Sunday Snaps #13 - Our Summer

Time flies and I can’t quite believe that it’s been almost 5 months since I last posted on this site. Time has been short and for this, and a bunch of other reasons that I won’t bore you with, this blog has been just a little neglected over the summer. So, in order to get back into the swing of this blogging lark, I figured that it would be a good idea to resurrect my Sunday Snaps thread and share a few pictures that either Dori or I took during the summer. I hope you enjoy them :)

These first two photos were taken in St James’s Park, just across the way from Buckingham Palace in London. They were taken on the beautifully sunny day that followed the Royal Wedding way back in April. It was a lot calmer strolling through the park that day than it had been 24 hours earlier amongst the joyous chaos of the wedding celebrations!

These nest three snaps were, fairly obviously, taken during our trip up to this year’s Wimbledon championships. The day we were there was one of the hottest days of the year, though as the rest of the summer was fairly non-existent, that isn’t saying too much! Anyway, we had a great time and saw some really great matches, as I talked about over on my sports blog at the time.

The last couple of pictures are from our day-trip down to the south coast town of Bournemouth. We had a really great day out, and thoroughly enjoyed our first visit to the coast for 3 or 4 years.

Well, that was the summer that was. Halloween is just round the corner, and Christmas is only three months away. I swear that time is speeding up! Anyhoo, I will be trying to blog a little more regularly again from now on, so please drop by when you can and pay a visit. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!! Til next time.

Is That Rain I See?

It was a typical English summer’s day yesterday, i.e. wet and cold! Today is no different, and it has been much the same story ever since mid-July. It seems that nowadays we no longer get hot and sunny weather in July and August, instead we have to deal with floods and downpours. The best weather, such as it is, appears to be more likely to appear in April or September than in the summer months!

Anyway, as the day was a wash-out, and since we hadn’t been to the movies for a couple of months, Dori and I made the decision to head on over to the multiplex and catch a film in the afternoon. Now, as we are both big kids at heart we were quite keen on seeing Toy Story 3, but it is still the school holidays over here, and we thought that it might be a little packed out in there. So, instead, we plumped for “Salt”, starring Angelina Joile and Liev Schreiber.

If you don’t already know, Jolie plays a CIA agent and the film follows a “Bourne Identity” type line, with her character on the run and the audience left to work out if she’s actually a good guy or bad guy. It won’t be winning too many Oscars come next February, but it was certainly an entertaining and diverting way to while away a couple of hours on a wet Wednesday afternoon :-)

In other news, I forgot to mention that I became a great-uncle a couple of weeks back. I mean, I already was by virtue of marriage, but this new arrival was to my brother’s eldest son. They are calling their little bundle of joy Macy, or possibly Macey – the lines of communication have been a little fuzzy! Baby and mother (and even father!) are said to be doing well. I can’t quite believe though that my brother is a grandfather – it only seems like 5 minutes ago we were both in school! Time, as they say, does indeed fly.

Walking In A Summer Wonderland ?!

They say that Christmas comes earlier every year, and that is certainly the case this year. Dori and I went into town on Monday to get a few essentials, as well as a new shower head as the old one has been falling apart on a disconcertingly regular basis lately. In fact, thinking about it, our plumbing system as a whole has been a menace ever since we first moved in to the Yellow House. During the 6 years we have been renting here we have had a new cistern, repairs to the bath as it was leaking through the ceiling downstairs, a brand new shower, a new washing machine, several replacement parts for the immersion heater and a few dripping taps. Dealing with the landlord/property agents has been a nightmare at times, and so nowadays, as long as it is not going to cost us too much, we tend to do any running repairs ourselves and save ourselves the hassle!

Anyway, as I was saying, we were in town doing our little bit of shopping. We had finished up and were on our way back to the car park when I happened to glance at the window display of a shop to my left. And what did I see? A Christmas tree, faux presents, a Santa and Rudolph blow-up thingy (!) and some random Christmas crackers. I must admit that for a second there I did a mental flip, thinking “what month is this?”. But, yes, on checking with myself I found that we are still indeed in AUGUST!!! Yes, August! I fully expect the shops to be crammed full of Christmas decorations and the like by October time - a mere two months or so before the festive season, but August!? Seriously? The kids here haven’t even gone back to school from their summer break yet! Grrr.

Of course, it is not just Christmas that comes around early. There are Easter eggs in the shops before New Year’s Day, summer clothes are on the racks whilst the snow is still on the ground and Valentines cards have to battle it out with the Christmas cards for shelf space. I guess that looking ahead is no bad thing, but surely it is better to first enjoy and relish the season that you are actually in. I don’t want to be thinking of buying Christmas gifts in summer (though it has felt more like winter here lately, but that’s another story!), just as I don’t want to be buying in BBQ supplies in January!

