Another month (August) in the UK

A walk with Denise and Paul on a very hot day in early August

Another month has passed and we've settled into a good routine, which doesn't seem to include blogging!

A weekly walk with a rotating crew of John, Brian and Keith. The last one certainly made a change. On Brian's birthday, John, who has sworn off alcohol for a few weeks, bundled us, and Keith, into his car to take us to Princes Risborough to do a circular walk over some of the Ridgeway. Despite the Ridgeway being Brian's first multi day walk, and the one he did on his own, he remembered none of it. The reason for this deviation from the norm was the weather had finally broken and the heavy band of rain was sitting across the Midlands. We were just out of this band and remained dry for the day. Hurrah.

Walking over the Stratford-Upon-Avon canal aqueduct near Wooton Wawen 

John, as ever has featured quite highly. He's bought himself a second, little old car, to join Joyce, the Herald. He now has an MGB too. Any excuse to take it out, we got a call asking if we wanted a trip to the Coach and Horses, despite the fact he had to do a double shuffle. Yes please. Then when Brian posted to the walking group that he was doing a long training walk, no, John didn't want to go too, but "How are you getting back?" A lift was much quicker and easier than the three trains it would otherwise have taken.....

As we walked further along the canal towpath this grass snake swam past us. It was moving quite fast through the water and disappeared into some reeds

John's trip to Epsom was multi purpose, firstly to check the car and pay the balance, and secondly to bring home another kitten. Gambit. He is the half brother of Tara who he already has. They haven't immediately bonded but they don't hate each other! He is so cute, he's like a little shadow. It'll be very difficult for me (not) being on cat duty over the weekend while John is working and Brian is in Scotland.

Tuesday walk with John through the lovely village of Offenham with it's Maypole

We went to see Aunty Margaret, in Bury St Edmunds coinciding our arrival with Jonathan, Lucy and Caroline who were finishing up their week away on the east coast. Lovely to catch up with them too. As they headed home, well into the afternoon, we took advantage of the newly decorated spare room and stayed over. We went to Lavenham the following day, a very well preserved medieval town with lots of beautiful buildings. We persuaded Margaret to join us and had a lovely walk round and lunch before heading back home.

Followed by refreshment at the fabulous old pub The Fleece at Bretforton

Monday was a slightly unusual day, we got the 08.36 train to New Street where we caught the Liverpool train for a day trip. Our friends Victor and Gregg from Palm Springs were visiting for the day on a cruise and wondered if we might be able to meet up, for a cup of tea. I think they were slightly taken by surprise when we said it had taken us 3 hours from leaving home to getting to them, but we had a lovely day and are really pleased we made the effort. I did say if we'd had to drive or if the advanced train fare had been much more than the £38 we paid we might not have, but I think they were quite touched. We popped into the Cavern Club just for a bit of atmosphere, before heading up to the Philharmonic Dining room which is a beautiful pub. The highlight, apparently, is the gents toilet, which obviously I couldn't go in and see. The ladies were nothing special, but the rest of the building was definitely worth seeing. We had lunch there, which was good, though we knew it would cause us problems, as this wasn't our only outing for the day.

Our very Heath Robinson set up for watching the partial eclipse. As it was happening late in the day we could see it through the back bedroom window as that's where the sun would be. We've got a pair of binoculars on a tripod with one lens covered with cardboard

We closed the curtains to block out as much light as possible and focused the image onto a white card held in a clamp. We're ready! 

We took lots of photos and this was the best we got, taken by Jackie with her phone camera. I know it looks like the moon but it is the sun reflected on the card through the binoculars and this was at the maximum eclipse of 90% that we got in the UK. It went quite dull outside and our garden lights came on briefly, but it didn't get properly dark

On our return to New Street we walked to the Old Moseley Arms, just round the corner from Diwan's, our best curry house. The second event of the day was a Comms balti. The last of my colleagues retired at the beginning of the year, I went in 2012, with some of the others going about 20 years ago. It was great to meet up though, we haven't done so for ages. 14 of us, including Brian and John, who never actually worked for the BBC in Birmingham, but knew everyone through Sarah. Despite walking very fast, we hadn't managed to build up an appetite, so Brian and I shared an onion bhaji before having two mouthfuls of our curries and taking the rest home for dinner tomorrow! Saves cooking anyway! Luckily for us, John had driven in, in Joyce, the Herald, so we finally got a ride in her as he took us home.

Next doors cat Luna treating our house as her own. If the doors open it's hers to explore!

