Monday 24 August 2020

Cheltenham housesitting week 3

 

Jackie and her mum at the model village, Bourton on the Water
After the busyness of last weekend, Tuesday was a relaxing day, which was good, except for having to go out to get a puncture repaired, in one of the four new tyres we had put on all of eight days previously! Sadly so was Wednesday, as the weather was so pants we’d cancelled our walk with Denise and Paul. Talk about one extreme to the other, last Wednesday was roasting for the gardener, this week she nearly got webbed feet. Our big ‘excitement’ for the day was losing Mr. Pickles, we both hunted high and low after the vacuum scared him off, could we find him? No, we even went out looking in the rain. He eventually sauntered down the stairs from who knows where not knowing what all the fuss was about!


Outside the model of Small Talk Tea Room...
Thursday mum arrived for a few days. She hadn’t enjoyed the journey, we really are up some very small lanes, but was very pleased to see us, and the lovely house and garden. What to do with her? Friday a trip to Bourton-on-the-water to see the model village. We are glad we arrived and left early, it was very busy, and we beat the rain. The model village was interesting, not like the one I remember as a kid in Devon, as this one was a larger scale and a replication of the actual village of Bourton. We had to pop back in to have our picture taken where we’d had our coffee and cake!


And outside the real Small Talk Tea Rooms (afternoon tea of a pot of tea with scones, clotted cream and jam - heaven!)

The model village in the model village including the model village!
Saturday we went to Edlesborough to see Jonathan and Lucy, Charles and Caroline. The original plan had been to meet in the middle somewhere round Oxford, but the weather forecast wasn’t up to a picnic so we went to them. This worked well for Charles, who having originally got three A’s in his A levels was then upgraded to two A* and an A and is off to Sheffield to study Politics and International relations. We are very proud. Off to Morrison’s to equip him with his kitchen supplies - knives, pans, crockery etc. It was lovely to see them, end of last year was the last time! We had two little adventures before we set off, Brian was led down the stairs by little Nellie cat, she kept stopping and turning round to check he was following, all the way to a mouse on the rug! Not the first mouse we’ve had on the rug, in fact there was another one today, so perhaps it was just the first one she’d brought in, as a gift, for us! 

4 little swallow chick in their nest....
I popped down to the kennels to try and take some pictures with the proper camera, as opposed to my phone of the swallows in their nest. Just as well I did as they were out of the nest, but still in the room. The second set of swallows I’ve seen fledge this year, fabulous!


Sunday we went back up to Cleeve Common to the masts for a bit of exercise before coming back for roast chicken with all the trimmings. Today the decision was made by mum to return home, the weather hasn’t been too bad, but is set to be wet and windy tomorrow! We went to Belas Knap, while the potatoes were baking in the Aga, a Neolithic burial chamber. Relatively interesting and not a long walk. Except that most of the walk seemed to be up to mum! She was a little unimpressed, but it did make the baked potatoes and cold chicken all the more enjoyable. She’s now back at home and we are making the most of it before the weather changes again. It would appear so is Mr. P, he’s just been miaowing outside with another mouse....

Here's three just emerged from their nest getting ready to fly away
Walking over Cleeve Common with Pauline, Jackies mum. 
Two horse riders appear over the horizon
Great view of Cheltenham racecourse, even though a band of rain was approaching behind
Walking up to Belas Knap. It was a steep hill - I lied and told Pauline it was a flat walk!
Jackie peering inside one of the openings to the burial chamber
Looking out from inside
Standing stones inside a chamber
The walk uphill was worth it. Nice views of Cotswold countryside. That's the town of Winchcombe down there 
Here's something you don't see everyday in the Cotswolds. We stopped the car on the way through the village of Brockhampton as Jackie had spotted elephants in a barn. Not real ones though, they look like they are made of wood. No idea why they are there
Finish with a nice photo of pussy cats. Nellie on the left, Mr. Pickles on the right


Monday 17 August 2020

Cheltenham housesitting and catching up

 A busy, but not all exciting week.

Brians family. LtoR: Jackie, Becky (middle granddaughter), James (Son-in-law to be), Jenny (youngest granddaughter), Fiona (daughter) and Brian. James, Jenny, Fiona and Brian have birthdays ranging from 15th August to 5th September so it was a multiple celebration 

Memories for Jackie on Cleeve Common
Sunday, after the last blog, we walked up onto Cleeve Common. We were surprised to find sheep in the carpark, but didn’t manage to get them through the gate onto the common, they trotted off up the path.... Fortunately as we got to the communications masts at the top we saw a warden. I assumed someone else would have told him, but apparently not, so having convinced him, that, no, they were not on the Common, yes, they were in the carpark, off he rushed. 


