Joan and Ted Johnson’s
Web Pages
DIARY
2009
03 November. Danny is three
today! We’ll be seeing him in a day or
so. The second half of October passed in
a blur. Our wedding anniversary on the
15th was also the day of the local Ramblers
The next day we went off to
The following morning saw us at
Cleethorpes station in time for the 06-18 train and heading for St Pancras and
the Eurostar. We spent a super few days
in
Since then we have had a lovely week-end
in
29 September. Last week we
spent a few days at Great Ellingham Hall with Maureen and Dave, Kate’s
parents. We had a lovely time, taking in
a cruise at Wroxham and visiting Wymondham as well as going to an auction – a
first for us – and being involved with Maureen’s fundraiser for MacMillan
Cancer Support.
Meanwhile Cleethorpes struck gold in the national
15 September. We’ve walked St Cuthbert’s Way
from Melrose in Scotland to Lindisfarne on Holy Island – 62 miles
altogether. It was the most beautiful
walk and the highlight was walking across the sands for the last two miles
following the Pilgrim’s Path. We arrived
on a Sunday afternoon when the island was full of tourists. It was only the next morning when the
visitors had departed and Holy Island was isolated by the high tide that we
were able to saunter round and appreciate what a special and peaceful place it
is. Our
photos show what an excellent and varied walk it was.
Meanwhile Alice has started school! Click
here for a photo.
01 September. Well August
was a really busy month. We had a
meeting in Lincoln followed by lunch with Keith and family and an afternoon in Lincoln
while Ted and Keith were at the match.
The next day we were at Keith’s to babysit for three days as Alice’s
child minder was on holiday. Helen and
Mike arrived to travel back to Cleethorpes with us for a few days. We had a day in Lincoln, with coffee at Stokes, wandering around Steep Hill
and then visiting the Castle. The next
day we fitted in a jazz concert and then all the rest of the family arrived.
We had a lovely week with Keith, Kate,
Alice and Danny. We all had a picnic at
Hubbard’s Hills. We’d a day at Pleasure
Island – the children loved this, another at Rand Farm Park and one at The Deep
in Hull. We did all the usual things in
Cleethorpes – sand pit, beach, paddling pool, zoo, boat on the lake and of
course the train! It was over all too
quickly. We fitted three barbeques into
the ten days that family were visiting – that’s something of a record for us.
Since everyone went home I’ve been to the
Witness Service barbeque, Barry and Pat have been for lunch and some walking
friends have also been for lunch so today I’m trying to catch up with myself.
04 August. We’re just
back from a long week-end staying with John and Pauline in the West
Midlands. We had a couple of short local
walks and also visited The
Red House Glass Cone for a very interesting tour describing how the glass
used to be manufactured. The Saturday
was very wet and so we visited two National Trust properties in the area and
were pleased to get some value for our membership. Packwood House
and Baddesley
Clinton were both well worth a visit and the gardens were beautiful. On the Sunday we had a brilliant walk over
the Long Mynd. Click
here for photos of this week-end.
19 July. There doesn’t
seem to have been much time for writing this diary. We’ve been on a coach trip to Hathersage,
with Ted leading a 10 mile walk. We’ve
had a day in Scarborough checking out a short walk for our September coach
trip. Sheila and Kath have been to stay
and we’ve all been down to Essex to stay with Liz and Paddy and have a bit of a
reunion. While there we spent a lovely
day walking to Flatford Mill and back. Click
here for photos. We’ve had a couple
of barbeques – more than we did all last year!
We’ve also popped a few photos from our holiday in Austria on this web
space.
27 June. For the
third time we have walked the (25 mile) Silver Lincs Way from Grimsby to
Louth. It was very hot and so we have to
admit to being tired at the end but the walk went well and we were pleased with
ourselves. There were 13 of us
altogether.
