Hate to think what it would be like if we a had a storm…

As you may know already from previous blog posts, the men who work to repair the sea wall in front of our place wear orange overalls; they also wear hard hats and ear protectors. While I was painting the railings on the sea side of our house today I noticed that many of the men had northern accents. I wanted to call out, “Thank you for saving our sea wall!”, but they were busy and I was too busy even to turn around. During a break in my painting endeavours I ran upstairs and grabbed both of my cameras; I don’t know if they saw me taking photo’s of them and the pontoon in the distance. These are our heroes…

Yesterday afternoon I collected Daniel, Mary and Charlotte from school and took them to the hospital where their mother, my niece (also my nineteenth birthday present), is awaiting the birth of another baby girl. As we were walking back to the car in the hospital car park I called Charlotte “Little Lotte”.

“Is that my nickname?” asked the six-year-old.

“Yes, what do you think? Is it alright?” I queried.

“Yes,” she smiled, seemingly rather delighted to have a nickname.

“What about me?” asked Mary (aged seven).

“Now let me see…. You are graceful and athletic… so how about Fairy Mary?”

Fairy Mary nodded and smiled her assent.

“Have you got a nickname for me, too?” Daniel came up beside me.

“Hubba Bubba!” I said quickly.

“Why Hubba Bubba?” asked Daniel (aged ten).

“Oh, for no other reason than it was the first thing that entered my head. What do you think? Is it alright?” I replied. I assumed that Hubba Bubba was too young to remember or know that my inspiration came from the name of a bubble gum which was around in the seventies. (Perhaps it remains so but I’m not at all sure, considering I no longer chew bubble gum.)

“That’s fine,” he said laughing (maybe he knew it was a bubble gum and the notion tickled him!).

Later on, back at the home of my nieces and nephew (with the great nicknames), I was talking to my sister, who had come to take over from me, when Little Lotte interrupted the conversation.

“Sally,” she began, “I’m not sure that I want to be called Little Lotte…”

“Well, how about Lovely Lotte and… (I turned towards Fairy Mary) Fabulous Fairy!”

“It’s quite nice but I’m still not sure,” said Lotte.

“Okay. Now let me think of what other…..” and I paused for a second or two to consider which was the appropriate word to use for children of their ages.

“Adjectives,” suggested Fabulous Fairy helpfully.

“Why of course, adjectives. You know about adjectives?” I was amazed.

Incidentally, Sporty Lotte, is extremely happy with her particular adjective. Cute kids!

A little earlier, as now, the sun was shining, the air was fresh and crisp, and everything looked sparkling; it was the perfect morning for a bike ride. We rode to the ford, stood on the little footbridge and gazed across at our favourite field, ate blackberries from the hedgerows, waved to the friendly farmer in his big green tractor, observed the bevy of ripe apples heavy on the trees in a nearby orchard, and then it was time to ride home (past the allotments, down the Newhay path, beside the brook….).

Our good friends Stephen and Janine (up in The Lake District) were looking through the autumn programme of events at The Old Laundry Theatre, Bowness-on-Windermere, when they noticed with surprise that a pianist by the name of “Tim Horton” has been engaged to appear (photo attached). Now I must add that there was nothing surprising about the fact that The Old Laundry could afford to employ the gifted pianist (at least we don’t think so) – it had everything to do with the photo attached. In Stephen’s words, the photo had a “distinct similarity of handsome good looks to what we would reasonably imagine to be a marginally younger and coincidentally pianistically gifted Chris Orpwood”.

I agree most emphatically – what do you think?

It seems I have a penchant for dogs in cars…

“To the ruler, the people are heaven; to the people, food is heaven.”
(ancient Chinese proverb)

Confucius say: “Coarse rice for food, water to drink, and the bended arm for a pillow – happiness may be enjoyed even in these.”

Dr. Dukan say: Eat no fruit, you get slim, ma Cherie (he’s French)

Dr. Clements (from Dawlish surgery) say: If two lettuce leaves make you fat, eat only one lettuce leaf!

Chris Orpwoo’ (husband) say: Have chocolate, put you in good mood.

Confused (me) say: ” Confucius say: ‘Is it not pleasant to learn with a constant perseverance and application?'”

“Hi Sally…look up the large statues in Scarborough area on sea front…amazing… That said, you cant beat a bit of Mr Rodin,” commented Diana after seeing my previous post about sculptures.

Straight away I went to Mr Google (the font of all knowledge) and looked up “Sculptures in Scarborough area”. To my surprise I found myself in Scarborough, Western Australia, looking at a photograph of statues of life guards (and why not?) – of course, after my trip earlier this year I’m still connected to Google Australia! I soon located the English Scarborough and here are the statues. I particularly like the twelve foot Mr. Darcy…I wonder what happens when the tide goes out?

They must have missed him. They must have been waiting (somewhat hungry for bread) for his return. They must have known he wouldn’t desert them forever. They were right. And here they are… Roland’s faithful friends.

The Dawlish Air Show 2014 was spectacular yesterday, not only because of the Red Arrows, or the Air and Sea Rescue, or the stunt plane… but also because the last two surviving Lancaster Bombers in the world (one came all the way from Canada) joined forces, along with a Hurricane and a Spitfire, to show us what the Royal Air Force was made of back in the nineteen forties.

Here are some of the photographs that Chris took on his camera…