Scilly Isles and gardens

And here are some pictures of the Scilly Isles.

Lovely in the sunshine but not for foul weather or foodies (unless scones and coffee)

Try 2 didn't work let's try 3

Here

Ship figureheads

Ship figure heads attempt 2

They should be here

Northumberland

We have just returned from a fantastic fortnight in Northumberland. It is a county full of romantic ruins and high winds and that isn't even including Trev and me. We had many a walk on heathery bracken moors, some of which we got lost on! Whenever I was on a windy moor Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights etched itself on to my brain. It's probably done that to you to now! The higher the moor the more of the strange Red Grouse we saw who make the strangest noise. Here is a picture from Simonside, near Rothbury of some of the countryside
Our cottage was a barn conversion and this was our welcoming committee
There were three of them and they belonged to the next door neighbours. Clearly previous residents had fed them as they came and fixed us with their beady eyes when it was warm enough to sit outside.
If we got fed up with the the moors and the ruins then we could go on the beaches which are fabulous. Unfortunately, they are attached to the North Sea so I think you'd need to be a hardy soul to brave the waters.
It has to be the friendliest most unspoiled place I have stayed in the UK. Every shop that you went into they were interested in where you came and recommended places to go. It is like it being transported into a more Northerly James Herriot novel. I would recommend it to anyone who likes walking and ruins.
What it is not is a fine dining experience. I had fish and chips three times while I was there! Still, I haven't gained any weight while I've been away.
Funnily, enough, Alice's parents were on holiday in Alnwick at the same time so we met up with them at Alnwick castle and gardens. This seriously is making me look like the family stalker now and that I am practicing so that I can chance upon Linda in London landmarks again this winter!
If you would like to be bored with more photos they are here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Martinphtots/Northumberland#

Ship figureheads

In the Abbey Gardens in Tresco they have an area they call Valhalla where they have lots of ships' figureheads from ships that have been wrecked in the seas around the islands.

Most of them have been restored and repainted, and when they have information about the ship and what happened to her they have written it up beside the figurehead.

Brian found it a bit ghoulish, but I thought it was touching, and the effort to give the ships a place in history for people who come later was quite moving.

We don't like your sort round here.

After the disaster of last week's wash out Shakespeare, my girls and I decided to go to a quiz at a local hostelry. I drive past the pub, The Fighting Cocks (a name that always made Kieran giggle) most days when I take Erin to the station and noticed a blackboard sign outside saying Pub Quiz Every Wednesday, free entry cash prize. We do enjoy a quiz and thought we would have a go. None of us have ever been in this pub as it has a reputation as a bikers' pub in the past. Still, it has changed landlord several times and anyway most bikers seem to be my age nowadays and frequenting tea shops.
I thought it was strange when I rang at lunch time and the phone seemed dead but I drove past it on my way home and the blackboard sign was still there. So Judy and I turned up in the first car and went into the pub which had about 4 people in it. The landlord took one look at us and said "Sorry, ladies, I was just about to close up"
He didn't look like he was about to close up. It appeared that we were not the kind of clientele he wanted. It was almost like that scene in American Werewolf in London where all the locals stop talking when the strangers walk in.
Anyway we made our way to another pub and had a very convivial evening and then on the way home drove past The Fighting Cocks again and the lights were on!
I've never been barred from a pub - still you're never too old apparently!

Stormy weather

Tonight I am going to see Twelfth Night, outside, at one of the colleges in Cambridge. Guess what the weather is doing. Can I just say The Tempest might be more appropriate! I think it is a constant reminder of the triumph of hope over experience when you consider the amount of things there are to do outside in a British summer. Festivals all over the country and outdoor theatre at the very least. In this week alone, I have the outdoor theatre, an outdoor party and a treasure hunt!Wwish me luck.
On another note my colleague Andrew was drooling over the Apple Website when he came across this description of what the Apple i phone can do:
"Its advanced backside illumination sensor delivers great-looking video in both bright and low-light settings. And in dark environments, you can brighten the scene with the built-in LED light. "
Not sure anyone would appreciate my backside being illuminated! Teehee! (I'm getting hysterical about the weather now and had better sign off)

