Oh Yes we Did!

It's Friday and it's a blustery morning. The clouds scurry across the cold blue sky and the small fluffy clouds very soon give way to dark threatening storm clouds. Stamford has it's street market today. We consider going but the darkening sky really puts us off the notion.

Having finished all the good reads from my book shelves at the moment I decided I need to make a trip to the local library this morning. The library is in the Orton Center shopping Mall and that's a nightmare to go to at present. The area is having a total transformation although it's only about 30 years old. It must have taken about 10 years of talking, planning, rejecting plans, submitting new plans, and finding builders to finally get to this stage. Buildings have been gutted or demolished. New buildings are half built. The car park is a shambles. I sometimes wonder about the mentality of some drivers as they leave their cars in the most inappropriate places. Usually in the areas that should be for access.

I manage to park the car Ok and negotiate the barriers around all the building works. I need to get to the Chemists to get my prescription filled. The Chemist and the newsagents are just two of the few shops still able to operate. After dropping off the script I crossed the deserted, desolate area that was the open space between the two parades of shops only to find my way barred and have to make a detour before eventually making it to the library.

The wind is really gusting now and it's rattling the polythene sheeting covering the open window apertures in the gutted apartments above the shops shells below. Its all too eerie. So many young people use to live in these apartments. Now it's all too spooky. In the library I choose some books and dash back to the Chemist to pick up my pill and make it back to the car before the rain starts.

And so to Panto land we go.

This evening we have tickets for the Annual Key Theatre Pantomime. This year Michael Cross the Theatres Artistic director (and resident Panto Dame, see poster below) had written a new version of Mother Goose. We always go as a party with my sister and brother in law, Barbara and Colin, their grandchildren Lauren and Harry. Our son Jason with his daughter Grace completes the party. Our other Grandchildren are now teenagers and consider themselves too old for Panto.
Its raining lightly when we arrive and all the Christmas lights in the trees and the lights of the building reflect in the rain water on the ground. The blue and white lights are a theme in Peterboroughs' Christmas lights this year. Its warm in the theatre and the atmosphere as usual is full of excited children's voices. The tiny orchestra strikes up and the magic begins..............
Pantomime traditions and conventions - a Wikipedia definition.
Traditionally performed at Christmas, with family audiences consisting mainly of children and parents, British pantomime is now a popular form of theatre, incorporating song, dance, buffoonery, slapstick, in-jokes, audience participation and mild sexual innuendo. Plots are often loosely based on traditional children's stories.

The Key Theatre is an intimate little theatre on the River Nene embankment. With only 400 seats everyone can see the stage easily from anywhere in the theatre auditorium. Its had some major refurbishment in the previous year and the entrance the lounge and restaurant had been dramatically improved. It's a busy theatre with plays and productions all year round.

Our Christmas

Welcome to our Christmas

A few days before Christmas I relented and forced myself to find some Christmas spirit. OK so a a glass of sherry helped! Dragging the Christmas decorations out of the attic. I spent the afternoon 'artfully' arranging the decorations and wrapping parcels. As my Christmas tree went to Jason's home last year when I decided it was too big and I couldn't be bothered with it! I bought a small metal garden obelisk from Wyevale Garden center and wound some green and blue streamers, lights and ribbons around it. I know it's not a tree but it looks pretty and it fits in the space just right.

I lovely warm log fire sets the scene. We've just had a delivery of seasoned ash logs and Dave spent Sunday splitting them.

On Christmas Eve after I dropped Dave off at work. I skipped my usual swim as the cold was still in my sinuses and decided to go across to Tixover Grange Care Home with Sheila's Christmas present and a parcel of 'goodies' for the staff and residents from Sheila. I didn't go in to see her as the last thing she needs is a virus infecting her.

The narrow lane down to Tixover Grange had been well and truly plastered with mud from the farm tractors going along the lane and the wet weather hadn't helped so by the time I got back to Peterborough to pick up Dave my car looked as if I had been on a Cross Country Trial. It was thickly caked with red Rutland mud.

Spalding was our next stop to the butchers to pick up out meat order. There's not a descent traditional butchers left in Peterborough now. Just the Supermarkets. No one can beat the 'Browning Sausages' from Bennet's in Spalding. The little shop was heaving with people. They must have thought our Christmas dinner was to be sausages when the butcher brought out my order of 10 pounds! There's some for the boys in the freezer, well when I remember get them out.

