Woo, Holiday Pics!

Love re-living the memories of a fabulous time away... the company shared, the places seen, the food tasted, even the smells and sounds remembered.
It's amazing what a piece of paper with a picture on it can bring to the mind's forefront... 4,500 year old stone circle's you can't hug, a 2,650 acre estate with several folly's, a breathtaking 953km squared moor that's bright with sun one minute and completely fog bound the next, aquariums dedicated to education and protection of species, huge biospheres with jungles (no panthers or anacondas though) and 600 year old trees!
So I thought I'd share some of the pics with you... at least it's not a three hour slide show!

PS: the pictures are of: Eden Project, Stourhead, Dartmoor, Living Coasts in Torquay and my 600 year old tree friend!

I think that I shall never see...

... a poem lovely as a tree. (Joyce Kilmer (1886 - 1918), "Trees" (poem), 1914)
Zoomed along those lovely little lanes again, the autumnal light slicing through the arched across the road trees to Winkworth Arboretum.
Spent a wonderful three hours there wondering through the woods, up & down hills and meadow, craning the neck looking a the light through amazingly coloured leaves, held with the strength of the tree's limbs... skeleton like in the shadow.
From lemon yellow to firey red, these names inadequate to describe the resulting effect. Even the greens from the darkest green holly to the limed oak leaves were a delight to the eyes.
From full sunlight to the dark of the woodland floor, the smell of fresh air to a slowly decomposing 100 plus year old leaf layer... a total senses experience!
Trees, ya just want to hug them!

Exasperated!

Neighbours eh! Have to say that most of the neighbours are lovely folks, took the new parking scheme pretty well (we pay a yearly fee for our Private Road to be patrolled and any vehicle without a permit is clamped and/or towed away), are major curtain twitchers so no worries about burglars and say Hi to each other.
Well that is except for the ones on the corner... they've now decided to stand the wheelie bins, provided by the Council, on the footpath along with non-council rubbish bags! What happens if one of the kids is playing on the road (football mad around here) and a car comes hooning round the corner as they invariably do. They can't jump on the footpath as it's covered in wheelie bins (four of them may I add) and numerous bags of rubbish, so I guess it's squished kid!
I've left a polite note on the bins advising of this fact, hopefully they'll take heed, if not then perhaps reminding them that it is a private road (they're property actually backs onto it) and the bins could be passed as trespassing may suffice, if not I may just have to get one of those ASBO thingies for the bins instead!!

PS: for those non-UK readers an ASBO is an Anti Social Behaviour Order: any activity that "causes or is likely to have caused harassment or alarm or distress" to someone else who is not of your household.
For example: one lady has been banned from answering her door in her underwear, and a sheep named Colin was threatened with one for eating flowers in a cemetry - in fact it turned out to be wild deer!

Freaked!

Well an interesting evening here with Miss Yo Yo...
The big manky Ginger tom bailed up poor Little Black and White from across the road, that horrible meowling that two cats have started, so Miss Yo Yo did her nosey thing and rushed upstairs to watch the goings on from a point of safety.
It got rather fiesty out so I thought I had better go and break it off, of course Mr Ginger went scarpering off - such a wimp with humans, though will take on the local foxes! Think Little B&W is fine, though will check with the neighbour.
Came back in and Miss Yo Yo is behind the couch, staring up the stairs with big saucer eyes and stayed there for at least half an hour. Managed to coax her out, took her up stairs to show her nothing there and she's still having a freaky fit. Even two hours later she's sitting bolt up right on her bean bag (not the ususl curled round herself all snuggly like) with her ears back and eyes glowing big green diamonds!
Very strange as the fight was outside, down on the ground, yet she's freaked about going up the stairs... perhaps a ghost snuck in when I went out!

Vagaries of the NHS!

Been here over nine years now and still can't figure out the Doctor's here!
First you have to make an appointment to register (oh the joys of moving), then another to actually see a nurse, of course at a time that is not convenient to you (0900 madam, my goodness no, 1300 is all I can manage), and then when you get to see the doctor it's in and out in two minutes (even though a 15 minute slot has been allocated).
Sure enough the service is free, though how can it be a service when they don't do Saturdays, you can't make an appointment more than two days ahead, or less than 24 hours in advance and everytime you need a prescription filled you have to take time off so the nurse can make sure nothing has changed healthwise in the last three months!
Only pluses I guess are that a lot of countries don't have a free health service and I don't have to pay for my prescription!

