(Backup) January to March 2018

After the usual very busy Christmas and New Year with the whole family, Paul was off skiing as usual, and I was on my own for a couple of months. I was in hospital again to have my left grommet replaced a few days after he had left - it had unfortunately fallen out. Then I was in Cheshire for my granddaughter’s birthday at the end of January, and in February I visited the orchid festival at Kew, which was stunning.

This was one of the wonderful colourful and imaginative arrangements. 

It doesn’t give any idea of the beauty of the individual flowers though, so I also took some closeups.

I went back to Cheshire for half-term which is later in Cheshire than anywhere else as far as I can see. So I was there from February 18th to 24th, back home on the 24th for the weekend, and then off to Edinburgh after the weekend, where I was trapped by the  ‘Beast from the East’. It was fairly ghastly for a few days as there was deep snow, no buses or trains or planes and everybody was being told by news broadcasts to stay inside. Scotland was cut off for a few days, as were parts of the north of England - there were no trains past Newcastle! I got cabin fever, but the snow was deep and the friend I was visiting didn’t want to go out as she was afraid of falling. After being trapped indoors on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, by Saturday I was going mad so I went out alone and was able to get into the city as the buses started a Sunday service that day. My friend only lives at Murrayfield, which is less than 2 miles from the city centre, so you could walk it if the pavements hadn’t been ankle deep in snow, which they were. 

This is the scene at the Murrayfield stadium.

Thanks to the Sunday bus service,I was able to catch a bus in to the West End of Princes Street, and in fact went to the theatre later.

Trains finally started running again late on Sunday afternoon, so I was able to leave at my booked time on Monday morning, and was home again by the 5th of March, in time to meet my cousin from Australia who was visiting London for a few days.

After Paul got back from skiing a few days later, we didn’t seem to be all that busy at first, and found time to admire the spring flowers at Kew.

I always enjoy the sight of the spring flowers, meaning winter has gone and we have the summer to look forward to.

Easter was quieter than normal as we had no visits from my younger son and family - they went to Italy. However, we were busy with my sister and my older son and my grandson. I was able to take him to see the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum - great excitement!

This is the wonderful animatronic T-Rex, which moves up and down, opens its mouth and roars loudly. I had warned him what to expect though, so he knew it wasn’t real so he was able to be brave!