February Fun

The late winter has flown by. We've been so busy we didn't really notice its passing. At the beginning of the month we had a visit from Dolly, Jane and Kim. Dolly and Jane were at Mac with us and Kim is Jane's daughter. We had a smashing time - lots of talk and laughter over a good dinner.

Two days after their visit, we were heading off to Devon for a few days. Karel Hughes (a friend from Swansea days) was having an art show opening and party in Axmouth and Seaton and we were going to it. It was a blast! The weather was wonderful - strong sunshine for the whole weekend - and I had a new camera to test out!

We stayed in Lyme Regis and spent the first afternoon exploring the town and the sea front. Then the next afternoon we went to the opening. Lots of old Swansea friends were there so there was lots of wine to be sipped and stories to tell and re-tell. We were delighted to find that another friend - Pam Jordan - was also exhibiting her art work and were very pleased to be able to purchase one piece from each of them. The quality of their work is really terrific - what talented friends we have!

In the evening the party was held in Axmouth parish hall. There must have been close the 100 people there from all stages of Karel's life. It was great to meet some of her relatives, colleagues from Geography at Roehampton and her children who have grown up to be really nice people. Here daughter struck all of us because she reminded us so much of Karel when she was in her early 20s. Even "Taff", Karel's ex-husband was there and it was good to see him after all these years.

In addition to a delicious buffet, there was a d.j. and we danced till midnight to lots of golden oldies. It's amazing! Most of us can still do the twist! Fortunately we joined Mary (on the left in the picture) and Brian in a taxi from Lyme Regis and so didn't have to drive home. It was nice to be dropped at the door of the hotel and just tumble into bed after all the talking, eating, drinking and dancing!

In true Swansea tradition we were up reasonably early for a walk. We met at Beer and walked around the headland to Branscombe where we visited Mike Lambert's beautiful country house and garden for coffee and more chat. We toured the garden - it's a delightful spot with a pool, lovely plantings and well-sited pieces of sculpture.

Mike is also a Swansea grad, he's a nice guy and it's good to see that he has done well in life. We took an inland route back to Beer and then retired to the house of Karel's friend where we polished off some of the leftovers from the previous night's feast. It was just as good the second time around - crisp salad, chicken casserole, couscous like I've never had before with lots of nuts and seed and spices in it, roasted mediterranean veggies and other stuff I can't remember. Yum - it really hit the spot after our walk.

The following day we were on our own as most people headed back to their homes. We decided to stay on and explore Devon a bit as it's been a long time since either of us has been there. We actually spent most of the day on Dartmor, enjoying the scenery, watching the birds, and just driving around. The picture is of an ancient "Clapper" bridge. It's just piles of stones in the river with slabs of rock to make the pavement, but it has lasted since medieval times at least!

It's time to head off - we're joining the Stretton Theatre Group, this evening, on the bus to Birmingham for a performance of the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. I'll continue with February in my next post.

Christmas and New Year

This is not exactly a "Christmassy" picture but it's nice anyway and we saw this ram at Louise and Al's farm on New Years Eve. Our travels continued throughout December, actually. We spent Christmas at John's sisters, came home for a couple of days to welcome Pete and Shirley Robinson who were over from North Carolina, and then went up to Barry and Sheila's for New Year.

While in Lancashire we headed off to the farm which is really out in the wilds on the edge of the Pennines. Louise and Al have been slowly building up an organic farm, renovating a very rundown set of farm buildings and at the same time keeping up their regular jobs. Louise is a high flying academic and Al is a plumber. I don't know where they find the energy to do all this. None of it's easy and most of us only tackle one or two of the above! At one point the farmhouse was unihabitable and they spent at least one winter sleeping in a hayloft in a barn with no heating. I gather their bedside water was often frozen in the morning. I've seen the place and although I have slept in a barn while on a hiking holiday, there's no way I would have stayed there for more than a few nights in summer!

We had a good evening with B&S on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day saw Barry and John head off for some birding while Sheila and I stayed at home. I played at making felt with some of Sheila's fleeces while she busied herself making a fantastic vegetarian feast. B&S are co-owners of "Hank" a small motorhome (with his own blog!) and the other owners came over for the night. They are vegetarians, hence the wonderful meal. It really set me off thinking about vegetarian food. Although I have no intentions of giving up meat, I do enjoy veggies and there are some wonderful ways to prepare them. I realised I needed to learn how ..........