End of a Season...

... which means the start of another!
Days drawing in and an imminent clock change, must mean that autumn is well and truly here, and winter close behind. Also means that it's all change in the garden here... pruning of the rose bushes, cutting back of the grapevines, continually raking up leaves and the ever ending debate when would be the best time to do the last lawn mow!
Do so love the garden in summer, all the greenery, flowers and edible plants! Though it was rather hard watching the lawn struggling in the drought... I guess I could have lugged out the shower and dish water to alleviate it, though no doubt not near enough to keep it as lush as it looks now.
Find the winter garden interesting, lying dormant, looking dead, though the days with sunlight and the shadows through the skeleton like trees, spun with the odd optimistic spiders web are inspiring... knowing that the bulbs in the earth will soon be erupting into gorgeous blooms. Well not for at least another five months!
At least I have the memories, and photos, of my garden at it's near lushest.. though considering this is really it's first year still it's just in it's infancy.
So I thought I'd show you some pics of this sometimes tantrum throwing living beast... hope you enjoy them & if you don't ah well I do!

PS: I included the sunflower because I planted 25 seeds and only this one bothered to make it up!

Pampered Ladies

Cornflower blue skies, warm day (though with a lovely underlying chill to it), reading a 900 page book on the train, the rush of Brighton on a Saturday afternoon and then four ladies off to The Grand Hotel for some swimming, saunaring, steaming and lunching!
We also indulged in a couple of bottles of Chabli, though just one drink for the mother to be, lots of bar snacks and of course flirting with our Brazilian waiter!
Fantastic afternoon talking about tattoos, hair, motherhood and how Miss S is now no longer allowed to wear black, nor put the baby in black when she/he arrives!
Then it was back on the train, while the others caught a movie, and guess what, they made it back home before I did, ah the joys of weekend engineering works meaning I was taken all round the south of England, where is Havant anyways, as I got to see it twice!

Changing Seasons

Definite chill in the air now, nights are drawing in (now a starry night when I get home instead of a balmy summery evening), and the lawn is starting to get covered in leaves. Guess this means that summer is now over, not even an inkling of and Indian Summer!
I do so love this time of year, the clairty in the air, the late afternoon light of soft peach / apricot / orange combination, the trees saying goodbye in gorgeous tones from canary yellow to candy red and the relief from the summer heat.
All I can say is build me a humungous leaf pile, I wanna play in it! Oh, and some nice hot soup, crusty bread and hot apple pie to finish with!

To Give, or Not to Give?

Twas my dilemma this evening. Reached the train station and there was a young man parked up half on the pavement, looking rather stressed and asking for a pound so he could get some petrol.
Now Hounslow is not the most safe of places (if working late, or at the bar on a Friday, us overlanders walk in groups to the station, and it's well known that those brown kinda paint looking splashes on the ground are not paint.. and those 'robbery here', 'serious assault' here signs aren't that safety inspiring either, though I digress) so a parked up car and a man make you think twice.
Young lady walking near me obviously thought the same and ignored him, though I thought what the heck, it's a pound, poor man (dressed in his bright yellow safety working jacket) and looking rather panicked got the better of me. Heck he even offered to return the money to me and I must say the smile on his face in thanks was well worth my couple of quid.. just hoped he managed to find a station near by as no doubt when he got back the car would be ticketed, clamped and about to be towed away!
Now I'm not one for normally giving money to strangers on the street. Those 'homeless' that park themselves at ATM's (why on earth would I give them a tenner or heavens above a twenty pound note), or sit there with a dog or child begging for money, or even the ones that offer a flower or a small book and ask for money, and especially those charity coat wearing in your face youngsters will NOT get any money off me ever!
Though there was the Big Issue guy in Tooting Broadway. He just quietly held the magazine waiting for people to notice him, gave a fabulous smile for my pound and believe it or not almost had a people queuing up for the mag! No doubt like minded that when not pressured to give will give. Heck I always pass on non-wanted items to the charity shops, do the daily mammogram/literacy/save plants/save animals web click, do gift aid where appropriate and even donate money from my salary!
Just hope that young man managed to get his petrol and safely home.