St. David's Day

Happy St. David's Day to any Welsh readers out there. It's March 1st and the first 2 months of 2026 have whizzed by.

I'm taking a quiet day at home today. R is off on a one day blacksmithing course that I bought him as a birthday present, and I am recovering from the small bowel MRI that I had yesterday. I was referred last August and, between you and me, I think that my referral got lost in the ether. After chasing it up, they rang me on Friday and offered me an appointment for the following day. We had to travel to Banbury, about an hour away. It was actually a small private hospital that the NHS sometimes uses for scanning purposes. The MRI was situated in a trailer in the car park, but the prep (canula insertion and drinking the 1L of disgusting bowel distender with laxative effects) was done in a small private room inside. The room had an ensuite with loo, for which I was very grateful! Still traumatised by the laxative experience before my colonoscopy last year, I was worried about needing the loo whilst in the scanner and on the hour journey home. Luckily, the effects didn't kick in fully until I was home; possibly the Buscopan injection that they give you during the scan to relax the intestines helped.

If you've never had an MRI, the prep is the worst part. The scanning machine is very noisy but they give you ear plugs (which it is best to ram right in!) and headphones, so you can follow the instructions. I kept my eyes shut to combat the claustrophobia and, if it wasn't for the fact that there is a lot of 'breathe in, breathe out, breathe in and hold', I think I may well have nodded off. The scan took about an hour and then we rushed home before the Buscopan fully wore off. When it did, the rest of my evening was spent mostly in the downstairs loo!

Anyway, that's quite enough of that. We've had several trips out over the past month or so - 3 of which were birthday presents, which I will get to in a moment. 

January saw us heading to Bristol to visit our youngest and take her out for a birthday lunch. Kibou is a Japanese restaurant with a delicious vegan (and GF) selection of food. Their sake wasn't too bad either!

Ingenious and beautiful sake bottle in a flask of hot water:

The food was delicious and we may have overordered just a tad. E took the leftovers home in a takeaway container for dinner the following day.

For R's birthday, L had bought him 2 tickets to see the 30th anniversary tour of The Fast Show. To be honest, I was never much of a fan but R liked the show back in the day, and it was a day out. I loved the London Palladium. Apparently, Bruce Forsyth's ashes are buried under the stage - he used to perform there a lot and wanted his remains to be near the sound of theatre, music and dance. As predicted, the show wasn't really to my taste. I enjoyed the cast talking about how they met but the rest of the show left me rather baffled. There was a lot of innuendo best left in the 1970s, and I was rather like Margo in 'The Good Life' wondering why something was funny. I was definitely in the minority though, R and the rest of the audience laughed non-stop for 3 hours. My favourite part was a film clip showing some of the late Caroline Aherne's best bits. I found some of those very funny, as well as being unbearably poignant.

A night at the Corn Exchange. It was enjoyable if not terribly memorable:

A trip to Longleat Safari Park for my birthday present from R - an aardvark feeding experience! It was an incredibly rainy day, which had its pros and cons. Firstly, R had forgotten his coat(!), so we stopped off at a Lidl en route and bought a cheap and cheerful padded waterproof from their middle aisle. It will now live in the boot of the car to combat any future moments of forgetfulness! The rain may have put a bit of a dampener on the outside bits, but the dreadful weather did mean that it was relatively uncrowded. I imagine that the drive through safari can get quite frustrating, not to say hot, during the summer months. Here are a few of my favourite bits - the photos aren't the best owing to trying to take them through rain spattered windows:

Lemurs sheltering from the rain:

Some rather bedraggled ostriches:

The monkey section - enter at your peril!

I loved the bat cave where you can stand watching them swoop around and coming very close. It's not for everyone though - some people seemed a little spooked by the experience!

Then it was time for the highlight of the trip - meeting Frankie, one of the park's aardvarks. Our appointment was for 3pm and, being nocturnal, Frankie was still asleep when we arrived. This allowed us time to get up close and personal, whilst learning all about her. Her snout was adorable, a bit like a large squishy marshmallow, but her tail was solid muscle! They are solitary creatures (her mate, Benny, lived in a separate enclosure nearby) with amazing digging capabilities. They also use their tail to cover their footprints to avoid predators.