Eating does seem to feature highly, we've had a couple of good walks with Denise and Paul, both finishing with pub lunches. This week it was an interesting trip round Alvechurch. Some bits you don't normally see, while not being too far away in case of thunderstorms. A couple of days before that we had the 'annual paella' with Fiona and James. It's always a great meal (though I do say so myself). It does take a long time to prep, but I enjoy pottering in the kitchen, and we all get to reap the rewards. As usual, it was a late night, we were just going to bed as Jenny was getting up to get to the airport for her early Ryanair shift. I'm far too old for that sort of thing!

We had a day out with lunch at Tim and Jill's near Derby and a tour round their scaffolding! They have a big old house on which they are having outside work done, so we took the opportunity to go up there for a different view before it was removed

Looking down at part of his back garden and his huge field beyond. All that is Tim and Jill's land

Our thunder storm worries were based on the mammoth storm we had on Sunday evening. A simultaneous flash and bang, a smell of hotness and the TV going off complaining of 'No Signal'. Our neighbours TV also went off, but came back. Ours didn't. Better ours than theirs though, they have just had a baby, who amazingly slept through it. Up in the loft Brian took the signal booster out of circuit and we got pictures back, though with disturbances in the sound. At least replacing that is quicker and easier than replacing the TV!

Another week and another walk, this one with John and Keith and the start is Honeybourne after a breakfast stop between trains to get here

We are having some work done in the garden. The hawthorn tree has been taken out. It did look beautiful in the spring, but it is such a messy tree, blossom, leaves, buds and berries. These all fall onto the slate, where if they are left turn to soil which eventually things will grow in. This means I always have something to do  and the low maintenance garden isn't really! We left the lilac branches which give some height and hopefully the removal of the hawthorn means that the black elder we planted a couple of years ago might begin to thrive as opposed to looking on its last leaves! It would like a bit of sun, and a lot of water neither of which it was getting. We may however have killed it with kindness and over watered it, but we shall see. As well as taking out the hawthorn the tree surgeon also removed the tops of next-doors leylandii and branches into our garden so we can replace the fence that looked old when mum moved in! That hasn't been done yet, but I'm still cleaning up the sawdust. My life hasn't got any easier yet, but hopefully it will!

We walked past Long Marston Rail Innovation Centre where new trains or modifications are run through extended trials on a rail proving track before being released for use

There obviously has also been lots of life maintenance and other bits and pieces. Lunch at Tim and Jill's was lovely. The nearly total eclipse we watched, in the dark, in the back bedroom, reflected through half a binocular. He spent a long time setting that up! Plus lots of cooking 

Ice cream break on a disused railway track, now a multi use path with old railway carriages for cafes along the way

Walking over an old bridge on the line 

Refreshments in the Coach House at Stratford-On-Avon at the end of our walk. It's a Davenports pub, a brewery that I remember from my youth that disappeared for years. Its been resurrected and, they tell me, its brewed to the same recipe as the old Davenports, so they consider it a continuation from those days. The beer was very good!

Our day out in Lavenham with Margaret, Jackie's Auntie. It's a beautiful village and seems to have escaped modern developments, the newest we saw being Victorian. This is outside the Crooked House with a blue MGB GT classic car parked outside

There were quite a few classic cars parked about the town, including this beautiful old Bentley

We followed it with lunch in an old world cafe in the square. We had a thoroughly enjoyable day out and Margaret enjoyed it too 

With Victor and Gregg in The Philharmonic Dining Rooms, Liverpool. It's a beautiful old pub that seems to have escaped any 'improvements' over the years

We were told not to miss the gents toilets and so, here they are!

Waiting for our train home on Liverpool Lime Street railway station, itself a classic building

John buys his second classic car, a 1973 MGB - and what a beauty it is! It's been completely refurbished but all parts are original (except the cylinder head has been changed to allow it to run on unleaded petrol)

Out on my long training walk in preparation for my multi day Great Glen Way walk starting this Friday, 4th September. I did just over 13 miles (21.15km) with 480m of ascent in 4 and a half hours, walking from home in Alvechurch over the Lickey Hills, Waseley Hills and Clent Hills, finishing at the King Arthur Bathams pub at Hagley. This photos at the Beacon Hill toposcope on Lickey Hill. On the horizon to the left of the little castle are the tall buildings of Birmingham City Centre

Arriving at the King Arthur in Hagley and there's John meeting me with a pint of Bathams after driving over to pick me up in his MGB

Its another week and another walk (except this was my birthday, so I could do nothing wrong!). On this one John, who has stopped drinking alcohol for a while, drove to Princes Risborough rather than have us take the train as we normally do

