October to November 2018

We continued to be very busy as Paul was given notice that the lease on the huge garage here he has been using for storage would not be renewed. This meant we needed to open boxes that have been stored since we left our family home in 2001 and dispose of all the stuff - we don’t have room for it here, and if it’s been in storage since 2001, we obviously don’t need it! So much unpacking ensued, followed by multiple trips to the dump and the charity shops! 

In addition, we have had to dispose of some of my father’s things which my sister and I weren’t able to throw away when he died in 1989. We also packed up Paul’s parents’ house in 2003 after his father died and his mother went into the home, and Paul wasn’t able to get rid of their things either. So all that has to be disposed of too. The house is absolutely full of ‘stuff’, not to mention piles of boxes and wrapping paper which we are keeping as my older son is buying a house and will be moving soon. It never seems to stop.

In early October, I went back to Edinburgh for a more successful visit. I was able to visit the Canaletto exhibition at Holyrood Palace - I had somehow managed to miss the exhibition when it was on in London. 

This was my favourite of the many paintings on display.

A real highlight of the trip to Edinburgh this time was a visit down to the borders to Sir Walter Scott’s house at Abbotsford.

We were extremely fortunate with the weather, it being a lovely sunny day and quite warm, so we enjoyed the train trip down, and there is a minibus which meets the train to take visitors to the house.



This is a view from the side of the house, and you can clearly see that Sir Walter Scott was really in love with the gothic style, and built his house accordingly, with lots of turrets - a style which became popular and which we usually refer to as ‘Scottish Baronial’. The inside of the house is in keeping with the outside, with panelling and suits of armour. He also was a great collector and there were lots of things he had collected - like a piece of oatcake found after the Battle of Culloden.

We were also fortunate to be able to see the parts of the house which are for hire, since there was nobody in residence when we visited, and they are most impressive. The rooms are spacious and beautifully furnished, and the kitchen is to die for! The place is self-catering, and can house about 20 people, so it is often hired for family gatherings. My friend and I spent a while counting up the members of our respective families!

After we had seen the house, I walked down to the River Tweed, a view which was such a favourite of Scott’s that he had his bed moved to the dining room overlooking the view when he was dying. 

This is a closeup of the view, which was certainly looking its best in the sunshine. 

Later in the month, my younger grandson had his October half-term, so we were able to take him out a few times. There was a pumpkin and Halloween festival at a local farm, so we took him there.

This is the photograph which he took himself, using my iPhone. Not bad for a 5 year old, I think. His favourite bit was running through the spooky Halloween witches trail though, as it was dark and mildly scary!

As the Cheshire Half-Term was the following week, we were able to go up to see my other grandchildren for Halloween. Halloween ghost biscuits were made!

These were an idea from the Marks and Spencer web site, and were so simple even a three year old could do them - and she did! The sugar rush after eating one made me almost regret making them though - children are stimulated enough already!

Carving the pumpkins was also very exciting, though I can’t claim to have taken any part in that. It was a marked success though, and the children went out to do trick or treat, while others came to the house. So a great time was had by all, and we were quite exhausted by the time we got home again.

As we have had no holiday abroad so far, I booked a holiday in November - a bit late, so we are going to Cyprus for a week, which I hope won’t be too cold. Anyway, we are touring round sightseeing so we won’t be trying to sit in any sun there might be. I just hope we don’t get too much rain, and have a bit of warmth to compensate for the usual November weather in Britain! So I hope my next post will be about Cyprus.

August and September 2018

We spent nearly 3 weeks of August in Cheshire as my daughter-in-law took the children to Spain with her mother while Paul and my younger son took on a huge project in the garden. The house is built on a slope, and had a system of decks which were all rotting gently. So they ripped them up.

I imagine my daughter-in-law would have had a fit had she seen what they did, so it was probably just as well she was in Spain.

The mess in the photo above was to be replaced with three big decks connected with stairs, and they also intended to build a summer house. (They hadn’t intended to build it, my son had ordered it without noticing it came flat-packed! When it came, it was just planks and instructions! It took them more than 3 days and they wished Ikea had made it as they said the instructions were very poor. They still have some parts left over!) My only involvement here was keeping house, washing their clothes and feeding them, and painting the supporting wood under the decking with 3 coats of wood preservative. 

This was the almost finished result. My son was left to finish things of by himself whenever we went home.

We were back home by August 20th, then my sister, my younger son and wife and the children all arrived to stay until the end of the month. My sister stayed longer as she started work but wasn’t starting travelling back to work but working from home.

September was also busy as I needed an MRI scan to determine the cause of my sudden deafness and confirm it was indeed glue ear - which it was. September is also birthday time! Paul and I turned 75, my older son is 42 and my younger son is now 40.  My younger grandson was 5 at the end of September, and has started school. 

We needed to look after him for part of half term, as his parents are at work. Fortunately,  Cheshire Half term is the following week so we were able to go up there to spend their half term week with the other grandchildren.

