Dalzell’s Travels

Monday 16 May to Monday 23 May

Once again this week has been spent with Ella, catching up after our big day on Sunday, and just enjoying doing the normal day-to-day things.  Ella’s British Passport arrived this week, so as soon as her Australian Visa is organised, she will be all set for her holiday with her Mummy and Daddy to Australia in August.

Blenheim Palace

On Saturday morning, 21 May, we collected our hire car for the weekend – a Mercedes C Class, so that we could all fit comfortably for a day’s outing to Blenheim Palace.  Unfortunately, by the time we put the baby’s capsule in the car, there wasn’t enough room for two adults to sit in the back seat comfortably, so we drove back to the car hire place in Slough to return the car.  Luckily for us, a Ford Galaxy had just been returned, so we were able to get it for the same price.  The Galaxy is an upmarket 7- seater, with the second row of seats having three separate bucket seats, which easily fitted the baby’s capsule and two adults, very comfortably.  With the third row of seats folded away, we had heaps of room for the pram etc.

After our false start, we left here at about 10.00am and drove to Blenheim Palace, which is just past Oxford, about an hour’s drive.  Blenheim Palace, which is a World Heritage Site, was built between 1764 and 1774 and was the birth place of Sir Winston Churchill.  The Palace is the current home of the Duke of Marlborough, the descendant of Sir Winston.

From the moment the four of us (with Ella in her pram) walked up the long driveway and under the main entrance archway and through the gold inlaid gates, we were impressed with the huge palace, which sits on 2 000 acres of land.  We looked around the ground floor of the palace before Janet fed Ella and then we had a nice lunch in the Water Terrace Café, overlooking the Water Terraces.  After lunch we went for a walk beside the lake along the Garden Lakeside Walk past the Boat House to the Dam and the Cascades, returning to the palace via the Arboretum, the Rose Gardens, the Temple of Diana and the Italian Gardens. There are many acres of manicured lawns and almost park-like areas where families can have picnics – dogs are even allowed as long as they are kept on a lead.

While Janet fed Ella again, the two of us went for a wander (to take more photos) and saw hundreds of ladies dressed in pink walking down the hill from the Column of Victory – they were walking either 10 or 20 miles to raise money for the Cancer fund.  The Column of Victory is 41 metres high and stands at the entrance to the Great Avenue in “The Park” and has a statue of the 1st Duke on the top – he is dressed as a Roman General and is holding a Winged Victory.

There is even a little train that takes you from the palace to the Butterfly House, Pleasure Gardens, Maze and Adventure Play Area, but we decided that we would leave that part of Blenheim until Ella is old enough to appreciate it.

On Sunday 22 May, we were all invited to Ella’s Godparents, Wanda and Alan’s house for lunch.  We spent a very enjoyable afternoon with them, talking, laughing, eating, looking at Ella, and just enjoying each other’s company.

On Monday 23 May, we spent a quiet day because little Ella has a head cold and is not well.  Janet took her to the doctor, who checked her over and said she doesn’t have any throat/ear/chest infections, so that is good news.  She had a very restless night last night and needs lots of extra cuddles today – there are two very eager volunteers!!

Ella’s Baptism – Sunday 15 May – Sunny and cool

We were all up early to get organised and to get Ella dressed in her beautiful Baptism dress and of course, to take lots of photos (see Gallery).  Ella looked absolutely gorgeous!!  We arrived at St Mary’s in time to take more photos and to say hi to Janet and Adrian’s friends, while waiting for the service to begin.  The Baptism went really well and Ella didn’t even cry when Wil, the Vicar, poured water over her head.  Janet and Adrian’s family and friends were invited to join the usual morning tea in the hall after the service, which was lovely, and gave us all a chance to chat.

After that, about 20 of their friends came back here to continue the celebrations.  Sandy was delighted that her friend, Lynne’s daughter, Chelsea, who is working in London, was able to come and spend some time with us too.  Janet had organised a lovely iced fruit cake, which Ella’s Godparents, Wanda and Alan helped them to cut.  Ella spent the afternoon, looking beautiful, sleeping and being passed around for lots of cuddles.  Janet and Adrian received some really lovely gifts for Ella from both their Australian family and friends as well as from their English friends.

