Jubilee Oxted

Monday 4th June

This was the day of our local 'street party' equivalent, where we declared the new refurbished rockery formally open and celebrated the Jubilee. We had hoped to use the garden for the lunch, but after Sunday's rain everything was damp, so we weren't hopeful.

We were fortunate that the garden was looking lovely, as the rain hadn't yet destroyed the rhododendrons.

The big rockery and the pond looked considerably better than they did this time last year, when they were completely choked by brambles. The area has been a mess since the developers left about 10 years ago, and it took quite a while to agree what to do and find the money to do it. Some of us had a go at clearing it in the past, but none of us had enough time to make enough of a job of it to to last for more than one season.

The rockery and pond, now to be renamed the Jubilee Garden, were formally declared open at 1.30, just before the rain started again,

and we all went inside for lunch.

There was just enough space in the big downstairs hall for around 40 people to eat lunch, and there was an enormous spread laid on in the entrance hall on which we made few inroads. This is just a small part of it.

One of the other residents, who is quite a baker, had made a lovely Jubilee cake as well as lots of Jubilee cupcakes, which everybody enjoyed.

My sister had arrived for lunch, and we had an entertaining afternoon. After all the lovely food, there were games for the children, and a quiz on the royal family, which Paul won - quite unaccountably. He said he just made educated guesses, and they turned out to be right. He won a tin of shortbread biscuits, just the thing for my visitors next month.

Later in the evening, my sister had to go home, as she had work to do the next day, in spite of its being a public holiday. The rain cleared up a bit, so at least she had a dry journey home.

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Jubilee London 2

Sunday 3rd June

I had decided that the weather would govern whether or not I went to watch the parade on the Thames, and since we travelled home to Oxted from central London on Saturday night in the pouring rain, I was expecting just to watch it on television. Sunday dawned rainy, so I didn't bother getting organised very early.

However, by mid-morning the rain had stopped, so at my sister's urging, I caught the train to London. I had agreed to meet her at Waterloo, so had to change at Clapham Junction, where I got the first taste of difficult crowds. It was almost impossible to get onto the platform where the next train to Waterloo was announced, and it would have been completely impossible to get into the train when it arrived, as there wasn't even standing room. A friendly staff member suggested another platform and not everybody heard him, so that platform, when I reached it, was not quite so crowded. The train that arrived was very more like a sardine can, but I managed to squeeze on and tried not to breathe too deeply, as there wasn't really room. I was standing on one leg some of the time, it was hard to find space to put both feet down.

My sister and friends had walked along as far as the National Theatre, and found a place where they could see a bit of the river, so we stayed there. It was a long time to stand, as the parade was not likely to pass us until at least 3.30, and she had arrived around 12.30, and I arrived at 1. By the time 3.30 came, we were all exhausted. To our great disappointment, once the parade started to pass us, we could see nothing. People in front of us stood on tiptoe or on boxes, put small children on their shoulders, raised periscopes and all raised their cameras and our river view completely disappeared. Then the rain started in earnest, and we started to get soaked. So we left, having waited hours and seen nothing.

We made our way by train to Lewisham and then took the DLR to Greenwich, where we hoped to see a lot of the boats after the parade; in this we were quite successful, though the rain was very heavy indeed.
We arrived just as Gloriana, the replica boat based on one in a Canaletto painting, was passing, but we were too late for a picture, which was rather a shame. We stood on some steps in the rain and watched many of the rowing boats pass us, and then most of the Commonwealth Flotilla. After that, we moved onto a pier further forward which had a roof, and this was just as well, since the rain became torrential.

I was close enough on the pier to take pictures, and my first one was the MTB 102, which took part in the evacuation of Dunkirk, and acted as flagship for Rear Admiral Wake-Walker for the last two nights of the operation while he directed the incoming and outgoing vessels at Dunkirk.

MTB 102 was leading the parade of 'Little Ships' from Dunkirk, and they were followed by other historic ships. I'm afraid I couldn't tell the difference between the two groups.

I'm not sure that the ones above, right behind MBT 102, were all the boats that were at Dunkirk, likewise the ones below.

However, the next one was one of the historic ships

After this there was quite a collection of service boats

and at times, the river was very crowded.

However, the rain became heavier, and the wind stronger and after another hour or more of watching and waving, we were so cold we set off for home.
I went back with my sister and her friend for supper and we watched the whole parade on catch-up on the TV, where we had a much better view. The BBC commentary was poor, but we went away to eat in the really boring bits. Perhaps it was a waste of time going into central London in the first place, but it was a different experience actually being there, and it seemed a shame not to try.

