and laughter flowed the whole evening, and when we stepped out into the warm night afterwards, the garden now shimmering in soft lighting, we felt we had tasted paradise.

Thank you Jon and Sam for such a truly magical experience.



"...... now that April's here" (Part 2)

We have been been enjoying several days of really warm summer sunshine this past week (temperatures of 20deg. and above - which is amazing considering it is early April), so today we have been doing a bit of work in the garden.    The lawns are all beautifully mown, and edged, and the flower beds generally titivated, dead winter detritus has been cut back, and the garden looks just lovely (..... and we are both sunburnt!).

I just HAD to go round with my camera to capture some of the blooms which are filling the garden with colour right now, and here are the results........

... and Kim, this shrub is blooming from the cutting I took from your garden....

Of course we all know how capricious our climate is in this country, so we fully expect a snowstorm in May!    Meanwhile however, we are making the most of this barbecue weather in April.

" .......... now that April's here."

Spring has arrived in abundance down here in Somerset, and most exciting of all has been the arrival of six sheep and sixteen  lambs in the paddock alongside our garden.    Nothing could lift the spirits more than the sight of these sweet little creatures having such fun in their new surroundings.   The best time is at the end of the day, just before dusk, when it seems as if the mother sheep send the little ones off to use up their energy before bedtime (just as we used to do!).    All sixteen babes group together and then set off alongside the fence at a mad dash, stop, turn round, and all race back again   Meantime, the Mums take advantage of a bit of peace and quiet, and happily chew the cud, looking up from time to time just to keep an eye on their energetic offspring.

The funniest thing was to see the two Exmoor ponies' reaction to their new lodgers.    They watched them quietly feeding with much interest, but when the young lambs set off on one of their scampers, the two of them joined in with enthusiasm, and we held our breath, expecting some of lambs to be trodden underfoot, but all seem to have survived.

For the ponies, Scrumpy and Dragonfly, the coming of the warmer weather has signalled the time to get rid of their warm winter coats, which have served them well through snow and ice.    To do this they have both spent long sessions rubbing themselves against the wire fencing beside the rhyne, which must have been a very pleasurable semsation for them, judging by the look on their faces!  

They say that Nature wastes nothing, and as soon as bits of the ponies' fluffy coats get left on the fence, or on the grass below, birds dive down to gather up the cosy material to line their springtime nests.   Recycling at its best!   Though there is another recycling project going on between paddock and our garden too - the young lady who owns Dragonfly often comes to visit him, and always spends time gathering up quantities of the manure left by him and deposits it over the fence for us.    John has been busy spreading it around the garden during the past couple of months, so we hope for a really good crop of veggies and flowers this summer!

Best Mates .......  and great neighbours!

What We Two Love Best about Living Here.

John and I were fascinated to read Jenny’s list of what she loves about Australia (and the things she misses),   and then found ourselves delighted by Kim’s list of what she loves about living in Britain.

 It got us both thinking really seriously about why we wouldn’t want to live anywhere else but HERE, and we decided to chip in with our own blog on the subject..   However, between us we came up with a list that was SO long- and getting longer all the time -  that we decided it was an utterly impossible task.

Still an’ all, at the end of the day, all things considered, in the final analysis, etc. etc.. we reckoned it all came down to one thing ……. 

We wouldn’t want to live anywhere else because (almost) all the people we love best in the whole world  are here. Aaaahhhhhhh