We all had an absolutely wonderful day and feel very blessed that this beautiful little person has come into our lives.  We are both so grateful that Janet and Adrian were able to arrange for the baptism to take place while we were here.

Monday 9 May to Saturday 14 May

We had a lovely week enjoying Ella – she has grown so much already and we are still enjoying doing the normal day to day activities with Janet and Adrian.  Ella is so cute – she makes lots of little noises while she is sleeping and especially when she is feeding.  On cue, she just made what Sandy’s Dad would have referred to, as an impersonation of a squeaky gate!

On Tuesday, we had a visit from Sandy’s sister’s brother-in-law, Michael and his wife, Maggie.  They spend half the year living nearby in Bray and the other half in Melbourne.  We spent a lovely morning together and it was so nice to catch up with them again as the last time we saw them was in 2009 when we were here last.

On Thursday the Health Visitor came to see Janet and Ella.  In the UK, after your baby is born, your midwife comes to the house to check the baby on the 3^rd day, 5^th day and 10^th day and then passes your care on to the Health Visitors (attached to your local G.P.)  We think it is a brilliant idea because any issues with the baby or the mother can be picked up earl.   As well as health care, the parents receive valuable information and support in the comfort of their own home.  The Health Visitor tested Ella’s hearing, which showed no problems, which we were already sure of as she often turns her head to look at you when you are speaking to her.  She also weighed Ella who now weighs 4kg – an increase of 0.5kg since birth!!

On Friday Janet caught up with some of her workmates in the afternoon and so the two of us went for a walk.  It is difficult to walk around the area because of the golf course behind the flats, which makes the “block” quite big – it took us 50 mins, but we enjoyed exploring an area that we hadn’t seen previously.

On Saturday, we met up with some of Janet and Adrian’s friends at the local Italian restaurant, Francesco’s – a lovely time was had by all.

Over the past few days, Ella has had some issues in the evening with wind and has been unable to settle.  We have all taken turns in giving her cuddles or walking the floor with her.  Janet and Adrian have tried many things to soothe Ella including cuddles, dummy (which she hates), bathing her (worked for a while), playing the piano and singing to her (also worked for a while) and even taking her for a drive in the car.

Bletchley Park – Friday 6 May overcast warmish

The past week has been spent enjoying our time with Janet, Adrian and our beautiful Grand-daughter.  Adrian went back to work on Tuesday and we helped Janet with the mundane things, like the usual washing, shopping and cooking, while making sure we had lots of cuddles with Ella.  We took the VW Sharan hire car back to National – it has served us well but we don’t need it any more because it is too big!!

On Friday, the two of us headed off on an adventure on our own.  We walked to the station, caught a train two stops to Burnham and walked the short distance to collect our hire car from National Car Hire – a Ford Mondeo.  We had decided that we needed a larger car than Janet and Adrian’s

VW Polo, as we had been invited to spend Saturday with Janet and Adrian’s friends, Hilary and Andy at their beach house at East Wittering.  We decided that as Janet had a friend coming to visit on Friday, we would make the most of having the hire car and head off on an adventure.

We drove from Slough to Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, just over an hour from Slough to Bletchley Park, which was once Britain’s best kept secret centre for cipher and code-breaking during the Second World War.  The most famous of the codes and ciphers to be broken at Bletchley Park were the Enigma and Lorenz machine cipher, which was a triumph of intelligence and logistics, resulting in Britain’s brightest people inventing technology that we all now take for granted eg computers.  This all started in the Mansion House in August 1938 and as more and more people arrived to join the code-breaking operations, the various sections moved into large prefabricated huts set up on the lawns of the park – for security reasons the sections were only known by their hut numbers.  There are still 5 surviving huts, which we saw, one of which, Hut no 4, houses the café where we had lunch.

