We have just returned from 10 wonderful weeks in the USA. For the first week we stayed with Jo, Todd and family in San Jose. It was great to catch up with the children when they were not at school. We managed a trip to the seaside for Alexander and Oliver to do a spot of fishing off the pier, unfortunately without luck that time (on another trip after we had returned to the UK, both boys caught a fish, Alexander taking his home, gutting it and the eating it after Todd had BBQ’d it). 
Sienna, being the young lady, preferred more feminine pastimes. It was a great week and we celebrated Gerry’s birthday before we set off for Palm Springs.
Palm Springs was as lovely as ever although the weather was a lot cooler than average. We met up with many of our friends who live or winter in Palm Springs and enjoyed several drinks parties, dinner parties and trips out including the cinema and a visit to our favourite restaurant in Idyllwild with friends. Annie also hosted a traditional English dinner party in our bungalow. When we invited the guests they immediately asked if Annie would do Coronation Chicken as they had so enjoyed it the previous time they dined with us. Annie also joined in the aquarobics class held most mornings – not really a class but a chance for the ladies to have a long chat whilst doing some exercise in the water. Gerry used the time to swim and was up to about 1100m a session by the end of the stay. Most of the rest of the time was spent sitting by the pool or Christmas shopping when the weather was particularly grim (for Palm Springs) in the early part of December.
There
were, however, two high spots during the time we were based in Palm Springs. The first was a couple of days in Las Vegas. The purpose of the visit was to meet up with a friend, Penny, who lives in Christchurch, New Zealand. Penny, one of our travelling companions on our trip around South America in 2006, was holidaying in the USA and visiting Las Vegas. Since we had cancelled our planned round the world trip earlier in the year when we would have visited her, it was an opportunity to catch up that could not be missed. Apart from visiting the wonderful gardens of the Bellagio Hotel and enjoying the view from the top of the Stratosphere, we spent a day exploring Red Rock Canyon and the Botanical Cactus Gardens. The cacti had been covered in thousands of lights and decorations ready for the holiday season but were switched on (I assume for testing) prior to the official opening a few days after our visit. We had a great time!
The 
second high spot of our time in Palm Springs was a five day visit over Thanksgiving by Jo and family. (It is a fact that one of the first questions when we arrive in Palm Springs is “When are the grandchildren visiting?”).
As usual, the children stayed with us and this time Jo and Todd stayed in another bungalow rented from some friends of ours. Alexander, Oliver and Sienna love the routine of their stays in Palm Springs. 
They wake at around half past six, carefully open the door to our bedroom every few minutes until they are sure we are awake and then charge in and climb up the middle of the bed. Grannie and Grandpa enjoy a cup of tea in bed whilst the children (and us) enjoy some special ginger snap biscuits that we get from Trader Joe’s. After breakfast we head for the pool where the children swim and play for the rest of the day until the sun sets over the mountain. Showers, teatime snacks and then drawing, playing games, scooting around the neighbourhood, walking up Bug Mountain (where we look for bugs and other animals hence the name given by the children) or visiting the park precede supper and a quiet time before bed.
It was a great visit, especially Thanksgiving Day itself when we enjoyed a full turkey dinner with all the trimmings. Annie did an amazing job! 
We left Palm Springs to head up to San Jose on the 16th of December. Jo and Todd had decorated the outside of their house with lights and a Christmas tree as had most of the residents in their road. It is just a shame that none of our photographs did justice to the wonderful festive displays as you drove up to their house. Family P had also decorated the inside of their house and had the most beautiful tree in the lounge area. It was so perfectly shaped, you could be forgiven for thinking it was imitation!
What a great time we had in the build up to Christmas
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trips to various parks, a house specially decorated with thousands of lights (raising money for charity), cooking sessions, ice skating, a visit to Winter Wonderland (a temporary fairground in downtown San Jose), and BMXing for the boys at a special cycle track.
All too soon it was Christmas Day.
It may have started early, but everyone was on great form. The children were excited and very happy – no fights or disputes for the whole day and lots of lovely presents to open and play with. A lovely brunch of Eggs Benedict kept us going until we all sat down to a full Turkey dinner with Crackers containing the usual hats novelties and jokes (Alexander took great delight in reading them out). It was a wonderful spread.