However he still parked at the train station and both he and Keith took the opportunity of taking a photo of a passing freight train. I wonder if it will appear on next years train calendar that he makes and hands out to us all each year

Within the station is a platform for a heritage railway that runs trains along the old track to Oakley. This set was just leaving, its pulled at the front by a steam engine and this old Deltic diesel will pull it back. The carriages were full of enthusiasts with some of them decked out for fine dining with people in their best clothes. Its a bit like that posh day out we had on a heritage train last year, except ours was a full day out and all the way to North Wales, this one's much shorter

Up on The Ridgeway with Keith and John. I've been here before when I did my solo multi day walk from Avebury to Ivinghoe Beacon a few years back, but I can't say I recognised it

Big Roman snails! Didn't see any of those on my last visit

Our finishing point (we got an Uber taxi back to his car!), the Three Crowns near Monks Risborough

Followed by several of these! We deserved it!

Tree surgeons at work! Look carefully, there's one up the tree in the centre of the photo and one collecting at the bottom. They'd already cut the hawthorn down by this time

This was a 'Before' photo with Hawthorn tree...

And this was after. The trees at the back are down to branches, but we're having a fence put up to cover most of it. We think it has opened the garden up a bit and let more light in

John's new kitten, Gambit, is very cute. He names his cats after the old Avengers series from the 1960's and 70's. He's currently got Tara and this one's Gambit

Here's another photo of him, he's so cute!

Last weekend was at Fiona (my daughter) and James' for our now traditional annual Spanish day with fabulous paella cooked by Jackie

As usual, it was a fabulous weekend. Not much of the paella left is there!

It was a very late night. This was after 2:00am and you can see by the red eyes that much alcohol had been consumed!

Monday walk with Denise and Paul. We decided on a local walk round our village of Alvechurch and the fields surrounding it

Followed by lunch in the Red Lion in our village afterwards. We'd eaten it all by the time I took this photo

A month in the UK

First Tuesday walk after getting home and breakfast in Barnt Green with Keith J and John

We've now been back from Canada for a calendar month. Today is the third day we've had with nothing on the calendar, not that we did nothing on the other two, the garden has taken quite a lot of tidying, the house needs cleaning and shopping has to be done. It's the first chance I've had to go and look for new summer clothes to take to Australia (probably our next trip), only to find that it's the very end of the sales and that the shops are full of muddy coloured slightly autumnal clothes.

We really have been stupidly busy, body maintenance, physio for my knee was already booked, fortunately, so she could help me with my ankle, mammogram and new glasses which has taken many visits and about 5 sets of new lenses for me. I also spent a day just north of Bristol being MRI'd, scanned and assessed by UK Biobank, as I was three years ago. For him a colonoscopy, a punch biopsy on something on his nose, with a trip to the doctor's for his feet and the physio for his shoulder, which is still giving him gyp after falling in Calgary, booked.

Its been very hot weather in the UK this year as you can see by the brown golf course as we walked across it 

We've had curry with Helen and Ian, Abi, Monday club and had kurzi lamb twice. Once with Fiona and James, and once with Bev and Iain. We've walked with John and Brian which has obviously involved drinking lots of beer - well it has been stupidly hot, this has actually put me off drinking too much! We've had Monday club drinks and Sunday club drinks. We had an evening at the Coach and Horses meeting up with a group of old members of the mountaineering club and went to Manu and Crystal's to see progress on their house and have lunch with them and Pete and Reuben. Tea and cake with Alex and Rob on Monday was one of 5 activities for the day.

And our refreshment break at the Hanbury Turn pub in Bromsgrove after our 12.5km walk

The mountain bikes have been serviced which meant we had to go out for a ride to check them. Brian has met up with Paul, who he did the Cotswold Way with to plan their next adventure, the Great Glen Way. Much time has also been spent looking at our next trip which I'm finding quite off putting as we've barely been back. We've spent a couple of very hot days emptying and cleaning the house in Coventry that Brian and Terry bought years ago for their retirement. The tenant finally moved out after a year of trying, leaving so much stuff, a very noisy air-conditioning unit which we've used a couple of times, more cleaning stuff than imaginable though it's a shame they didn't actually use some of it and food that I've taken to the food bank. It's now on the market, so fingers crossed it doesn't take too long to sell!