Nice view of Cheltenham from the top. The racecourse is the green patch on the right
The sheep after they'd been herded back onto the common
The masts brought back all sorts of memories, Cleeve Common being one of the standard mid-points, we used (B: 'we' being when she was a BBC engineer), back in the day, when outside broadcasts were all transmitted by ‘line of sight’ microwave link. I didn’t go up there very often, but I do remember one of the riggers letting me drive one of the OB (B: Outside Broadcast for those of us not in the know!) lorries on the Common, and being in our van out of sight of the gate when some delightful people torched a car! Fortunately it was out by the time the OB had finished and we could leave! Having
Cleeve Hill summit trig point (330m asl)
walked down memory lane we turned round to return to the house. We were shortly overtaken by someone on a quad bike - “that’ll be the farmer” I said, and so it as. We met the ranger again coming the other way, grateful for the heads up, they’d rounded up the sheep!


Monday, up to Alvechurch, MOT for Ted, and pop into the garage in the village to ask about the car. Booked it in for Thursday to replace the spark plug, a common fault apparently. Fortunately we could make this coincide with Ted going back in to get his aircon repaired. The fault had been found, but needed a part!


Manu and Crystal's visit to us in Cheltenham
I went to see Sarah, which was lovely, sitting in the garden, joined by John while Brian messed about with all these vehicles! Late lunch with mum before back to the house. Our first online Monday Club, was much better than we expected, it actually worked very well. It was good to catch up with Tim, Mark and Bill.


Tuesday Manu and Crystal popped over, they wanted to say hi, and fancied a meal in the Thai restaurant Bangkok Kitchen in Cheltenham that we ate in last week. Well that was a hardship for us! We did try a walk around Cheltenham, but it was so hot we said our farewells and headed off to the cool of Morrison’s! A recce was called for, we’d been invited to Fiona and James for Saturday as it was Fiona’s Birthday. Lovely, Fi however had studied the weather, and the forecast for Saturday was probably not BBQ suitable. Would I do a paella for her birthday? Yes, as long as I could get good prawns and fresh mussels....

Manu and Crystal are, shall we say, height challenged and we take every opportunity to emphasise it (in the nicest possible way!). Here they are standing next to a giant thistle in one of Cheltenhams parks

The storm approaches to cool the mid 30's temperatures
Wednesday we chilled, or actually baked, it was ridiculously hot again. I did feel sorry for the gardener! It was so hot, the Aga went out, in some ways a relief, but not when you hadn’t noticed and wanted to boil some water! We stood outside watching the threatened storm approaching, feeling the wind get up. It was fab.


Thursday back to get the vehicles both sorted out. Relatively painless, except to the bank balance.... good to have lunch with mum though. Back via Morrison’s, fortunately managing to get the last bag of mussels, as I’d been ringing all day to reserve, but they are not answering!


Jackies paella main course
Jenny cake for dessert
Friday morning was spent prepping....steaming the mussels, marinating the chicken, chopping the veggies, squid and chorizo. All well worth it, we arrived at Fiona’s on Saturday, just having to cook! They had gone all out, little tapas to start, Spanish music, and James mixing up sangria. All followed by birthday cake made by Jenny. James’ mum popped in to say hi and was sent away with the leftovers, so my paella for four fed seven, who says I overcater? But what a lovely day.




Fiona and Jenny pose for photos while Jackie cooks the paella and James prepares the starters

Then Becky turned up with presents for Fiona
Sunday Iain from Bristol had suggested that we meet them, and Helen and Ian at Purton, a tiny place on the banks of the River Severn where they had beached a number of boats to prevent further erosion of the river bank and stop it ‘breaking in’ to the canal. We had a pleasant couple of hours walking with H&I and Monty dog, before being joined by Iain and Bev and going to a local pub for Sunday lunch.


Today was another trip to Leamington Spa to visit the Financial advisor, most odd to sit through a meeting for an hour and a half wearing a mask, but all is good. We are rapidly ticking off jobs and lovely socialising which is good as still being very unsure what is going on with the world, and not wanting to make any long term plans we have invited ourselves back up to Nicky and Tony in Scotland! I did give them opportunity to say no, but they seem happy to have us.

