Marriage of Niamh and Jonathan

A few pictures from 28th July in Silverton and Fursdon. All of these are available at high resolution so if anyone wants any let me know and I'll either mail (if one or two max) or put on CD and post.
Here is the church of Saint Mary the Virgin.



















Followed by the bride, groom, best man and bridesmaids just outside the church. No pictures inside as the camera declined to steady my hand or focus properly, I blame the technology.















Here is Bill and Piers.















Happy Hulls
















The new family, well parents and new children if you like.















After the church, we all went to Fursdon House for the reception. Here is a view from the front of Fursdon house - before it rained!















Next we have a bunch of cousins
















Helen conversing with Richard's sister and brother in-law (yes, Iforgot the names...)
















Fran snapping














Pensive Jon, are they memories leaking out of his head? (On their way to a pensieve? Just had to get an HP reference somewhere....)














After the photographs, and there was the obligatory bossy photographer, we went into a marquee. Here is Jon watching his memories being transferred via a cup (Stop it!)















Jon doing his speech:




















Not to be outdone, Niamh did a speech


















Boo enraptured by the speech, Ann and Helen watching it on a portable TV















Andy and Moira talking at each other

















The throwing of the Bouquet. I have a brief video, so we know who caught it.
















And finally, the cake. Made by Fran, hereafter to be known as superwoman. Fabulous wedding, brilliantly organised, and lovely to see such a happy couple. And no embarrasing drunks! Well done everyone.

Spot the baby moorhen among the lillies

Very old Celtic cross with Ogham writing by Carew Castle
Sunset from the back garden in Llandeloy
Wierd stratification on the rocks you get all along this coast, plus the black rocks as well - very peculiar.
Sunny day - the sea off St David's Head - spot the seagull this time !!

Arty picture of a bit of heather
These were all taken in Pembrokeshire last week. Not quite as glamorous as Morocco, but as you can see stunningly beautiful in the right weather!!

I'm back...

...following Carl's tinkering with things he knows nothing about and breaking our laptop, it's now been mended so I'm back contributing posts again.

Diet updates will resume this week as I'm still plugging away with the weightloss.

I just wanted to a) exhort everybody to finish Harry asap so we can discuss! And b) post some piccies up of our trip to Marrakech which is now nearly 2 months ago. However, it's a wonderful place and one I'd thoroughly recommend - lots to see and do, bargains to be had in the souks and great food :)

Love Kate xxxxx

No spoilers please!!!

OK OK OK.....


SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooo

how is it???

Holes by Louis Sachar

Well at last I am ready to blog. I have been putting this off as it was becoming like and English essay. Anyway here goes. It is not an in depth analysis but if I don't post what I've got so far I never will!

Holes
Although this is obviously a children’s book I think it has appeal to all ages. I first heard of it when the BBC did a list of the top 100 most loved books as voted for by the public. It had all the usual suspects – Austen, Brontes etc. As well as some, like the Da Vinci Code, which will probably prove more passing popularity? This however was the only book I had never heard of. I decided I needed to see why so many had voted for it.
I suppose a lot of its popularity is down to the fact it is about an underdog becoming triumphant and a hero. However I think there are a lot of layers to the story which makes it stand out. It is written like a folk story. Sachar simply expects you to believe in ancient curses and bad luck. So it is like going to the opera where you have to suspend disbelief. That done you enter into Stanley’s world and can empathize with him more fully. Like many good folk stories it has horrible baddies, mythical beasts (the lizards) a lost civilization and magical food (the onions). Like a lot of children’s literature, such as Secret Garden, the Narnia books and of course Harry Potter, Stanley ditches his parents and all the trammels of his previous life which have been holding him back. This allows him to start from scratch and it means that everything is as new to him as it is to us. So we see this whole new rather alarming world through his eyes. On this new stage Stanley manages to make friends for the first time in his life and actually have some respect in his new community.
This is a book that I know is taught in schools so I looked on the Web for crib notes. And apparently the main themes in it are the benefits of friendship, fate reuniting people and the importance of history in every day life. There are also adult themes like racism. I think the power of fate could be an annoying theme (Ok, Helen – let’s not start the Thomas Hardy thing up again!) however the way it is handled just emphasises the folk story feel. So it becomes like Greek legends or even the Bible. However fate also means that Stanley and Zero meet again and make right ancient wrongs. I liked the way the history was introduced and made relevant to the current story being told. I suppose it could be argued that the coincidences were a bit hard to believe but this has not held back a lot of great literature – Oliver Twist for example.
Basically, sweeping themes or not I enjoyed this book because I rooted for Stanley and Zero and was glad that it ended happily. I think it was like a Shawshank Redemption for children and as that is in my top ten films ever what further compliment can I give it?