30 May – 13 June. A group of ten
of us have had a wonderful holiday in Söll in Austria. We did some walking but nothing too strenuous. The scenery was amazing and Söll was such a
good centre as we could use free local buses to get to Schiffau and Ellmau and
with our ski lift passes we were able to do so many high level walks with
relative ease. Four of us did have a
more strenuous day in the Wilder Kaiser Mountains. We’re working on the photos.
24 May. We’re in the middle of the Lincolnshire
Wolds Walking Festival which seems to be going very well. Ted had no less than 61 out on his 10 mile
“Chocolate Walk” from Willingham Woods which called at Special Edition Chocolate
at the end of the walk. Jugs of cocoa
and bowls of chocolate pieces awaited us there and it all went down well. It was worth waking 10 miles for! Joan led a 7.5 mile walk from Laceby and was
pleased that there were just 28 of us.
It was a nice sized group and everyone was very complimentary so it must
have been all right.
15 May. Another few
weeks have flown by. New Zealand photos
are printed. We’ve had a lovely few days
in Windermere. We met up with David and
Margaret, who were on our New Zealand holiday and spent a great day with them
climbing Barrow, Sail, Eel Crag and Grisedale Pike. The weather was glorious and we enjoyed a
meal together afterwards at Middle
Ruddings in Braithwaite. We’d
recommend this place! On another day we
managed to get to the top of Bowfell and Esk Pike and finally see the views
from there. We’d been before, more than
once, but the tops had been under cloud.
Keith, Kate, Alice, Daniel and Helen all
came for the early May Bank Holiday.
Mike couldn’t make it but it was good to see everyone else. We had a day at The Deep in Hull, which everyone enjoyed.
Phil and Ros have been to stay for a few
days and we went to Clumber
Park. We enjoyed a walk round the
lake and visited the kitchen gardens.
Meanwhile we’ve done lots of local walks
and Ted’s spent time tidying the garden and putting together a barbeque – what
a job!
07 April. Well the
photos are labelled. I’ve probably sent as many as I shall do to Flickr
and I’m half way through the printing.
In between times we’ve led a couple of Ramblers walks, reccied a couple
more and begun sorting out some routes for a magazine that will be going out in
New Waltham and Humberston starting in June.
I decided to leave the Witness Service – not without some regrets - but
there never seemed to be enough time to do everything and I felt perhaps eight
years had been long enough. We’ve been
to a 70th birthday party, visited Ted’s brother in Lincoln, caught
up with a few friends locally and even been to the cinema a few times. We really enjoyed Gran Torino and of course
The Young Victoria was excellent. This
morning we watched Knowing and found that very entertaining – always did like
Sci-Fi!
14 March. It’s been
quite a busy time. I’m half way through
typing the diary of our holiday. Ted has
overtaken me in labelling the photos. I
have just sent some more to Flickr
but there’s still some way to go and then we’ll have to think about printing
some of them. Joan led an 11 mile walk
for the Ramblers on Wednesday. (We have
been rebranded and are no longer the RA.)
Yesterday we had a day out using the buses, going to Grimsby and then to
Swallow, walking to Cabourne to check out a footpath for a walk we’re leading
next week and then continuing by bus to Caistor to check out a new bistro as a
possible venue for after one of our Saturday walks. Then it was back to Grimsby on the bus for a
bit of shopping before the final bus journey home. It’s really good as of course it’s free with
the bus passes but it does seem to take a long time to get anywhere!
07 March. Finally made a
start on New Zealand holiday photos and the first few of Auckland are also of Flickr.
27 February – 03 March. We’ve been to
Tankersley first of all to babysit and then to celebrate Alice’s 4th
birthday. On her birthday we went to
Sundown Adventure Park which the children loved (and Grandma and Grandad
thought was pretty brilliant as well). I
won’t post the picture of Grandma on the big slide. Suffice it to say she was supposed to be
looking after 2 year old Danny but couldn’t keep up with him!
The next day was Alice’s party at Jelly
Beans in Denby Dale. There are a few
photos on Flickr.
20 – 22 February. All the family
have been over to Cleethorpes for belated celebrations of Ted and Keith’s
birthdays and early celebration for Helen’s.