Bank Holiday Films

As Dori mentioned in her post earlier, it is a Bank Holiday here today. It is the last Bank Holiday until Christmas here, and marks the end of the summer. It doesn’t seem like five minutes ago when we were making plans to go to Trooping the Colour, or to the Summer Solstice at Stonehenge, but here we are fast heading towards Autumn.

We have had a lazy day today as it is also the last day of my time off from work. For much of this afternoon we had the TV on in the background showing a countdown of the “100 Best Family Movies”. How they decided on this list I have no idea - it has seemed very arbitrary at times. I mean, how can “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” not be in the top 10, when "Pirates of the Caribbean" is? For the record, the Top 10 Best Family Films, as suggested by this programme, are:

10 – Wizard of Oz
9 – Star Wars
8 – Charlie & the Chocolate Factory
7 – Back to the Future
6 – The Lion King
5 – Toy Story
4 – Pirates of the Caribbean
3 – Mary Poppins
2 – Shrek
1 – ET:The Extra-Terrestrial

A lot of the films that were mentioned brought back a lot of memories for one or both of us, such as “The Amazing Mr Blunden” which used to be shown here almost every Christmas but which I haven’t seen for years now. But what this show really made us think about was why don’t they actually show these films anymore rather than just having interminable countdown lists about them?!

Anyhoo, what are your thoughts about the final list? What would your favourite family film be?

Summer Memories

It has been a relaxing week here at the Yellow House. I am enjoying my summer break from work for a couple of weeks and I can hardly believe that we are already half-way through that time. We are saving our pennies right now, with the hope that we may be able to get away later in the year, so the week has been spent doing a few of those jobs that always get put to the side to complete “when I have the time”. We also took a trip to the movies to see the remake of “The Taking of Pelham 123” on Wednesday, which was an entertaining way to spend a wet weekday afternoon.

This morning Dori had some school work to complete, so I left her in peace to do that and headed outside to wash the car. It was the first opportunity I have had all week to do that as the weather has been typical of the English summer – i.e. raining! :-) When I have finished this post I will be heading back out to vacuum the inside of the car too. It will be like having a whole new vehicle!

As I said, it is amazing how quickly the time passes when you are away from work and it reminded me of how different it felt as a kid in the summer when you had weeks and weeks in front of you that seemed to last forever. The weather seemed better back then too :-/ And the days seemed longer as well. We would watch some TV in the early morning, then head outside and play for the rest of the day until it was time to eat, before heading back out for a while before it got dark.

One of the shows that we used to watch on summer mornings back in the ‘70s was “The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe”. This was a slightly badly dubbed French black & white version of the old classic, and I know the thought of it will bring back lots of happy memories to anyone of a certain age. Apparently the series was shown here in 13 episodes, but it seemed to go on forever back then. The part of the show that is probably best remembered is the theme tune, and the incidental music. For me, that theme tune is THE tune of summer holidays. Whenever I hear it, it always evokes thoughts of long, lazy summer days when all you had to think about was who was going to be the “cops” and who the “robbers”, or where you had left the Swingball racquets, or how could you convince the ladybirds to race round the Olympic track you had just created on the back of a piece of wood (yes, we really did).

Here is a clip that I found on YouTube that will give you a flavour of the show, and the music.

Aah, memories.

Strawberries and Cream

This is my favourite time of year. The evenings are long – not getting truly dark until about 11pm – the mornings are bright, the weather is (sometimes) glorious, the trees and bushes are at their height of greenness and there is Wimbledon on the TV and radio.

As you know, I am a bit of a sports nut. Football is my main game, but I have always loved Wimbledon fortnight. It is something that I have grown up watching, always on the BBC, and I fondly remember listening to the tennis on the radio, in Victoria Park in Bath, after my exams had finished when I was a student in the city. Nowadays I always make a point of taking leave for at least one of the two weeks of Wimbledon, so that I can fully enjoy the vibe of the fortnight.

Last year we were extremely lucky to get tickets on Centre Court for the second day of play, and got to see Venus Williams, Rafa Nadal and Andy Murray all play. It was a dream come true, and the actual experience of being there did not disappoint after all those years of expectation. Of course, we obviously had to do the “Strawberries and Cream” thing while we were there, as seen here:



Dori blogged about our trip to Wimbledon at the time, check out what she had to say here.