April to July 2018

At the end of April, I was trying to book our summer holiday for June, when my sister finally got a date for her hip operation of June 4th, so that put paid to any thoughts of a summer holiday. After that, life became extremely full! We continued to go out and about to enjoy the good weather.

This is a view of the beautiful Claremont Gardens, near Esher, taken in mid May.

It proved to be a good year for rhododendrons and azaleas, so our garden was spectacular as usual.

This azalea was difficult to photograph, the colour is so vibrant that the iPhone couldn’t really cope with it!


This was a rhododendron in the Lane outside.

We also continued to walk as much as possible, and I took a few photos whenever I saw something worth remembering.

This is the churchyard of a church in Godstone, on one of our favourite walks.

We went up to Cheshire to visit my younger son and family for half term at the end of May but came back in time for my sister’s operation. 

The operation seemed to have been successful and we travelled up to Lewisham every day to visit her - she was in hospital for 4 or 5 days. She had to go home to her own house, rather than convalescing in my house, as she had visits from the physiotherapist and the occupational therapist. This was probably just as well as by then we had 3 visitors from America - some skiing friends of Paul’s. Paul had to ferry them about quite a bit (he had promised them multiple National Trust visits) as I went up to my sister’s house in Hither Green most days which is a difficult journey by train, taking even longer than the 1 hour journey by car.

Once the therapist visits were less frequent, my sister was able to come down to my house and we tried to take her about, so that she didn’t feel she was in prison. She was so bad before the operation she should really have been in a wheelchair, so it is took her a very long time to recover. She still isn’t very mobile.

At the end of June, we took her to Sheffield Park where they allow you to borrow a mobility scooter, so we were able to go right round and admire everything. She drove the mobility scooter and we scampered along behind her.

There was a water lily festival, so it was a good time to visit. Not only were the water lilies in bloom, there were some sculptures in the lake to admire as well.

Sheffield Park is beautiful at any time of the year, but I hadn’t previously realised just how many water lilies there were.

I didn’t know I was allergic to tree pollen until then, and I got really bad hay fever which resulted in the glue ear returning in my right ear in spite of the grommet - which is now falling out anyway. I went so deaf from the glue ear I now have massively expensive hearing aids. I may need to have that grommet replaced as well. 

We still have my sister most weekends; she is still on crutches for walking any distance, though she is now shuffling about the house without them. Once she has recovered sufficiently, she will go on a waiting list to have a knee replacement.

So that took care of all of June and July. 

(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! 

September to December 2017

As I seem to be so behind, it seems pointless to try to catch up with comprehensive descriptions. This is a brief outline of some of the things we did.

September saw visits with grandchildren to Knowsley Safari Park and Legoland. Everybody enjoyed the Safari Park. 

In spite of growing up in Africa, I have never been this close to a giraffe! I could easily have touched him, but he didn’t seem to be worried.

There wasn’t always the opportunity to get that close to the animals.

Mind you, this is about as close as I would ever want to be to a rhino!

This is also probably the closest I have ever been to a zebra! I visited parks in Kenya when I was a girl, but the zebras were in huge herds and never really that close to the roads.

This zebra seemed completely relaxed and not at all interested in all the pairs of eyes staring at him from inside the car.

We saw lots of other animals too, so I have plenty of baboon photos, several ostriches, a small herd of elephants, some dear little meerkats and a capybara. Sadly, the lions and tigers were not feeling photogenic that afternoon! 

Once back home again, we took the other grandson to a wonderful playground in Reigate, which features a pirate ship.

All the grandchildren love this playground, there is so much to do. The ship is always popular, and the swings, based on tyres, are exciting. In the warmer months, the fountain which the children can play in is very popular. There is a giant climbing frame with a slide, and a zip wire. Sadly, in 2018, both of these last items have been out of action, with no indication of when they might be repaired or returned to use, so the children have been disappointed.

One of the most popular place we visited was Hever Castle, (it was November by then) not because our small grandson  likes to visit houses, but to use the wooden castle to play in.


This has an enormous number of places for a child to play inside it, with stairs and tunnels and nets to climb on. It was quite difficult to persuade him to leave!

In December, Father Christmas came to Oxted, in a small train rather than a sleigh with reindeer.

It was still very popular though, and he was taken to see Father Christmas in the Leisure Centre. 

Even more popular was the visit to the Bluebell Railway, just before Christmas. My grandson’s nursery had given him Adventure Bear to take home for the weekend, and Adventure Bear had a great many adventures. But the Bluebell Railway was the real highlight.


The last train to East Grinstead had left and things were very quiet so we were able to get into the cab of the one remaining engine. Our grandson was amazed by the firebox - he know all about it from Thomas the Tank Engine, but I don’t believe he had any concept of it. And Adventure Bear was able to sit up beside the Regulator, which is probably the most adventurous thing he did in all of his Bear life!

Christmas was then upon us, with everybody at our house for the whole holiday, so it was a very busy time. Then Paul had a few days to get ready for his long ski holiday, departing on January 7th.

Experimenting with a new application!