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London Jubilee 1

Saturday 2nd June

I've found a wireless connection, so I've put a few more photos into the blog on Chester Zoo. I hope to get a few photos in this one as well.

On Saturday we didn't wake up very early, since we weren't in bed until the early hours. When we did wake up, I had to borrow an iron and ironing board before I was able to dress myself, my party clothes having become more than a little creased in my suitcase during the journey down. It was a lovely morning though, and the gardens outside our apartment looked beautiful - the rhododendrons are all in bloom, this is the best time for the garden here, which is full of them.

We set off in plenty of time for our friends' party, but reckoned without the Queen's visit to Epsom for the Derby, so soon found ourselves in traffic which did not move at all. I had completely forgotten it was Derby Day, and that the Queen was to be there, but apparently thousands of other people had remembered, and had all decided to go too. Fortunately, we were able to find back roads which took us by round about ways, but we managed to avoid Epsom and get to the party more or less on time.

After a very enjoyable lunch and afternoon of celebrations, we set off to drive to Croydon, from which we intended to catch a train to London, where we had booked for the theatre. However, the station car park was so stupidly expensive that we drove away to look for somewhere cheaper. It seems we were not alone in that - the station car park, which always used to be full in the evenings, was almost completely empty. Clearly, most people think it's too expensive to be of use if you want to go up to London for the evening.

We arrived at London Bridge in time to walk along the Thames before it was time to go to the theatre. We wanted to see the Avenue Of Sail, all the boats which had come for the Jubilee Thames Pageant and were too big to get upriver beyond Tower Bridge. There were some boats already decorated for the pageant with flags and bunting.

The crowds were already enormous, so the walkway along the Thames was very crowded and it was impossible to walk fast. We didn't have time to go down river from Tower Bridge to get a closeup of the sailing boats, but I did manage to get a view down river from the bridge, though I had to wait my turn to get to the railing.

St Katherine's Dock was also very crowded, and full of boats; I never saw so much bunting in my life, all of the boats were decorated with flags and bunting and the crowds were very jolly.


By 7 we were at the theatre to collect the tickets, and had a very enjoyable evening at Noises Off. It's about a company of actors rehearsing, and then touring round a series of provincial theatres with a farce supposedly called Nothing On, and we witness the production first from the front, and then from backstage. At first, it seems unlikely that there will actually be a performance, with one actor unable to synchronise lines and actions, another anxiously seeking motivation for every action, a hopeless drunk and a leading lady whose contact lenses constantly fall out so that the whole cast have to crawl on the floor looking for them. In the second act, we see the production from backstage, when it degenerates into a chaos of mislaid and mistimed props, missed cues and acts of revenge between actors until, in spite of Herculean efforts on the parts of the actors, it eventually collapses into chaos. I can't imagine how the cast achieved such technical brilliance; it is so fast, it's hard to take it all in, heaven knows how the actors managed to time it all so perfectly.

Although it wasn't a late finish, it took us a long time to get back to Oxted. We seemed to have get a very slow train from London Bridge, and then we had a thirty minute drive. Travelling up from Oxted might be better next time.

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Manchester to London

Saturday 26th to Thursday 31st May

Really, I have to get into the habit of writing something every day, or I forget what I did. Some days are completely forgettable, and it's all too easy to do just that. There are almost no photos belonging to this 6 day period, and I have only some hazy memories.

The weekend and Monday and Tuesday were pretty hot, and we concentrated on unpacking and sorting our belongings, or sitting in the garden watching our grandson run about or climb up and down the stairs from the kitchen to the garden and back again.



I wanted to go into the city centre for shopping, but it was really too hot to contemplate staggering round shops, so I left it until Wednesday. I needed a top to wear at a friend's party on Saturday, and a micro-SIM for the iPad, since I knew it would take a while to organise a phone and broadband once we got to Oxted. I have bought 3GB which I hoped will be enough to last me until the Jubilee holiday is over and we can organise broadband.

Thursday was spent by me organising and packing, and by Paul in buying various essentials and trying to solve some car problems. The car is 15 years old now, and we really need a new one as we keep having problems with it, but Paul would like another exactly the same; unfortunately, it's a Peugeot 306 which is a model that hasn't been made for 13 or 14 years, and he can't make up his mind what to have to replace it.