Things settled down for us in January, but we were on the move again in February and that's another story!

Back to Early December!

Way back in mid December I promised to tell you about our trip to the west coast (of North America). This was part business and part pleasure. John was heading to Vancouver to a meeting and so we decided to fly to Seattle, spend some time with Carol and Dave and Craig and Ruth. We've known Craig and Carol since the early 70s and although they've now got new partners we were all able to get together for a splendid meal. We also went walking along the shore with Carol and Dave (the picture on the left is from the sculpture park where we puzzled long and hard over this Calder sculpture which was supposed to be an eagle, but looked more like an angry cat!!!) and to a lovely Christmas concert with the Seattle Symphony. They looked after us well, searching out good places to eat chowder, showing us the sights and helping us get over the 8 hour time difference. We were introduced to their new dog "Oliver" who hadn't quite figured out about bathroom etiquette, but who was a quiet and loving dog. Now that they've had him for a while, I wonder if he's still so subdued? I bet he isn't!

Craig and Ruth had us over for a delicious pancake breakfast. Here we are, finally looking around the famous house. We've been meaning to visit for 30 years! It's an amazing place with a lovely view of a lake. Craig has worked hard to put in some really interesting features, although he has been slowed down of late by hurting his back when he fell off Ruth's roof! One of the most interesting features is his old tractor which has been lovingly restored to its original glory. He must have very forgiving neighbours. He rides it around the neighbourhood and I'm sure it doesn't conform to current pollution standards!

We drove up to Vancouver and spent a lovely few days with Tim and Midge Oke. We've known these two for even longer! Tim was just finishing his PhD at McMaster when John arrived in 1966. John and Tim were involved in Urban Climate meetings part of the time, but that didn't stop us from getting out for a couple of meals, driving around Vancouver and the surrounding coastline and generally mooching around shops, markets and art galleries. I even went to a Garden Club Christmas Party and a Probus meeting with Midge. Their daughter Katy came home for some R&R while we were there and it was a delight to renew our aquaintance with this lovely, gentle, fun woman. We played lots of card games together and generally had lots of fun.

All in all it was a lovely trip. Pleasant company, relaxing surroundings, co-operative border guards and even some good bird watching!

Equinoctial Felicitations!

Yes, it's the equinox today. In some places that's celebrated as the first day of spring, but here in Church Stretton the wind is howling, there are occaisional snow flurries and it's pretty damn cold.

We went to the gym in Shrewsbury this morning. Planned to stay on and work in the museum this afternoon, but we found our cabinet locked and the key lost so we chose to come home instead! So I have a little extra time to myself and I thought it would be a good oportunity to catch you all up on the news.

Couldn't start straight away as we went over to wish our next-door neighbour a happy birthday - she's 91 today! People in C.S. live long lives - it must be the healthy air and all the walking up and down hill that does it! We went over there and had several chocolates and a couple of glasses of ginger wine and now we feel much warmer!

I'm actually tucked up in the living room with my feet up and the laptop keeping me warm and I'm going to do a series of posts to catch you all up on the latest news. The picture on the left shows where I'm sitting right now, but this was taken at the weekend when Pam and Derek came up from Harrow to visit us. It was really good to see them - we haven't seen them since we moved here. They were so good to my parents, visiting every week, running errands, taking them out and generally keeping an eye on them.

The four of us became better friends when they came to visit us in the U.S. They even came on the Columbus Audubon eco-weekend with us.

In my next few posts I'll be going back in time to catch up on the news of the last three months. So, in this post I'll just point out the lovely daffodils which I cut in the garden last week when it was a bit warmer. We have had strong winds all month (March came in as a lion and hasn't stopped roaring yet) and some of the daffs fell over. I decided to cut them and bring them in rather than leave them to be eaten by the slugs. There are still crowds of them in the garden and lots more buds waiting to open.

Weight Loss Results

Hello folk!

Here I am with our newest pet! We haven't actually decided on a name for him/her yet, so if you have some ideas we'd love to hear from you!

So far we haven't actually determined his/her sex either so our possible names are Prunella, Purple Pete or Scruffles (thanks to Katy Oke). He/she's from Vancouver, Canada and I'll be doing another posting on our recent trip to the West Coast shortly.