Our guided tour commenced in the Mansion House and took us to the Post Office, Sir Herbert’s Garage, the stable yard, the wartime garages of classic vintage vehicles and various other sites around the park.  The most interesting of these was the Bombe Room, where there was a mock-up of the original Turing’s Bombe.  This was an electro-mechanical machine of code wheels that greatly reduced the odds and time taken to break the ever-changing keys of Hitler and his allies’ messages. (see photos in gallery).  The other really interesting part of our visit was to see and hear the history of the working rebuild of Colossus, the world’s first electronic semi-programmable computer.  The very elderly gentleman who was the oldest geek we had ever seen, had lots of stories, including the fact that Colossus used over 2,500 valves, some of which dated back to World War Two.

We loved some of the stories that explained how the German codes were broken, e.g the German General who was stationed in the African Dessert, who sent a message every day to say “nothing to report”.  For some time it was this one constant message that allowed the British to identify that day’s encryption keys which enabled them to decode every other message that was sent that day.  Also, the story about the German who sat painstakingly writing his message to headquarters and receiving a message in return to say that not all of his message had gone through and could he please send it again.  He decided not to change the keys and redid the message, shortening words where he could, which then made it very easy for the British to decode his message.

We also found it amazing that there were 9,000 people working there, with bicycle couriers coming in and out every day, with messages to be decoded, and Bletchley Park still remained a secret.  A fellow tourist asked our guide what the locals would have thought about all the people coming and going and the guide said that we need to remember that this was during the war and the locals would not have questioned anything nor would they have discussed it with anyone!

There are many stories that will never be known because the people who worked at Bletchley were sworn to secrecy and many of them never revealed what actually happened there.

We thoroughly enjoyed our day at Bletchley Park.

On Saturday morning, we got up, got organised, packed Ella’s travelling bag for the day, hopped into the Mondeo and headed south to Hilary and Andy’s holiday house at East Wittering.  Their house is very close to the beach that we all went 10 days ago while Katharine and Eenie were here.  Hilary and Andy drove down to meet us at their holiday house and we had a wonderful day with them, seeing some of the things that they love about the seaside.  While Janet fed Ella, Hilary and the two of us walked the short distance into the village to the pie shop to buy a Steak and Ale pie for our lunch.  While we were gone, Andy cooked some new potatoes in their jackets, carrots and peas and prepared a lovely dessert.   Although it was overcast and coolish, we enjoyed a walk along the beach, which is two streets from their house and were surprised that the tide was in and there were reasonably large waves.  Then we walked through the village and found a sweetie shop (see photos) and bought some sweets.  From there, we took two cars and drove to Ichenor to the harbour, where we watched the sailing boats and also several boats being launched down the boat ramp.  We could have stayed there for hours, but we needed to continue our guided tour of the area and headed around Chichester Harbour to the eastern end to Bosham (pronounced Boz-m) Historical Village and the Quay area.  We enjoyed a walk along the shore road, which was covered in seaweed as this road is covered by water at high tide.  Andy told us the story about how, on many occasions, people would park their cars on the shore road to go to one of the pubs or to church and come back to discover their car covered in water!  We walked around to the park and then past the Holy Trinity Church, where there had been a wedding – lots of the male guests were in tails and all of the women were well dressed with hats etc.  We also saw where the doorways to the houses in the village have been stepped up to prevent the high tides coming into the houses.  We then drove around the harbour along the shore road, which Richard found incredible as it is a bitumen road that gets covered by the high tide!!

We returned to Hilary and Andy’s holiday house and had a cuppa while Janet fed Ella and then we headed for home at about 7.30pm, stopping on the way at a “services” for dinner, or as some of the English refer to it, for “supper”.  We had light rain most of the way home, but we thoroughly enjoyed our day with Hilary and Andy at the seaside – Ella was an angel in the car and slept most of the day between feeds.

Sunday – Mother’s Day – overcast (rained through the night), warmish

Today was spent relaxing and doing nothing really.  Sandy enjoyed chatting to Katharine, Craig, her Mum and sister, Maria on the phone for Australian Mother’s Day (the Brits had theirs a few weeks ago!)  This is Janet’s first Mother’s Day so that was special too!

