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!)

Chichester

On the 10th October Sue was due for a cataract operation at Salisbury Hospital. After all Sue’s preparation, a wait of 3 hours in the waiting room, preparation for the operation in theatre the machine to do the operation malfunctioned! Needless to say Sue was very upset it didn’t happen. The new date for the op is 1st November.

We had left some weeks free to help with Sue’s recovery, but now we had some time on our hands so decided to go away with the caravan to Chichester. Due to the short notice we couldn’t get onto any of our preferred sites, but found a privately run site which turned out to be OK. Believe it or not the weather we had was just about wall to wall sunshine. It was however a bit chilly (icy) on a couple of evenings. 

We had a good pitch which was in the sun all day. We were close to the A27 which is busy day and night.

Enjoying the sunshine

The camp/mobile home site with a few geese thrown in.

West Wittering beach

   

Bishops Palace Chichester

Bishop’s Palace Garden

This is a formal garden with meandering paths and planted with mature specimen trees.  The garden also includes an ornamental fish pond, herbaceous borders, annual bedding, shrub beds, a rockery and rose borders.  The Garden has several areas of open grass and plenty of seats for relaxation.

         

Sue in the Bishops Palace Garden

View of the Cathedral

  

On the Monday we visited Uppark House which was not too far away. It is a fine late 17th Century house with many treasures. It is now owned by the National Trust. The fully restored mid-18th Century interior (following a devastating fire in 1989)  houses many paintings, ceramics, textiles, furniture and the famous dolls' house. Extensive servants' rooms are shown as they were in 1874 when H.G. Wells' mother was housekeeper.

Uppark House – spot Sue

The Dairy

           

We did plenty of geocaches whilst in the area. Some of them took us to the beach and others through the countryside. One of the ones I enjoyed the most was an Earthcache (I haven’t enough time to explain, but can be found using Google). We had to find fossils of rays and sharks teeth on the beach at low tide. I asked a local person for help and she pointed me in the right direction. We found some fossils, but no teeth. The woman reappeared to show me a sharks tooth she had found previously.

Old sea front property West Wittering

Rays tooth fossil

         

Sharks tooth fossil

In a nearby geocache the cache owner had kindly put these fossils in so geocachers could see what they looked like. This tooth was very sharp!

Medmerry Windmill an early 19th Century tower mill

Selsey Lifeboat station

     

Tony and Ellen don’t live too far away so they came over bearing gifts – a very nice quiche for lunch. As you can see the weather didn’t let us down. As I write this in Ringwood it is one week on and it has been raining all day!

On the campsite terrace, waiting for the camera to ‘click’ hence the smiles

Filling in a geocaching log in Birdham

   

Chichester Marina Halted at the lock gates

Returning home

      

Local resident

Henley-on-Thames Week 2

During World War Two about 10,000 people worked at Bletchley Park to decode messages which the German forces transmitted, most notably by Hitler to the German high command. The cracking of the codes used, the use of the intelligence gained and the subsequent related actions of the Allies is said to have shortened World War Two by two years, saving many lives.

Bletchley Park is also the birthplace of the computer. The world's first programmable, digital, electronic computer: Colossus was invented and built at Bletchley Park during World War Two to speed the reading of encrypted German messages.

Bletchley Park

An enigma machine used for encrypting messages

       

Colossus – one of the first computers    Internal electronics – mock up

   

     Recognise any of these? – I do     Sue at Bletchley Park Post Office

 

  

 

The whole place is chock full of machinery used in the decoding of messages

Gas mask belonging to lan Turing. He was an English mathematician, wartime code-breaker and pioneer of computer science. He worked at Bletchley throughout the war and was at the heart of the establishment. He was seen wearing the gas mask when cycling to work in the summer. He suffered from hay fever. He chained his mug to the radiator so no one else could use it!

     

Whilst at Henley we had two groups of visitors. The first (left) was Sue’s sister Pam and Richard and on the following day Jennifer and Brian, who live not too far away. It was lovely to see everyone.
    

Out and about near Henley

                    Stoner Park                       All Saints’ Church, Bisham
 

We left the River and Rowing Museum to our last full day in Henley. We wish we had visited earlier because the ticket lasts for a year and there was too much to see in one visit. Highly recommended.

The International Rowing Gallery  - it’s difficult exhibiting some of the these boats so hanging them from the ceiling is the best way.

   

The Henley Gallery, showing Eva an umpires launch from the 1870’s.

   

Having a go on a Greek Trireme – a bit of a squeeze

 

Oldie Photo – Holland 1975