Helen's selfie photo of a Sunday walk to see Purton Hulks with Helen and Ian
Now this we (Brian and Ian) thought was really interesting at Purton, this beached ship is  made of concrete. It was one of 39 vessels built during the second world war in 1941, 6 of which are now beached here. They were built as a prototype for the Mulberry Harbour, which were floating concrete structures towed across the English Channel on D day 1944 and sunk to make a temporary harbour for landing equipment. Bits of the Mulberry Harbour are still visible today in Normandy, France (we visited last year and wrote a blog entry on it). These ships were used as barges and were beached here in 1965. You can read more about this one, FCB75 and the others here: https://www.nationalhistoricships.org.uk/register/2420/fcb75
I think there's 4 of the concrete ships in this photo
This is the original lock gate entrance to the Sharpness to Gloucester canal from the Severn estuary. Its now closed off and a larger, more modern entrance made further downriver 
We also thought this was interesting: See that round stone construction up ahead on the left and a flat stone construction on the other side of the canal? They were the piers of Severn Railway Bridge that was built in 1879 and crossed the canal and the River Severn (off to the left). It was built to bring coal into Sharpness dock and had 21 spans on cast iron columns but, on 25th October 1960, in thick fog and a strong tide, two barges carrying petrol and oil missed the harbour entrance and were carried upstream towards the bridge. One collided with the bridge, the other was pushed on top of her by the tide. The collision caused two bridge spans to collapse, rupturing a gas main and electric cables. There was a huge explosion and the barges burst into flames, fire spreading across the river. Only 3 of the 8 crew survived. It was not economically viable to rebuild the bridge so it was demolished.
A photo of the original bridge



And those wrecks you can see are the remains of the two barges, the bridge originally crossing above where they are
On the Sharpness canal. What do you think - good photo?
Bev and Iain joined us for lunch at the Lammastide Inn
And here's Bev's photo just to show Brian was there too
Here's a few photos from the house we're housesitting in. A family of horses  that we can see in the field beyond the garden fence
Mr. Pickles and Nellie cats are the best of friends
Last night Nellie cat came onto Brians lap for more than half an hour wanting cuddles, snuggles and stroking
I like this photo taken through the kitchen window of the bird feeder. They are, Blue Tits (I think) and I like the one on the right peering round
Another photo taken through the window. My guess is a Chaffinch, but I stand to be corrected!
A pheasant clearing up the sunflower seeds dropped from the birdfeeder by the smaller birds
Wasn't sure if this was a young pheasant, a female pheasant of a young female pheasant
Two sleeping pussy cats on our bed one morning

Have a look at this short video of two pussy cats playing


Sunday 9 August 2020

Cheltenham housesitting - week 1

Brian cutting grass on the ride on lawnmower
Well a week has passed and I’m still not back to normal, but we are loving chilling. The cats are gorgeous, I’m typing with Mr. Pickles on my lap which is never easy, but is great. Nellie spent most of last night on the bed, so when she found time to bring us a bird I’m not sure. I blame her as she did come in wearing a feather...

The house and garden are beautiful, the kitchen only has an aga which despite the weather hasn’t roasted us, lots of doors open and being on top of a hill help I think. I like cooking on an aga, instant heat but it does take a little getting used to. Fortunately apart from watering and lawn mowing, the rest of the garden is looked after by a hedge man and a gardener. The birds on the feeders are fab, though they are very greedy, sunflower seeds being the favourite, as Tim described them “heroin

Mr. Pickles making himself comfy on Jackies lap
for birds”. They are very wasteful however which does mean the pheasants and squirrels get some too. We are not very good with birds, lots of tits, and I’m going with a lesser spotted woodpecker, he’s going to try and get some photos with the proper camera. We’ve seen a fox, rabbits and bats but so far, no deer, apart from the dead one! We had been warned of a sickly deer about, so we are assuming it’s that one and probably for the best. We didn’t find it till it was too late to move it though so will rely on the local fauna to do that, shame there are no hyena or vultures!

We went into Cheltenham on Wednesday after Brian measured the voltage on the car battery. Not good, so we thought we’d try to start it when the gardener was here in case we needed a jump. It did start but the man at Kwik Fit said we needed a new one. We wandered into Cheltenham while it was fitted, though we didn’t see much as our attention was taken by the Bangkok Kitchen Thai restaurant we passed with very reasonable prices, and that was before the 50% “eat out to help out “ discount was applied! Rude not to really, and it was delicious.

And chilled out on our bed
We ventured out yesterday, all the way to Aldi, used now to wearing our masks. The car still has a misfire, better since we filled it up, but worse when very hot and up hills. Will try and get it looked at tomorrow when it has some new tyres, and Ted has an MOT! What excitement!












Easy does it! Who was it that said this looked like a mobility scooter with built in comode? Helen - it was you!
The beautiful house we're in for all of August, situated in the heart of the Cotswolds
Some of the birdfeeders and birds outside the kitchen window. On the floor is a woodpecker tidying up. I'm going to bring back my proper camera next week and try to get some better photos of the wildlife. Lots of different birds, squirrels and rabbits - a rabbit hopped right up to the back door this morning when I went down to make coffee, peering in at me. Didn't have the camera unfortunately

This photo of Mr. Pickles was taken outside just after he was rudely awakened in the kitchen by a swift flying in through the open door. It flew around for a bit trying to find its way out again and he got very interested. It flew out and away before he really knew what had happened
And here's the two of them, both on the bed with us. Nellie and Mr. Pickles