On then to another butchers in the center of Spalding, 'Adams' who do the best traditional home cured ham around. Dave just loves it. Then, to my favourite shop, 'Bookmark', we have a light lunch here then browse the shop. I buy a book on Spalding in the 1950's for Dave and a present for my sister and brother in law.

A drive through the car wash to remove all the mud completed our trip to Spalding on Christmas eve.

Christmas day dawns wet and miserable. It's not so cold as it has been. We have a late breakfast before fetching Darrin and Jason. They're having Christmas dinner with us. I braved the rain out in the garden to pick these cheerful Lenten roses with sprigs of bay and rosemary to brighten up the Christmas table.

Later in the afternoon we go across to Westwood to Sean and Dawns. Its become a ritual since the grand children were small as their Mum and Dad felt it was unfair to drag them away from their new presents. Michael our eldest grandson was there with his daughter Caitlyn-Rae our gorgeous little great grand daughter.

It's Caitlyn-Rae's second Christmas. Shes 16 months old now and bright as a button. She trots around and cheerfully follow simple instructions. She 'mothers' her baby doll, plays with the dog Teja and she has quite a repertoire of recognisable words. Quite forward for her age.

Teja, Michael's little 'ratty' dog is a fixture in their household. He's very affectionate and likes to play. He'll fetch a ball as long as you can keep up throwing it. You'll tire first!

Ever one is following Caitlyn's antics.

Boxing day is damp but not raining. We pick up Jason just before midday and head off to the 'Baskerville's' at Baston to meet up with my family for dinner. They have collected Jason's daughter, Grace from her home in Bourne. We all have a pre dinner drink before sitting down to a carvery dinner.

After the meal we head back to Bourne to Bev and Barrys. This is their second year together and they're hosting our Boxing day afternoon get together this year. The mistletoe over the entrance door is not the only thing she's been over enthusiastic with! The delicious spread she and Barry prepare later in the afternoon would have fed a small army!

Barbara with her second grandson Joshua, Bev & Barrys son

Second cousins. Lauren, Natalie's eldest daughter with Grace, Jasons daughter, our youngest grand daughter.

6 Month old Joshua with the Teddy I knitted.

Barbara with Lily, her second grand daughter, Natalie's youngest daughter in the jacket and hat I knitted while I was in Canada this autumn.

We all had a great afternoon. We talked, reminisced, played games, ate and drank. All to soon Christmas was over. All that agonising preparation and its over in a flash.

I suppose we should offer thanks to Charles Dickens for reviving Christmas otherwise it would have died out completely by now! Despite the costly aspect of it maybe we need the bit of light hearted festivity in the midst of winter gloom.

Nativity versus P.C.

The Hoity Toity Angel.

Last Thursday, a cold morning with thick freezing fog saw me driving with No. 3 son to a small village near Bourne in Lincolnshire. It was the time of the year when the infant and juniors put on their nativity plays for their proud Parents and Grandparents. Youngest Grand Daughter was an angel once more in her schools little pageant. They were putting on 'The Hoity Toity Angel. Although she occasionally qualifies for that title she was a good angel in the play. (Actually the tallest one) Miss Hoity Toity Angel was the shortest one in a gold dress.

No 3 son is proud of his daughter and has her to stay with him during the weekends as often as he can. I do the ferrying about as No 2 & 3 son never wanted to learn to drive.

I know this is a badly shot little film but I did my best with my little Ixus Many other parents were doing the same. The parents were asked if anyone objected but none did. Some schools ban photography Im not sure what lies behind their thinking. More woolly thinking PC ideas!

Infant and Junior schools all over the country have been putting on Nativity Plays at the end of the Autumn term for several decades now. They are in danger now from Politically Correct ideas that have been causing a furore in the past few years in schools and else. Who do these as woolly minded thinkers believe they're acting for. They insult everyone by trying not to offend other religions. I don't profess to be a Christian but the Nativity play is part of this Country's religious tradition and as such shouldn't be meddled with.

Winter Solstice

Well it's the shortest day today or the longest night whichever way you want to look at it. It has certainly felt like a short day. Breakfast this morning at 8am was in a very dim conservatory as the morning was dark and very cold and this evening it was dark and very cold at 4pm. Oh well look on the bright side the days now start to get longer.

