For the rest of the year, we (like everyone else) hardly ventured out, did lots of gardening and DIY and looked forward to the end of Lockdown.
Time to move on now!...... Try blog 2021 !
Happy to report that we are both well and have spent so much time in the garden. We are lucky that we live where we do and can be sure that no-one can get within 10 metres of us let alone 2 metres!
Our milkman delivers milk, eggs and potatoes. We have Tesco deliveries and of course the internet, Facetime on the phones as well as WhatsApp means we can keep in touch with and talk to family and friends.
It's going to be a long haul but what the heck! Just keep smiling and maintain a sense of humour!
Best wishes and take care - to all our blog readers!
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Our first day of self-imposed isolation due to the CoronaVirus situation! |
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Today is Jill's birthday and we planned to meet up with our friends at the Longlands Hotel near Carnforth. The aim was to have coffee and - a bit later - a lunch there as we made plans for a five day trip together in September. After much debate it was agreed that this year the seven of us would head to Glasgow (Caronavirus willng!). |
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Tonight we all went from our hotel to the Saints Stadium to watch the Saints play Sydney Roosters in the World Club Challenge match. Sadly Saints narrowly lost but it was a good match. Ben was also there - somewhere in the distance. He had driven up with his friends. After the match he surprised Jill by climabing in the back of our car before Jill got there! |
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Today we visited the World of Glass Museum in St.Helens. Megan and Jessica posed against the wall of the old bottle kilm where the glass would originally have been made from silica sand and soda ash. The entrance to the very modern museum was from inside the kiln! |
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Caroline's picture of some of the coloured glass bowls on display. Later we watched a display of glass blowing by a man who sounded as if he had a Polish background. The girls found it funny when he referred to glass bubbles as "boobles" and explained that the molten glass was like runny honey or as he said "runnyhoney". Jill and Rich bought a bowl identical to his demonstration piece which he had made earlier. The one we saw being made takes 15 hours to cool down slowly. |
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Before he joined Jill, Caroline and the girls at the glass museum, Richard went off to the tranport museum where he has wanted to visit for years! It is housed in the old bus and tram depot in the town and houses around 40 old buses and other types of transport such as fire engines. The cream and red bus (second from left) was from Darwen Corporation and when Andrew saw the picture, he thought he is almost certain to have travelled on that bus when he lived in Darwen as a child! |
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After a day of fun and action at Robert's riding school, we drove back to Haydock for the first night in our hotel - The Ibis Styles - in Haydock. |
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Today we all went off to Robert's riding school (after a visit to Poveys in Biddulph for cooked oatcakes with becaon etc). Caroiline and the girls had a riding lesson with Charlotte being the teacher! Here Caroline smiles as she does a circuit. |
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Caroline and the girls pose for a group picture with the two youngsters who led Megan and Jess around. |
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Robert's dogs. Father Brian (on the right) and Arthur (his son) doze at the side of the log burner. Brian is a very nervous dog and only ventured over to us occasionally whereas Artur was trying his best to be with us when he thought Robert wasm't watching! |
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Robert, Caroline, Megan and Jessica pose on the settee in Butterlands Farm with just a hint of the dogs on the right. |
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The girls cannot come to Ambleside without having a blueberry scone and hot chocolate at the Waterhead Cafe! Here they pose with their scones and then the pictures were sent to their Dad - Andrew who was very jealous!! Megan - top left Jessica - below left |
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It didn't take long for the girls to gather all the soft toys together and re-open their ever-popular animal hospital for sick teddies! Here is the queue waiting for treatment! |
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February has been an incredibly wet month with a total of 426mm (16.77 inches) of rain. Our average is around 180mm. As a result of the heavy downpours we have had erosion of the edge of the car park. Knowing that we were due for another storm, Rich collected 15 sandbags from the council's emergency supply area in Ambleside and created this barrier. It worked because that night we had abother 50mm (2 inches) of rain but the water was deflected off down the road! |
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Before returning home with 5 dozen oatckaes from Poveys in Biddulph (Click to sse pictures of the shop and its oatcake making machine) Richard had a nostalgic stroll to the "tin bridge" where he watched steam trains hauling the 12 o'clock sand train as a boy. Sadly it was very much overgrown these days! |
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No - it's not a view from a drone of Richard cutting the lawn! It is actually a photo of a section of a model railway on display at Kendal Model Railway Show where Richard went today. |
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As the weather has become colder, we had a visit today from six long-tailed tits. Three are in this picture - with a sole bluetit on the right. |
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After our beautiful walk along Langdale in glorious sunshine yesterday, today was a damper afair as we joined friends for a walk around the park before returning to the hosts' home for drinks and food. |