It was a good week-end. We all
had lunch at The Oriental Express on Saturday.
18 January – 14 February. We have had
the most wonderful holiday in New Zealand.
It was a Ramblers Holiday – walking and sightseeing. We travelled out via Hong Kong and spent the
next few days in Auckland, then went to Rotorua and to Turangi before the
crossing to South Island. We were glad
to have the chance to see North Island.
We were pleasantly surprised with Auckland and we did some lovely walks
round the city and in the area to the north west. We saw beautiful beaches and fascinating rain
forests. Rotorua was amazing with the
geothermal springs and the walking around Turangi was exceptional. We thought North Island was pretty good but
South Island was even more stunning. We
enjoyed the crossing to Picton which is quite delightful and stayed here for
one night before heading for St Arnaud and Nelson Lakes and then down the west
coast to Fox Glacier country. Everywhere
we went there was spectacular scenery.
We enjoyed four nights in Queenstown – what a great place, with the lake
and The Remarkables in the background.
The highlight of these few days was climbing to the top (1784 metres) of
Ben Lomond. Te Anau was our next destination
with the inevitable trip to Milford Sound – majestic even though visibility
wasn’t wonderful. We have some dramatic
photos. We also walked part of The
Kepler Track while we were staying in Te Anau.
While staying at Twizel we did The Hooker Valley Track, which walks
through amazing terrain to the Hooker Lake at the foot of the Hooker
Glacier. Mount Cook was under cloud when
we arrived but later in the day we saw the magnificent snow covered summit. This was another highlight. Our last two days in New Zealand were spent
in Christchurch – a charming city. It
was here that we had the first really bad weather.
Altogether it was a fabulous
holiday. We walked every day, even on
the travelling days there was always at least one short trail. We saw lush forests, spectacular lakes and
waterfalls, dramatic rock formations, gorgeous beaches, awesome snow capped
mountains. Everywhere was clean and tidy
and the people were so friendly. After
eliminating the rubbishy photos we still have about 1,300 to sort through so it
will be some time but eventually we will post some on the web.
16 January. We eventually
got back to some walking. We went for
three weeks not doing anything more strenuous than wandering round Cleethorpes
Boating Lake. Now, however we’ve notched
up 28 miles over three local walks and are feeling a little bit fitter
again. Joan still has some weight to
lose following the Christmas festivities but Ted is as trim as ever!
05 January. The Christmas
period went really well. Helen and Mike
came over on the 23rd of December and as mentioned below, we had our
vegetarian Christmas. We had quite a
lazy time, with just a couple of short strolls and a meal out one day. We went to friends on Boxing Night. Keith, Kate and the children travelled up
from Norfolk on the 29th.
Sadly we had to go to the funeral of one of Ted’s aunts that day but we
made it back just before Keith and the family arrived. Then we had another present opening session
with Alice helping everyone!! It was
bitterly cold but we took the children to feed the ducks and to People’s Park
one day and they had a short visit to the sand pit. We cooked our turkey on New Year’s Day and it
was really nice to have everyone home together for a few days.
Today it’s back to earth with a
bump. Getting up early was really hard
and I’ve had a long tiring day at court.
All the decorations are down and it’s time to catch up again with the
other jobs.
2008
26 December. I hope
everyone had a good Christmas. I
had some problems with this web space and wasn’t able to access it for some
time but Virgin Media finally sorted it out so here I am back again! However, after almost 5 years I have nearly
used up all my free space and so I have to decide what to do next. I shall carry on for the moment writing this
Blog but the photos will be on Flickr where I am
registered as Lincsrambler.
At present we have Helen and Mike staying
with us. The others are in Norfolk at
Kate’s parents. We had a lovely
(vegetarian) Christmas Day. Chestnut
pâté en Croute was our main course and it’s quite delicious!
03 November. Daniel is
TWO!!! His party was yesterday. I have put some photos on Flickr.
