Greetings and felicitations....

Penultimate

The Man and I arrived back in our little flat in Crystal Palace after a lovely week away.
It didn't take long to get thing stowed away.
Come wednesdy I've blogged every day for two years.
I wont say that it hasn't been a huge commitment because it has.
Tomorrow will be my last post of the year and the last of my daily musings.
I will continue to blog, but once a week rather than once a day.

Just chilling..

Today The Man and I got to spend the day with one of our sons. Nothing on in that you might think.
But today is his birthday. Haven't done that for a long time, even back in New Zealand .
What a lovely lazy day we've had. The Man and I, The Son and his Lovely Lady.just chilling.

A little bit of Peterborough

It is so very nice to be with family here in Peterborough.
This afternoon we, all four of us, went for a bracing walk at Ferry Meadows Park.A beautiful clear sky day, but with a chilly wind.We walked around the little lake and of course fed the ducks and swans.
Parks often have fallen trees, but here they have been given a creative touch.
What do you think of these creations.

With family now...

Strong winds made for slow speeds and road works slowed us down even further. Adding an extra two hours plus to our trip.
Suffice it to say that we are now comfortably seated in Peterborough, well fed and watered by family.
and that is all i have to say about that

York and the Minster

I've been reading a book by Ken Follet called The Pillars of The Earth. One of the main characters is a stone mason who dreams of building a cathedral. He describes the building of it in his mind, naming the different parts and their function. This afternoon The Man and I visited York Minster and the book came to life. In my minds eye I saw Tom, the mason, sketching out the plan on a plaster tablet, using multiples of his rod to create the perfect dimensions. Each structure a multiple of a single measure, thus making it pleasing to the eye.

Our modern buildings go up at breakneck speed compared to the years and manpower that it took to build a masterpiece such as The Minster.

There are many many tombs within the great building, some with dates as early as 1740. The beginning parts of the church are much older though dating from the mid 1100's

Outside proud of countenance, is a statue of a Roman conqueror call Constantine. He declared York was Roman back in AD746. Hows that for age. It continues to astound me that people just like you and me lived worked, laughed and loved all those thousands of years ago. 

York is a nice place, but boy did we notice the cold, it must have been all of five degrees there today, good thing the wind wasn't blowing or it would have felt a good deal colder.

Christmas Day in Scarborough

Some in England will have had a very wet one. And may still be without power.

There is also the threat of more rain for some.

We've had a lovely day, a light brekky was followed by a very pleasant walk along the beach and around the headland. There's a castle up there, I wonder if we can get up to it.

Following the directions of a couple of locals we found the steps and soon were admiring the view across the bay. It was a good thing we were well wrapped up 'cos it was a very cutting wind.

Down through the back streets of the town our steps took us past St Mary's church. In the grounds were a couple of ruined columns that lined up with the end wall and on the ground were what must have been the bases of several isle pillars. In the well kept graveyard some of the stones we read were dated in the mid 1700's.

On the side of one of the pretty steep streets was a well weathered column about eight feet tall and protected by railings, but we couldn't find any plaque to tell us what it was for. But good ole google solved the problem.

The Butter Cross now stands at the junction of Low Conduit Street and St Mary's Street, but would once have stood, complete and with a carved head, in Cross Street. A butter cross would have stood in the market square and derives its name from the produce that would have been sold near it

Back at the hotel we enjoyed a traditional lunch complete with Christmas crackers, silly hats and silly jokes, not forgetting the pud with brandy sauce.

The Man and I hope that not matter where you spent the day and who you spent it with that you had a very merry Christmas Day.

Scarboriugh is grand

Tuesday 24 Dec 2013

Oh dear it looks like the weather men were right, at lest for some parts of Britain.

Heavy rain and flooding in Surrey, strong winds in Manchester and Rail lines in Devon obstructed. Airports Gatwick and Heathrow are also affected by high winds. One airport had a power supply failure affecting luggage belts and departure boards.

And are The Man and I affected, thankfully no. We arrived in Scarborough last night, just in time for tea at The Grand Hotel where we are staying.

And grand it certainly is.

The 300 plus room hotel dominates the seafront.

After a very nice breakfast we were on the coach and off to Whitby. The Man and I visited here in 1998 when we stayed in a youth hostel up at the old abbey. The ruin was the inspiration for Brahm Stokers Dracula. The James Cook Museum that we were hoping to visit was closed. Undeterred him and me had a fossick on the beach and a walk around the town before out time was up and the coach took us on to Goathland. That mightn't sound familiar, but if you are a fan of Heartbeat then the town of Adensfeild might. It is the tiny town where the TV series was set.

We called in at the only café in the town and when I went back for a second coffee and a scone the very helpful (not) woman serving said we're not serving any more food, we're closed. She did make the coffee tho. We couldn't understand her turning down paying customers at half past two in the afternoon. And she didn't only turn us down, there was a another whole coach-load of tourist pulling up as ours left. Oh well, I guess the business must be thriving if it can turn customers away.

It was still early when we got back to Scarborough so after a comfort stop The Man and I put our warm gear back on and went for a walk into the town.

We were attracted by what sounded like live Christmas music. There in the main shopping precinct was, not a band but a huge electronic music maker. In the back of a special truck played piano accordions, pipe organs and drums all controlled by a computor. The chap with it said that it can play continuously for seven days without repeating itself.

Scarborough is a pretty place, even more so in the evening. We spotted a very pretty view over the harbour. What do you think

Weather woes...for some

The weather forecasters have go their doom and gloom hats on. They may well be right, but they do seem to relish the thought of a bad storm, something to worry, like a dog with a bone.

