A year. 12 months 365 days I look back over the past year and I can’t really think off the top of my head what I have achieved. Lots of things I wanted to do are still not done, many not even started. Some have been and then abandoned. Stuff has happened, as stuff always does. At the time it felt important, and some of it was,
Window Wednesday — Room 302
We first realised that there might be something special about Room 302 where we were staying at the Walpole Bay Hotel in Margate when ten minutes after checking into our room a tour bus full of ladies from a WI tried to get into our room to have a look at it. Most apologetic when they realised Mr B was making use of the free wi-fi whilst lying on the
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Musings
Getting outdoors
Spring has really sprung hasn’t it? It really makes a difference to be able to look up and see blue sky and fluffy clouds rather than grey skies and dark clouds. Everybody’s mood lifts too and people seem to be much more cheerful as they dash about doing their daily thing. And keen to be outside. Last weekend the queue for our local garden centre was huge! As
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Margate: 4 — Barbados: 1
Yes you did read that correctly. When I got an email from Visit England asking me if I would like to take part in some St George’s day activity celebrating all thing patriotic I was chuffed. That sounded like it might be fun, I thought. This time last year we were gearing up for a garden party at Buckingham Palace where we didn’t get to meet the Queen
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Turner’s skies
I must admit I wasn’t really “that” aware of there being such a thing as “Turner’s Skies” until I started doing some digging ahead of our weekend in Margate. The more I looked into though the more I realised that the sky and the landscape in that part of Kent really played a huge role in shaping Turner’s paintings. And now having been there it is easy to see
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Exploring
Cheesefoot Head
That sounds like a children’s word game or rather unfortunate medical condition. Not a beauty spot that I ended up going to this week, almost by accident. I had met Annie just up the road at Hinton Ampner for a couple of hours of nattering and photography and on the way there we had both spotted the sign to Cheesefoot Head. So after our wander around Hinton (to
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Exploring
Hatchlands Park
Walking away from Hatchlands Park on Sunday afternoon I stopped a dad with his son and asked if I could photograph his little boy enjoying one of the many free Space Hoppers that littered the front lawn. It seemed to sum up perfectly why this National Trust property is the perfect place to go for an afternoon of family fun. Even though the weather hadn’t been great and there
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Musings
How the Real Houswives of Beverley Hills are making me fitter
You might think it is because I am following some crazy diet plan one of the ladies is promoting. You would be wrong. You might think it is because I want to fit in to an outfit from one of their clothing lines so am starving myself until I do. Nope. Again, you would be wrong. The Real Housewives of Beverley Hills are making me fitter for a very
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Exploring
23 things you didn’t know about Stratford or Shakespeare
I’m sure there are a million interesting things about Stratford upon Avon. There have to be. It’s a lovely place. Here for a starter though are 23 that we learned our recent visit. Stratford upon Avon has been given lamp posts by councils and countries around the world. They line the streets and to be honest you probably wouldn’t notice unless you looked hard. There are actually three theatres in Stratford.
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Musings
What is the point of an injunction these days
Social media is awash with a story that has been rumbling on for a couple of weeks now and it is proving, once again, that injunctions are making the UK privacy laws a joke. And making me ask what is the point of an injunction these days? I am clearly not talking about those that NEED them for their own safety, such as victims of domestic abuse. I am talking
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Exploring
Window Wednesday — Chichester
Can we just pretend it is Wednesday? And not Thursday. Or that some kind of technical glitch meant that this post, written and planned over the weekend, was published 24 hours late. That it is going up, and into your inboxes on Thursday, has nothing to do with me sitting down at 5pm on Wednesday evening and exclaiming “bugger, it’s Wednesday isn’t it”. Great, thanks. So now that
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Nurturing
Setley Ridge Vineyard
Twenty something years ago my parents decided to up sticks and move to France. They bought a vineyard and beat the French at their own game. Within a couple of years they had rebuilt the pretty much derelict Chateau, won awards and turned around a failing business selling wine to the local co-operative into a business making 80,000 bottles a year, some of them stocked in Waitrose. I swear the