Thank you Jo for all your hard work. Later in the evening, after the children had gone to bed, both Annie and I summed up the day in one word – “perfect”.
Boxing Day (obviously not called that in the USA) dawned fresh but sunny and we all went to the park to play football for the lads and the climbing frames for Sienna when she wasn’t walking her new dog that walks on a lead and turns left and right at the press of a button (It is a toy not real) All too soon it was evening and the last night of our stay.
Thank you Jo, Todd, Alexander, Oliver and Sienna for a brilliant time.
And so our autumn sojourn to California came to an end.
The day after we arrived home, we headed for Jenny and Mark’s in Caversham to spend time with them, Bethany, Callum and baby Elsie who had grown so much in the time we were away. 
Then the icing on the already wonderful cake was the arrival of Martin and Louise. M and L had come back from Singapore for Christmas and it was the only opportunity for us to get together before they return. Jenny had prepared a lovely meal and we sat around the dining table chatting until we left to return to Fairford just after 10pm. The next morning, Jon and Jess rang to ask if they could drop in on their way back to Bristol. An unexpected but very welcome surprise – Annie managed to produce a lovely lunch (don’t know how as we had only done a very basic shop the evening we arrived home) and we sat and chatted until late afternoon. Lucy (the nurse) is working nights and we will catch up with her and hopefully Dr James in Bristol next week. It is just a shame that the only member of the family we will not have seen is son James. He had spent Christmas at The Nook and expected to see us before he had to go back to London. Unfortunately, we were a couple of hours late getting home (but that’s another story!) and so missed him.
All in all a fantastic Autumn and Christmas.
We will not be able to get the family all together this Christmas so with all the UK based family getting together at The Nook this weekend, we took the opportunity to celebrate an early Christmas.
We were blessed with a fantastically dry, sunny and hot day but still managed to enjoy a traditional Christmas lunch with lots of gorgeous food and crackers (typical British).
After lunch some were able to play boule while Bethany and Callum went for a cycle ride (they are both very confident cyclists!) Elsie decided that sitting in a harness attached to her dad was a much better way of travelling.
Thanks to everyone for making the effort to come to Fairford – we had a fantastic day.
We have just returned from 2 weeks exploring Albania and a small part of Macedonia. Click here to find out about our trip.
Bethany and Callum came to stay for a couple of nights. The weather was pretty grim on one day but we managed a lovely time with walks in the puddles, craftwork with Annie, making cakes with Annie, playing with grandpa’s model railway and dressing up.
The next day was quite different weather wise and we visited the Cotswold Farm Park. Bethany and Callum had a super time looking at some of the animals but mostly playing on tractors (electric and pedal power), bouncing on a big bouncy mat and climbing frames. 
We enjoyed a picnic and an ice-cream before heading back to Caversham.
Callum enjoyed pedal power but preferred the motorised tractors!
Granny and Grandpa then returned home exhausted(!) but having had a great few days.
On Thursday we drove up to Thirsk in Yorkshire for a couple of days walking and staying in hotels rather than camping. The weather was good and we enjoyed a walk around Sowerby and Thirsk in the afternoon. This was James Herriot country (The author of All Creatures Great and Small). 
The walk was enjoyable but not particularly inspiring unlike the walk on Friday which started and finished at Fountains Abbey but took us through a variety of landscapes and woods where we enjoyed some excellent views and a couple of situations where we had to walk through a field of cows with calves. There were signs warning us to be careful as the mothers could be protective. Friday was also the Glorious Twelfth but the game bird in the photo seemed blissfully unaware and without a care in the world as it sat on a wall ignoring our passing. 
After the walk we went to visit Beningborough Hall a National Trust property near RAF Linton on Ouse where Gerry had served between 1974 and 1977.
Gerry found it nostalgic although there had been quite a lot of development in the village of Linton such that it was almost unrecognisable.
On Saturday we went to Thorner for the wedding of Christopher Lindley to Lindsay. Chris is the son of Annie’s longtime friend Bridget.