That is an odd expression isn't the worrying bit I mean, though I suppose it relates to the way the dog gnaws and chews at it. So when you look at it like that it makes more sense. The newscasters do like a good 'bad new' story to get their teeth into.

The headlines claim that it couldn't happen at a worse time of year. I would have thought that there is no time of year that is better than any other.

OK, it is very close to Christmas and lots of folks could be heading away,in fact I would think that a lot of holiday makers will have already gone,

The 2010 winter, the one before we came here, was I have to admit pretty bad. People got snowed in and lots of folks couldn't get to work.

It amazes me and The Man too that a country so far north is so ill prepared for bad weather. In fact the bad stuff can bring the country to a halt. Others we've talked to who come countries with much harsher winters shake their heads incredulously at the way the a bit of bad weather affects the country.

OK enough of that.

And now for something completely different.

For some reason the words of an old nursery rhyme popped into my brain and do you think I can remember the rest of it,

Off to bed said sleepyhead

Tarry a while said slow,

I started out with the weather and I'll finish with it too. The Man and I are, as I write, on a coach ( have you noticed that I don't call them buses any more?) being driven northwards. The other day at work someone asked me if we were going somewhere warm and sunny for Christmas. They were almost incredulous when I said no, that where we were would be cold. But The Man and I are after a different experience, warm is what we will get when we get back home to New Zealand

Lazy sunday

It was really nice to have a lazy day, and  it’s been ages I since The Man and I have been able to do that.  We got up so late that breakfast became lunch. And what a lunch. The Man did what he does incredibly well and magiced us up  scrummy bacon and eggs, Nom nom nom

I spent a bit of time writing, not getting terribly far with my story, but making slow progress.

Florrie, grandma, in 1911 was as I wrote yesterday working in a jam factory  . I do like to get my facts right so I asked a couple of questions of a Fb buddy and then followed up on the answers,

Said buddy pointed me in the direction of another blog, and pent a while reading the posts.

Things like wasp problems hadn’t  occurred to me, so a little more grist for  writing  mill

http://hattatt.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/flies-in-ham-and-wasps-in-jam.htm

I also acted  their suggestion  and sent enquiry emails to both Cross and Blackwell and Unilever who bought what was Morton’s factory. I’ll keep you posted on that one.

I couldn’t find granny’s  street on a modern map but again with the help of a FB friend was able to locate it on an old one. Interestingly, it is pretty near where my other granny lived in Denmark Street, which was only a couple of miles away.

Tomorrow The Man and I are off on holiday tomorrow. I will do my best to blog daily.

So if I don’t get to say it on the day

Merry Christmas to you and may the new year be everything you wish it to be.

Rainy Saturday

Not much to write about today…I seem to be saying or at least writing that a lot latel. Bu tit is true.

I got up early to write, leaving The Man snoozing in our nice warm bed. I’m trying to turn the basic info that I know about my paternal grandparents into a story. I Keep coming up against brick walls. For example according to the 1911 census granny was living with an aunt and her occupation was a worker in a jam factory.  There were a couple of jam factories in the area Mortons and Cross and Blackwell.  The address on the census is at Victoria Docks, but these days there is no street there of that name.

That area has considerable changed since then and so the street may well not exist.

I want my writing to be historically accurate which had me off on a tangent this morning leaving the writing behind and getting more and more side tracked.

Despite the fact that the weather was a bit grotty we popped out to our now favourite eatery at Crystal Palace called Alistairs. They do a very nice all day brekky and pancakes to die for. The price is right too.

Fed and watered we hopped on a 249 but to go visit some friends to wish them a merry Christmas. It was nice spend some time with them.

Now we are tucked up cosy and warm in our little flat and I am about to go put a pizza in the cooker for our tea.

A moon by any other name..is still a moon

If the sky was clearer we would be able to see the full moon. Did you know that not only is it the last full moon of the year it is also the smallest full moon of the year as well.

Apogee and Perigee of the Moon

Apogee and perigee refer to the distance from the Earth to the moon. Apogee is the farthest point from the earth. Perigee is the closest point to the earth and it is in this stage that the moon appears larger. Looking at the moon in the sky without anything to compare it to, you wouldn't notice any size difference. But the difference in size can in fact be quite significant.

If you were to photograph a full moon at apogee and perigee (using the same lens), here's how the two sizes would compare:

Effects of Apogee and Perigee

The apogee and perigee of the moon have an effect on the tides here on Earth. When the moon is at apogee, the furthest distance from the Earth, it has less gravitational pull which, along with other factors that influence the tides, can contribute to lower tides or lower variation in the high/low tide level. When the moon is at perigee, closer to the Earth, there is much more gravitational pull which contributes to the opposite effect: higher tides or greater variation in the high and low tide.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Did you hear that big sigh of relief?

…No?

And why?

Once I finished work today that was it for another, ooo let me see, counting on my fingers. Nine days.

It was very very busy day and to get things finalised I wound up staying on an extra hour, but as my mate Forrest Gump likes to say That’s all I have to say about that.

On the way home we got our first glimpse of winter. We got off the train at Annerly to discover a lot of hail in the ground and lots of pretty cold rain falling.

The Man had discovered that at Annerly train station the bus stop is directly across the road from the glass fronted waiting room. We can wait inside for the bus up to Crystal palace rather than having to wait out in the chilly rain at the bus stop.

Oddly enough the hail was confined to the area immediately around the station, not a sign of it at Crystal palace.