Year End - 2011

I’ve lead a couple of rambles in the last month, both starting at Abbots Well, close to Fordingbridge. There was a good turn out both times with numbers in the 20’s. The left hand photo is Gaze Hill. Terry, in the hat, had just come back from trekking in the Himalayas so this was just a pimple to him. The right hand photo is taken at a concrete direction arrow on the old Ashley Walk bombing range. I had never seen it before. It was pointed out by one of our ramblers and cannot be seen on Google Earth, which is surprising.

 

In early December we visited Jean and Graham for lunch in Marlborough. We were also joined by Jennie and Neil. All of us, except Jean and Jennie, had been at school together in Surrey.

Jean, Jennie and Stuart

Neil

Graham

       

Sue at lunch, with our Portsmouth friends, at Eastney Cruising Association (ECA).

     

Sue and Sue

Geoff and Sue

Stuart and Joy

Christmas Lunch, chez nous, with Jane and Ron.
All went according to plan much to Sue’s relief. I'd bought a Q&A table game which kept us amused for some of the time. The following day Sue and I joined Jane and Ron and another couple at J&R’s new home in Barton on Sea for lunch. We were treated to kasseler joint and all the trimmings which brings back memories of Germany. We also had one of Heston Blumenthal’s Christmas puddings, very tasty! A lovely day. Thanks.

         

We were quite busy over the Christmas period with very enjoyable visits to the neighbours.

On the 27th Dec. work started on the en-suite. I had stripped the shower out and had taken the tiles off the walls. On the left hand photo you can see I also removed part of the wall – ooops!
Right hand photo – work in progress.

    

The week before Christmas we had a lovely walk along the front at Friar’s Cliff, Christchurch and I managed to collect all these beach hut names.

Oldie Photo – Sue at Wilhelmshaven West Germany (as it was then) 1976.

Next year’s blog can be found at  http://thebuchans2012.blogspot.com/

Happy New Year

Cirencester

Sue’s check up at Salisbury Hospital went well following the cataract operation so we decided to have a few days away in Cirencester. We did have a bit of a worry on the day of departure because her eye was slightly reddened so we rang the hospital and they thought everything should be OK.
We like the Caravan Club site in Cirencester because it is within walking distance of the town and also Cirencester Park. What we didn’t know was that the facilities block had been refurbished, to a very high quality, so it was a pleasure to visit.

Cirencester has a very long history and some of the archaeological remains date back 200,000 years. During the 16th and 17th Century the wool trade flourished in the town as can be seen by some of these plaques on the buildings.                  Double mouse click for a larger photo.

Some of the old doorways

Post Office Cottage

Another doorway

Church of St. John the Baptist

Entrance gates to Cirencester Park

Cecily Hill is on the approach to the Park and the the Tontine Buildings are a significant part of the road. I saw the word ‘tontine’ and knew I had heard it before, but couldn’t remember where. On looking it up it has an interesting history.           This is taken from the internet:

‘At the foot of Cecily Hill, Cirencester's most elegant residential street, stand the Tontine Buildings of 1802. They are apparently so called because Lord Bathurst won them in a Tontine. Now illegal, this was a winner-takes-all financial scheme where the winner was the last participant to die. Of 23 bays, this long building is draped with flowers in summer. On the outside, it looks little changed with the original carriage arch still in place.’

Whilst out and about we saw lots of fungi. Here are a couple of different types. I started trying to identify them, but realised I would have to trawl through about 600 different fungi – so didn’t bother.
If you want to, please send me the answers.

 

We did lots of geocaching which as usual took us to some interesting places. Here you can see Sue at the ‘song pole’. The explanation is also taken off the internet

‘The song pole is a listening device by which the visitor is encouraged to reflect on the act of listening itself. It is a bird box designed to provide a nesting site for Great Tits or Tree Sparrows during the spring time. A microphone provides the aural equivalent of a microscope and listening closely to the intricate detail of the nesting box’s sound world it becomes possible to hear the intimate habits of the nesting birds.
When the birds are not nesting, the song pole acts as an ‘ode to absence’……. ‘

A new addition to geocaching is doing a ‘challenge’. Here I am doing my third challenge. I had to get to this finger post, which is at the source of the River Thames, and take a picture of myself with the post. It was a bit of a challenge because the access footpath lead across a farmers field which had just been ploughed. There was no water here at the time of my visit.

The Christmas Market in Cirencester The white cube is protection for the parish church renovation

Sue outside one of the chalets

There is an underpass close to the caravan site with some rather colourful graffiti.
The watery themed ones are painted by the local school.

Oldie photo
L- R David Wordsworth, Carol W, Colin Campbell, Sue, Trish C.
This was taken in Barbados in 1994. We were all celebrating our 25th wedding anniversaries.

Bits and Pieces

I’m writing this on the 11/11/11 a very poignant day, especially as this is the first year where there is no one alive today who was in the Great War.

This could very well be a disjointed blog, because we have being doing a variety of things over the last month. Sue had her cataract operation at Salisbury Hospital and all went very well this time. All the doctors and nurses were very nice and everything went without a hitch. Why couldn’t it have been like that the first time?  Sue has been taking her recovery very seriously and has been taking it easy. I now know what a sink, cooker and washing machine look like and how they work. She has a follow up appointment on Monday so we expect to hear that all is well.

Sue, Julie from Cape Town, Lyn and David

Carol and Sue Photo taken in the summer

    

More summer photos Sue and Geoff

Sybil and Joy

Hengistbury Head ramble - a bridge too far! An exceptionally high tide floods the bridge.

Do we really have to go back?

 

We recently had solar panels (pv panels) installed. This had to be a quick decision before the Feed In Tariff (FIT) is halved. Since the Government announced that the FIT was to change in December, instead of March, there has been a rush to get them installed. Listening to the radio, this morning, there is a big furore over the timings and the possible loss of 20,000 jobs.
The surveyor said we could fit 6 panels on the roof, but the fitter said he could fit 10! So on installation day we had to make a quick decision as to what we wanted to do. In the end we had 9 which looks better than a possible 10.
We are all up and running and I have seen the electricity meter going backwards! We will be getting a new digital meter which cannot go backwards – shame.

Scaffolding up – now for the panels

Fitting the pv panels

 

6 done 3 to go

Finished

    

Oldie photos from 1991

David and myself at the start of the Paris to Versailles run (21 kms). I had to be persuaded to do it and David had forgotten to tell me about the hills!
In the right hand photo you can just see one of the legs of the Eiffel Tower.

     

I have just found that I can look up our results of the Paris – Versailles website. At least I didn’t come last!

David’s Statistics (his age is a closely guarded secret!)