01 November. Today has been
a catch up day for Joan - the photos are printed up to date, the filing for the
last several weeks RA activities is done and the Christmas Cards are
ordered. The past two or three weeks had
been particularly busy with RA meetings and court work as well as the usual
walking. We spent last Sunday at Pat and
Barry’s which was nice and relaxing.
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17 – 19 October. All the
family came over to help Joan celebrate a birthday. (No need to mention which one – it wasn’t
special.) However we had a little
party for the sake of the children. We fed the ducks and Alice and Daniel
went on the train and to the swings and slides. Helen, Mike, Ted and Keith all went to
Lincoln and watched City win so it was a good week-end all round. Here’s an up to date picture of Alice
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10 – 12 October. We’ve been
really lucky with our week-ends in Yorkshire this year. This week-end we were staying in Haworth at
the Youth Hostel with a small group of our walking friends and the weather was
glorious as we walked from Hebden Bridge, Haworth and Midgehole. The hostel was fine and the food there
particularly good, though we went to The Bronte Inn on the Saturday evening for
a most enjoyable meal out.
13 – 24 September. We’ve had a
wonderful holiday in the North West of the country. Maggie and Alvan were over from South Africa
and we spent a really great week with them, staying in a lodge just outside
Keswick. We crammed a lot of the Lakes
into our week - walking round Buttermere, Tarn Hows and Loweswater and visiting
Aira Force, Ullswater, Coniston, Whinlatter, taking the ferry on Derwent Water
to Ashness, walking from Ashness Bridge back to Keswick. On our last afternoon we went to the top of
Latrigg for lovely views of Keswick. We
only had two rainy days, which isn’t too bad for the Lake District but the rest
of the time was mainly cloudy. Some
sunshine would have been nice.
After leaving Maggie and Alvan near
Chester we went to Helen’s for a couple of nights. We had a walk around Rivington with Helen and
Mike. Then we had a couple of nights on
The Wirral with Sheila and went to visit Kath and Phil in North Wales. Ironically the weather for the last few days
was gorgeous. Below are just a few
photos from the holiday.
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Walking
round Buttermere |
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View towards
Fleetwith Pike |
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Nichol End |
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Walking
round Tarn Hows |
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Back Torver
Common |
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Ashness
Bridge |
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Walking
round Loweswater |
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View from
Latrigg |
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A view from
Pigeon Tower near Rivington Pike |
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Conwy Castle
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29 August. We’ve just
spent a lovely day checking out a walk for the publishers of the
Reader’s Digest book of walks around Britain (1998), which is being
updated. If you get this book in the
future and get lost on a 4˝ mile walk from Walesby you’ll know who to blame! It’s actually a lovely walk and we sat
outside the Rambler’s Church enjoying the
wonderful view as we ate our picnic.
26 August. We spent Bank
Holiday week-end at Keith and Kate’s home, babysitting on the Sunday and having
a day out on the Monday. We went to
Kirklees and had a ride on the steam train.
It’s quite a scenic route and at the end there was a play area, bouncing
castle and balloon artists so good for a family day out. Click
here for a few week-end pictures.
18 August. We now have a
new drive and we’re really pleased with it.
The pots in the garden may be looking a bit tired but the vegetables are
really doing well just now. We’re eating
carrots, parsnips, beans, spinach, tomatoes and apples. Unfortunately there’s not a single plum on
our one tree which for the past two years had been laden, but we’ve started
freezing apples as well as beans.
Keith, Kate, Alice and Danny were here
this last week-end and we had a trip on the train, played in the sandpit, fed
the ducks and went to the pier on the road train. Click
here for one or two pictures.
We went to see Mamma Mia last week and
really enjoyed it. Our senior screen was
packed – showing it in two cinemas for the third week running.
29 July. Have finally
posted a few photographs from our family holiday
in Ireland.