But now for something completely different ........



Today is my birthday. That means that it's exactly a year since I started the Weightloss for Wildlife campaign and it's time to report on "progress". I guess there's good news and bad news. The bad news is that I haven't made any progress since June. The good news is that I lost a good few pounds during the first half of the year and I've managed to keep it off since June. So, the final tally is:

Beginning Weight: 95.5 kg or 210.5 lb or 15 stone
Ending Weight: 87 kg or 192 lb or 13.7 stone
Weight Loss: 8.5 kg or 18.5 lb or 1.3 stone


Those of you who were kind enough to sponsor me will be getting a personal note or e-mail about this in the next couple of weeks. Once I hear from everyone I'll let you all know how much money I've made for wildlife projects.

The chart at left is of our weekly "weigh-ins". As you can see, John has been accompanying me on this adventure, but slipped up a bit towards the end. We're both determined to continue trying to lose weight next year. I don't suppose anyone is up for another challenge?

I do feel better for having lost the weight. Apart from my clothes being more comfortable, I find I have more energy and can move around a bit better. It's a good job I have more energy as there's an awful lot to do around here. In fact, I'd better get on with something right now!

Bye bye for now ...........................

A trip to Paris.

Yuck! Britain is now experiencing 8 hour days and 16 hour nights. It gets dark SO early. Everything is damp underfoot, too, so it's really mucky. John and I have both had horrible colds. Mine is on the mend but he's in the middle of his. This hasn't put an end to our social lives, however. We had friends to dinner on Thursday and I went to the Food Fayre quiz night last night. My team won and I'm now charged with watching the Lottery draw tonight to see if we won anything as our prize was lottery tickets! This morning we braved the cold and wet and went out to help clear pathways on our local bird reserve. We think it did us good, but were glad to get back to our warm house and hot soup!

While we were lunching Mr. Magnificent came begging for peanuts and I was finally able to get a halfway decent shot of him.

My cold started on the way home from our visit to Paris. In all our travels I've never been there before! We had a ball! The metro and the busses were on strike, but we managed to get around quite well. It helped that we were the guests of my cousin Jaques. You may remember that he and his partner (Catherine) and her daughter (Flora) visited us in May. This was the return trip. We stayed in Flora's father's apartment, just a few blocks away from Catherines' home and Jaques' dental clinic.

It was fun to go on Eurostar from the new St. Pancras International Railway Station. This is an old and very grand Victorian red brick and glass station which was abandoned in the 60s and was nearly knocked down. It has now been renovated and supplied with a high-speed line and now it takes just over 2 hours to get from London to Paris! They've moved the Eurostar terminus from Waterloo to St. Pancras, which is good for us as it's only one stop on the tube from St. Pancras to Euston where we can get a fast train to Crewe followed by a slow train to Church Stretton! We made it back from Paris, Gare Du Nord to C. S. in 6.25 hours

Jaques picked us up from Gare du Nord on Friday night. It took us over 2 hours to drive to his place - a trip that should have taken 20-40 min. The traffic was really grid-locked because so many people who usually take public transport had to use their cars. Here's a picture of a familiar landmark taken as we drove through Pigalle. Catherine was late getting home, too, because of the traffic but she prepared us a lovely meal and it was good to catch up with them and see where they live.

We decided to do "car" things at the weekend, so they took us to Versailles on Saturday. It's a most impressive palace, lavishly decorated and ornamented. The picture is of the great mirrored gallery. It's beautifully light with huge windows overlooking the gardens. The mirrors facing the windows reflect the light into the room and give it a great feeling of space and grandeur. The gardens are interesting, even at this time of year. They are so formal - I'm not sure I've ever seen anything like it at and at such a huge scale.

On Saturday night Jaques took us out for dinner to a favourite restaurant where we had Tournados Rossini .... oh it was heavenly. The restaurant (called Sud Ouest)specialises in the cooking of south western France and was informal and friendly. There were lots of groups having family dinners and celebrations. We met Ivan and Audrey, Jaques grown up children. I hope all these young people will come to visit us here one day - they are all so polite, friendly and fun to talk to.