3D or not 3D

Hollywood has gone 3D mad. Ever since Avatar was made films have been reengineered to be 3D and others have been made from 3D at the outset. I suspect the joke doing the rounds at Comiccon “If you can’t make it good, make it 3-D.” may have an element of truth. Until yesterday I had never seen one.
Like many people reading this blog I have a lazy eye or amblyopia to give it it's correct name. Apparently a person with Amblyopia does not see in 3D. Now I think I do see in 3D but obviously I have never looked through somebody elses eyes so how would I know?
Thus I have a bit of a resistance to 3D movies. I feel a bit excluded from the club. Erin and I have had moany conversations about bloody 3D for several months now. To be honest, there have been very few films so far that I would have wanted to see. I tend to like films that were made for a shilling, with no special effects and preferably not in English. However that is not always the case. I would put the Star Wars films among my favourites and there is nothing Arty about them.
So Toy Story 3 has come out. I saw the first when my children were children and have enjoyed the previous 2 very much. I was very keen to finish the trilogy off. Here's the thing. There are only two cinemas locally I am prepared to frequent. The Arts Picture House in Cambridge and our local, volunteer run Saffron Screen. I knew that when it arrives at the latter it would be a matinee and I really did want to see it with mostly kids. The former meant donning the glasses. So with some trepidation I bought the tickets (plus a supplement for the glasses and another supplement for the priviledge of the 3D experience).
So it's a great film but to me it looked the same as any other film. But the good thing was it didn't make me feel sick or force me to shut one eye as I had feared. Trev said it was clever but the 3D didn't really add that much to it. So I shall be able to see the new Harry Potter in 3D safely and we have now purchased our glasses. Who knows how long and how far this will go as a trend. To be honest, I think Inception which was made in 2D was a much more cinematic film. You would be fine watching Toy Story 3 on DVD.

Cuts close to home

The first cuts are hitting close to home.

Adam works in a specialist hospital for spinal injuries and similar long term patients called Rookwood. It is in old buildings but has a special atmosphere just because so many of the patients are there for months at a time. However it has been announced that the hospital is to be closed.

Hopefully that doesn't mean that Adam's job is under threat, but it does mean he will be moved to one of the other hospitals in the area, and the patients will be scattered around as well. It is a shame for everyone concerned.

For Adam he may end up at a more commuting convenient hospital, but it won't be as friendly or supportive as Rookwood. The domestics in Rookwood are part of the team, not interchangeable minions and some of the bigger hospitals won't see the domestic staff in the same way.

Fingers crossed that it works out ok. It is a real shame.

New job

So, big news, I have a new job! Has all happened a bit quickly, but basically another company in the e-learning industry have pretty much tapped me up and made me an offer I couldn't refuse to go and head up their marketing. It's a bit out of the blue but I have been a bit bored where I was for a while now. Yesterday I handed my notice in, after going out until 3am for our company 'do' the night before. I could've picked a better time than when I felt knackered, hungover and nauseous to be honest! However, they were really good about it despite the fact I'm going to a company which is a competitor.

They're not hanging around though and the job ad for my existing job is going up on Monday morning which is a horrible feeling. Someone else is going to come in and be me! But the opportunity I've got is a great one - I'll be looking after all the marketing for a much bigger company and the package is also really good. I'll be nominally based in London but only have to be physically in the office 2 - 3 days a week. So I'm going to turn into a train commuter and will have to become a lot more punctual so I actually get to the train station on time in the mornings! The company is called Redtray if you want to check them out, although their website is quite rubbish and that's one of the first things I'll be sorting out :)

After the hangover recovery and the adrenalin rush of actually resigning, I came home completely exhausted and was in bed by 8.30pm. Not much of a celebration! But I'm very happy with my decision. Slightly terrified, but excited too!

xxxx

Olympics!

I am attempting to do housework but it is very hot and I keep flopping. See I have flopped infront of the computer and started thinking about the olympics. Only 2 years time and within 30 miles of where I am typing now. Here's my plan. We should all go and see something. I pretty much don't mind what I see (except boxing). We could all go and see something horsey! Most of that stuff is Greenwich Park. We could stay at my house and catch the train and DLR. Brilliant. Or even nearer is the kayaking which I believe is all happening on the River Lee which is even nearer than London. You can register an interest now and when the tickets are available we can all try and go to the same event.
OK better go and do something more productive now.

Barbeque and show

Here are pictures of the barbeque at Kate and Carl's house, and a few of the horse show.

Nic and Five-A-Side both looking very smart and me being the groom.

It was fun.

Forgotten ......

Nic is going to Ibiza on holiday tomorrow. Yesterday she went off to Essex to stay with Sally, the friend she is going on holiday with. She spent yesterday sorting things out, packing , doing all sorts of things that she should have done earlier and hadn't (nothing new there!)

However I got home from work, and other than a note asking me to take her car to get its MOT all seemed fine.

Then I got a phone call from our intrepid traveller. Bear in mind she spent 2 summers travelling round the USA, 6 months in Denmark and other holidays, so travelling is not a new experience.

"Mum, I forgot my passport"

Stunned silence at my end of the phone.

"You what?" I finally managed (eloquent eh?)

She had packed everything except her passport! I checked it was where she thought it was (it was).

They are flying early on Wednesday morning so there was no time to post it, even 24 hour guaranteed post. We hang up the phone and they contact Sally's mum to find out the name of a courier company.

