Randoms

Hi all,
The weather seems to be ranging from Springlike (warm and sunny) to Wintry (cold, rain, grey) but it's not stopping us from getting out and about...
I met up with my friend Manda and we went to Belmont which is a private house and garden. The house was closed but we had a nice time catching up and finding interesting places


Such as the nuttery


An overgrown tunnel of evergreen


An encounter with a toad in the greenhouse and a nice way to grow your vines


Look at the luxury of space! Think of all those vegetables...


I aspire to pruning a tree like this


Or maybe an archway of apple trees 


This is looking into the orangery where one simply must grow ones own oranges


And this is looking back at the house. The orangery is the big windows towards the left


The tearoom unexpectedly was open


Albeit help yourself!


And a first for us - a kiwi on the plant


Another day found us exploring the underground in Ramsgate. Have no photos but if anyone is over that way it's worth a visit


And lunch at a Belgian bar which was very quirky and very continental


His and hers loos



And a sort of art gallery / boudoir as you got further in


On the walk round the harbour we saw this sign


This is looking back towards the town 


The harbour and town


This is worthy of sharing - a cake made by friend Ian an tasted fab


A slightly more suspicious gift is this from my aunt who brought it back from Japan- a sea cucumber. We've not been brave enough yet...


Hope all well with everyone xxx keep in touch
W&b

From Dorset to Devon to Dorset to Kent

We went to Devon to visit my grandmother (dad's mum) who lives in Plymouth (it is the centre of the universe for those of you who may be ignorant of this fact) and woody's friend Chris who moved to Devon fairly recently.


We stopped off for a coffee and a loo break at Buckfast Abbey. They make a fabulous tonic wine which is like a herbal port that I love but unfortunately it contains caffeine so more likely to keep you awake than help you sleep. They are also known as Fastbuck Abbey which gives you an idea how popular the tonic wine is!


In the grounds is the unprepossessing Methodist chapel


The pub where we all met for lunch did not have working heating and as people came and went we sneaked closer and closer to the fire and added logs to it ourselves as no-one else was doing it and it was very cold!


Not a clear photo but between the glasses are some rather big eyes belonging to a spaniel who hasn't been fed for some significant period of time like about 5 minutes or so.


This is some ancient urn that may be worth a fortune (according to grandma) but she can't see all the cracks in it!
Back in Dorset I had a hair cut for the grand sum of £10. As I haven't had it cut for several years this has been a decent saving.

Yup really cut


Before...


And after! Guess who had his cut too!


The plait was sent to the Little Princesses Trust to make wigs for children usually with cancer


We walked around the village on our way to friends for lunch. This is the rives what runs through the village famously flooding the church and causing much chaos


This is the view down to the county town of Dorchester 


And here are the friends we had lunch with! Duffie...


Scrumpy


And Princess Lily

We had a lovely pizza lunch and then sat in front of the wood burner and chatted. I had a tour of the woodshed - nothing nasty there but a lovely creative space for writing and art and Woody gave iPad and iPhone lessons


Another day, another lunch - a friend who works in Bridport met us for lunch at Oh Crumbs! A cafe run by people with learning difficulties and we had a very cheap, tasty and filling lunch before a wander round the town


A cappuccino in a glass mug


And a stop for a quick walk on the beach...


In February...


This is the window at my friend Kate's work. You only get to see if you use the loo at the accountants!


And the high st. The hill in the background matches one in Devon and was supposedly planted to be confusing for the excise men hunting smugglers.


We collected mum from a friends house on top of a hill with views down over the town of Bridport before heading home for supper


Valentine's Day found us sampling the Thai restaurant in the county town of Dorchester


Cornish crab to start


Moving on to pork and octopus all the way through to duck and salmon main and a chocolate mousse with green tea ice cream and cherry sake. All very tasty!


This is the floodlit tower of St. Peter's from the car park - an unusual view as not many people come round here and when we arrived it had been shrouded in cloud 


And driving back to Kent was brightened by this lovely rainbow - always a sign of hope


And the day after driving round Kent this rainbow in a cloud - all the more magical because it wasn't raining.


And the same cloud from another location - love rainbows!

Hope all well with you and lots of love
B&W xxx

Travelblogue

So this next day out will be more interesting to some than others. Let's just say my mum didn't go and I went to keep Woody and my Dad on the straight and narrow. Woody's boss had purchased a light on eBay. Turned out to be less of a bedside light and more of a street lantern stained glass job. Sorry no photos and that's the best description I can muster after working nights and leaving my brain somewhere in the twilight zone. The light was in Somerset - not too far from Dorset and more far from Kent so we offered to collect it if it was possible. A long to and fro of messages ensued and we did manage to make a date to transfer the goods. Looking around nearby places to visit were Street - the Clarks outlet with other shops including Cadbury's, Glastonbury complete with Tor and abbey ruinous or the Fleet Air Arm Museum.
Guess where we went.
Bloody marvellous.

Light collected we went straight to the cafe where the nice young man taking the money for lunch let us know more by chance than anything that entry is cheaper if you buy online...

So we did! Good things these smart phones. Then walked up steps Ito entrance and showed booking reference and voila! Money saved and we were in...


There were several halls of lots of planes. For those that don't know the museum is about the air part of the Royal Navy so includes info about the boats a bit but mostly about planes and helicopters


And there was a cat for a bit of light relief. 


Woody having a good look round


And there was lots to wax lyrical about...


Lots and lots...


And lots...


And when not talking there was looking to be done...


And more looking...

Had to physically remove mr Woody from the engines (Boring) to go on the flight simulation of being on a helicopter ride to the flight deck of an aircraft carrier
There was a tour round the deck and we saw both a plane land and take off off...


Here it comes!


Straight at you 


And there safely landed or recovered as they called it. We were on a replica of the deck of HMS ark Royal where there were various planes standing about to look at before the tour continued round the 'island' of the aircraft carrier.
We then went down through another simulation as if we were on a plane going into the ship for the hangar and saw a video of an Air Sea Rescue where one of the planes bolted and basically went off the edge of the boat into the sea and the pilot is picked up by a helicopter.


The last hall was mostly full of Concorde 


And on this day it turns out my blood was heading off to Birmingham without me


On board concorde


Pretending to fly!



And yes we are still talking


And talking


And talking

And talking 


And walking and talking


It turns out from later looking online that Woody had been on this exact Concorde before with his Dad when he was about 12 and the memory has stayed with him!


Tally Ho!


And off we flew back to Dorset for a curry dinner cooked by my mum with some friends. Every time we go to Dorset we have got a tradition of meeting up for a curry dinner. Sometimes we go out but this time mum had got a recipe for a curried shepherd's pie from colonial India which was unusual and tasty! 
More anon with less planes 
Love to all xxx