As this is Wimbledon fortnight, I have been on leave since last Friday, and we have had a quiet week so far. The untimely passing of Michael Jackson, on Thursday evening, left us both feeling rather flat for a good few days. It has been difficult getting up the enthusiasm for doing much of anything. Over the last couple of days though we have stirred ourselves into action and started to get some of those “I’ll do it when I get time” jobs completed. This morning it was gardening and mowing of the lawns, which we completed earlier in the day as it has been getting quite hot in the afternoons over the last few days. Doing the jobs early in the day also means that the afternoons are free to enjoy the tennis :-)

Today is men’s quarter-finals day, and, as I write this, Roger Federer is already through to the semis and Andy Murray is trying to emulate that feat. Here in the UK there is considerable excitement and anticipation that Murray could become the first British male player to win Wimbledon since Fred Perry way back in 1936. Of course, there is still a good deal of work to do before that could happen, and I think Federer must still remain favourite at this point. But if the first full match to be played under Wimbledon’s new Centre Court roof is anything to go by, Murray could provide a lot more thrills and spills in the coming few days!

Now, back to the tennis.....

Summer Solstice at Stonehenge

From one extreme to another. A week ago we were rubbing shoulders with royalty at Trooping the Colour, and then this weekend we decided to take a trip over to Stonehenge to celebrate the Summer Solstice.

Record crowds were expected this year, due to the fact that the solstice fell on a weekend and because the weather hasn’t been too bad lately. So, we decided to try to avoid the worst of the traffic by leaving on Saturday evening and staying at Stonehenge overnight. The car park was opened at 7pm on Saturday, but we didn’t leave home until 9pm. The drive to Stonehenge was really pleasant. The roads were mainly empty, which made a lovely change in itself, and as we passed through the various villages on our way people were out enjoying their Saturday evenings. At this time of year the evenings stay light until well past 10pm, and people love to make the most of the longer days. We took a slightly different route than I normally would when I am working in the area, as I figured that the main road that goes past Stonehenge would be extremely busy (and I wasn’t wrong!!). It made an enjoyable change to see a few slightly less familiar places, at a time of day when we are rarely out driving.

We were a little surprised at how little traffic there was on the roads, but as it turned out that was mainly because we chose our route wisely. The main route to the Stones was gridlocked for much of the night, but we were able to drive right up to the entrance to the car park without having to queue up at all. The car park was, in fact, a field adjacent to the Stonehenge site that had been opened up just for this one event. We parked up quite quickly and decided to wait in the car for a few hours before heading over to the monument site itself. It was 11pm before the last of the sunlight disappeared, and we were far from alone as we waited out the night hours in the car park.

We had planned ahead for this wait and had brought with us some food and drink as well as a few other home comforts. As night fell so did the temperature! We were a little surprised at quite how cold it got overnight given that we were finally welcoming summer to the Northern hemisphere! :-) As we waited we played a few games, listened to the radio and did some people watching too. We also threw some envious glances over at a nearby camper van that looked the height of cosiness to us as we hunkered down in the chill of our little car. The warm light behind the curtains of the van and the thought of being able to lie down in a “proper bed” seemed like the idea of heaven to us as we struggled to get comfortable and warm! :-)

The hours ticked by and struggle as we might to get some sleep, it was impossible given the cold, cramped quarters and noise from all around us from the other people who also chose to wait in their vehicles. But soon enough we decided to head out towards the Stones and enjoy the atmosphere as everybody waited for the rising of the sun and the arrival of summer. It was supposed to be a half-mile walk over to the site, but it seemed at least twice that long in the dark and over rough ground. Once through the two sets of security checks, we were finally at the Stonehenge site amongst the thousands of other people of all different backgrounds and reasons for being there.

For the solstice, the owners of the site – English Heritage – allow everybody free access to the stones. This resulted in a mad crush around and within the stone circle itself. Of course we couldn’t let the occasion pass without going in the stone circle ourselves, so we braved the masses and pushed and manoeuvred our way through the crowds. Eventually we were right by the stones, and able to touch them – a rare privilege. We took a few photos and some video footage, but eventually the crush of people became just too much and we decided to make a retreat and watch the rising of the sun from a little further back!

Sadly, the weather didn’t cooperate fully, and whilst it stayed dry and eventually started to warm up again as the sun started to rise, the skies were clouded over as dawn finally broke. It was slightly disappointing, as was the behaviour of some of the people there who seemed to view the occasion as an excuse for an all-night drinking session! But, we were not down-hearted as we walked back to our car afterwards. This was an occasion that we have both wanted to experience for a long time, and we are pleased to have done so. We hope to return again in future years in hopefully less cloudy weather and with maybe a few less drunken yobs about.

Apparently there was a record 36,500 people at this year’s solstice and the car park was full up by 3am on Sunday morning. We timed our exit as well as our entrance though, and were able to get out without any problems at all. The drive home was almost as pleasant as the drive down, with even less cars on the roads – though there were plenty parked all over the place by people who weren’t able to get into the car park. We got home before 7 o’clock and went straight to bed to get some well-earned sleep!

Happy (belated) Solstice everybody, and welcome to summer!!