On Sunday we broke our fast in the traditional way with croissants and coffee and then went off to explore the old town of Paris. This included Place Des Voges and the Old Jewish Quarter where we strolled and window shopped while munching on cheese cake and poppy seed cake. While we were in the area we visited the Picasso Museum. It was very interesting to see a lot of the studies he did before he made a large painting. They also had a special exhibition about the making of the painting "Guernica" and this was also linked to some graphic and thought-provoking photographs of current atrocities of war.

We had a big lunch out and Catherine prepared another special dinner. This was "Raclette". There is a hot plate on the table and you melt a special kind of cheese which you pour over sausage, ham and/or potatoes. Yum, yum.

On Monday Jaques and Catherine went back to work and Flora to school so we were on our own. We decided to walk to Montmartre, which we did in about 45 minutes. It was interesting to pound the streets - you have time to look at the architecture, smell the food smells coming out of the restaurants, stop and goggle at interesting activities. We climbed up the various stepped streets to the top of Montmartre and visited the Sacre Coeur Basilica. It's very impressive inside and out and the view over Paris from the front door is spectacular. Unfortunately, it was a bit damp and misty and not very good for photography.

We weren't impressed by the shops in Montmartre as they were all touristy and selling tacky gifts. It was a pity as the small streets looked interesting and it might have been fun to wander around. However, we slowly descended from the Sacre Coeur, fending off pick pockets and street vendors and found a small bistro where we had a delicious lunch of lamb stew and polished off a bottle of Beaujolais. Then we took a walk down Boulevard Haussman looking into the windows of Galleries Lafayette and Printemps. These big department stores have their windows decked out for Christmas and have those wonderful moving displays we used to love as children. John and I are still fascinated by the animations and spent a good deal of time watching all the details and having a good laugh. By the time we'd finished window shopping it was time to wander home to get ready to Jaques et. al for dinner which was in a local creperie.

On Tuesday we set off on another walking adventure. We thought we might take a bus, but only one passed us and it was full and overflowing. We managed to walk from Clichy to the Tuilleries Gardens on the Seine in about an hour and a half. We were heading for the Musee d'Orsay where the Impressionist paintings are, but when we got there we found it was half closed because of the strikes so we decided not to go in. Instead we found another restaurant where we had another good lunch and then we strolled home again taking a very circular route which included walking along the left bank of the Seine, up a boulevard where we found an Art Deco church from 1938 which we found very beautiful inside and out, around the Arc De Triomphe and back along various streets and boulevards to Clichy.

It was good to be able to see Paris on foot as it meant for a more leisurely pace. Neither of us had a huge agenda to follow. There are lots of places we would like to see including the Louvre and Notre Dame, but they will wait for another time. In the evening we went to a Japanese restaurant. The food was fresh and delicious. We had sushi and skewered meats along with soup and salads. It was a great treat for us as there is no Japanese restaurant in Church Stretton.

Next day, Jaques went off to a congress so Catherine took us to the Gare Du Nord where we had lunch and then said "Goodbye". We were home by 8:30. We both agreed that we'd had a wonderful trip, the French were very friendly and helpful and we really enjoyed ourselves.

Catching up - Our New Car!

We finally have a new car. When we first came over here, we thought we would have to get one straight away, but our nephew, Nick, was selling his Rover and we bought it.

Ronnie the Rover did well for two years, but then things started to go wrong. We finally polished it off, as I mentioned in a previous posting, so we ordered a new Toyota RAV4 and were able to pick it up when we got back from Belgium.


Since then we've been driving around and really enjoying the luxury of a new car. The picture of John and the Rav was taken on one of our test jaunts. We took a day off from our computers, data bases and projects to go to Lake Vrnwy which is in mid-Wales. It's a reservoir that's managed as a nature reserve by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). They're doing all sorts of neat things there including managing a huge organic farm. We were able to buy some lovely organic lamb there. We've already enjoyed the lamb steaks we had and this weekend we're trying out one of their legs of lamb. If it's as good as expected we'll be ordering boxed lamb halves for the freezer.

While we were there, we had a picnic lunch of pasties by the lake, visited the various hides (not much to see this time, but we'll come back later) and took a hike up one of the tributory valles to Rhiwargor Falls. As you can see it was a beautiful day with lots of lovely sunshine and we really enjoyed it.