Friday was to be the day we set off to drive to London, but first Paul had arranged to drive our daughter-in-law in the morning to her fortnightly hospital appointment at Manchester Eye Hospital. Since she developed some problems and feared she would be kept in for an immediate operation, he had to stay and wasn't able to return until almost 2. After we had lunched, packed the car and stopped for petrol and a tyre check, it was 3.30 and the traffic was building up. We made a coffe and biscuit stop at 5, and it took us until 8.30 to get to Purley, where we made a very long stop for supermarket shopping; consequently, it was not until 10.30 that we finally arrived in Oxted.

Fortunately, our place was very clean and tidy, and we unpacked the car and started putting everything away. When we went to make the bed, we discovered we had no bedding, which was something of a disaster. Our tenant, thinking the bedding was his, had taken it all. Fortunately, we had some old bedding in storage, so we were able to make the bed and fall into it. I had also failed to find the iron and ironing board, so had the prospect of running about next morning trying to borrow them so I could iron my party clothes before setting off.


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Chester Zoo

Friday May 25
Heavens above, 10 days since I wrote anything! I had no intention of leaving it so long between postings, but events got away from me. Now I am reduced to having no wireless Internet connection and only a very weak and intermittent 3G phone signal, so I may have to post text only until I can get a wireless signal.

On our final Friday in Manchester, we took our grandson to Chester Zoo. The truth is that he was a bit young for the zoo, in fact the soft toys in the shop were more of a success with him than the real live animals! However, I enjoyed it.

We had to wait until the time for his morning nap, so that he would have a little sleep in the car, and we also made him a sandwich for his lunch before we set off, a bit later than intended. Traffic was heavy, so it took about an hour to get there. By the time we arrived, it was clear that almost any other day would have been preferable, because it was absolutely scorching. By the time we had walked from the car park to the entrance, we were glad to cool off in the shop while looking for a hat and possibly sunglasses for our grandson. Unfortunately, there were only pink flowery hats which our daughter-in law absolutely refused, and which anyway our grandson regarded as some kind of new joke and snatched off to throw on the floor. Similarly, he thought the sunglasses were a joke and threw those off too, so we were all condemned to navigating from one patch of shade to the next so he didn't burn too much. Of course, much time was spent with the sun cream, which he also thought was a huge joke; babies are quite hard to catch when they are all slippery with sun cream...

By the time all that jollity was over, it was his lunch time and our son, who had arranged to have no patients that afternoon, was due to arrive, so we broke for lunch. After lunch, we were finally able to go in to the Zoo!
For some reason I didn't photograph the lovely elephants - I think I was too busy lifting our grandson up to show them to him, and he was quite interested in them, especially the baby elephant. I think the big ones were a bit too big for him to appreciate properly. The elephants weren't a bit interested in him, unlike the lions.

We were very fortunate to get such a good view of the lions, it's a long time since I've been so close to lion - not since I was a child, when we regularly used to visit the Nairobi Game Park.

They were certainly very interested in something, probably the tasty little morsel we had wheeled up in the pushchair close beside them, but the tasty little morsel in question wasn't really interested in them, even when exhorted to look at the big pussy cats. He normally likes cats, so he probably didn't believe us, not unreasonably.

He couldn't see the tiger, and I couldn't photograph it, as it was too far away and in the shade. He wasn't too impressed with the ride in the little train either, and neither were we; it was so hot that most of the animals were hiding somewhere in the shade, though you did get a good overall impression of the zoo.

Sadly, the monkeys and apes were all behind glass. Some had outdoor play areas, but were inside because it was cooler. The small monkeys were behind glass, but were playing and swinging about on ropes, so our grandson decided he would like some exercise too, and had to be let out of the pushchair to run up and down. I think if there had been any ropes, he would have tried to swing about like the monkeys, but thankfully, there weren't any.

A lot of kids were running up and down, and the chimpanzees found them as interesting to watch as the people found the chimpanzees.



There was a big section with animatronic dinosaurs which I was glad to see - I missed them in Oxford Street - but they hardly qualify as zoo animals.



Paul and I spent some time flamingo watching while the rest of our party went to see the giraffes and the rhino.



When we saw the rhino and giraffes later, they weren't in a good place for photos, so there aren't any.

As it became later and, if anything hotter, our son and family went home, and we followed about an hour later. The traffic on the motorways was much worse since it was later, so it took us much longer to get home.

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