The phone goes again. How far from Benfleet to Llantwit (214 miles) which at 90p per mile was extremely expensive. Sally doesn't have the internet in her new flat, so I looked up the trains. A return from was £2 cheaper than a single (!) but was only £66. So she could get to Cardiff and back, but could we get the passport to Cardiff?

Adam was working. I had meetings all day. Nic phoned Mike who could manage it.

So Adam took the passport to drop it throught the letterbox of Mike's office on his way to work this morning. Mike then took the passport to Cardiff station for 1.30, handed it over. Nic then got onto the 2.25 train back.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Warm summer BBQ

Well this summer is turning out to be a bit of a barbecue summer. Hose pipe bans in Cumbria - all manner of craziness. Anyway, most of us are sure it will change sooner or later and are making the most of this sunny spell. This weekend the McNabbs, Grahams, Martins and Stocks got together at Kate and Carl's new house near Reading where we ate and drank and talked. A really lovely day. We had originally been toying with the idea of of meeting in Stratford and taking in a play, but the only day that was mutually suitable had a rubbish production on so Kate and Carl were volunteered. They do live conveniently in the middle and have a large garden and plenty of parking. It was very kind and we are all grateful.

Most of us stayed the night which was very cosy but fine. Nic had even bought her horse down for a show on the Sunday. He stayed in livery however so we didn't get to see him. Unfortunately, our hosts had to sleep in a tent which we didn't get round to erecting until we were all a little tipsy. Basically Helen was the foreman, she had one or two useful helpers and the rest of watched, making helpful suggestions. I don't think any of us have got Ray Mears worried that we could take over his job. I am not a keen camper and know nothing about erecting tents, Erin said that she usually makes a rubbish attempt at work like this till a man does it for her. Trev and Brian were blowing up air beds but that seemed to involve watching the electric pump work, whilst having a glass of wine. Kate, Alice and Nic were quite helpful I think, or at least looked like they were. Carl and Kate were having a bit of a marital which you can hear below! Good times! Here are videos. You can also see more pictures here but you will see a few other Martin summer events too.

an amusing entry

I thought the dog lovers amongst us might enjoy this link

Last night Trev and I went to see Quartet in Cambridge - very enjoyable it was too. I would recommend it if it comes to a theatre near you or it is made into a film (apparently Dustin Hoffman has bought the rights). Now there are two things you may or may not know about Trevor. The first is that if we are out for the day and eating in a pub or restaurant he likes to eat at noon on the dot or he will begin to panic. The second is that he treats where we sit in a theatre or cinema with the strategic acumen of Julius Caesar. So we thought we had picked perfect seats. Third row up in the Circle. Then Trevor said"These are supreme seats" No sooner had he said this than a couple sat in front of us. The man was in front of me and he had the biggest head I have ever seen. Seriously, he was like a freak of nature. He was like a Wii Mii. If you have ever seen one. Unfortunaely, this was a very static play and the action was all taking place where his big fat bonce was blocking my view. What's more his girlfriend couldn't sit still either. Clearly she had got used to shifting constantly around so she could get a bit of light eclipsed by the bloke's giant noggin!. So we spent the first act craning our necks to see some of the play. Luckily, the theatre was not full so we could remove ourselves to different seats in the interval where we had an excellent view.

How exciting!

Have you seen the trailer for the first part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows?! OMG, so exciting! Big debate on Twitter now about what's better, HP or the Twilight series. Uh, hello, no contest!

Here is link in case you haven't seen it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EC2tmFVNNE

Wonder if they're going to explain why they made that fundamental change at the end of the last film with Harry on the top of the tower?

Feel the urge to re-read the books all over again! But we've got until November (sigh).

Kate
xxxx

No to gite say McNabb/Noyes

We have decided against buying a gite. For the economic reasons see my blog.

The other reasons are largely because it would mean Brian being away on his own for long periods to do the place up, and as I am still working I could only get there 4 weeks of the year anyway. If we were both retired and could spend a few months there at a time we would have been more tempted, but in the current circumstances it just doesn't pan out sadly.

Nice idea but not the right idea.

It wasn't so much the doing up of a place because unlike Chris and Xavier we would have done most of it ourselves (ie Brian) and there would have been no time pressure to finish so no need for architects and builders. France doesn't have building inspectors coming to see that you have done everything right, they apparently work on the theory that if you are going to live there you will make sure it is ok. You have to get a qualified electrician to do the junction box and wire in the sockets, we would have got someone to install a fosse septique, but the rest they leave you to it.

They have a really good way of doing roofing slates with a thing like a crochet hook which means you don't need to nail the slates and therefore they don't split. They sell lovely staircases in Mr Bricolage that you can just buy step by step. They have lovely windows and doors, especially the doors which have a window part in the top half so you can open the window but the door is still shut. Had my car been bigger we might have brought one home for the cottage, they would be ideal.