Travels between Universities

Nice to see so many posts! We spent last weekend picking up Kieran's stuff from Bath, including staying a night and taking Kieran and his housemate (landlord sort of - well it's his parent's money) out for dinner. Here is a picture of Kieran and Fred in Yak Yeti Yak (great name and a great restaurant).

On Sunday we went out for lunch at Demuths, a marvellous vegetarian restaurant, this time with Kieran and Kate. Annoyingly, although I took the camera and spare batteries, I didn't take any pictures.

We had a wet drive home with Kieran's chattels. On Wednesday we're going back to Bath to see him get his degree in Bath Abbey - we're going by train this time. Then on Friday we're off to York to collect Erin and her belongings. Maybe there is a business opportunity for someone here......

Holidays

View from ramparts of a nearby village The gite from the front
Brian on the stepping stones in the river by the gite
To give you some idea of the frescos and painting in the churches - this is just one of many


Wine on the terrace
We got back from a week in France yesterday and had a lovely restful time. The gite was in the Vienne in the middle of France and the place was really quiet. The roads were great long straight two lane roads (these were the minor white ones on the map) and we were usually the only car on them! It is really beautiful there but you can also see that it is very poor. Highlights were the frescos in the churches which were unbelievable - a tiny village of a couple of hundred people with a 10th century church and the walls still covered with frescos. And there are so many of them!! It really makes you realise what britain lost between the reformation and the puritans - our churches used to look like that. We went to a plainsong mass at a Benedictine abbey which was wonderful. We went to Oradur sur Glane, a village where the Germans set fire to the church with the whole village inside as a reprisal for resistance activities, then they burnt the rest of the village. It has been left ruined as a memorial, and as you go round there are plaques saying who lived in which house, where the hairdresser was, etc. There are rusting bedsteads and cars, it is really very evocative.


We also saw kingfishers, heron, grebes and buzzards, but no red squirrels despite what the comments book in the gite said. We managed to find one (only ) tourist office open, and not many cafes - despite the opening hours saying that they were open a lot of the time. There is a little supermarket called 8 a huit - opening hours are 9-12.30, 3-7. Good eh? They haven't quite got the hang of tourism there which is a shame because i think they could use the money.

We mostly had nice weather, a few thunderstorms but mostly at night, so we were lucky there i think

I have no idea why I can't get the photos to go where I want them, or why the text is underlined!! Oh well

.

Nicky has gone off to the USA for the summer now and left me with a mess (called her bedroom) a bill to pay for her glasses, and a car to sell!! Some things never change it seems.

Banana Bread

That is SO weird - just made banana bread this morning with George, I Love banana bread because despite the overwhelming majority of ingredients being things like sugar, butter and white flour, you stll somehow feel like it is ok to eat it as it is "based" on fruit - yummy. To save some calories - we gave some to our neighbors :-)

Book group

I'm thinking that I will post about the book group at the beginning of July. I think everyone who is going to read it will have read it by then.
I could do it now I suppose but I'm going to make a banana cake instead as we have overripe bananas and too many eggs.

Joanne and the boys in Spain...

As you can see, we went to the sea! We had a fantastic time, painting and swimming and playing and eating....the kids had fun together and it was great to see Nana....the dog was deeply infatuated with her as well....

Colne Viaduct

We had a lovely walk today near the River colne from a village called Chappel. Here are pictures of the Colne Viaduct.



First from far away:
















Then from close up:















And finally from inside:

New baby

Here is Baby Carter with proud parents, Greg and Paula. I've resized the picture from Sarah's email - note to non techys, use Microsoft Office Picture Manager if you have it, it has a really easy resize option under edit pictures.

Ze ball

I am almost finished at bath university, and have been to the final ball, where there were dodgems and, even better, the Wurzels.

some photos.

Myself and Alice, outside Cafe uno for a pre-ball meal

Candy floss!

OK - (embarassed tone) - what was the book AGAIN?

spending more time in galleries than reading lately really - ha ha ha - but I DO read fast so there is still hope ;-)

When is the book review?

This is a boring one without pictures - but when are we supposed to have read the book by? Is it June or July? I now have a copy and need to know my deadline.

Beach day in Spain

Went to the beach today, the girls had a blast...JC in Poland is going to be coming down and visiting us briefly in June with the boys...so we had to try it out and see if the beach is as much fun as we remembered:



Yup, it was, even if wimpy Mom didn't go in...




I don't think we'll let the boys climb up this one... The girls asked why there wasn't anything so cool in N America...can you say LAWSUIT???


They had a pretty good time though.