April and an Easter break

April 24, 2019

Highlights

Placed a bet on the Grand National for the first time in my life. Used the William Hill app and paid with PayPal. £10 each way on One for Arthur - and it came in 6th which was the last place on which they were paying out! I won £30.

Mike rang John Harrold in Hereford to book a tower for the Summer Trip and John asked him if he was related to Jill Wigney who rings handbells!! Yay - famous!!

Had my hair cut - hardly anyone noticed because I tied it back in the same way but it felt much lighter and shorter to me. Had a manicure and pedicure too.

Walking

Did the Downley walk with Maryanne, Kath and Madeleine (5.8m) (I dubbed it the Downley 5 trees walk because we had to clamber over 5 fallen trees in total). It was a lovely day - in fact quite hot - and a really good walk. The pub lunch at the Le De Spencers Arms was good too - tuna sandwich with chips.

Met Muffie for coffee at Osterley and we walked round the formal gardens - which turned out to be about a mile and felt like a walk in the countryside. The bluebells were magnificent. She gave me lots of plants for the garden too. Tried out the timer feature on the new microwave to cook pasties to be ready on my return home - worked a treat!

Handbells

Rang a peal of Lincolshire Major in the ringing room at Magnus. Thanks to the Toilet Map app, I found there was a pub nearby which allowed people to use the facilities without being a customer as part of the London Community Toilet scheme - much to my relief. In Devon rang some surprise minor with David Maynard and Mike, without scoring anything, and scored a peal of 41 minor, and QPs of Kent Major, Cornwall S Major and Superlative S Major with Tim.

Devon -a two week trip!

On Sunday 7th I picked Jayne up from Heathrow - got my timing much better this year. Tracked the flight on an app, saw it was delayed by 45 mins, and timed my arrival for after it had landed. Only had to wait about 10 mins for her to appear. It was great to see her again. Luckily the delay meant that we avoided horrendous delays on the M5 due to a crash - it had been cleared away and the traffic was flowing again by the time we got to the scene. Jayne had seen the queuing traffic from the plane.

Jayne tries out my footstool - as does Suki!

Had a lovely two weeks - the weather was bitterly cold during the first week but the Easter weekend was boiling hot! Met up with Jackie a couple of times for a walk in Parke and then coffee - the first time with Jayne but the second time it was just me and Jackie as Jayne went off to Glastonbury for a few days to visit friends and family.

Had lots of nice walks - got the little parking space at the end of the tramway on the moor quite often, which makes for a nice circuit over Black Hill in reverse to the usual way, with not to much steep hill climbing (2.9m).

Also had a nice long walk in Yarner Wood. I thought I was doing an outer circuit but when I looked at it afterwards it was more of a middle circuit! (3.8m)

I built a Middlesex peals database - using all the peals on Bell Board as a starting point. I was pleased with the end result which included some hyperlink fields, and a combo box list of ringers. Just need to add all the other peals in now and allocate the Middx peal number.

Mike came down by train on Palm Sunday afternoon and I picked him up from the station. He came along to handbells at Moretonhampstead on the Thursday evening and we were able to ring the more advanced music as we had a full team (I rang Joyce's bells 3-4 and Mike rang mine 9-10).

On Good Friday Mike went off to ring a peal of Yorkshire Royal on the Den Misch ring at Exeter School. I took Suki out on the moor for a walk - tramway - but she was not all that keen and it was already getting quite hot. I did cross stitch for the rest of the dayand finished the baby sampler for Emma (just awaiting name and date).

When Mike came in at lunchtime he was keen to do something - so he painted the other bit of fence and the gate. He was out in the sun for 6 hours! I finished off the two panels he couldn't reach at the end.

On Easter Saturday we went to Haldon Forest (Obelisk Trail) for an early walk, before it got too hot for Suki. It was a beautiful morning although the views were a bit hazy. We did the long loop and the added on a further loop (about 2 miles in total). It was somewhat muddy at the bottom of the loop but was otherwise quite passable for the wheelchair and made a nice extension. We had a coffee and a flapjack (Mike)/Millionaire Shortbread (me) from the new coffee stall which was in the car park.

When we got back Mike had a snooze for a while and I got stuck in to my Bayeux Tapestry cross stitch - making good progress. Later Mike painted the garden bench which looked great. Jayne came back late afternoon.

We made an early start on the Bank Holiday Monday to try and avoid the worst of the traffic. We left the house at 8 am and went for a walk in Stover, and were on our way just before 9 am. We arrived back in London at 12.30 after a reasonably good journey - and successfully missed the horrendous queues which had by then built up on the A38 and M5 https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/severe-delays-along-70-mile-2784248

The clematis was in full bloom in the garden. I mowed the lawn in the afternoon and tried out the parasol base I had bought in Trago Mills - it worked beautifully! In the evening we went out with Monica to eat at Lara. Mike was not feeling well so didn't eat or drink much - but I think I made up for it!