The winter solstice is one of the oldest winter celebrations in the world. Falling on December 21st the shortest day of the year the Solstice was celebrated in Britain long before the arrival of Christianity. Druids would cut mistletoe from oak trees and give it as a Blessing. Oaks were sacred and mistletoe was a symbol of life in the dark winter months. The Druids also began the tradition of the Yule log. They thought the sun stood still for 12 days in the middle of winter and during that time the yule log would be lit to conquer darkness, banish evil spirits and bring luck in the coming year.

As I seems to have developed shocker of a cold over night I decided to forgo swimming this morning. Instead I headed for Tesco early and managed to get the Grocery shopping done before the mad rush of people determined to empty the shop in case there's a catastrophe over Christmas that prevents them ever shopping again!.

Shopping stowed away I have a well earned rest while I wait for the anti cold medication to kick in. I have to tackle the city this afternoon before collecting Dave from work.

There's long queues for the car parks so I have to park at Darrin's flat and walk to the shops. Queensgate Mall is busy but not heaving and I manage to get most of the last of my Christmas shopping done before the cold medication gives out.

I've been quite determined this year not to spend so much at Christmas. I'm slowly getting to the 'Bah Humbug' stage. Does that affect all older people I wonder? It all seems so unnecessary. The 'One Show' on television last night did an item on Christmas consumerism. In their street interviews it seems I'm not alone.

Why do I send Christmas Cards?

Maybe this poem explains it. Every year I decide not to send so many. Then I look at the list......

A Christmas Poem
by Helen Steiner Rice.

I have a list of folks I know, all written in a book

And every year when Christmas comes, I go and take a look,

And that is when I realize that these names are a part

Not of the book they are written in, but really of my heart.

.........

For each name stands for someone who has crossed my path sometime,

And in the meeting they've become the rhythm in each rhyme

And while it sounds fantastic for me to make this claim,

I really feel that I'm composed of each remembered name

.........

And while you may not be aware of any special link

Just meeting you has changed my life a lot more than you think

For once I've met somebody, the years cannot erase

The memory of a pleasant word or of a friendly face

...........

So never think my Christmas cards are just a mere routine

Of names upon a Christmas list, forgotten in between,

For when I send a Christmas card that is addressed to you,

It is because you're on the list that I'm indebted to.

..........

For I am but a total of the many folks I've met,

And you happen to be one of those I prefer not to forget

And whether I have known you for many years or few,

In some ways you have a part in shaping things I do

..........

.And every year when Christmas comes, I realize anew,

The best gifts life can offer is meeting folks like you.

And may the spirit of Christmas that forever endures

Leave its richest blessings in the hearts of you and yours.

A Capital Day Out

'Art Liberating Lives ' is a charity fundraising event held Nation wide by Sue Rider Care. I was invited to submit but knowing I would be in Canada during the time I would need to paint a canvas and submit it I had to decline. My friend Prue managed to paint a new picture for the event despite the short notice we had. Her painting was first exhibited locally at Thorpe Hall the Sue Rider Care home then it was selected to be displayed at the Mall Galleries Off Pall Mall in central London.

Prue rang me early on Monday morning to see If I had time to accompany her to London to view the exhibition and her painting. I didn't think I could manage to go but on reflection decided to find the time and money and go with her.

The next morning, Tuesday, we caught an early train to Kings Cross. Navigating our way to the Underground station we traveled the short distance across central London to Trafalgar Square and walked to the Mall Galleries on Carlton House Terrace off Pall Mall. London was bright and sunny but unusually cold.

Trafalgar square above and Admiralty Arch at the entrance to the Mall below. It was quite, too early for the tourists.

The photo above shows the 'Fourth Plinth, empty for many years until Marc Quinn's controversial white marble statue of nude Alison Lapper the 8 month pregnant thalomide victim was erected. This was apparently removed in October and a new sculpture by Thomas Schuttes built of specially engineered glass in yellow, red and blue, which collects the light, reflecting it through the edges. It's called Model for a Hotel 2007.
What pigeons will do to the material is not quite clear.

17, Carlton House Terrace the home of the Mall Art Galleries

Prue and me in Trafalgar Square

Prue outside the Gallery and inside the Gallery beside her painting.