25 – 27 July. We’ve had a
really brilliant week-end, staying in Knaresborough, with Brian and Janice,
Peter and Pat + Phil and Ros – all friends from University days. 3 years ago we’d had a reunion in Leeds, 40
years after graduation, so this time we decided to go somewhere different. In the event we spent Friday in York and did
a walking tour of the city, went to Harrogate on Saturday and explored the
Valley Gardens and walked to Harlow Carr –
the RHS garden, and then on Sunday we pottered around Knaresborough and
enjoyed the river, the castle area, Henshaw’s Art and Craft Centre
and the unusual “Town Windows.” The
latter are paintings on panels that cover the blocked windows on many of the
Georgian buildings. Here are just a few
pictures from our week-end.
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One of many
shots in the Valley Gardens |
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Kitchen
Garden at Harlow Carr |
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Meal at
Bella Sicilia |
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Classic view
of Knaresborough |
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Some of the
“Town Windows” in Knaresborough |
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22 July. Yesterday we
finally moved back into our bedroom and now we’re busy trying to get the rest
of the house straight again. We’ve moved
things around so much. I don’t think
we’ll remember where anything is!
Hilary and Pat have been over from
Lincoln for the day. We hadn’t seen them
for quite some time. Meanwhile our
friendly neighbourhood builder is putting up new fencing and will shortly start
on a new drive. It’s all go!!
14 July. We’ve had a few busy days catching up with
things since we came home. St Peter’s
Church was entering the Cleethorpes in Bloom competition and Joan did the altar
flowers. We walked on Wednesday and
yesterday Ted led an 8-mile walk from Walesby for the Wolds Countryside
Service. That went well and it was a
gorgeous day. We’ve also had an area meeting
in Lincoln and Joan’s been to the Witness Service barbeque, when it at least
stayed dry.
Today the fitters have arrived to do our
bedroom so hopefully in a week or so we can get everything tidy and our rooms
back to normal. Now we’re home for a little
while we also hope to catch up with work on the photos. Ted has started labelling the ones we took in
Ireland. There are a few new ones of
Alice and Danny here.
01 July – 08 July. We just had 48
hours at home and then we were back to Keith and Kate’s house to look after
Alice and Daniel again. Keith and Kate
celebrated their 5th Wedding Anniversary (doesn’t time fly) with a
holiday in Valencia so we had the little ones for five days. It was lovely to have so much time with the
grandchildren. Unfortunately the weather
at the week-end wasn’t good but we still took them out – to a farm on the
Saturday and for a ride on a steam train on the Sunday.
18 - 29 June. We’ve had a
family holiday in Ireland. We all met up
in Liverpool and we stayed with Helen and Mike for a night, meeting Keith,
Kate, Alice and Daniel for a meal in the evening, then we all arrived together
at the Gladstone Dock for our ferry crossing to Dublin. This was really enjoyable – even though it’s
now mainly freight. We had two meals on
board and in between could wander round both inside and on the deck. It was nice and calm and the children seemed
to enjoy it.
We had two nights in Dublin. We all did our own thing here. Keith and Kate took the children to the zoo,
Helen and Mike did a History Walk and Joan and Ted went on the open topped bus
and also wandered round Trinity College and St Stephen’s Green. We saw The Book of Kells – very
impressive.
We drove to Killorglin in Kerry for a
week in a cottage. We saw all of The
Ring of Kerry including the Skellig Ring, visited Dingle, where we did the
dolphin trip, and Tralee. We particularly enjoyed Killarney’s Lakes and
Derrynane House. We returned via Dun
Laoghaire, staying at the Bewleys Hotel in Leopardstown for a night. We had a look at the racecourse. We returned to Holyhead on the fast ferry,
only disappointed that we couldn’t be outside to wander round. It was great to have all the family together,
though disappointing that it wasn’t beach weather for the children. Ireland was colourful, wet (most of the
time), very green, often frustrating, mostly very friendly (one or two exceptions)
but above all beautiful. Click here for a few of our photographs.
