I have put together a small gallery of pictures taken at Ann’s 80th birthday party. There are some of the people who attended, and a few pictures from around Blakeney. The blue skies, the sun with its hat on, was too good an opportunity to miss.
It has been a few weeks since our holiday to Italy, and our next holiday is just around the corner. I have though managed to process and reduce the number of photographs. Well some might not agree and they are now ready to view.
We had a fabulous time with Andante, and our guides were fabulous company.
Off to Carlisle in the morning, at least this will be on the train most of the way. Â This last week has been a bit of a strain. Â One day in Doncaster, the next day in Bournemouth, and then back to Doncaster the day after. Â Putting a few miles on the old Citroen, hopefully it will see my working days out.
Also had sleepless nights this week. Â The A41 was closed for road resurfacing in Waddesdon overnight for the last week. Â The sound of silence was a tad disturbing, lay awake at night wondering when the next vehicle would come by, they never came, so couldn’t get to sleep.
I did a little bit of work on the Blasdale website this weekend.  Upgraded to a  version 3.6 of WordPress, and a new version of Nextgen Gallery, 2.0.  Nextgen 2.0 has a new way to implement galleries, and a really quite nifty gallery display which works on mobile phones with the swipe action.  Love it.
No new pictures, but hope to get the Cambridge Society visit to the Malverns online this week.
Several months ago, Rosemary had a serious case of larder envy (seems to affect ladies of a certain age) after seeing a friend’s. She came home and sighed at her larder shelves built of fronts of old wardrobes, bits of tongue and grooved, brick supports and even spare end pieces from new kitchen. She wrote a to-do list item and began her search.
She was triumphant and now has the larder of her dreams complete with three roll-out wooden boxes, one of which is a snazzy two drawer vegetable rack. The larder is under the kitchen stairs and the shelves have been designed so you can stand right inside and hence see everything and reach into the full depth.
Designer and maker, in oiled ash, was Mark Williamson of Mark Williamson Furniture.
She’s crossed the “larder shelves” item off her to-do list.
But shelves are an addiction…….
Well I made Glastonbury 2013, my sixth Glastonbury, the last four all in a row, This time I arrived on Wednesday evening, driving up from Bournemouth where I had been working. Arrived at 7 to a nice sunny evening, pitched my tent in a quiet spot and met up with Ed for a few pints.
Weather wise it rained on Thursday evening and most of the night, and cleared up for a lovely festival weekend.
Bands I saw all the head lines on the Pyramid stage, Arctic Monkeys, Rolling Stones and Mumford and Sons. Other bands to remember were Nick Cave, and Vampire Weekend. The rest of the weekend was a bit of a haze.
Pictures of local country home “E”‘s gardens, vegetable “patch”, greenhouses and the many flowers grown for the house’s many vases.
Warm evening, the pub was noisy as I walked past it. The raucous conversation, normally held inside, was now outside disturbing those quietly walking by. Down at the beach, it was a clear view to the west, but looking east towards the Isle of Wight you could see mist around the island, rising up from the sea. Yes you can see it, but the picture from the phone is a bit on the crap side. Thunderstorms predicted for tonight.
The evening meal was at a Thai restaurant called Tiien. Smart, seems part of a posh hotel, quite busy. I started with soup, usual Tom Yam something, with prawns. I asked for mine to be hot, and it came hot, very spicy hot. It brought tears to my eyes as I drank. Great stuff. Followed on with a vegetable stir fry. Yes, you read that correctly, no meat, vegetables.
Yes the Tiien Thai restaurant in Bournemouth gets a Blasdale star.
Working in Bournemouth this week, so it’s a holiday by the sea. Raining on the drive down, but the sun came out to play just before sunset. Staying in the Durley Dean Hotel, not so bad, and they don’t stint on the size of the towels.
Went out to eat and had a reasonable tandoori chicken and nan bread at the Indian Cuisine. The Nan was a plain one, not soggy, not dry, but fluffy.
I followed that up with a beer at The Hop. Only real ale on was Doombar from Sharp Brewery in Cornwall. Good pint, but disappointing pub.
The second Bank Holiday in May treated us to so some nice weather. The tug of war has been delayed to August, so instead a BBQ was organised in the circle. Well attended and fun with the usual suspects, drinking and feasting.
I seem to have failed in blogging. Maybe it’s the wet weather, or recently the unseasonable cold weather. Today the sun has shone, the wind has abated, and it was almost reasonable for a walk, though still on the cold side (made double figures at 11 Celsius).
So we did go for a walk, using our newly acquired passes that allow as to walk around the private grounds and lakes at Wotton Underwood. We had a good couple of hours ramble around The Lake, spotting birds as we went. Yes it has the very original name. No, we did not bump into Tone and Cheri, or their armed police guards. Identifications of birds will be placed in the gallery in due course. Yes I did identify the Swan!