It was a lovely service with Chris’s dad David playing the organ and Bridget singing a solo and a long standing friend of the family officiating. The reception was held at Bodington hall a Leeds University Hall of Residence (Where Martin lived for his first year at University). Chris’s wife, Lindsay works at the Hall and the staff certainly pulled out all the stops providing a wonderful setting and rather good food. There was a pleasant surprise for everyone when the bride and groom entered the dining room through a Guard of Honour of policemen with batons drawn. They were part of a couple of hundred policemen from Scotland who had been brought south to reinforce Yorkshire police during the riots last week. Fortunately, they had not been called on very much and were probably glad of something to relieve the boredom. 
It was a great reception and we did not get back to our hotel until midnight.
On Sunday we had a relaxing and excellent lunch with Bridget and David, and some of their family before heading south to Fairford.
It had been a wonderful few days although we both probably ate more of the delicious Yorkshire food than we should have done!
We enjoyed a lovely visit from Carly, Ian and their twin daughters Bree and Freya. Carly and Ian were two of our travelling companions when we toured South America in 2006.
It was lovely to see them and how much the twins had grown since we last saw them in February. They enjoyed a hearty lunch and playing in the garden – especially the water feature. It is odd how we have the same photo of nearly every young child who visits the Nook – there must be something very special about being able to put your hand into a hemisphere of water!!
We had a lovely vist to see Jenny and the children this afternoon.
Annie had taken some sticker books for Bethany and Callum and we enjoyed reading the stories and putting in the stickers.
Elsie just lay in her ‘chair’ for and smiled for most of the time. She is a gorgeous baby and seems most contented especially when mum feeds her! Talking of which, Jenny had prepared a lovely supper which was enjoyed by all.
All too soon it was time for us to leave and return to Fairford.
We have just returned from 3 nights camping in Dorset. What a change for us – the weather was perfect and the tent was packed up dry on the last morning. It was our first time walking in the area and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We visited Lulworth Cove in the early evening when most of the tourists had left. Perhaps the lack of people made it so pleasant!
The next morning we set off to visit Tolpuddle and a circular walk that we both described as one of our most pleasant ever – varied terrain and we hardly saw a sole on the whole walk. 
After a picnic lunch sitting under the shelter beside the Tolpuddle Martyrs’ tree, we drove to the village of Osmington.
Osmington was the start of strenuous but quite enjoyable walk up to the White Horse before walking for a couple of miles along a ridge and descending back to Osmington. In the evening we visited Corfe Castle. Fortunately, it was just before closing time and there were not many people around but it was still more crowded than we like.
The following day we headed to Sturminster Newton and a lovely long walk from Newton Mill (still works for tourists) to Cutt Mill which was derelict, falling down and certainly would never work again.
We returned to Sturminster along the bank of the River Frome and were treated to some lovely views and total tranquility.
After a picnic lunch overlooking the Newton Mill Pond we visited Kingston Lacy (National Trust) and were impressed by the garden and grounds as much as the house itself.
We thoroughly enjoyed our brief sojourn in Dorset and will no doubt return.
We had a lovely visit by Jenny, Mark, Bethany Callum and Elsie. The weather was really pleasant and we had a lovely session at a children’s playground in the village of Quennington just 2 miles from our home. The children enjoyed the see-saw, roundabout, obstacle courses and also the climbing frame which included a ’shop’ in the base. Both children acted as shopkeepers selling icecreams, pizzas and many other essentials! B and C also enjoyed playing with Gerry’s train layout whilst Elsie just ate and slept – she really is a bonny baby.
We have just enjoyed 4 nights camping at our favourite campsite – Harford Bridge near Tavistock. We managed 3 days of walks and a couple of visits to National Trust houses. Two of the walks were ones that we have done twice before but nevertheless thoroughly enjoyed them. The third walk was across Dartmoor on paths that were so indistinct that we had to travel by using natural features as aim points. We were pleased with our results as we ended up back at the car but about 5 metres further north than our starting point!!!! 
The weather ranged from very hot and sunny to torrential rains (mostly at night thankfully). Our luck was in and we did not have to walk in rain for more than a few minutes. We did fail to take the camera with us when we were walking but did remember to take a photo of the tent on the last evening. Careful observers will note that the tent is pitched in almost the exact same spot as on our previous visits! A great few days away.