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14 June. Ted’s brother Barry is 60. We joined the family for the birthday
celebrations at Barry and Pat’s home near Lincoln. There had been really heavy showers in the
morning and just as we arrived, but in the end we were able to be outside for
most of the day. |
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07 June. 22 of us set out
from Scartho on the outskirts of Grimsby, to walk the 25 mile Silver Lincs
Way. A few of us had completed this 2
years ago. Some detoured to Ludborough,
so walking around 14 miles but 16 of us made it in the end to Louth. It seemed harder than 2 years ago – maybe
because it was wet and there was a lot of long, wet grass plus fields of rape
to negotiate – or maybe it’s just that we’re two years older! Whatever, we were a bit slower than the
previous time but we finished in less than ten hours and still made the same
bus back to Grimsby.
04 June. Our Wednesday
walking group has been on a coach trip to Ilkley. Ted led a 10 mile walk and there was also a 7
miler and some people did their own thing.
We had such a gorgeous day and Ted’s walk was lovely! I’ve put some photos on the RA website. In between times Ted’s finished decorating
one bedroom and we have been shifting furniture around so we’ve not had much
spare time.
01 June. Ted’s festival
walk on Friday was a great success. 59
people turned out, including six youngsters, maybe encouraged by the promise of
chocolate tasting at Special
Editions Chocolates, towards the end of the walk. The walk was a 10 mile one from Willingham
Woods and the chocolate shop is just nearby.
They had laid tables outside for us and provided welcome chilled water
and flasks of hot chocolate as well as the numerous samples for tasting.
Today was Joan’s 7 mile walk from
Caistor. This was on the last day of the
walking festival and there were 38 walkers.
The Evening Telegraph covered the event and took lots of photos. Afterwards several of us went to Hall Farm in
Stainton-le-Vale as it was Open Farm Sunday.
There was lots going on there, but we just had time to browse the
various stalls and enjoy samples of crisps, cheese and more chocolate. There had been tractor rides and walks and
demonstrations during the day.
27 May. Ted has been
wall-papering all day and it’s been raining so I have had some catch up time on
the computer. A few of our Slovenia
photos are now uploaded. Click here to see them.
25 May. We’ve just
embarked on our bedroom project. We’re
decorating the spare double room just now but we plan to swap the spare single
and double rooms around and then have our bedroom fitted out so we shall be in
a bit of a mess for a while. We’re also
waiting to have our drive done and some new fencing so the front of the house
outside is a bit of a mess. Our friends
Jenny and John were here yesterday and it was great to see them before they
move down south very soon. We shall be a
bit limited for visitors for a little while until we get everywhere straight again.
23 May. Went on a
beautiful 15 mile walking festival walk – determined to keep the fitness up!!
14 – 21 May. 27 from our
walking group enjoyed a week in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia. At first the weather was beautiful but then
we had some dreadful days of non-stop rain.
It didn’t stop us walking though.
A waterfall walk was particularly dramatic on the last – very wet –
day. Will write more about this when
we’ve had chance to have a proper look at the photos.
13 May. We accompanied
Alice on her nursery school trip to Sherwood Forest Farm Park. She especially enjoyed the tractor ride, the
pigs, the goats and the wallabies. We’d
done our holiday packing before we went as we would be having a really early
start for Manchester Airport the next day.
02 – 05 May. Keith, Kate
and the children came over for the Bank Holiday week-end. Cleethorpes was buzzing with the Beer
Festival and lots of extra trains running along the front. Trains are Danny’s favourite thing just now
and we all enjoyed a ride. Alice liked
the sand-pit. We also went to the local
playground and of course fed the ducks on the boating lake. On Sunday we had a day at Rand Farm Park. This went down well with both the
children. Here are a few photos from the
week-end.
02 May. We’ve had a
busy spell. Barry and Pat have been to
visit, we’ve done a few walks and travelled to Preston for a family
funeral. This time it was Joan’s cousin Jennie. Last month it had been Ted’s cousin, Ian
(only 46 years old) and Auntie Rosie – both on the same day in different
cities. We made Ian’s in Lincoln but had
to miss Auntie Rosie’s, which was 5 minutes earlier in Ipswich. The only good thing about these events was
seeing family members who we’d not seen for ages.