This is an experiment to see what sort of post I can achieve with a new application I have bought. I suppose it must be intuitive as there don’t seem to be any instructions, so I suppose I just need to try it out. I’m also not going to write too much, just in case it doesn’t work!

The first thing I tried is a larger font, so I’ll see what this size looks like when published. I’m also changing the font to Arial, as a non-serif font is supposed to be easier to read on-screen.

Then, I’m looking at how to deal with photos. This photo below is from a visit to Chester in August 2017

This is an area where the four main streets meet, and is known as The Cross. Apparently it has been known since medieval times (1377 in the city records) and was the usual site of public proclamations.

As you can see, the centre of Chester remains quite historic, and we visited the Roman amphitheater, then the castle.

The fortifications date from Roman times, as does most of the centre, but I didn’t see any remnants of the original castle, though this is known as the Agricola Tower.

We visited the cathedral



The cathedral is typical of most English cathedrals in having been modified many times, and dates from between 1093 and the early 16th century. It is thought that the site itself may have been used for Christian worship since Roman times. All the major styles of English medieval architecture are represented; this is the the choir, in a style known as Decorated Gothic, dating from the late 13th century. 

We also walked the walls, from which you get some really good views of the centre of Chester.

This is the Eastgate Clock, which might look very old indeed but was actually built to celebrate Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee (1897) but finished two years later.

As I seem to have more or less worked out how to use this application, the next step is to try publishing it and see how it appears.

After the holiday - early July

July saw some lovely weather and we were able take some walks. Because it was so hot, shady paths had the most appeal. This path is at one side of Oaks Park, which is close to where we used to live. It took us several goes before we were able to find the whole path, it isn't very well signposted and the maps provided on the signboards in the park aren't entirely helpful either. Perhaps we need an Ordinance Survey map!

On an even hotter day at the weekend when we paid another visit to the shady paths in Oaks Park, we found the whole area very crowded. There seemed to be an event at the adjacent lavender farm, and, though we found it too hot in the sun, we managed it for long enough to take in this amazing sight of the lavender fields, just a sea of purple. Crowds of people were walking amongst the lavender flowers, and I imagine the perfume would have been almost overwhelming.

The incredibly hot weather didn't last for very long, so we were able to take some more testing walks. This one, on the Titsey Estate, is extremely steep so it's hard work in the heat. It's very shady though, so views are few and far between. This one is looking down across the estate towards the south. Titsey House is on the left, and just behind it you can see the spire of the church which a previous owner had had moved because he didn't like the worshippers passing too close to his house!

We also discovered a new circular walk, near Godstone, thanks to a book Paul picked up in a second-hand bookshop. The walk begins by being very interesting, taking a path beside some ponds close to the village. These ponds were previously associated with the manufacture of gunpowder, starting in the sixteenth century.

The ponds originally belonged to Ivy Mill and Leigh Mill which were powder mills producing gunpowder. They were started by George Evelyn, grandfather of John Evelyn, the Diarist. He apparently learned the secret formula for making a cheap form of Saltpeter, allegedly from a German spy. About 1556, Queen Elizabeth I granted him the monopoly for the manufacture of Gunpowder. For this purpose, he added Leigh Mill to his already extensive ownership of local mills. At one time, he was the only person in England manufacturing gunpowder.

There are other ponds locally, some of which we passed, and we suspect they were perhaps formerly gravel pits or stone quarries. Stone quarrying was said to have been an important industry for Godstone in the 18th and 19th centuries, but had declined in importance by 1900.

Later parts of the walk were not so interesting, especially after we passed through a tunnel under the A22. We looped round through the village of Tandridge, and then back towards Godstone across open farmland before risking our lives crossing the busy A22 again - no tunnel this time. We decided to avoid that part of the walk on another occasion and take a short cut.

As the weather once again became sunny and very warm, we were able to take my younger grandson down to the small sandly beach at Folkstone. He had the most wonderful time!

At first he was a bit apprehensive, but then he really enjoyed himself jumping in the waves, and seemed to want to go in deeper. We hadn't taken a swimsuit so we had to take his clothes off to prevent everything getting wet, but he didn't seem to care. We also built a sandcastle of sorts when he got a bit cold in the sea.

When he was tired of the beach, we went to the very wonderful water fountain, where he had an even better time playing in the jets of water.

Folkstone is rather an old fashioned place, but somebody got this fountain absolutely right. The jets vary in height from time to time, ranging between about 6 inches and 8 feet or so, and sometimes turning off altogether. Groups of children run through the jets shrieking with delight, or trying to catch the water or hold the jets down.

On another fine day, we took him to play at a wonderful playground associated with a local farm shop.

There's a wooden pirate ship which the children can clamber over on several levels, and it also has a slide. My grandson loved it, climbing up into it, taking a turn at the wheel, descending below decks and popping out back on the ground, then climbing up again and sliding down the slide. And of course there was the attraction of other small children to play with and he played for hours. When he was tired of that, there's the Duck Race. It's a water channel on several levels with water running along it, and lots of children were racing plastic ducks, which you can buy. Unfortunately, this only works on sunny days, and when we went a second time, there was no Duck Race.