Autumn here is a long and luscious season. It's still progressing slowly with more and more colour developing as the days continue. It's also a time of mists and frosts and a few weeks ago we were delighted to see this hot-air balloon rising up out of the mists as it drifted slowly up the Carding Mill Valley.

We have a lot of balloons over the Mynd, it's probably the best way to view the whole spectacular structure, but not everyone is as pleased to see them as we are.

Many of the local dogs get spooked by the sound of the burners as the balloons pass overhead. Lovely Ella was so badly scared once that she took off and was found several miles away on the far side of the hill. Since we often see the balloons before our neighbours do, we phone them when there's one on its way and they take Ella inside till it's gone!

Please stay in touch!

Our trip to Belgium

I've just been putting our photos from the trip to Belgium on CD for the Rayners, so I thought I'd share a few.

We went over on Eurostar, in mid September, for a few days and had a wonderful time. We arrived in Brussels in the late afternoon and picked up a hired car at the station. Things rapidly (but temporarily, I'm glad to say) went wrong after that. First I managed to get us completely lost. We found out later that we were heading due south out of town when Mechelen is north! Secondly, we were in rush hour traffic, so the car was doing a lot of stopping and starting. After about half an hour there were frantic beeping sounds coming from the dashboard and we realised that we were overheating.

We pulled over and then went through a couple of hours of pure farce while we tried to phone for help. The phone menus were all in Flemish so we couldn't understand them but we found some very kind people who helped us. There was the young security guard in the supermarket and the lovely couple who had been to a photographic exhibition and who got on their phones and called the rental company and gave them a good telling off! We thank you all!

Eventually the rescue truck arrived. The mechanic spoke excellent English and was able to show us that the fan had broken and fallen off its mounting!!!!! He did a temporary fix and then led us to the motoway so we could drive to the airport and exchange the car (by this time it was too late to go back to the station!). We finally arrived at the hotel in Mechelen about 10:30 and they were kind enough to arrange an afterhours spaghetti dinner for us.


The wedding, next day, was fantastic. A civil ceremony in Mechelen city hall, was followed by a long meal of many courses at the Montreal Hotel which lasted all afternoon and well into the evening. I pondered long and hard over which wedding photo to include here and finally decided on the one to the left. In all the others there are problems - eyes shut, serious faces, etc. etc. This one sums it up. These two haven't had it easy up till now and there's a long road ahead.

We really enjoyed meeting the Vankeerbergens and their family. Many many thanks go to Chantal and Jean for working so hard and putting on such a wonderful event. Everyone was kind and welcoming and the two groups got on very famously. There was lots of chatter in "Franglais", some of us tried to practice our french and others were working on their english.



It was very good to see the whole Rayner family together and having such a good time. Here's a picture of the three "kids" cutting up as they always do! Each one has chosen a different path, and each of them has found success and happiness. Looking back through my photos I'm struck by how radiant Caroline is. As we say over here - she's really chuffed!



On the Sunday many of the visitors and quite a few of the Vankeerbergens went to Brugge for "Moules et Frites" (mussels and fries). This is a picture of Bernadette's parents, Chantal and Jean Vankeerbergen, and John and Valerie Rayner. At the "girls" table (shown below) are Bernadette on the left and Caroline on the right.

Monday saw John and Valerie driving us to Brussels for the day. We visited the little pissing boy and the little pissing girl, but couldn't find the little pissing dog. Does anyone detect a trend here? We also did some rubbernecking, taking photos of interesting buildings, eating, drinking and shopping. We really had a jolly day, so decided to return the favour by taking the Rayners in our car to the Ardennes on Tuesday.

It was a fabulous day. The sun shone, there were hints of Autumn in the air and the scenery was wonderful. Here are a couple of pictures from that day. In the first, John and Valerie are enjoying a viewpoint and in the second you can see the view we were admiring.

Next day we drove into Brussels with no problems, returned the car, had lunch in a hotel near the station and then boarded Eurostar for the return trip home. We boarded just before 3 pm and arrived at Church Stretton station at 8:04. That's a tad over 5 hours for the whole journey - Brussels to Waterloo on Eurostar, tube from Waterloo to Euston, Virgin Pendolino train from Euston to Crewe, Arriva Wales local train from Crewe to Church Stretton. I think that's marvellous and a hell of a lot better than going by plane which scares me and is definitely more uncomfortable.

