At Home – May

On the Sunday after our return from Bognor Regis Sue’s brother Neil and family came for Sunday lunch. Here we all are having a paper plane competition in the courtyard. Needless to say none of the adults won!

             

Daniel’s first geocache!

  

The following week I had to have a preparation for a crown at the dentists (not at the Royal Outfitters). I have had this procedure before which I do not like at all. The dentist kept apologising for pulling and stretching me around rather a lot. The problem, so the dentist says, ‘is my small mouth’. I know many of you out there would disagree with the dentist.

During the next week we brought the caravan to the house for the last time. The caravan had to be cleared out and cleaned for its collection at the weekend.

On May 26th we went to Roy Liddington’s funeral. Roy had lived and worked all his life in Portsmouth and there was a very large attendance on this sad occasion. We first met Roy and Sybil whilst caravanning in the South of France in the early 1990’s. Since then we have kept in touch and had many good times away with them in the caravan. He will be sadly missed.

The following day Udo and Martin came, from near Dusseldorf, to collect the caravan. They had requested fish and chips for the meal. We enjoyed the fish and chips so can recommend Darryl’s in Ringwood. (no money was paid for this advert)

The following morning Udo and Martin departed at 0515. Sue and I were up to see them off. I have to admit that I put my PJ’s back on and went back to bed. We heard that they had arrived home safely.

We had owned this caravan for 14 years and had it from new and as many of you know it was very well used, but still in very good condition. We know that Martin will look after it well and give it a few more years of life.

The departure at 5.15 in the morning.

    

We are collecting the new caravan on Wednesday and heading off to France in the near future.

Lastly, one of the old photos – ice creams in the South of France 1992

Bognor Regis

We visited Bognor Regis in early May to meet up with our friends Joan and Udo who had come over from Germany to visit their friends in Slindon. They had also come with friends Rena and Helge who are new to caravanning. We were staying at the Caravan Club site Rowan Park which has a very welcoming entrance decoration.

   

Here we are at Slindon visiting John and Rosemary who took us on a walk around the village. Slindon’s cricketing heritage is honoured today both by the memorial of “crick”, wicket and ball. Some of the chaps resting close to the memorial.   Sue and Rena.

    

Most evenings were spent having a natter and a game of dice in one of the caravans.

  

Bognor Regis beach, plenty of pebbles and not much sand. Bognor itself looks a little run down, but efforts have been made along the promenade to build some very nice properties. Also there is a mobile cafe on the prom which makes an excellent hot drink in beautifully presented crockery!

  

Sue and I went to Petworth House which has been featured on TV recently. The late 17th-century mansion is set in a 700-acre deer park, landscaped by 'Capability' Brown. The house contains the National Trust's finest collection of pictures, with numerous works by Turner, Van Dyck, Reynolds and Blake, ancient and Neo-classical sculpture, fine furniture and carvings by Grinling Gibbons.

Rear of the house.                                           Stuart at the lake.

   

Visitors can walk around the ground floor and kitchens, photography is also allowed, which is unusual for a National Trust property, but welcome. Here we are in the kitchens all very interesting.

   

On our second Sunday we went back to Slindon. I organised a geocaching trip around Slindon. There is a long loop of geocaches, but it was too long for our purposes because we wanted to be at John and Rosemary’s event sometime after 4.00pm. John’s hobby is woodturning which he does at home. The event is the Chichester Open Studios Art Trail J&R were also hosting an artist and photographer both of whom were superb.

John’s woodturning                         Tea on the patio. Thanks Rosemary.

    

Rosemary gave us a guided tour of her garden.

            

  More tea?   Rena and Helge                            Joan and Udo

  

Chichester was not too far away so we had a couple visits there. Once to have a walk around and the other to visit the cathedral and an art exhibition.  Chichester Cathedral is famous for its modern art which was commissioned mainly during the late 20th century.  These include a window by Marc Chagall, a tapestry by John Piper and a painting by Graham Sutherland.

      

 

Picnic lunch half way around the geocaching loop at Yapton.

  

It was a tough holiday!

Thanks to Joan and Udo for some of the photos.

The Royal Wedding - weekend

First of all apologies to all who had difficulty when clicking the link with the last update. I’m not quite sure what happened.

The Royal Wedding weekend was going to be busy with a street party and visitors arriving just in time for the party.  The morning was spent watching the wedding and getting ready for the afternoon. Mid morning the house is ready.

We didn’t get an invite to the wedding so had to get these photos by other means.

    

 We’re ready, our guests have arrived and the disco girls are asking for requests.

 

A good time was had by all.

 

        

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

         BBQ boys                                             Mr Kool                       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Saturday we went to Keyhaven for a walk around Pennington Marshes. It was a circular walk of 4 miles with a picnic half way around and some geocaches on our return leg.

 

Royal Wedding celebration.