Her painting 'Off Woman' had been done at a 'Life' class she had been able to take while I was in Canada and I hadn't seen it except for on her web site. We found the painting and it had a reserve price of £250.00p on it which surprised her and puzzled us. So being nosy I asked what was the significance of the reserved prices as many paintings didn't have one. Apparently there had been a bid on the painting in the local exhibition in Thorpe Hall before the painting came to London. But the best thing was the bid was now up to £300.00p and someone was still interested. Prue was delighted as the money was all to go to the Sue Rider Charity.
We spent an enjoyable hour or so looking around the three Galleries at all the pieces on display. There was several pieces I really liked but unfortunately I hadn't the funds spare to put in any sensible bids

After we left the Gallery we headed back to the Underground and crossed to Covent Garden. Covent Garden was very festive and buzzing with people. The Christmas decorations were just beautiful all white and silver. We found a restaurant serving good Italian food and had leisurely lunch before we hit the maze of interesting little shops and market stalls."Covent Garden was the name given, during the reign of King John (1199 - 1256), to a 40 acre patch in the county of Middlesex, bordered west and east by which is now St. Martin’s Lane and Drury Lane, and north and south By Floral Street and a line drawn from Chandos Place, along Maiden Lane and Exeter Street to the Aldwych. An ancient footpath called Aldewichstrate (‘Old Farmstead’s Way’) issued from the west gate of the City of London at Fleet Street and Drewerie Lane branched off here to the north..
In this quadrangle bordered by a thatch covered mud wall, the Abbey or Convent of St Peter, Westminster, maintained a large kitchen garden throughout the Middle Ages to provide its daily food. Directly to the north the monks also owned seven acres known as Long Acre, and to the south, roughly where the Strand Palace Hotel now stands, two smaller pieces of land known as Friars Pyes. The monks of St Peter’s Abbey cultivated orchards here, grew grain, and pastured livestock, selling the surplus to the citizens of London. Their records for 1327 report that the entire harvest of apples, pears, cherries, nuts, grains and hay fetched £12. Over the next three centuries, the monks old ‘convent garden’ became a major source of fruit and vegetables in London and was managed by a succession of leaseholders by grant from the Abbot of Westminster..
These type of leases did eventually lead to property disputes throughout the kingdom, which the monarch King Henry VIII solved in 1540 by the stroke of a pen when he dissolved the monasteries and appropriated their land..
The next year, in exchange for some land in Devon, King Henry VIII granted both Friars Pyes to John Baron Russell, Great Admiral of England, and later the first Earl of Bedford. In fulfilment of his father’s dying wish, King Edward VI, bestowed the remainder of the convent garden in 1547 to his maternal uncle, Edward Seymour, the Duke of Somerset who began building Somerset House on the South side of the Strand the next year. When this political powerful noble was beheaded for treason in 1552, the land came once again into royal gift, and was awarded four months later to one of those who had contributed to Seymour’s downfall. Forty acres, that long fruitful rectangle known as ‘le Covent Garden’ plus ‘the long acre’, were granted by royal patent in perpetuity to John Russell, the first Earl of Bedford, at a yearly rent of £6 6s 8d (£6.33)."

"In 1921 the government decided the buildings were obsolete and the location quite unsuited to modern motor transport. Years of debate followed with a plan to move it to St Pancras being killed in Parliament in 1927. The Utopian Abercrombie plan for London, prepared in 1943, suggested the fruit and vegetable market be moved to the outskirts of London. Still nothing was done, while in 1945, 300 years of exploitation of Covent Garden by the Russell’s quietly ended when the twelfth Duke sold the family’s last remaining property, No.26 James Street. The Covent Garden market had long since become an institution that never slept. The new workday started at midnight as the last buses and trains brought in the porters. Throughout the small hours of the morning lorries arrived from market gardens all over Britain, laden with crates of lettuces, mushrooms, and roses, potatoes from Norfolk, apples from Kent, oranges and lemons from the western ports. Some produce started the trip by air - daffodils from the Channel Isles (and Lincolnshire from Daves Step Grandfather) or anemones from France - and trains brought tulips from Lincolnshire and primroses and violets from the woods of the west Country to the main-line London stations. But everything ended up on a lorry crammed into one of the congested streets around the Piazza..
At daybreak more lorries would turn up, loaded with the ordinary vegetables from farms near London - cabbages, leeks, carrots and more potatoes. Farmer’s stalls went up on the cobblestones of the Piazza, and by 7am the market was in full swing..
Finally in 1961, the Covent Garden Market act was passed. The following year most of the properties owned by the market landlord, notably excluding the Royal Opera House, were disposed of to a new public body set up by the government for £3,925,000. This was the Covent Garden Market Authority (CGMA) who controlled 4,000 workers and 340 companies and processed £70 million worth of fruit and vegetables and £10million worth of flowers each year..
In 1964 the Authority decided to move the market, wavered over alternative sites (one was Seven Dials, which had most of the same drawbacks). Eventually they chose Nine Elms in Battersea, where surplus railway land was available by the side of the Thames near the Vauxhall Bridge, Parliament gave its blessing in 1966..
This move closed the book on a history of agriculture trading and made way for the Covent Garden of today, still busy and sometimes still noisy but not with the drone of traffic but entertainment, laughter and the sound of people enjoying themselves. "
from the Covent Garden web site.

