Hampstead Heath 1

These photos are the reason for going to Kenwood House today.

Still quite a few buds

A beautiful new copper roof on the side of the house.

Nice to see the azaleas again - and the Japanese hankerchief tree.

Hampstead Heath 2

Today I took the train to Gospel Oak (when I'd finished the minutes). After a quick bite to eat at the cafe there, I set off to walk to Kenwood.

These photos are a few taken crossing the Heath.

A Saturday outing

When we crossed London Bridge on the way to the station, we noticed a large boat moored next to
HMS Belfast. Aha, we said, we'll go and take
photos of the bluebells in the woods of South London, then we'll come back and investigate this.
Alas, when we arrived back several hours later, the large boat had sailed. It turns out it was a cruise liner picking up passengers in London. I'd like to have seen it going through Tower Bridge.
So we took these photos instead. Above is opposite Hay's Galleria and below is Tower Bridge.

This is Pett's Woods, very near Pett's Wood station, on the line from London Bridge Station to Orpington or indeed Ashford International Station.Not such a pretty wood as Stanmore Country Park but far more bluebells.

This is a random picture that got left out of a recent blog showing the new position of my washing line. Previously it was along side the wall.

Views from the kitchen window,

Ceanothus across the road.

Cherry blossom

Today in the garden

Here are some exciting views of the scaffolding supporting the garden wall and the various piles of branches and pruned clippings which had to be removed.

Must be the time of year for blue flowers. Above is a kind of Indian lavatera which I think may be abutilon. Below are a few bluebells.

Mid morning we had a visit from the project manager (!) to say they'd be coming through the wall on Monday!

Sunbury on Thames.

Romeo has been working on a project which involved photographing the London bridges over the Thames. Yesterday he took me to see one place he had visited. It seemed a long way - a bus to Waterloo (we had discussed taking the tube but when we passed the station it was closed due to an 'incident' - so we'd made the best decision) then a train to Shepperton. Right across London for nothing! We love our freedom passes. Thank you to Islington council.
We had this lovely view of the river while we ate our sandwiches.

Lots of lovely old houses - many covered by wisteria in full bloom.

The ladies of Sunbury celebrated the millenium by sewing an embroidery depicting all these houses and such things as the wildlife of the area. They have even built a little house to keep it in. This is a town far removed from the streets of London where such a building could give shelter to the homeless. It is situated in rather a nice walled garden and adjoins a cafe with wonderful home baking ...

I would like to know the name of the tree on the top right with tubular yellow flowers.

La Porte d'enfer.

La porte d'enfer is a little cove on the north eastern, Atlantic coast of Guadeloupe. France being a Catholic country, Ash Wednesday is a bank holiday and one of the church groups organised a walk in the woods and then bathing at this beach. I haven't taken many photos of the calm bit where people were paddling and swimming - it was far too exciting looking out to the ocean!

Can you believe the man swimming so near that rough water!

It was possible to walk - well climb, or clamber, up onto the limestone cliffs which surround this place. To get a photo of me I put my camera on the ledge of a big rock and thought how happy I was to be there!

For this photo we drove up on the cliffs opposite where there is a parking space and a wall on the edge, just behind us.

Happy Birthday, Jo Jo!

My youngest grandchild celebrated his first birthday in March - while I was there to take the photos! This was his first taste of cake and it was covered in chocolate!
We made a special outing to look for butter to bake this cake. The strike was just ending and the shops hadn't had time to stock up their shelves. The first one we went to had no butter or anything similar.The second one - up the road and round the corner- did. And it cost nearly 3euros! roughly £3!The white on Jojo's face was because he'd helped to coat the chicken strips in flour and then cheese to make bangbangchicken.

The balcony is a great place to learn to stand and walk!

When we arrived JoJo was in his cot having a siesta. Very soon he woke up and cried. Evie jumped up and said could she fetch him. Go for it said Heather (looking forward to 3 weeks of having a nanny in the house?) Evie brought JoJo through and paused at the door to let him see everyone. Heather spoke to him and his little head swung round to look at her and then back to Evie! He'd obviously thought it was his mum who'd picked him up! Here's a photo of them both (looking at old photos of Heather's in laws) to show you what an easy mistake it was to make!

I got tagged!

My friend Lynz, with stripey hair ,up in the homeland, has tagged me!She wants the 4th picture in the 4th folder in my PC...
Well here it is.
Its my oldest son and his son and looks like they've been playing around with someone's camera or maybe the webcam - can you get stills from them?

The date on it is 31May2006 - so they would have been staying with us at half term.

Now! I pass this tag on to the other members of my family who are able/willing to play along - and also to Yorkshire Karen cos its about time she updated her blog!

Happy Birthday to my dear son in law!

First of all we have some photos of a game of petanque played on a beach near a place called
Porte d'Enfer in north east Guadeloupe during a church outing on the Ash Wednesday Bank Holiday this year.

Here we see him trying to light the candles on Lissa Lou's birthday cake - which he baked. In the month I was there he baked three birthday cakes. I hope someone bakes you a lovely cake DSIL!
On this occasion it was far too windy for candles.
At the same party he organised the barbequeue and later posed with his wife.
Finally we see him helping his sister in law to get the best possible photo of the sunset.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

A little bit of local history.

Recently a new book appeared in our home. It is called 'London's Oldest Rugby Clubs' and is written by one Dick Tyson. Immediatly we turned to the H page to see if our favourite team were there. Yes there they are - Harlequins! But our attention was attracted by this photo - well not THIS photo - this is one of the same view last week when taking a walk in Clissold Park.
It turns out that in its early days Harlequins used to play in what is now Clissold Park in North London.
This was soon after the club started in 1866 - then known as Hamsptead Football Club. The name was changed in 1869 to reflect the less local nature of the members.
Not sure why it is thought to do that. All I can find in the dictionary is that apart from being a mute figure in a pantomime, it may come from 16th century French - the name of the leader of a group of demon horsemen!
In the days when Harlequins played in our neck of the woods, this piece of land was known as Newington Common and was adjacent to the the big house, where the cafe is today.

Nowadays Harlequins home ground is miles away on the other side of London, very near the international rugby ground at Twickenham. Harlequins' ground is called The Stoop, in memory of Adrian Stoop who played for the club in the first half of the 20th century and also served as president for many years. His father was Dutch, his mother Scottish/Irish - a good mixture. No wonder he was able to revolutionise English rugby as wikipedia says.

Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday

While we were in Guadeloupe we enjoyed watching these processions. On Shrove Tuesday everyone was dressed up in amazing costumes. On Ash Wednesday, they all wore black and white.
This was a friend of my son in law. He called on his way home so I persuaded him to pose. The hat is for you, Karen!
Being a Catholic country, both days were bank holidays (jours fériés).
Lots of drums on both evenings - and for many evenings before as they practised.

From Clissold Park

More signs of Spring!