No Yellow Lines.......

..... loads of history, Nature in it's finest, coastlines a -plenty, fine food..... Need I go on? If you've ever been to the Channels Islands and visited Guernsey then you know it has it all! And some.

I had to work there for a few days after a short break from our honeymoon. So, two honeymoons in four weeks! Ok, we weren't together all the time each day - Marianne had to entertain herself for a few hours each day. The sun shone, so it wasn't that difficult. I did feel sorry for her though. Too many aircraft flights with a possible ear infection left her feeling quite poorly at times and in a fair bit of pain. Not only that, the Hotel Beauty-Parlour was too well booked. She never got the full pampering a wonderful lady should receive. Anyway, she doesn't need any more to make her look as beautiful as she is!

St. Peter Port on a Sunday morning..... the only shops open were those that had licenses to receive the cruise ships when they arrive. Could we learn something from this? Life was so calm and peaceful. I'd forgotten what 'trade free' Sundays were like!

Pembroke Bay..... so many beautiful flowers. I love the idea that the hedgerows are left to run wild, they have to go to seed before they are cut back to preserve the wild flowers. Everybody is responsible for their own hedgerows. Makes for a very pretty place this time of year.


Fort Marchant (I think). A defensive fort dating back to the middle 1800's. Those prison cells looked pretty bleak and desperate and that was with the sun out.


A couple of birds I was fascinated by.... as usual. Bit windy on the cliff tops but these birds loved it!





A very pensive Marianne, totally engrossed in her new Swallowtail shawl. It helped take her mind off that mischievous, painful ear.... :^(

How can you fail to be unmoved with such beautiful coastline such as this. All that remains to do is return and not have to work! Anybody have some decent lottery numbers...... any gains over £100,000 and we'll share 5% .... LoL

We're Back!

Wow...... so many lovely things! So many lovely places! Such a lovely time.

First of all.... thanks to all of you who have supported Marianne and myself. We have each other and we hold each other dear but, we've needed all of you - you have been a tower of strength to us both. You came from both near and far..... Spain, Northern Ireland, Holland .... even Cambridgeshire!

Marianne is busy putting together a blog post of the wedding part so, I won't bore you with all of that - not that any of it was boring, just didn't want you to read about it twice!

Our Honeymoon started with taking Mavis (Marianne's mum) back to Gatwick Airport and making sure she wasn't stowed away in our luggage on our way to Venice and Tuscany! She still hasn't forgiven us! So we had a day to catch our breath before a VERY early flight the next morning. We stayed in a Hotel and spent the day at the nearby Bluebell Railway. Nostalgia and Romance in a cloud of steam .... so much ..... US.




The other side of us is the fact that nothing ever seems to go just right first time. You'd think that booking into a hotel so you can leave our car safely for a fortnight's break would be straight forward. Not us! We got into the room and I laid back on the bed. I said to Marianne, "I can smell coffee". A long story short. Somebody had spilled coffee onto the bed spread. We made a complaint, and the staff said they would get it changed. Fine. We needed a bite to eat so we entertained ourselves for an hour or so in the bar/restaurant. Bear in mind we booked this hotel so we could make an easy, very early start in the morning (4:00am) so we needed to get to bed early!

Well, after 1.5 hours nothing had happened to the bed. Another minor, irritated complaint. This time I said to save time, give us another room. They only had one spare - the Honeymoon Suite at about three times the price! They let us stay there for free! .....Too many bubbles in the Jacuzzi......!




That, (along with British Airways) eventually brought us to Venice. (Photo by Marianne)



More to follow.......

It's flat around here....

..... but at least you do get a lot of sky for your money! I often wondered why Constable considered he had to perfect skies in his landscape work, now I know why. You have no hills and what you place on the canvas above the horizon has to be perfect - no room for error!

It's hard to believe that last Sunday saw snow which would not look out of place on a Christmas card. Now the clocks have changed, so has the weather. They cannot be connected that closely surely? I even managed to cut the grass - I couldn't even see it last Sunday!

Armed with a big dose of sunshine and warmth we took to the country. (Mainly in an attempt to recover from a lovely dinner party to which our friends invited us). So very welcome as we're both wrapped up in the W..... word! Suit measuring yesterday - it's all coming together. Even the males are getting involved. Although I have to say, I'm not too sure my Best Man is entirely happy adorning himself with a pink cummerbund and dickie bow tie!

Anyway, in view of my love of landscapes I gave the camera a bit of an outing. These two are just a couple of shots taken about 10 miles from where we live. As I said at the beginning..... you do get a lot of sky for you money!



Only a few days more --- the W...... word day is definitely fast approaching ~ sigh!