When it became apparent that supper (or breakfast in Frankie's case) was imminent, she woke up and became very active extremely quickly! I'm not entirely sure that R had thought it through when it came to the feeding part! Imagine if you will, 2 vegans feeding a very enthusiastic aardvark with live mealworms followed by a raw mince chaser! Luckily, gloves were worn; it was the closest that either of us had come to meat in decades, but Frankie adored it. She was literally climbing all over us in her eagerness to get at the food and, despite the non-veganness (is that a word? :O) ) of it all, I loved every second.

My birthday present from L was a trip into London to see 'Shadowlands' at the Aldwych Theatre. She was my plus 1. It was an evening performance and, rather than travel back late at night on my own, I stayed the night at L's flat, enjoying a sleepover with her rabbit, Felix. I also booked tickets for the Picasso exhibition at the Tate Modern in the afternoon.

The cafe did a very nice vegan and GF apple and cinnamon cake - it was much nicer than it looks!

Dinner was a pre-theatre dosa at Sagar's:

The play was fantastic. L didn't really know the story of C.S.Lewis and Joy Gresham/Davidman. The ending, therefore, came as a bit of a shock. It's not often that you don't have a happy ending in plays, or even a bit of ambiguity or sense of hope. This one was just sad. I really enjoyed it and the acting was excellent.

Interval pink G&T - we traditionally share a cocktail with 2 straws!

A trip to the Unravel yarn festival in Farnham. I arrive early and leave when it starts to get too crowded. I bought some alpaca yarn to make the Hobbiton Vest.

Valentine's Day roses and getting out my veggie seeds.

Finally, I'm still joining as I go on my Prague blanket. When we visited Prague a couple of years ago, we didn't buy any souvenirs. Then I saw a video where 'It is a Sarah' began a blanket inspired by the colours of the buildings in Prague. I thought it would be a nice reminder of our holiday and decided to follow suit, with Lucy of Attic 24's Fireside Blanket pattern. To be honest, I'm in 2 minds about the colours; Sarah's were better but I went with what I had. Occasionally, we toy with the idea of getting a camper van. I'd love an old VW one, but fear that I would really need one with a loo! If we ever get one, this is the blanket that will go in it.

That's all for this month. I'm spending the day sowing some more seeds in the greenhouse and potting on some houseplants, all undertaken not far from the bathroom! How about you, anything exciting happening in your corner of the world? 

Toodle pip for now. x

Happy New Year!

Hello, and a very Happy New Year to one and all. I hope that everyone had a merry and healthy Christmas. There seemed to be a lot of bugs doing the rounds but, fortunately, my little family managed to avoid them ........... until after the celebrations anyway!

It's a little snowy here today so, after a rather slippery lunch time walk, I thought I'd make myself a hot drink and upload some photos from the past month.

For the first few, I have had to drag my mind back to R's birthday in mid December. I had arranged a quick trip to Salisbury - not a million miles away from where we live. We had, however, concert tickets to hear 'Messiah' being performed at the Cathedral, and thought that it would be nice not to travel home in the cold and dark afterwards.

Milford Hall Hotel looks very pretty from the front and was only a short walk away from the centre. Our room was in the far less salubrious modern extension at the back. On the plus side, multiple fire doors and stairs protected us from the noisy party which was going on after the concert had ended. We heard not a peep and a good night's sleep was had by all. I've had better breakfasts, but then our dietary requirements are quite annoying, so I was grateful for what we had.

After checking in and a sushi lunch in the centre, we went on a circular walk around the city. Starting in the market place, it took in the water meadows and returned us via the very pretty Cathedral Close. There was a very handy pub with spectacular views half way round. Sadly, all the outside seating was occupied (we were extremely lucky with the weather), so we continued on our way.

Supper was a pre-concert affair at an Indian street food place, a few minutes walk from the Cathedral. It was very pretty inside and extremely popular. The starters were amazing but I've had better main courses. The sag aloo was a tad disappointing, as was the daal, and the bangara baingan was a little too coconutty for my taste.

