Ummmm....

Oh heck, I feel so guilty. A whole summer’s gone by and I’ve not blogged. Does it make sense to anyone if I say, the longer I've left it, the more difficult it's felt, writing these, the first few words of a new blog again?

Basically, I have few excuses for my willful neglect. Well, apart from my laptop dying on me in the summer and PC World losing it when I took it to them for repairs…………which incidentally I will NEVER do again, because their customer service is absolutely abysmal! Having initially promised it would take 7-10 days to repair, I finally got it back over two months later, and then only because I made an absolute nuisance of myself by ringing every other day for a progress update. I was told it was terminal at least three times, then got told there was a keyboard malfunction (eh?)…then that it had been repaired but wasn’t working (eh, again?), then that it had been returned to me when it hadn’t (verily thrice times eh???!)………..on, and on, and on, it went, and of course I never got to speak to the same person twice. You know, I can feel my blood pressure rising through simply typing all this out, so I think I’m going to leave the telling of this woeful tale at that, which I’m sure you’re all pretty grateful for!

Anyway before I warble on, I must just say a huge thank you to Carrie of http://wordhoards.blogspot.com/ for taking the time to enquire if I was okay a couple of weeks back. I’ve only just read your message Carrie so please forgive my tardy response, but genuinely, I was really touched by your concern, enough, as you see, to nudge me out of my blogging apathy! Thank you for that. :-)

So hmmm, what’s been afoot in my particular neck of the woods over the last few months?

It'll probably make for less tedious reading if I upload a few photos to share along the way, so first and foremost, we celebrated the safe arrival of my 12th grandchild (well, step-grandchild as I'm obviously farrrrrrrrrrrrr too young to have grandchildren of my own, despite my own daughter hitting 23 this month...where the heck did all that time go?)




As you can see, he's absolutely gorgeous and a complete cuddle monster which obviously, is a trait utterly admirable in any of the male species. I'm absolutely taken with him which is unusual as I don't usually find myself cooing over babies - not ever. Maybe I'm just going soft in my old age? :-)

Having had a very successful hip replacement earlier this year, Ian is now waiting to have one of his knees replaced, so once again, we've had something of a sedate summer without the involvement of too much walking, but earlier in the summer we did manage to visit two steam rallies, which brought back wonderful memories of childhood visits to ploughing matches/steam rallies with my dad, who, like me, loved the smell and the heat and the sheer power generated by these lovely old iron ladies of the road. I relish too some of the wonderful characters you find at such places; this guy for instance, who, in all probability, now features (for all the wrong reasons!) on some video posted to YouTube by his mischievous passenger,



or this lady, who, by the time we arrived, had obviously had enough and was content to eat her sandwiches and read the paper in the parking area whilst her companion presumably wandered around the rally on his own;



Then of course, there's all the little add-ons - the discoveries you make whilst wandering around looking for nothing in particular, like this beautiful antique toy;



which I fell instantly in love with. Sadly it wasn't for sale...

In other news, we at last managed to visit the Russell Coates Museum, which I've been wanting to go to for what seems like aeon's now;



on what felt like one of the hottest days of the summer, as a photo of the beach below will testify;



The museum itself is wonderful but unfortunately they don't allow you to take photos within, but they did have a wondrously cool grotto which I wandered into and didn't want to come out of as it was so very hot outside;




I love how the light changed in it depending on which direction it was facing in relation to the sun;



And finally......because this blog entry is in danger of becoming one of those essays you used to write at school alá 'What I did in the Summer Holidays' - an utterly balmy day trip to Devon. I say balmy, because we live in North Hampshire but decided to drive four hours there and four hours back in one day just to spend time mooching around away from our usual stomping ground. There, we discovered churches like this;



with views like that;




and this;



to admire.

Finally (seems I lulled you into a false sense of security earlier about the finally bit!) and because I know Stag will have just been beside himself wondering what knitting, crocheting and cooking I've been up to this summer, I give you this;



The incredible stretching bag, which like the tardis, has the capacity to hold more than at first appears....

Ooh and this;



Chutney made from a recipe out of my grandmother's war time recipe book;



Produced from my first ever, admittedly assorted crop of tomatoes. I was so ridiculously proud of them I took a photo of for posterity;



I'm thinking of trying to make her dandelion wine next summer, but I perhaps won't mention that to Ian quite yet.....