Crazy Weather!

Can you believe this? You wonder during the Winter whether there'll be a White Christmas - Bing Crosby style - and you need to break out the shorts and sun cream. Then, along comes Easter and you're looking for a snow shovel. I mean, what's happening? It is a bit bizarre to say the least.


This was the view outside our front door at 8:45am. I would've been more adventurous but I was still in my dressing gown! And it was/is freezing. I suppose it has to be to make this white stuff! Just looked at our outside thermometer - it's +0.1° C - could thaw soon then!

Which is probably just as well. We're supposed to be eating out today. We're sampling the delights of our Wedding chef! The plans go on a pace..... tomorrow's another meal out - our Wedding photographer this time and we haven't seen him for ages! They're a lovely family but I don't think Lynn has ever forgiven me for introducing him to the wonderful world of Nikon. I love it when a plan comes together. Hang on! There's a flaw. All this food! We'll not be putting on weight will we?

Ah well. Marianne! Have you seen the snow shoes?

Bazza has a Creative Day.

Another day in the Kitchen..... and what fun!

Marianne managed to get hold of some new cookery books...... all based on stand mixers. Couldn't be a better combination for an aspiring chef, gadget freak and a hyperactive twerp. Especially as I was supposed to be tidying the garden. Unfortunately for the Garden - fortunately for the Gardener - nature intervened by way of heavy rain. The most I could do was take some rubbsh to the local tip.

So, armed with all this enthusiasm and time, I took to the kitchen. Cheese sablés - basically a light, cheddar biscuit. What to have with it? Simple. Tomato soup - home made style! Only ever had soup like it once and I'm so proud I made something as good as that was. Ok, I could've opened a tin of Heinz. 5 seconds but no fun! But the taste - Hmmmmm!

Got a bit carried away with the cream - not helped by not having the camera to hand before it started to diffuse!

Then I thought I'd try a dessert. Key Lime pie! Love it..... Marianne makes a pretty mean Lemon meringue, but I fancied the piquancy of a lime. Now, you really must understand this..... I REALLY am NOT at all adventurous (or brave) when it comes to food. Lime was a big step. Funny thing is. The more I cook the braver I am with ingredients. As long as I can see what goes in and how it 'fits' into the recipe I notice I try things more. Humans! Can anyone understand the inner psyche?

I have to admit - Marianne's Lemon Meringue still holds the top spot... I need to improve my pastry skills :-(

So, now to clean up. We've cleaned the dishes - now we must wash them!

Marshmallow fights back!

This week we are honoured with a visit from Marianne's friend, Andrea. She comes from Southampton and is bringing Laurie with her for a few days. So, we have lots of company.

Andrea, you may remember from one of Marie's previous blogs fell in love with my marshmallow. Well, not mine, but the James Martin recipe. Me being me decided I'd make her some for her visit. For some reason it turned out better than ever before. Let me explain.

I followed everything to the letter and all went well. The last bit - getting it of of the tray after it has set in the fridge has always been a bit of a lottery. I've tried various ways of oiling, dusting the tray but it always seem to stick.

This time I'd resigned myself that it was going to stick. I put Icing Sugar and cornflour down on the work surface so I could prepare for the cutting and the final touches. Put some on top of the mallow, loosened it round the edges. Inverted and ....... kerflofffffff! Like a mini supernova in the kitchen..... dust everywhere! It just fell out of the tray. My clothes..... hmmm! A complete horizontal white line waist high.... and white shoes. (They weren't before) I did look rather silly - nothing new there then. No pictures I'm afraid, sorry!

There are rather nice though..... naughty! Another triumph in the kitchen but a lot of cleaning. There just has to be a more efficient way of producing a Masterpiece.

Been at work this week so a bit short of a decent photograph so I thought I'd share one from the archives.

Rainbeau-lune taken in 2006 at Northampton balloon festival.

The start of Aviation....

Mostly today I've been busy helping Mavis get a few things sorted before we return home tomorrow. But I did promise myself to get some decent little bird shots. Unfortunately, I only managed to get the experimental stuff done. I needed to sort which lenses to use (which I managed) and then concentrate on more compositional stuff. A good plan indeed, except there must have been something on Bird TV cos they all disappeared!

Anyway, I did manage a few.....

A Goldfinch keeping an eye me
Pretty little Great Tit
Goldfinch in elegant mood
Inquisitive Blue Tit
Goldfinch again
Mrs. Chaffinch
Mr. Chaffinch
Mr. Chaffinch again!

Sadly no Greenfinches or Bullfinches but I have seen them here before. As for the Pheasant.... who knows?