Old Codgers!

We've just filled out applications for our free bus passes and had to have photos taken. I thought you might enjoy these more serious photos of the two of us, hot off the press!!!!!

The reason we have to have photo passes is that we will get free travel on any local bus service in the country. It sounds like an amazing deal and I'm looking forward to using it. We might be able to gad about all over the place by hopping from bus to bus.

We already have free local bus passes for South Shropshire, but this will really extend the range for us.

We also have Senior Rail cards which enable us to get up to a third off all railway journeys. Do you get the feeling they're trying to get the wrinklies off the roads?

I'm going to use my photo as the one on my profile for this blog. It's a bit closer to how I look right now than the old pre-chemo one. Before I had cancer I had straight hair - now it's curly and I love it! It's still very fine and soft, like baby hair. I thought that would have changed by now, but it hasn't so I'm wondering if that's one of the side effects of the beastly Arimidex.

It's a dull grey day today - perfect for staying in and playing with computers. I've been updating the Scrappies web site and would welcome your comments and constructive criticisms. I've also added links to the Shrewsbury Museums, Food Fayre and Arts Festival Sites on the side bar so you can find out more about the things that occupy our time.

When you've time, drop me a note.

Summer Summary

It's actually been a long time since I posted any news other than weight loss on this blog, so I thought I'd give you a pictorial summary of the summer!

We'll start with the picture of John and Margot Hewings (from Toronto), with us, at the Studio. They visited in late May and early June, then the four of us headed off to Stratford for a gathering of some of our old Swansea friends.

Following that visit, we headed off to the Lake District for a few days on our own. We stayed at the Pheasant Inn which is located by the side of Bassenthwaite Lake in a place called Peel Wyke!!!!! Wyke (or Wick) means somebody's homestead and Peel is derived from Piel. We think that there was a Piel tower (a sort of fortified tower) at this spot hundreds of years ago.

Here's a picture of some Ivy-leaved Toadflax that we found growing on a wall. I really love the name of this plant, and it's pretty too!

After our trip to the Lakes, we welcomed Joy and Glenn Johnson from Sydney, Australia to our home. The weather was appalling and we don't have any photos. They were with us during the floods that took away the bridge at Ludlow. The bridge has been replaced temporarily, but it's a shocking sight that meets your eyes as you cross it. The house beside the bridge has lost one of its walls and is leaning into the river at a crazy angle. You can see right into the bedroom, where there's a beautifully made up bed and some of the furniture, still poised and waiting to slip into the river!

Early July brought the Church Stretton Food Fayre. We worked very hard for several days, moving chairs and tables, making tea, washing up, helping people in the craft tents, directing traffic, manning the entries, counting the money and doing whatever we were asked to do. We enjoyed it very much and the Food Fayre was a great success. More about that in future posts, I'm sure as I am about to become Vice Chairperson.

Late July brought the Arts Festival. Again, I was pretty heavily involved with the Arts and Crafts Exhibition part of the festival - doing the entry forms, data base and helping with setup and breakdown.

Before it ended I made a quick trip to Heathrow to pick up my twin Aunties - Sue and Lou. They came over for a three week stay which included a 5 day trip to Scotland. We stayed in a lovely hotel in Lanark and took the train to visit Glasgow and Edinburgh. The weather was kind, the people were friendly and welcoming and I think we all enjoyed ourselves very much. Here they are on a boat trip on Loch Lomond. Highlights of the trip included visits to Edinburgh Castle and Rennie Mackintosh's masterpiece the Glasgow School of Art.

At the end of August, Bill Fenner and Lois Tilton were over from Arden Road. We "did" Wales, with a day trip to Caernarfon (Carnarvon) through Snowdonia and an overnight trip to South Wales where we visited the "Big Pit" (the Welsh National Coal Museum, which includes a coal mine) and St. Fagans (the Welsh National History Museum). Both of these were great, and FREE!!!!!

This picture shows us getting back into the car during our trip through Snowdonia. You'll notice that we have a "new" car. It's actually a hired vehicle because we managed to kill our Rover by driving up to Liverpool and back with the radiator cap off!!!!

More later ..... I'm off to pick apples!