Category Archives: Buckinghamshire

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Today was an excellent day.  Spent quite a long time in the garden mowing the field and lawn.  After mowing the lawn I attempted to fill the cracks in the lawn with sand.  These cracks have been there for years; caused by the clay soil and the excavations of the moles.  I must have used almost ¾ of a cubic meter of sand.

Finished the day with a BBQ and wine.  Drowning our sorrows after the defeat of England by France in Euro 2004.  Never mind we will get them in the finals.

I was not pleased with a RBS manager who bet on England to win.  He said, “no matter the result, he would be happy”.

Kingswood Wotton tug of war

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The Kingswood against Wotton BBQ and tug of war was a great success.  The weather stayed warm and sunny.  The unending supply of burgers and sausages produced by Ian and Julie Smith went down well.  The pedigree was on form, being expertly poured by Annie Stanton .  The only items not on form were the Kingswood teams.  We lost all three tug of war matches.  Thanks to Austin Lovell for adjudicating.

Afterwards Jake provided us with a buffet supper in the Plough and Anchor.

Pictures coming soon.

Laying stepping stones

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This weekend was wonderfully warm, so much so we were able to sit out in the garden late Sunday evening eating our barbequed Herrings and sausages.  The sunset was magnificent, so much so I ran to the house to get the camera and photo the sun as it dipped below the horizon.

Spent much at Bloomes and Homebase buying bits for the garden, and then mowing the lawn, and laying stepping-stones to the hot tub.  We have at last removed the atrocious pallets we laid around the hot tub as temporary decking.  It is now back to grass and stepping-stones to gain access.

Several drinks in the Plough and Anchor with friends on the Friday and Saturday.

Bird song day

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A three-day holiday, but what horrible weather.  Rained all day on Saturday, Rosemary went to visit her parents, I  did Tescos and installed a wireless link at the neighbours so they could access the internet through our broadband.  The took us our for a meal at the Pheasant in Brill.

Ah Saturday, up at 3:45 to meet up with some other lunatics at Finemere wood to hear the dawn chorus.  I have never heard so much noise from a group of people trying to keep quiet.  People should not wear all those expensive Gortex jackets.  Hey a quite fleece was all that was needed on this rainless warm early morning.  We heard some birds, (too numerous for me to name) and then had a walk around in the light to see the bluebells.  Finished off with a bacon roll and then back to the house by 8.00 for the rest of the day.  This was organised by the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust.  Finemere wood is about two miles from us.  Though we have never walked through it, we have often visited the pond near by.

A little git of gardening  in the afternoon while the weather was fine.

Sunday started off wet and miserable, so a day in front of the PC I think.  Maybe a quick visit to the P&A in the evening to sort out the Tug of War.

A warm weekend

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The whole of the weekend was warm and sunny and windless.  Not a paragliding weekend.  Spent most of the time the time gardening, mowing the lawn and burning a lot of old hedging.

Rosemary spent Saturday on a pond-dipping course organised by Bucks CC as part of their “Ponds, Pools and Puddles” survey . She met experts on Dragonflies, Amphibians, Caddis flies, Hover flies and other horrible things, which lurk in ponds.

Broadband has arrived

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We are now broadband enabled.  Today we plugged the computer into the fast lane.  What a difference in speed.  No long waits while Peters emails with pictures download.  Not having to dial up to connect.  I can now download large files and not be that much older when they have finished downloading.

I am just going up the road to take down our campaing boards and thermometer.

I signed up with a company called Plusnet.  The install was easy, their website showed where the current status of the install was.  Click and the image below and get a broadband connection with Plusnet.  You know it makes sense.

Pond survey

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In the morning we set off to survey some of the ponds in the Grendon Underwood parish. This is part of council run biodiversity initiative. We planned to visit five ponds on a walk to the highest and furthest point of the parish, Finemere Hill. All the ponds, bar one were now overgrown and contained mature trees. It was obvious they had been ponds, but were no longer ponds. At Finemere Hill there was a very nice pond, about 20 meters in size. It had been used by cattle for water, as there was a slope down into the pond for that purpose.

Afterwards it was back home for a BBQ and wine in the Garden.

Kingswood and Wotton Tug of War

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Monday we had the tug of war over Tetchwick Brook between Wotton Underwood and Kingswood. We had lovely weather and a good turn out for the match.

Kingswood men won their match winning 2 pulls to Wotton’s 0.

Kingswood women lost to Wotton, despite their win on the first pull, which was disqualified when a count shouted 12 Kingswood women and only 8 Wotton women.

Kingswood Juniors won their match 2 pulls to 1.

Wotton provided an endless BBQ of burgers and sausages, which never seemed to stop. Kingswood provided the bar of Hook Norton beer, wine and various other liquids. 

Thanks to all the people who organised this event: George Stanton for getting the beer & for organizing the Aunt Sally; Austin Lovell for umpiring the tug of war; Annie Stanton, Graham and Fran for running the bar; the wonderful work put in by the Wotton team on the BBQ and the two field owners who valiantly lent their fields and moved the livestock out.There was a free for all Welly Wanging match, while Austin organised a race for the children across the Brook, round a tree on the far-side and back. The children all arrived back unbelievably muddy and wet, some of the small ones were still scrambling up the sides of the opposite bank when they were overtaken by triumphant returning competitors.

Afterwards we had a buffet supper of cold display plus Thai chicken curry in The Plough and Anchor provided by landlord Paul Ring. A lovely end to a great Bank Holiday.