In the afternoon, Janet and Adrian took Ella to have her passport photos taken for her big trip to Australia in August, while the two of us did some grocery shopping at Waitrose.

A lovely relaxing day!

Sat 23 April to Saturday 30 April

Most of the last week has been spent relaxing and enjoying our time with Ella and the family.

Saturday 23 April – Fine and Warm

In the late afternoon, Katharine, Eenie and the two of us went for a drive down to the Thames River at Maidenhead and then went for a walk along the river bank to Boulter’s Lock and watched the boats going through the lock. We walked and over the little bridge to Ray Mill Island and along to Boulter’s Weir.  We all thoroughly enjoyed our walk out in the sunshine.

Sunday 24 April – Fine and Warm

As it is Easter Sunday today, we had a nice roast lamb dinner for lunch – very nice.  The lamb here is quite different to Australian lamb – it is a different texture and quite pinkish (and quite a lot more expensive!)  Interestingly, the petrol here is approximately £1.39, which means that we are paying $2.21 a litre for petrol!!

Katharine, Eenie and the two of us again went for a drive down to the river in the afternoon and walked along the Thames Path towards Bray.  The path meandered along the river, under the railway bridge and under a canopy of trees, with lovely views across the river to the houses, or should we say mansions.  Richard and Katharine took lots of photos and Katharine played with her’s and Steve’s new telephoto lens, which they purchased duty free just before she came on holidays.  Richard is delighted with the zoom on his new camera.

In the evening, the two of us and Katharine went with Janet and Adrian for Ella’s first visit to their church at St Mary’s in Maidenhead.  Ella was the perfect baby and slept through the entire service as well as supper afterwards.

Monday 25 April, Anzac Day – Lest We Forget.  Fine but slightly cooler

Eenie and the two us drove Katharine over to Staines to pick Melissa up and then dropped the two of them at Marlow, where they went for one of the walks in Janet and Adrian’s “Walks in Berkshire and Buckinghamshire”. After the walk, they enjoyed the afternoon down by the River in the sunshine, where Katharine actually got a little sunburnt.  We have been on this walk when we were here in 2009 and it was lovely.   In the evening, we drove back to Marlow to pick them up and drove Melissa home to Staines, before coming back to Maidenhead – the trip took approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes using a combination of roads and motorways, including the A4 and M25.

Janet’s friends, Toby and Dave came to visit and meet Ella in the morning and Natalie, from church, came in the afternoon.

Tuesday 26 April – Overcast and coolish

We all headed off to Maidenhead in the VW Sharan – Janet and Adrian to register Ella’s birth at the Town Hall and the rest of us parked the car in the town centre, put Ella in her pram and wandered around the shops.  Janet and Adrian met us there and we bought some fresh bread rolls and headed home for lunch and a quiet afternoon.

Wednesday 27 April – Sunny, warm

Today was our big adventure day for Ella.  We all piled into the VW Sharan, with nappy bag, pram, baby carrier, assorted umbrellas, picnic blanket and 37 different cameras…. Well actually, there were 6 cameras plus a video camera and 4 phones with camera!  Adrian drove us to the Witterings, which is on the south coast of England, near Chichester, so that Aunty Katharine could introduce Ella to the beach.  We had lunch at a lovely little café called The Boulevard in South Wittering  – after lunch we walked a to the beach with Ella in her pram, but, as it was very windy, we only stayed for a short time before heading off to Brighton for another adventure.  We parked the car and walked out along Brighton Pier – Ella was in her baby carrier attached to Adrian – and we did the tourist thing, eating ice cream and looking at the various rides and entertainment booths.  The breeze had dropped and it was lovely walking along, soaking up the atmosphere and generally enjoying each other’s company.

We stopped on the way home so that Janet could feed Ella and arrived home at about 7.00pm, to a lovely twilight, which lasts until about 8.30ish at this time of the year.

We all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves today and Ella seems to really love the car.