It was fascinating and we learnt a lot, but won't be buying anything.

France - bits of it anyway

This is a picture of a heron which I took when we were having a picnic. It got in by mistake and now is refusing to go away! It was meant to be a photo of Brian and me having the picnic.

We have been to France, as some will know, and had a lovely, but very busy time. Brian is toying with the idea of investing his savings into a (to be done up) French property as an investment/holiday home. So we unexpectedly - not having planned to go abroad at all this year, especially as we have a holiday booked in the Scilly Isles in September- went to France. We had a 2 centre holiday.
This being blogger here is Brian outside the second gite which was in the Morbihan area of Brittany, near a town called Josselin and about half an hour from Vannes. From here we explored an amazing amount of Brittany, but also had a day at the beach at Carnac.
This is me outside the first gite - a basic, but very cheap and perfectly adequate apartment in Normandy, a few miles outside Domfront. You will notice that the glass of wine was already being put to good use
Here I am again in Bagnoles sur l'Orne which is a spa town and very pretty. It reminded us both of Uriage, though I think Uriage is prettier.
This is the remains of supper on day 1. If you ever travel to France on a Sunday REMEMBER to take two days worth of food with you. Everything between Le Havre and Domfront was shut except one boulangerie somewhere or other. It had this pizza. I do use the word pizza with some reservations because no Italian would have recognised it as one. It was a pizza base, with tomato puree and then what looked like all the onions left after you have drained the soup from a french onion soup. Only hunger made us eat half of it, the other half went into the bin. Thankfully we also got bread, and the welcome pack from the gite contained cheese and wine, so we survived. We did have tea, coffee, sugar, biscuits etc, but not meals.

No more pics because I can't be bothered to fight with blogger to get them in. We had a good time. The weather was mixed in week one but fab in week two. We saw a fair few houses round the south of Normandy, and although the would probably be affordable the area didn't really appeal. It has some lovely places, but the area is clearly suffering a bit and we didn't feel there would be enough to do there in some ways. We went off to the coast near Mont St Michel which was about an hour away and instantly felt happier, so came to the conclusion that Normandy is just too far inland for us and we need to be nearer the sea.

Brittany was more us. We were staying in the Morbihan area which we both really liked, but which was perhaps a bit more genteel than we are - more Cowbridge than Llantwit. We loved Dinan, and so many of the towns round there are just lovely. So much mediaeval housing is retained in the town centres, and they have lots and lots of flowers everywhere, with parks, walks, no litter and no grafitti. It was lovely. We went to a town called Heulgoat in finistere for the day, and saw some houses there, and that area is now heading the popularity stakes for a few reasons. One is cost - it is cheaper there than the rest of Brittany, but the coast is half an hour away, the area is lovely, and Brian seems to have a tendency to go to nearly the end of a peninsula, not quite fall off, and feel he likes it there!

It was great fun, and we have lots of information now to think about whether it is sensible or worth doing, whether it would be too much work (we are talking cheap renovation projects here) etc etc.

We are now back in Pembs for the last few days of my hols (back to work on Monday!) with lots of food for thought, and a much,much nicer pizza for lunch!!!

Pink elephants (and many other colours) on parade.

Before I get started can I just say that we spotted Alice on Songs of Praise. She is on the left hand side of the cathedral and you can see her briefly during the third hymn. What a strange programme that is. The cameraman was obsessed with the vaulting so we saw more ceiling than people. And they cut the lovely soprano singing Handel to a flock of sheep!!

Anyway, I digress. Trev and I decided to go in search of elephants in London today. It is a huge art exhibition of over 250 elephants to highlight and raise money for Asian elephants. They are being herded up on Friday before they go to Chelsea Royal Hospital. From there they are going to be auctioned. I would love to buy one but I think they would be a little out of my league. They are all different and designed by different artists.

We spotted our first two outside Guardian Royal Exchange from the bus. Then we came across another six in Trafalgar Square. The first picture is me sitting in front of one.

From there we walked down to St James's Park where we saw 6 more. We then walked to Green Park and were passed by soldiers on parade! Something to do with the Queen's birthday I would think.

In Green Park there was a happy herd - there must have been 20 or 30 I think. Here are a few.








That top elephant should buy some good moisturiser.








We stopped for lunch on Picadilly and found this princess in Burlington Arcade. (That's the blue one I am not wasting any more time trying to get these pictures where I want them)
She is covered in Swarovski crystals! We also saw a 3 excellent hares outside the Royal Academy by Barry Flannagan. They had also decorated the statue of Sir Joshua Reynolds with a garland.

After that we went back to Green Park then walked back to the river and saw some more on the South Bank. Eventually recrossing the river and seeing a couple more by St Paul's. If you want to see the lot you can look here. It made a brilliant walk and was great fun. I hope they make a lot of money for the cause.