65 and still alive

............well that's what the badge said in his birthday parcel. All that effort I made to find it and he forgot to wear it! He liked the shirt..... well, that was a forgone conclusion. It'll be rotated with the other hundred or so hanging in his wardrobe. The trousers (or pants to you across the 'pond') are a smidgen too tight. OK..... so..... do we exchange them for a larger pair or do we (yes, both of us) do a weight watching exercise? I feel the later may be the most sensible suggestion. The slippers (boring but practical) what can I say, they were added to tease! He thought they were OK but I wonder if he thought the box it was all packed in contained the laptop that he really wanted! Oh what a disappointment!

It was a lovely day, bright and sunny. Best to take advantage of it before we get rained on again. It 's Friday and so it's Market Day in Stamford so that's where we headed for.

Stamford became a small Danish settlement in about AD800 when the Danes raided Britain. It's a low spot on the river Welland where people were able to ford it. It's also the only place in England where four Counties meet. We both like the historical buildings, the atmosphere, the mix of little interesting shops that outnumber the usual boring high street sameness. We love its quaint alleyway's and snickets, and it coffee bars and tea shops. Stamford is also Dave's birthplace so a visit on his 65th birthday seemed appropriate.

When we were kids both of our families use to come to these Meadows on a Sunday afternoon for picnics and if the weather was nice we would be allowed to swim in the river. The river passed through the town and is edged by these water meadows. Unfortunatly the river is not a safe place to swim in now days. Such a shame, the simple fun we had then is now replaced by super safe, hygienically sterile, expensive, over supervised play places for kids.

Many of the streets and buildings in Stamford have been used in films This one featured in 'Middlemarch'

The houses and shops are built from the locally quarried sandstone and are a beautiful mellow ochre.

This Norman arch survives in a nook of the road very near the Old 'Rare Book' shop.


The market stretches along one of the streets closed to traffic every Friday its an eclectic mix of stalls Much more interesting than the Peterborough market in it's purpose built enclosure. There was a farmers Market this week. It sells it's wares along the middle pedestrianised street of the town.
While we were walking along the third street through Stamford , the only street with traffic flowing through it today, we were stopped in our tracks by a loud continuous quacking and out from a snicket on the other side of the road burst a mother duck with a brood of tiny duckings. The duckings were stumbling and rolling after her. She shepherded her brood across the road made a missing all the traffic and straight into the open doorway of a small coffee shop. Quickly realising her mistake and with more flapping of wings and insistent quacking they all tumbled out except one lonesome duckling. Mum and her brood minus one rapidly waddled, tumbled and rolled down another narrow snicket down towards the river. The abandoned duckling was scooped up by a good Samaritan shopper who followed mother duck down the snicket. Everyone on the street had stopped to watch the brief frantic flight of the family. Last seen the little duck family now united with daddy duck were bobbing about on the river.

After a reviving cup of tea and a slice of cake in a book shop tea shop we made our way across the meadows back to the car.

What Spring?

The blogs been a little neglected over the past week. Not for the want of time but 'cos I've spent too much time reading other peoples blogs!!!

Anyway back tracking a little...... Last Sunday we decided to go for a walk after lunch. We live so close to the Nene Valley Country Park but so seldom go over there now days. The mornings rain had passed over but the weather was still dull, very grey and quite cold so we wrapped up well. It felt more like a November day rather than mid April.

The diesel trains were running along the Nene Valley Rail line. No sign of the steam trains. What is it about old trains the attracts Men? When we use to go on camping holidays with the boys we always finished up near a steam train line. This line has been used in quite a few motion Pictures over the years James Bond and Octopussy, Mission Impossible to name just two. Oh yes, and Queen's last music video was filmed here before the death of Freddy Mercury. We listened to them belting out the music going up and down the line one summer evening.

The sculpture carved from the old tree at the entrance to the Park has mellowed to a beautiful silver grey. The last time I was over there it was still quite orangy looking when the wood was still fresh. There is quite allot of Roman archeology in the Nene Valley hence the Roman soldier in the carving.

The parks usually heaving with visitors on a spring Sunday. Today the wild fowl outnumber the visitors.

A nice hot cup of tea and a squidgy slice of vanilla sponge at the Water Sports Center made a welcome break. It's a long walk around the lakes and despite swimming each morning I'm still not as fit as I should be. We really must do this more often.

A Private View

Dave is not normally attracted to Art Exhibitions. Car, aircraft and science museums are more in his line. So I had expected to go to this one on my own unless No 3 son could find time to come along. Anyhow he decided he would go with me. So late Saturday afternoon we attend Barbara Cameron 's (Sewell) and Polly Vincent's 'Private Viewing' in the old Bakehouse of the Great Northern Hotel. This was Barbaras and Pollys first exhibition.

Some of Barbara's previous works already hang in the Hotel having been bought by Peter Boizot some time ago. Notably the three huge canvases that hang in the main function room.

Boizot a renown local entrepreneur and founder of the hugely successful Pizza Express chain is an Art lover and collector with an enormous collection of art. The hotel is an art gallery for a large part of his collection. The bar is painted in a spectacular red and lined with some of the most wonderful prints and paintings all to do with Peters other love Jazz.