Thursday 28 April – Overcast and coolish

Katharine walked into the town centre, which takes about 15 minutes, to buy Steve a present, while Eenie and the two of us went to Waitrose for groceries.  Janet and Adrian’s church friends, Terry and John called in to visit them and meet Ella, while we were out. Eenie took us out to lunch at the Horse and Groom, which is a short distance from here along the A4. We all had scrumptious meals and some of us had dessert, like sticky toffee pudding!!  We talked and laughed our way through lunch and loved showing a beautiful sleeping Ella off to the other patrons.  After lunch, Adrian drove us to the Piggott School so that Eenie could see where Janet worked prior to her maternity leave.   Late afternoon was spent with much laughter, with us all posing for a family photo taken on Richard’s camera with time delay.

Friday 29 April – overcast and coolish – “the Wedding”

We all sat around the lounge room watching the Wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton, talking (before the actual wedding), eating scones with jam and cream, and just enjoying all being together for the last day!   Late in the afternoon, the two of us drove Katharine and Eenie to Heathrow Terminal 4, for their return flight to Australia.  It was a sad time for everyone, but Janet and Adrian were so thrilled to have been able to share the past 12 days with them.

Saturday 30 April – sunny and warm

Today was spent catching up on the washing and cleaning and just generally relaxing.  Janet’s friend,

Lucy from school and her husband, Marc and gorgeous Evan, who is 14 months, came to visit us, and to finally meet Ella, this morning.  After lunch, we left Adrian in charge of Ella, while the three of us headed off to the Mother Care shop at Slough, to buy some lightweight sleeping bags for Ella.  The afternoon has been spent catching up on our blog and sorting photos.

There are more photos in the Gallery – several sets!

Tuesday 19 to Friday 22 April – sunny, warmish

The past few days have been spent doing the usual baby things – feeding (actually watching Janet feeding), watching Ella sleeping, cuddling her, and doing the mundane things like the washing, ironing etc.

However, there have been a few exciting things:  Ella had her first bath at home; Ella had her first walk in her pram, accompanied by Janet, Adrian, Katharine, Eenie and the two of us, to walk Eenie up Shoppenhangers Road to her hotel.   Ella loved her pram and slept the whole way. The other exciting thing we did was that we went into Maidenhead to buy a few things and Janet had Ella in the baby carrier (we used to call them a possum pouch).  Several people stopped to look at the beautiful baby!!  See photos of both excursions in gallery.

Yesterday, we drove Katharine to Windsor/Eton Riverside railway station to meet her friend Melissa, who is currently over from Australia and working in a school nearby.  Katharine had a wonderful day, exploring the area in the sunshine and catching up with Melissa.

A lot of shenanigans took place yesterday evening while Katharine was trying to wake Ella up for a feed – Ella had slept for 5 hours !  Ella was fast asleep and despite Katharine’s efforts, it took quite some time to wake her.

Currently, Eenie is nursing Ella, who is asleep, Janet is checking her emails on her laptop, Adrian and Richard are both playing with photos on their laptops, Katharine is playing WiiFit and I am doing the blog on our laptop – the age of technology!

We are all thoroughly enjoying our time together.

Friday 15 April

The four of us went out to dinner to the Novello Pub and had a wonderful night together – the food was lovely – see photo in gallery – and the company was magnificent.  Little did we know that this would be the last night that Janet and Adrian would be out to dinner as a “couple” because Janet’s labour started at midnight.  See separate blog about the birth – sorry this is out of order – we were a “little” distracted!!

Saturday 16 April

We picked up our hire car – a 7 seater VW Sharan in the morning, ready for our visitor (Katharine) on Monday.  We decided on a 7 seater so that we can all travel in the one car when we go anywhere.  (It was fortunate that we had picked it up as we used it to drive Janet and Adrian to hospital – they were able to sit in the back comfortably and Adrian was able to continue to support Janet during her contractions.)

Monday 18 April

Overcast but warm – 20 degrees

Janet and Adrian brought their special little bundle home from hospital today at approximately 1.30pm, to their home in Maidenhead – how exciting.  Ella enjoyed her first car trip and slept most of the way.  She settled into her home and had a quiet afternoon with Mummy and Daddy, while Nanna and Poppa went to the shops.

