St Piran's Well walk, Tintagel

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Tweedledum and Tweedledee

    Agreed to have a battle;

For Tweedledum said Tweedledee

    Had spoiled his nice new rattle.

Just then flew down a monstrous crow,

    As black as a tar-barrel;

Which frightened both the heroes so,

    They quite forgot their quarrel.

A very unusual sight

Sophie and Sian are usually spotlessly clean - what happened here!

Very interesting Spring hedgebanks

Sophie still tearful - not the last tears that day St Nectar's Valley resounded to the sounds of them.

She can say Moo and Daddy and lots of other words, but she can't say 'Mummy'

Old E-bike Goodbye to the Whisper

Wisper and KTM 

It's time to upgrade my electric bike.  The battery is going and having been on Julian's with the Bosch crank it is immediately obvious that my bike is old technology and that the Bosch crank is going to take me places where the Wisper can't.  The Whipser has good points though.  The throttle is just wonderful if you just want to sit on a flat road and not bother to peddle.  It's like a mini moped.

Traditional Wisper crank and Bosch behind

So I'm going down to Take Charge bikes in Exeter this morning to look at new bikes.

Magnolias end March

Mark Jury

Magnolia Mark Jury with Mackie the dog

Mark Jury is a large Magnolia that was in full flower when we saw is at Marwood Garden near Barnstaple on last week.

Marwood Spring

Marwood Spring the other stand out Magnolia.  I was about to purchase the last one but was pipped to the post by a chap who wanted it for the collection at Windsor Great Park.  What bad luck.  But it was a happy day with Deborah and her mum Francis.

De-cluttering our house and our lives - starting with the house

GAP years usually happen either when you are very young or rather old - now that we have our laptops we can take our jobs with us and go now - well soon.  We need to do a bit of preparation and planning first.

If we are going to up sticks for a year, and rent our house out, we must get rid of 'stuff'.  This is notoriously difficult. There are whole books written about it - TV programmes devoted to it - people who can't stop buying and who cant bear to sell, give or throw away... anything.

When we moved into our current house, the most significant plus point in our family's eyes was the very large loft.  Our grown up children coveted this space as a handy storage area and immediately began to take possession of it.

Books, papers, clothes that 'might be handy' one day, baby clothes and equipment that would do for the 'next one' or a friends 'next one'. I am equally guilty. Art and craft equipment and accumulated sewing fabrics; the loom; the spinning wheel along with breadmaker, spare duvets, most of the contents of our former holiday cottage, even the previous owners floor tiles and curtain poles are up there. In fact the only person in the entire family not guilty of chucking any items surplus to current life requirements up there is Julian.  A modest photo album and CD collection are the sum total of his excess possessions.

Bikes Boats and Dreams - 2018

Planning a trip
Taking a year 'out' for a prolonged spell away from home and regular commitments is an idea that has been growing on us.  The dream of setting off (without a return ticket) and travelling wherever serendipity (or housesitting assignments) takes us.  Experiencing new cultures and ideas, getting out of our little world and seeing, smelling, tasting and feeling the wider one - not just for two weeks or a month, but for as long as we want to.

Yes we have all the trappings of modern life that suck us in, and pull us like a magnet to our home, family, grandchildren, community and most important of course, the garden!  If only we had two lives we could spend one devoted purely to children and grandchildren and the other doing exactly as we want! It's funny how the mind can in one moment convince you of the importance of family over all else, and the next the importance of taking opportunities and fulfilling dreams.

We have decided to break the pull of this magnet, for a while at least, and travel where the fancy takes us. We will travel by train, boat and bike.  By boat we will be limited to where the canal and river banks take us, by bike by what our energy levels allow.  We also want to do some housesitting.  As we have had the benefit of others housesitting for us and the experience has been very rewarding, we hope that we will find and be accepted for some housesitting assignments.  Our dream is to spend some time in Australia where remember Kangaroo Point in Brisbane, and in Tasmania where I vividly remember seeing a Kiwi (in captivity) when I was about 7!