The BeenThere-DoneThat Blog

We take our road names seriously in this country.

 

Tomorrow morning we are off to Houghton in Huntingdonshire staying at the Three Horseshoes Inn (Horseshoes are supposed to be lucky) for one night and returning the following day.

In that short time we are hoping to see Houghton Mill, walk across to the village of Hemingford Grey then on to St. Ives and back to Houghton.

The following day we plan to visit Huntingdon and possibly Godmanchester.

The weather here has been hot (85 F) and sunny for the past few days and it’s supposed to stay that way until Friday.

When Marie was last over here she had a pedometer with her and that sowed the seed of an idea. We now have a pedometer each which tells us how many steps we make and, having calibrated them appropriately for the lengths of our steps, what distance we’ve covered. I shall be interested to see what sort of distances we cover when we’re at home, when we go on a day trip and when we go away.

The average person, so I understand should cover about 10,000 steps every day; that’s about 5 miles. Some hopes!

I did warn you some time ago that Marie and Lisa, two of our American friends, were arriving in England on the first of April and that chaos would result.

It seems that the Americans sent their president over one day in advance so that he’d be there to greet Marie and Lisa when they arrive this morning. Half this country’s police are in London to make sure that things go smoothly and there are also going to be thousands of protesters and who can blame them.

After all that fuss on their behalf Marie and Lisa should be arriving in Colchester later today. I’ll let you know what happens (If I’m still sane ).

I see that in March 2007 I gave a list of places which we were hoping to visit that year and this is that list:

‘Stay Away’ trips:

Lavenham
Stamford
Lincoln
Peterborough
Rye
Winchelsea
The South Downs including the Seven Sisters and Birling Gap.
Wells
Glastonbury
The Mendip Hills including Cheddar Gorge and Burrington Combe.

Day trips:

Saffron Walden and Audley End House, Essex
Pleshey, Essex
Stisted, Essex (Village and Bluebell wood)
Dunwich Heath and Coast, Suffolk
Orford (Castle), Suffolk
Diss, Norfolk
Cambridge, particularly Grantchester, Cambridgeshire

So how did we do?

We managed the following during 2007:

Lavenham, April

Rye and Winchelsea, June
The South Downs, September and again in October

That was all that we managed out of that ‘Stay Away’ list. We did, however, go to the Derbyshire Peak District on the spur of the moment in May 2007 and to Yorkshire in July so those were nice ‘extras’. The main reason that we couldn’t do all that we planned was that the weather was more unsettled than it had been on previous years. Little did we know then that the weather for the following year, 2008, was going to be even more unsettled.

As for day trips in 2007:

Pleshey, April
Stebbing, April
The Bardfields, April
Pin Mill, June
Harwich, June and again in August
Epping Forest, November

We did then manage some more of that ‘Stay Away’ list in 2008:

Another trip to Rye, April when we met Marie
Stamford, May
Glasonbury & Wells, August

The weather wasn’t good enough in August for me to get pictures for the main web site when we were in Glastonbury although I managed some for Wells and Cheddar Gorge.

An extra was another trip to the Cotswolds in May – Chipping Campden and Stow-on-the-Wold when a sunny spell suddenly materialised.

Day trips in 2008:
Woodbridge & Orford, May
Saffron Walden, July

So of our original list we have remaining – Lincoln and Peterborough.

In addition, for this year, we have added:

Dorset around Dorchester
Redbourne for the Northen Chilterns, Buckingham and Stowe Gardens
Dorchester-on-Thames for Oxford and the Southern Chilterns
The Isle of Wight

This years day trips will include places that Marie and Lisa want to see when  they come over and if Antonello comes over to Dedham Vale in May we may have a few more local trips.

We are going to have to wait and see what the weather brings this year. I can’t imagine that we are going to be able to get through everything in that list.

It is now 1st March and I’m very glad to have got here at last. It has been a long, dark, cold three months from the beginning of December and it’s now beginning to warm up. The winter has been unusually cold, for this country,  with temperatures well below freezing for a lot of the time. Some gardens and estates have not opened to the public at Snowdrop time because even the Snowdrops were late.

However the Crocuses are now in flower and the Primroses are beginning to show their faces. Augustus the pheasant has been strutting round the garden in all his finery as he tends to do at this time of year.

Looks like Spring is on it’s way.

We are hoping that sometime this month we will have some good weather and, if so, we plan to spend a couple of nights in The Chilterns doing some walking. Amanda’s foot is still not back to normal but we are hoping that it will enable her to do, at least, some shortish walks.

That trip will also, hopefully, act as a tonic in preparation for the American invasion (Marie and Lisa) which occurs in exactly one calender month from today and when Essex and Suffolk will be in total chaos for a week.

Watch this space!

The Kestrel that has taken up residence on one of the beams above our balcony, which I mentioned in a previous post, we have called ‘Birdie’. Yes I know that’s not very original but what can you expect from a couple of old duffers?

We noticed that she was still there when we got up this morning and she eventually flew off at 7:45 AM. I can’t say I blame her for being reluctant to get out of bed as last night must have been the coldest night we’ve had this winter – well below zero.

We noticed her because we were looking at the sky just before sunrise and this is what we were looking at:

Pretty spectacular eh? Amanda took the picture.