England

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Loving it

Hmm…I’m not sure what to write today. I feel as if I haven’t written anything ‘proper’ on here for ages, so guess I should try and come up with something.

I could talk about the weather.  It’s unusually hot here in England at the mo’.  In fact, it was reported that yesterday was the hottest July day ever recorded, and yes, it was a scorcher. You’d think the end had come the way it’s all over the news and media. Personally, I like a bit of hot weather, and know it will be short lived and we’ll suffer for it with full on thunder storms and rain for at least a week afterwards, so not getting over-excited. Nuff said.

I’m stuck at home at the moment, ‘cos my husband’s car is in ‘hospital’ having broken down on his way to work on Monday, and he’s had to pinch my car this week.  In some ways it’s been good. For instance, I haven’t been able to get to the gym (hooray, at last an excuse!!), I’ve been able to spend time watering the thirsty garden (ooh…it’s thirsty Thursday.. perhaps I should have written about my trials and tribulations with the hose….) and enjoy the sun, and best of all, I’ve been able to spend more hours than I should watching the tennis from Wimbledon on my TV.

As you know, I’m not what you might call sporty, but I do love Wimbledon fortnight.

When I was young I always thought it was very staid and a bit, well, anal – stuck in the mud, old-fashioned even. Not to mention it’s stupid scoring (I know, that’s just tennis, but I wanted to make a nod to my heading…see I thought about it!) But then I watched the likes of Nastase and McEnroe ruffle Wimbledon’s grass, and shake it all up a bit.  Lots of people may say that they ruined the game with their outbursts, and I would agree the outbursts were rude and unsportsmanlike, but oh, it was great to see sportsmen with such emotional commitment, and humanity. It raised the crowd to a jeering mass, instead of the usual polite clapometers. It injected life into the prim and dusty arena.

Now, the partisan crowd can be embarrassing – OMG… do you remember all the sad old years and pitiful cries of ‘Come on Tim’, but at least they’re fully engaged. And on the whole they will cheer on the underdog from whatever corner of the globe they come from. They recognise the good, and encourage the erm, less good.

Personally, I really enjoyed watching Hewitts ‘Fanatics’ and they’re choreographed chanting the other day. Amazingly they managed to get the majority of the rest of the spectators chanting along with them as if the whole court was filled with Aussies!  Sadly, despite that noisy backing, Hewitt was knocked out and we won’t be seeing him at Wimbledon ever again.

Of course, the first week is full of one-sided mismatches, and you have to feel sorry for some of the players, like poor old Thomaz Bellucci from Brazil, who has come up against top ten players in the first round for the last three years (he was knocked out by Nadal on Tuesday). But nonetheless I’ll watch as many matches as I can spare the time for (but goodness me, don’t they go on forever sometimes – one match = another three hours of my life gone!).

Even the women’s matches are more exciting these days.  I remember when the commentary on women’s matches consisted mainly of which designer they were wearing (‘Miss Jean-King is wearing a dress and matching frilly knickers by Ted Tingling‘). But these days, the clothes barely get a mention whichever beautiful, strong, fierce player is on court.

I have to be honest here too… I do enjoy some of it’s uptightness.  I like the all whites rule, it is very peculiar to me to watch other tournaments where that doesn’t apply, they all look a bit scruffy! I like seeing the sharp eyed linespeople squeezed into those horrible prissy outfits, and the sweet ball folk scuttling around or standing statue still in military order even while holding an umbrella over a sweaty player’s head for five minutes. Bless!  And the strawberries and pimms, that, well obvs, I have to join in with at home.

So I’m looking forward to next week, when it will really get gladiatorial, with the big guns battling it out. I’ll be glued.

But wait…oh no… I’ll have my car back. Eeek…I’m going to have to start living real life again. Shopping, gyming, IT grouping, housework (noooooo, I know I do not need a car to do housework, but it just puts me out of sorts. OK?).