Leaving Covent garden in the late afternoon just before 'rush hour' we crossed via the underground once more to Kensington and spent some time wandering around Harrods Department store It's a long time since I have been in the store and some of the interior designs reflects the nationality and pretensions of its owner. I think If I ever had the good fortune to win a large enough sum on the lottery Harrods would definitely not be on my list of shops to spend in. A Harrods window display.
By this time in the afternoon our feet were complaining, badly. So to give them a well earned rest we spent a little time in one of Harrods many cafe with a pot of Darjeeling tea and some Harrods short bread. It was nice but not special.

It was a lovely day out but a relief to head back to Kings Cross and Home to Peterborough.

A Colourful Winter

Are winter days, grey days?

Who says winters drab? Not me. With a little planning a garden can be interesting and colourful all year round. But there's also fabulous winter colour to be found all around us in our landscape. Just look at the wonderful view across these frosty fenland fields.

This morning driving into the city the sun low in the sky lit up the horizon with a hazy yellow glow. The early morning sunlight shinning on the mellow local Barnack ragstone of the Cathedral gives it a warm pleasing glow and lights up the Gothic spires.

This year has been very wet and not too warm but there is a profusion of berries along the hedgerows of the country lanes. The sun reflecting off these winter hedgerow fruits makes them glow a wonderful red and when it's frosty they glisten and glint in the sun.

Back home my Christmas cactus is a mass of pink blooms. This was a tiny £1.49 plant from a supermarket many years ago. It's really happy being neglected in my conservatory and blooms profusely every year. Occasionally it gets massacred when it's outgrowing it's allotted space.

This little pink rose is literally the 'Last Rose of Summer' in my garden. We got out there last weekend and did a bit of a chop back and tidy up. I couldn't bear to chop this last rose bud up into the compost bin so it's cheering me up on my kitchen window sill.

Out in the garden the Viburnum Bodnantense Dawn is flowering it's socks off. This coming spring I have to attempt to get some cuttings going. The bush rather old now and we need to do some alterations were it's growing. It's such a lovely bush for cheering you up in winter and the smell from it's tiny blossoms is out of this world. Dotted around the garden mostly self seeded are cheerful yellow wild primroses peeking through the unraked leaves. Occasionally little seedling primroses are moved to a patch of bare soil to brighten another area. My absolute favourite flower at this time of the year are the Helleborus, especially Hellebore Niger the white Christmas Rose, Heleborus Atrorubens the beautiful deep plumbs and pinks and Heleboris Orientalis the Lenten Rose. I usually make a Christmas table decoration with these lovely flowers with bay leaves and rosemary. Last year I was disappointed as they didn't appear until January but this year they've been peeking through and flowering for nearly three weeks. Heathers are not an easy plant for our soil. They like an acid soil and ours is alkaline to neutral but these winter flowering Erica Carnes heathers don't mind the lime soil and survive nicely under the evergreen golden juniper hedge.

The one flower that isn't flowering my garden at the moment is the cheerful winter flowering jasmine I've had several cuttings but they've never managed to get established before I've redesigned that bit of the garden. This plant, at the moment is a small plant after a massive pruning, it's flowering in my sons front garden. It's one of my cuttings from several years ago. Maybe next year I'll pinch another stem for a new cutting.