At approximately 4.30pm the two of us headed off to Heathrow to pick Katharine up from her flight from Australia and also a very big surprise for Janet and Adrian.  Katharine, Steve, Eenie and the two of us have been plotting and planning for months to organise for Eenie to come over to England to surprise Janet and Adrian.  We couldn’t believe that we managed to pull it off without anyone knowing or any of us putting our foot in it! The look on Janet and Adrian’s face when Eenie walked into their flat was priceless!!  See photos on Gallery.

Because Janet and Adrian’s flat only has 2 bedrooms, with us occupying one and Katharine camped on the lounge room floor, we organised for Eenie to reside in the hotel just up the road from Janet and Adrian’s flat – just 8 minutes walk away or 2 minutes in the car.

Our beautiful new grand-daughter, Ella Maree Sutton, was born at 6.50 am on Sunday 17 April 2011, after a very long labour.  She weighs 7lb 11 1/2 ozs and is 56 cm long. Janet and Adrian are over the moon.  We were very privileged to be able to be at the Wexham Park Maternity Hospital to encourage Janet as her labour progressed.  We were also fortunate in being able to see Janet, Adrian and Ella minutes after her birth.  We are all exhausted but extremely delighted with the new arrival!

See photos in gallery.

Monday 11 April

Sunny, warmish 19 degrees

Caught up with some washing and ironing while Janet went to see the doctor – all is well.  In the afternoon we went upstairs to Pat’s flat for a lovely afternoon tea, with lots of chatter and laughter.  Pat is a delightful granny with a keen sense of humour and an adventurous spirit.  She was telling us about a 4 month cruise that she has booked on the Queen Elizabeth II later this year.

Tuesday 12 April

Overcast, cool 15 degrees

Janet and the two of us spent the morning visiting some of the nearby towns, looking at christening gowns and suits.  We went to Crowthorne and Bracknell and then, after lunch, we went to Marlow to a Bump and Baby shop, where we found some gorgeous baby clothes. (won’t purchase any until we know what colour we need!)

Wednesday 13 April

Overcast, cool  11 degrees

Most of the day was spent relaxing.  Janet went for a catch up with her antenatal ladies, while the two of us enjoyed a walk into Maidenhead.

Thursday 14 April

Overcast, cool

Janet took us for a walk down to the station to show us how to use the ticket machines and we purchased our tickets two off peak travel card, ready for this evening – 27 pounds for the two of us.  This entitled us to the overland train from Maidenhead into Paddington and any number of tube rides we needed to take plus our return journeys.

The three of us went out to lunch at the Shire Horse, which is a traditional English Pub set in the countryside not far from Maidenhead.  Richard had a beef and ale pie and a pint of Stella, which he thoroughly enjoyed; Sandy had Chicago chicken and Janet had a jacket potato.  We enjoyed our lunch and a chat while soaking up the atmosphere.

At 4.30 the two of us got tarted up, ready for our night out at Royal Albert Hall for the Mountbatton Festival of Music, our Christmas present from Janet and Adrian.  We walked down to the station, where we caught an express train into Paddington, which only took 20 minutes.  Once again we were impressed with the speed and quietness/smoothness of the express trains.  At Paddington, we headed to the Underground to catch our tube to High Street Kensington to discover that there was an issue with the signals on the line we wanted to use and the announcement was telling everyone to catch the next tube and change at the next station for the onward trip.  We were impressed when a nice gentleman (a Londoner) standing behind us was able to ensure us that we could catch the next train with him and he would show us where to get off and which train to catch to get us to where we needed to be. We enjoyed chatting to him and it turned out that the train we were on actually took us to High Street Kensington!

We walked along Kensington Road towards Royal Albert Hall and came to Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens and the Albert Memorial.  This is a monument to Prince Albert which was commission by Queen Victoria in memory of her beloved late husband who died of typhoid in 1861.  We sat in the park and ate our sandwiches before heading over to the Hall.