The concert was lovely, although not the best acoustically; I feel we have been spoilt after visiting the Cadogan Hall! The counter tenor, however, was brilliant, with the most incredible range. Coming out to a clear, starry sky and an illuminated Cathedral was just perfect.

After checking out on the Sunday, we headed for nearby Langford Lakes Nature Reserve. Binoculars in hand, we spent a few hours pottering round and enjoying a cosy picnic in one of the many hides. A wildlife photography exhibition in the room adjoining the cafe was fantastic. I bought a couple of cards from the photographer - absolutely gorgeous and much cheaper than W. H. Smith's (although I don't think it's called that anymore! :O(   ).

Having had our fill of birds, we drove a few miles to Dinton Park and Philipp's House - a National Trust property with rolling parkland and a neo-Grecian house. After stamping round the grounds (the house is privately occupied) for a while, we saw rainclouds gathering on the horizon, heading our way. A quick march back to Bridget ensured that we were home before the rain caught up with us.

The girls came home on Christmas Eve and the weather Gods again smiled on us. Christmas Day saw us walking to Bagnor and back via Donnington Castle:

Boxing Day was a walk around Greenham Common:

Apart from stockings for the girls, we did Secret Santa again this year. I had L's partner, V, and my youngest, E, had me. She did the most amazing present - 12 books, one for each month this year, chosen from her favourites that she read in 2025. Some were charity shop books, some Waterstone's mystery books, and some free from work. All were carefully wrapped, with a clue as to the genre on the outside. This month's has been devoured already: Andrea Mara's 'No-one Saw a Thing'. 2 young girls get onto an underground train in London, but the doors close before their mother can board. Only 1 of the girls gets off at the next stop! I'd never read any of her books before, but I really enjoyed it (despite hyperventilating at the thought of that actually happening!), and will be on the lookout for more. The other 11 books are still wrapped, waiting for their month; I can hardly wait!

Unrotated Christmas jigsaws!

A circular walk round Whitchurch on the 27th:

3 of the 4 of us may have purchased some sweeties at this old fashioned shop (Give me chocolate any day, but I'm not really a fan of sweets!).

The shop was Lord Denning's birthplace. According to Margaret Thatcher, he was 'probably the greatest English judge of modern times'. Upon retiring, he returned to Whitchurch to live.

After our picnic lunch, E decided that a piggy back from her big sister would be just the ticket!

For my birthday on the 28th, we headed off to Bath for the day. Lunch was enjoyed at The Green Rocket, a lovely vegan restaurant that E and I had visited before:

Knowing we were having a large dinner later, I opted for the courgette and leek soup. Very nice it was too!

My birthday treat was to do 'Mary Shelley's House of Frankenstein Escape Room'. There were 2 to choose from and R had booked 'The Shallows'. There were 4 puzzles, 3 of which we whizzed through fairly quickly ....... then came the 4th! We were stuck for ages and I was convinced that we were going to run out of time and get locked in. More by luck than judgement, we suddenly worked it out, and escaped with just 5 minutes to spare. It was great fun and I would definitely recommend it.

Dinner was at at Rosa's - a Thai restaurant chain that we have visited before. Then it was back to the Park and Ride bus stop, only to realise that the buses stopped running at 6pm on Sunday! Rather annoyingly, since we had bought return tickets, we arrived back at the car park via Uber!

After the girls had gone back home, R and I did a few more walks in the period between my birthday and New Year.

Snelsmore Common:

The Ridgeway:

If you look closely at the shadows, you can see us waving in this one!

A New Year's Eve concert at Dorchester Abbey:

New Year's Day walk and picnic on White Horse Hill at Uffington. It was freezing! :O)

A warmer walk starting in Ecchinswell:

Just 2 more photos:

A hot air balloon that came to land close to the bottom of our garden. At one point, I thought it was actually going to land in the river!

 

My Cosy Memory blanket made up of squares using, amongst others, my advent calendar yarns from the lovely Barbara. It is big enough now for a single bed, but I want it wider!

Well, that's all for the moment. Could I just take this opportunity to wish all the lovely people of Blogland a very happy and healthy 2026.

Toodle pip for now. x