The next Tuesdays walk along the canal to historic Droitwich with John and Brian

Last week was brilliant, Caroline came to stay on Friday before we dropped her at the Metropole hotel on Saturday for Dinocon, a dinosaur convention. Her friend, Faith, was meeting her there, so as a treat we bought them a room there. We stopped in at Denise and Paul after dropping her off, for a coffee, from which we finally got home about 17.00 after an impromptu lunch out. We collected Caroline on Sunday as she wanted to stay with us for a few days which was lovely. We thoroughly enjoyed having her stay, talking, walking, visiting Birmingham. She came out with us on the Monday to Diwan's, for curry, with Monday club as a belated celebration for Jill's birthday, going home on Wednesday. Fortunately her train home was actually on time, unlike her train to us which was hideously delayed and standing room only. We had the afternoon to wash and shop as Bev and Iain from Bristol arrived on Thursday for the weekend. We had a lovely time, lots of chat, eating and drinking. Thursday is food van night at the Weighbridge, Friday Kurzi lamb, Saturday we had a Saturday Lunch Club with Manu and Crystal and Helen. We were going to the tiny theatre at the Old Joint Stock in Birmingham at 17.00 so this was all planned and ran like clockwork. Sunday we had brunch in the village before going to the Barn at Studley where most of our garden decorations have come from. Bev had liked what we'd done so wanted to see what they had to offer. They shopped, and so did we, a crocogator to add to Geraldine the Giraffe and Babar the Elephant.

Now we are halfway through another week and it doesn't feel like we are quieting down at all!

Droitwich is an old spa town with supposed healing waters, so there are many brine springs around the town. Brine has been collected here for over 2000 years used for preserving foods. The Romans used it to make salt and, in Victorian times spa baths were opened

One of the many old buildings in the town. 

Which was next door to The Hop Pole, our destination for  the afternoon serving excellent cask ale

There's a pattern I know, but this was the third Tuesday walk with just Brian. This is the hill up from our home village of Alvechurch, which is down there in  amongst the trees. We're intending to come up here on April 12th to see the 90% partial eclipse. We are facing west, just the position the sun will be at 6:15pm when the eclipse starts. We're not going to bother if its cloudy though!

Followed by drinks in the Coach and Horses Inn in Weatheroak afterwards

Our bike ride on our serviced bikes

Walking through the sunflower field with Caroline when she came to stay

Feeding the koi carp in the aquarium at Beckets Farm

Very hungry fish!

Caroline and Jackie in front of St Martins Church in the Bull Ring, Birmingham

On the  Black Sabbath Bridge on Broad Street, Birmingham. They have erected a camera opposite so we had to use it 

After Caroline left Bev and Iain came to stay and, on Thursday we had a day out sightseeing in lovely Henley In Arden, followed by Warwick and Leamington Spa, another Spa town 

The wonderful Kurzi Lamb in our village Indian restaurant

Followed by drinks and chat in our back garden on a warm evening, finally going to bed about 2:00am

Saturday early afternoon we met up with Ming, Manu and Helen for a Chinese lunch at the Ivy Lounge in Birmingham City Centre

A walk through Grand Central Station in Birmingham past Ozzzy the Bull

This is the tiny theatre in the Old Joint Stock pub in Birmingham. The pub is a fabulous old building that used to be a bank and this small room in the back is a theatre. There were about 40 of us in the audience for this musical, The Shocking Truth about the Flat Earth,, which was extremely well done and a good laugh

We caught the train back to Alvechurch and had a couple in our local, The Weighbridge. The Worcestershire Sway was excellent!

Sunday morning breakfast out at the Ritual cafe in Alvechurch

Our Sunday visit to The Barn in Studley, selling off the wall garden and home ornaments gave us a new addition to the garden, a crocodile. There he is hiding by the fern on the left. We haven't finalised his name yet, either Colin or Cecil

It meant that Barbar the elephant had to move position

This is a spot the cat photo of Luna in our garden one morning while we were outside having breakfast

Well, its Tuesday again and, guess what? We're with John and Brian again, this time having breakfast at the Boatyard Cafe in Beeston Marina in Nottinghamshire (or is it Derbyshire, I'm never quite sure, its on the border)

We had a second cup of tea - Hello Lovely!

After 12 odd km the Steamboat Inn beckoned at Trent Lock, the junction of the Erewash Canal with the River Trent

We finished the walk at Long Eaton Station, making it 14.5km in total. It turns out that Long Eaton station now stands where Sawley Junction used to be. Due to alterations in the track layout (you can see it in the 4 diagrams above) the original Long Eaton station was demolished and Sawley Junction renamed Long Eaton in 1968

We had to change trains in Birmingham for our train home so took the opportunity of calling into the Good Intent pub in the city for a final couple before going home. So ends a busy month back in the UK!