I can’t believe it’s been seven weeks since the Queen died, alright I can, but I can’t believe that we’ve gone through one Prime Minister already and then there was talk of the other one coming back! The Queen bless her, lasted through most peoples lifetime, the last Prime Minister didn’t even make it to Half Term! How compulsive, was watching people file past the coffin to pay there respects? I could have watched it for hours, come to think of it, I did!
Whether you like the Monarchy or not, you have to admit that she was a remarkable woman, who put this country first, drew the crowds and was a major tourist attraction. The alternative is a President, which given some of the recent examples from around the world, I’m so glad we do not have.
I was always dreading having Charles as King, but I think that now he is older and given the example that his Mother set, I think he will try and carry on in the same vein and that he, with Camilla as Queen Consort will do an excellent job.
On the August Bank holiday, just before the Queen died, we went out for the day, as is quite usual for us, but my Mother in law was not well and didn’t come with us. We went for lunch at a garden centre as is usual and then went for a walk around a College Lake Nature reserve near Tring in Hertfordshire. We would have probably seen more if we had taken some binoculars, but we saw plenty.
All the way round you can see the Aeroplanes from London Luton Airport high up in the sky and then when we were about 3 quarters of the way round we heard a very loud aircraft noise, we looked up to see the Lancaster Bomber from the Battle of Britain Memorial flight go straight over our heads and quite low, for an aircraft. Presumably on its way back to Lincolnshire from where ever it had been.
The next day, having taken an extra day off work, the four of us went to Cambridge for the day. Parked in the park and ride and caught a bus into the city. Did the sightseeing stuff, found a couple of record shops, bought a couple of records, went to the Hockney gallery; I’m still not sure if any were real or if they were all copies. We saw the Arsenal team bus and spoke to the driver but didn’t see the players.
Highlight of the day had to be, a ride in a punt on the River Cam. They are so low in the water which makes getting in and out, not the most graceful thing that you will ever do, fun none the less. We didn’t try and do it ourselves we took the sensible option and got someone to punt for us.
My wife and I are both Sixty this year, so at the kid’s insistence we went in a holiday without them. We booked ourselves a really cool little place with a log burner, in Probus near Truro in Cornwall on AirBnB. We went down on the Sunday having spent Saturday night in Winchester, so we were part way there and the journey wasn’t so long.
We had made an itinerary before we left so that we knew where we were going to each day. The weather the week before we went was gorgeous which obviously meant that the week that we were away it was going to be awful. The rain did only spoil one day, on the other days it seemed to rain mainly when we were inside, or only be a light drizzle.
We walked along the beach, then across the causeway to St Michael’s Mount and up all the steps to the castle on the top. Next day we drove down to Land’s End, even got to stroll on the beach at St Ives, real surfing waves that afternoon and the weather was really good all day. Went and visited my Dad’s cousin who lives next to the Eden project and talked family history, that hour flew by!
We managed to go on two Steam railways in Cornwall; the Bodmin and Wenford, then the Helston Railway, which is Britain’s most southerly Heritage railway. On the way home we came back via Woody Bay near Barnstaple, so that we could go on the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway in Devon. We’ve been on that a couple of times before, but not for about 12 years. We were a little disappointed that we didn’t get to Port Isaac but that was the day that the rain arrived before breakfast and didn’t leave until after supper.
Still, it gives us something to go back to another time. Also that was the only day I didn’t have a Cornish pasty for lunch. We were left Scones, Jam and Cream by our hosts, so we were able to have a cream tea; remembering that we were in Cornwall and it’s Jam first, then the Cream.
The weather has been quite good the last couple of Saturdays, so when I saw that it was going to be dry and fine on Saturday afternoon I suggested that we went for another ramble. Our son came with us; he quite often goes out for a walk to kill an afternoon so I thought he would be up for it. We picked a circular walk from the village of Bromham, just outside Bedford, across through Stagsden and obviously back round to Bromham again.
We had to cross a couple of busy roads, I say busy; they were more fast than busy, a golf course, pausing whilst a couple of ladies took their shots and then we encountered a field of cows. We found a Farm shop that sold take away drinks and served black coffee with milk in but they did come with a biscuit each, so all was well. However, finding a spot to sit and eat our lunch proved a little tricky, more so if you didn’t want to sit on the ground.
Fortunately as we re-entered Bromham, we found a park bench, so we sat there and ate our sandwiches before finishing off back at Bromham Mill, where we had parked the car. We only had one little detour and worked out from our step count that we had done just about 7 miles.
Of course, being October and the fact that it had rained in the morning meant that most of the route, being footpaths and bridleways, was muddy, so the following morning cleaning everybody’s shoes, took me back to my days of cleaning mine and the kids football boots.