The distinctive exterior of the Hall was inspired by the architecture of Northern Italy and was built from some 6 million red bricks and 80 000 blocks of decorative terracotta. The Hall, which was opened in 1871, is round in structure and holds 8,000 people in a combination of stalls, grand tier, circle of three tiers of boxes each holding 8 people and the upper gallery. Janet and Adrian had organised a box, number 15, in the Loggia section for us with a magnificent view.

The Mountbatton Festival of Music is the Massed Bands of Her Magesty’s Royal Marines, and this year was the 39^th year of the Festival, which brings together the best musicians from Marine Regiments.

We were entertained with excerpts from Andrew Lloyd Webber, Michael Buble, classical music as well as traditional military pieces.   The drums demonstration was even better than those that we had seen at the Edinburgh Military tattoo in 2009!

The time passed very quickly and too soon it was time for us to walk back to High Street Kensington Station for our tube to Paddington and the much slower train back to Maidenhead.  We arrived back at Maidenhead at midnight to hear the town clock striking 12 times.  Richard had borrowed an overcoat from Adrian, which he put on for the walk back to the flat!

We have had an absolutely wonderful day!  We really enjoyed our present as this is something that we would not have thought to do ourselves!

Friday 8 April evening

This evening was so lovely and warm that we decided to take our dinner out into the garden (see photos in the Gallery at right).  The four of us enjoyed our meal is this very pleasant surroundings.

Saturday 9 April (Janet’s due date)

Fine, Sunny, warm – 21 degrees

The four of us drove to Marlow to meet Janet and Adrian’s friends, Natalie and Neil, for a picnic down by the River Thames.  The six of us went shopping at Marlow Waitrose for some fresh crusty rolls, cold meats, cheese, etc for a picnic lunch.  We enjoyed our walk through Marlow to the large park beside the river, where we spread our blankets under a large tree.  We watched the ducks and swans swimming and relaxed along with the hundreds of other families out enjoying the sunshine.  We were pleased to have the opportunity to meet and spend time with Natalie and Neil – we spent the afternoon talking, laughing and having fun.

Sunday 10 April – our Wedding Anniversary

Fine, Sunny, Warm – 22 degrees.

Sandy’s Mum and sister, Maria rang to wish us a Happy Anniversary and then the four of us (Janet, Adrian, Richard and Sandy) headed off on a little adventure out into the country to soak up more of the sunshine in the Chilterns.  Our first stop was Chalfont St Giles, where we went to the Chiltern Open Air Museum, which is a collection of historic buildings, dating back to the 16^th Century.  We wandered through the farm and the little village, which had a green, cottages, forge and chapel.  We saw the Henton Mission Room, a church and the High Wycombe Toll House, which was where people had to stop and pay a toll if they were transporting livestock – we saw people dressed in Victorian clothes – one lady was making bread in her tiny kitchen.  The museum also has learning experiences for schools – they have various displays, including brick making, furniture making, lessons in ploughing and feeding the farm animals.

From there we went to Amersham where we drove through the Old Town, with its cottages and Church of St Mary, which was built in the 12^th Century.

Then we drove on to Great Missenden, where Roald Dahl, the children’s author, spent 36 years of his life.

We drove through West Wycombe, where we saw a huge car-boot sale in a paddock – cars were lined up to get into the parking area.

We had lunch at a lovely English Pub in Turville, the Bull and Butcher, where we sat out in the garden, soaking up the sunshine and the views.  Then Janet and Adrian took us for a walk to show us the Vicar of Dibley’s house and the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang windmill.

We drove back to Maidenhead via Skirmett, Hambleden and Henley-on-Thames, thoroughly delighted with our trip out into the beautiful, green English countryside.

Janet and Adrian’s friends and soon to be Godparents of the new baby, Wanda and Alan had invited us for “pudding” at their house in Maidenhead and we spent a delightful afternoon eating the lovely pavlova that Wanda had made, chatting, laughing and enjoying their company.  We also met two of their children, Erik and Nicole and also the gorgeous cat, Rosie.

We all attended the evening service at St Mary’s church, which is a beautiful, friendly church in Maidenhead, where we met some more of Janet and Adrian’s friends.

We had a lovely Wedding Anniversary and have had a delightful weekend in the sunshine with Janet and Adrian.