22 April. We’ve been
keeping busy with RA meetings and things – as well of course as the
walking. Joan led a 7 mile walk from
Cleethorpes last Saturday. Yesterday we
went to Ilkley to recce a walk for our coach trip in a few weeks time. We were lucky with the day. The sun actually came out.
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04 – 08 April. Sheila has
been over for a few days. In spite of
the really wintry weather we’ve been to Gibralter Point where we saw our first
swallows this year, to Far Ings and Ness End Farm near Barton and we’ve been
to watch the birds on Cleethorpes sea front as the tide came in. The picture shows a snipe at Ness End
Farm. Yesterday we went to The Fishing Heritage
Centre in Grimsby. Somehow we
hadn’t managed to get there before.
Isn’t it always the case that you don’t go and visit the tourist
attractions close to home? It was
actually very interesting and included a tour of the Ross Tiger, one of
twelve ‘Cat’ class trawlers which fished from Grimsby between 1957 and 1984. |
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25 March. We had a
fairly quiet Easter week-end. On Sunday
we got up to a real winter wonderland – about three inches of snow everywhere
but thawing so fast that most of it had gone by early afternoon. On Easter Monday we went to Lincoln and met up
with Keith, Kate, Alice and Daniel for lunch at Tootsies and then while Ted and
Keith went to the football, Kate and I took the children to the Play Zone. They loved this and it was quite exhausting
for us. Unfortunately I’d forgotten to
take the camera so haven’t got any pictures.
17 - 19 March. We decided
to try one of the P and O mini-cruises from Hull. It was a really super
trip. We arrived at the dock around
16-00 and were soon able to board our ship – the Pride of York. At 19-00 we were sailing and enjoying a
really good buffet dinner. In the
morning as soon as we docked the bus was waiting to take us to Bruges, where we
had ample time for lots of sightseeing.
We went in The Church of Our Lady, The Cathedral and The Church of the
Holy Blood, climbed to the top of The Belfry for great views of the city, did
the bus tour of the city with very good commentary and walked round much of the
city as well, including the Minnewater Park.
Here are a few pictures.
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07 – 08 March. We’ve been
babysitting. Here are another few pictures.
01 March. Alice was
three on 28 Feb and we’ve been over to celebrate her birthday. Click
here to see the pictures.
18 – 22 February.
We’ve had an excellent short break, staying at Holly Lodge Guest House in
Windermere. We can recommend this guest
house – we’ve been several times. We
arrived in the Lake District in time to catch the last of the spell of gorgeous
weather they had been enjoying. While
the sun shone we walked up to Orrest Head and the next day climbed Fairfield
from Grasmere. After the weather changed
we did a low level walk going to Little Langdale and visited Grizedale
Forest. Here are just a few photos.
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These two
photos are taken from Orrest Head, looking towards the Langdales. |
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We went up
Fairfield via Stone Arthur and descended by Alcock Tarn |
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Our lunch
stop at Elterwater and a very tricky path near Little Langdale |
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Two of the
sculptures in Grizedale Forest |
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8 – 10 February.
All the family have been over to Cleethorpes for a week-end. Here are the latest photos of Alice and
Daniel.
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January. We had a quiet
start to the New Year, gradually getting back to normal after the busy
Christmas. Bitterly cold winds seem to
have been a feature of our walks early in the year, but it has been good to get
back to the normal walking. We’ve had quick
trips to Tankersley, to look after Daniel while Alice went to see the new
nursery where she will have a place after her third birthday, to Lincoln for an
RA meeting and to Liverpool to take some things for Helen and Mike.
Now we have just returned from a week in
Egypt, cruising on The Nile and visiting the usual Ancient Egyptian tourist
sites. We thoroughly enjoyed our holiday
– an unusual one for us – no walking! Click here for the photos.