Monday 22 December 2014

Christmas is Coming at Last

Tomorrow Jade and I are off to stay at my daughter's for a couple of weeks, so I'm not sure when I will be able to post again. It was touch and go whether I'd be able to take Jade with me tomorrow as my daughter's dog has been unwell with a tummy bug, but it seems he's now on the mend.

My son and his girlfriend will also be joining us for Christmas Day, so I'll have all my offspring with me. We were together last year as well, but at my house, and hubby was there as well.

I received this pic of Eryn with Santa today by email. She and her mum had taken the toddler they were looking after today, but I have cropped him out of the picture as I don't have permission to feature him here.

My gorgeous second granddaughter is now eleven years old and nearly as tall as me.

Saturday 20 December 2014

A Little Colour to Brighten the Day

Apart from sweeping up leavers, I haven't had the heart to do much in the garden at this end of the year. It's a bit of a wilderness, I'm afraid. But here's what I found among the weeds today.




Wednesday 17 December 2014

Dog Friendly Pubs

Yesterday we went to Shaftesbury to meet up with my sister and brother-in-law at The Fountain Inn, a pub run by some friends. They had recently won the 'Best Pub' category in the Taste of Dorset 2014 Awards, so we treated ourselves to a good lunch as we all swapped Christmas cards and presents. I had taken Jade for a short walk on Park Walk and took in the amazing views.


After that we all arrived in the pub car park at the same time, and Jade was overjoyed to meet some friends when she got out of the car. The first thing she did was jump up on bro's pristine trousers with her muddy paws. (One of these days, those paws are going to get her into real trouble.) The Fountain is very dog friendly so she knows she'll get lots of attention when we go inside.

On Sunday we went for lunch to another pub where they welcome dogs. This is the Blue Boar in Poole - a real favourite with local dog owners. There are always a number of dogs to be found in the bar. Jade is very good on these occasions. She lies under the table until we've all finished eating and then looks for her leftovers. I always take a small dish for her and some water to wash it down. I think Jade likes eating out.


Friday 12 December 2014

Camera Shy or Feeling Guilty?


Which do you think it is?

Wednesday 3 December 2014

More on the London Weekend


My weekend in London also included a visit to Tower Hill to see what was left of the poppies in the moat of the Tower to honour those who sacrificed their lives in World War I which began 100 years ago. The 180,000+ ceramic poppies were planted here - one for each life lost. Of course that would not include people like my grandfather who was invalided back after being gassed in the trenches and lived only a few years more unable to leave his bed.

The display was rather disappointing as I thought there would be more of them left, only one week after Remembrance Sunday, but the dismantling was going along apace. They were still drawing the crowds though, as you can probably make out from the viewers at the far end of the picture.

From our vantage point, we also got this rather ethereal view of The Shard with its top shrouded in cloud, and a flock of birds doing a fly past.




Monday 1 December 2014

Walking at Baiter

I wanted to get a few small stocking filler presents for my great grandchildren today, as we are hoping to go and see them on Saturday, so the gifts can be taken along and left with my eldest granddaughter, their mother. This is very exciting as I still haven’t seen the baby girl born in May. We’ve had several attempts to arrange to get together, but they haven’t worked out. Anyway I decided to take Jade for a walk at Baiter Park as it is not far from the Sainsburys car park and we could go there afterwards.


  pic by Mike Faherty

The photo I found at Wikimedia Commons  was actually taken nearly seven years ago, but it still looks virtually the same. Even the waterlogged areas are the same at this time of year. Today there was colony of Canada geese parked right across the middle of the field. 

The path you can see in the foreground runs alongside the shoreline of Poole Harbour, and we walked past this seat on our circuit of the field. Here’s the footpath again (in one of my own old photos) looking in the other direction past the old ruin that makes the picture more interesting.  



Beyond are boats that are moored and one of the local yacht clubs. If you follow the road around the harbour in that direction, you eventually come to the Sandbanks peninsular with the open sea on its far side.

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