Oh well, I suppose Wimbledon will be rained off by then 😉

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On the way to the sea…

Posted in response to the Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge – this week’s theme ‘On the way’

It was my birthday at the weekend and as a special treat my husband took me to the seaside (look, what can I say, I may be getting on a bit, but inside I’m still five years old!).  Where we live it’s always a bit of a trek to get to the beach.  The journey takes a good couple of hours mostly across the windy, up and downy, country roads that transverse the spectacular North Yorkshire Moors, so we don’t do it very often.  In fact we’d never been to Robin Hood’s Bay before, but as you can see from the pictures it is really rather pretty (and quintessentially English), and we had a perfect day there eating ice creams, paddling in the icy sea, eating fish and chips,walking along the cliff, eating cake, lying about a bit more…..you can tell there was a bit of a theme going on!

Anyhoo… back to ‘on the way’. You can’t really drive down to the beach, as the roads are so narrow, so I took this snap of our first glimpse of the sea as we walked down the very steep hill (it seemed even steeper on the way up, especially after all that food!!).

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Although they don’t really fit the remit, I thought you might like to see a couple of other photos we took while we were messing about at the seaside!  I’m afraid I didn’t have my ‘proper’ camera with me, so the quality is slightly iffyer than usual!

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Five day challenge, Day 5 – Athenaeum

The last day of my five day challenge – gosh that’s gone quickly!  I must thank Scillagrace for inviting me to take part, it’s been fun!

For today I’ve written a couple of verses inspired by the photo of the famous Bodleian Library which I took a few years ago when we visited Oxford, England.  I had never visited Oxford before, but my husband studied there so knew it well, and he was able to show me all the sights, as well as taking me punting on the river!

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Athenaeum

In the labyrinth of my mind
My memory library dwells
That vaulted endless space
Where secrets quietly die
and story-spun webs
Are bound with the knots of life

Accommodating each new day
The dusty library swells
Discarding faded pages
‘til but snapshots remain
Of long-gone skies and
Half remembered faces

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Well, I am English…

We are known here in England for talking about the weather.  A lot. Well, there’s so much weather to talk about. It’s perpetual change.  Today has been beautiful.  The sky an uninterrupted blue, and the sun warmer than it should be for mid-November.  We have been out in the garden most of he day.   Well, it was a case of having to be really…

Last night the rain hammered on the windows, and a 60mph wind howled.  So much that it brought one of our old trees down.  To be fair, it was a pretty dead tree and we had talked about taking it out at some time, but it felt like an enormous job – it was a big old tree.  We never knew what type it was.  Just a big old tree.

We heard the crash, and when we went out in the dark, and wind, and rain, we saw that it had landed in my beloved pond.

My pond is my pride and joy.  We fuss over it endlessly – checking the filter, clearing out the waterfall-y bit, scooping out leaves that get blown in despite it being permanently covered by a net to stop the Herons.  Having started with seventeen fish, we now have around 65, although many of the original seventeen did get distressingly gobbled up by said Herons.

Since I was so worried about the fish, we spent an hour or so in the rain heaving the heavy fallen trunk and branches out onto the grass.  It was a filthy job, in filthy weather.  This morning, on inspection, the fish were all fine and still begging for food, so no harm done, and we had to set about the exhausting task of breaking up and disposing of all that dead wood.   Thank goodness it was sunny.

It has to be said that English weather, on the whole, despite it’s changeable nature, is pretty tame.  We rarely have hurricanes, or earthquakes.  Though of course, they do occur from time to time. I will never forget the Hurricane in 1987 which brought winds of nearly 100mph leaving me and my six month old twins with no electricity for over a week, and stranded in our home as the roads were impassable.

Since we have moved North we have felt the earth, not quake exactly, but shiver, twice, the only noticeable indication being the rattling of hangers in the wardrobe.

We’ve been lucky.  Some folk’s homes in the south are flooded today, and at least one person lost their life to the storms last night.  And of course, we can never forget the appalling devastation that happen’s in other countries as a result of fierce forces of nature.

They say we are due for high winds and rain over the coming weekend, but at least, here in England, we know that it will pass, and before long, we’ll be blessed with winter sun again.

Keep safe.