I had taken a much better photograph of Barbara It had turned out well so I didn't take another. She jokingly said to me 'I'll break your camera' ..............Wrong thing to say Barbara........ the photo was replaced with a 'Memory Card Error' message

Barbara is a lover of the Scottish Colourists has been painting for years now. A huge influence on her style was her late husband the sculpture and Model maker, Marcus Sewell. All her paintings are abstracts acrylic on canvas. Her work is so energetic with a real depth and understanding of colour.

Out of all the wonderful paintings on display I kept being drawn back to this small intimate deep maroon coloured piece. It's price is a little much for me but I really would like it so If it hasn't sold by the end of the Exhibition I'm going to buy it. I know just where I'll hang it.

The Old Bakehouse is a wonderful place to display art work and the walls are already covered with some of Peter's vast collection.
It still retains on of it's original ovens, made in the city by the Baker Perkins factory.

After we left the exhibition we wandered through the Red Bar admiring the Jazz prints and paintings once again before walking back to the car through the peaceful hotel gardens past the statue of the late Duke Ellington.

Red Bloody Red

Poppy, cherry, wine,

Maroon, ruby, vermilion,

Crimson, cardinal, scarlet,

Rosy, rose, pink, coral,

Flame, carmine, madder,

Crimson lake, rouge. blood.

So many hues, tints and shades of red.

So many descriptive adjectives to describe this vivid colour.

I wonder if you've realised I quite like red

I really don't know why.

You'd think being a midwife for the last 30 years

I'd be sick of these bloody red colours

A few minutes ago I was looking at this red textured canvas.

On a whim I picked up a brush and a pot of black paint.

Painted it all over with black acrylic, and in a panic rubbed it off.

I quite like the results - it's still red!

Springs not so Springy

Oh So Slow Spring..................
It began to bud out fine way back in early February. Then it stalled. Now its late, but progressing oh so slowly. What happened to the hyped ‘global warming’? 41 years ago all the large trees were breaking out in green leaf. I know as I was bed bound at the time, well, I supposed to have been, according to my midwife of the time!
Today only the Willows glow green. Even the hedgerows are making slow progress. In one of the patches of sun this morning the tiny leaf budlets on the row of Hornbeam trees lining the footpath at the back of our house showed up as tiny gleams of light. Normally they are among the first of the larger trees to burst into leaf in spring. Come on spring hurry up I need your lovely lime greens to cheer me up!
The Birds
The birds also have realised spring is slow this year. They’re just beginning their courting rituals and gathering nesting materials. The feeders in the garden have been emptying frequently as the feed themselves up ready for mating. Blackbirds have been chasing each other around the garden to establish whose territory it will be. Doves have been billing and cooing on the trees and fences. Sparrows have been flapping their feathers and wings at each other in their courtship dances. The new Niger feeders have attracted two pairs of siskins and a pair of bull finches. The siskins are quite rare around here.

Mr B watching the proceedings

Mrs B raiding the moss for her nest

This pair of Black birds has been ripping up the moss covering the stones on the little stream. Mrs B is making a nest somewhere in the Euonymus bush covering the fence. There’s a lidless brown betty teapot tied up, spout downwards in the bush. I haven’t attempted to investigate yet as to where the nest is. We’ve had several nests in previous years but the cat prowling about always scared them away. A nesting thrush in one of the ivy covered fences had its nest vandalised by crows one year. With poor old Simba no longer with us we are ‘cat less’ for the first time for many a year. Maybe Mr and Mrs B will manage a brood of blackbird chicks this year. Well, that is if the magpie that has already spotted her going in and out of the shrub leaves her alone.
It’s cold again to day. Yesterday the temperature managed a respectable 17 degrees. Today and tomorrow those weather people are suggesting slow showers once more. Can we sack them and get a new set of forecasters in???

New Knits

Its All Fools Day today. I wonder how many daft scams the newspapers will attempt this year. It's No. 2 sons birthday today. He's never really forgiven me for giving birth on April 1st. Anyway I'm taking him out to lunch a little later this morning. I think we might go to Riva the Italian restaurant at the Key Theatre on the Embankment.

My friend Prue gave me a cone of yarn she picked out of a bin of wool at the Sue Rider shop. She had used what she wanted and passed the cone to me. I decided I had a few toning shirt so I would knit a long scarf as well. Prue used Garter stitch for hers so I decided to do a different stitch. Moss stitch didn't work so I pulled it down and started again using 25 stitches and rib pattern. I used 9mm long wooden needles. It was a little awkward handling the yarn and needles but once I master the art of stopping the needles sliding from the stitched when manipulating the yarn it was fine. The length grew very rapidly at about 3 rows to an inch and it wasn't long before I was wondering when to stop! I think the rib pattern worked for the unusual yarn.

The socks are coming on well. I love these Maroon multi coloured ones. They're worked in The German Treking XXLyarn.

I bought this hand spun and dyed yarn from a company called Soctopus It's situated somewhere in the revamped Dockland in London and it arrived beautifully packed. The yarn was wrapped in their own design pink tissue paper and the parcel sealed with a sticky label with the company name on. Inside the parcel was two wrapped coffee flavoured toffees and a hand written 'thank you for ordering' card. I'm looking forward to using the yarn, well when I can persuade Dave to sit and hold the wool while I wind it into a ball.