Life at Full Speed

Life has gone back to full speed now, and although I mean to keep writing here regularly I blink and another week has passed. For most of the week we had a heatwave. These photos were from a walk on Wednesday morning, and it was already hot by 9am. Although I am now back to working entirely in the office, I left early on Tuesday and finished off some work at home as M needed the electric car to go to work mid-afternoon, and I just couldn't face taking the little car and driving home without aircon in the heat.

On Monday the government moved to Stage 4 of its re-opening plan and officially abandoned all anti-Covid regulations in England. Masks in shops and on public transport are no longer compulsory, although still strongly recommended. Restrictions on numbers who can meet or attend events, both indoors and outdoors, have been lifted. All this despite being well into the third wave of the pandemic, with 50,000 cases a day last week. Encouragingly, this week case numbers have dropped significantly, probably because the Euros have ended (lots of people had been meeting up to watch the football), the weather has been good, and schools have finished for the summer. The big test is going to be whether case numbers start to shoot up again as the relaxation of anti-Covid measures takes effect. In practice, many organisations are keeping at least some anti-Covid restrictions in place, and we now have 70% of adults fully vaccinated and nearly 90% with at least one dose. Will it be enough? Maybe. It's a gamble, and we can only hope that it doesn't turn out to be a bad one. At work we had a big staff meeting on Monday, with everyone in together for the first time since March 2020, to discuss what changes if any we would be making. The answer was "not many", partly due to caution about Covid and partly due to being short-staffed as someone left the week before and it will take a while to replace her. 

TG finished school on Wednesday, having made it through the term without being sent home to self-isolate. I think by last week about a third of school children in England were in isolation, so the was lucky. I had a lazy day - too hot to do much! - but went to an orchestra rehearsal in the evening. I signed up to play at an outdoor vintage festival at the end of August. I played at the same event in 2019 and enjoyed it - great atmosphere and fun music to play - so decided to do it again even though it is a bit far to drive for rehearsals. It took me well over an hour to get there as I relied on my memory and didn't read the directions properly. Once I realised I was lost, I then relied on Google maps which imploded and sent me down a track to a dead end. Then I read the instructions, which included a warning not to rely on satnav. Duh! 

M was working on Thursday, so I took TG out for lunch to celebrate the beginning of the holidays. We went to Yo Sushi, which is her favourite place to eat. They now have a system where you order on your phone, then the food is sent to your table on the sushi belt with a traffic light system - red lights show at the side of the table which turn white when a dish is approaching and green when it arrives. 

It has been a very social week, starting with catching up with colleagues I hadn't seen since before the pandemic on Monday. On Friday I woke up to a text from an old school friend wondering if she could drop in for coffee as she was going to be in the area. In the end she came for lunch and stayed most of the afternoon. We used to meet up regularly when our children were young, but realised we hadn't seen each other for nearly five years so there was lots to catch up on. Then in the evening I drove over to Bedford to meet up with a group of close friends. Four of us had got together early in the spring, but only outdoors and it was too cold to sit and chat for long, so being able to go back to meeting indoors was lovely. The fifth member of our group has health issues and has not yet had her second dose of vaccine, so she joined us on Zoom. Yesterday we got together with all our neighbours - we had hoped to do a street BBQ but the weather forecast wasn't great, so in the end we just all took drinks and chairs out into the road and sat and chatted - we are at the end of a cul-de-sac so there isn't any traffic. We managed a couple of hours before it started to rain. We are incredibly fortunate to live somewhere that is a real community, where we all know each other and can rely on neighbours to help out if necessary. Today was a day for family socialising, as R and H and their partners all came for lunch, along with my brother. It was the first time they had all been here at the same time since before the pandemic, so that was another milestone passed. 

Lots of Normal

The last week has been the most "normal" for me since March 2020 in terms of outside activities. Last Sunday the brass band I play in performed to a live audience for the first time since Christmas 2019, playing outdoors in the local park. We had a full day of "band camp" the day before, so by the end of the weekend the physical effort was definitely taking its toll - aching stomach muscles, aching back, tired arms and so on. The trombone isn't a lightweight instrument. 

On Monday and Tuesday I was working in the office, and I will now be going in every week. Our public service is still very restricted, so not back to normal in that way, but back to a regular routine. Then on Wednesday there was another band practice (still feeling a bit ouchy!), and on Thursday an orchestra rehearsal - there have been three "live" sessions during July to allow us to get back to playing, but no more for that orchestra now until September. Yesterday I went to another orchestra session during the afternoon - this time for an orchestra which pre-Covid rehearsed on Friday lunchtimes. It is affiliated with a local university and can't meet on the premises, so some of the members have now organised a monthly weekend session in a local community hall as an alternative. M has also been working as normal and TG is still hanging in at school. A couple of local schools have had closed weeks due to Covid cases, and most have had to send students home to self-isolate due to cases, but TG has dodged that particular bullet so far. We are hoping that with only three days left to go she will make it to the end of term. The only "normal" thing that didn't happen last week was her dance classes - a student had tested positive and they decided to close the studios until the end of term, so it was back to Zoom classes. 

We are now into a heatwave, with temperatures up to 31 degrees today. Yesterday morning we walked over to our friends' house - a two mile walk, as they live on the other side of town - for tea / coffee and cake, and took the photo above as we walked through the town centre on the way back. Saturday is market day, with the market looking very tidy since it got these nice new matching stalls not all that long before the pandemic. It is extraordinary to think that a market has been held in this town for the last 1000 years, and has survived plagues far worse than this one. 

 

M bought these roses home from work last night. A local store took a load of food and flowers which had hit its sell-by date round to his office for people to help themselves. It is quite common for organisations to donate items for the benefit of NHS staff - it doesn't make up for their low pay, but it certainly makes them feel appreciated. I often read comments on social media by Americans who are scathing of what they call "socialised" medicine, and realise that they really have no concept of how the British feel about the NHS. We don't see it as a government organisation, we see it as our health service - we own it, we pay for it, and we have an emotional connection to it. Throughout the pandemic signs thanking NHS workers have been everywhere, ranging from kids' drawings to banners put up by large companies, and practical signs of appreciation like yesterday's food and flowers have been a thing since long before the pandemic. 

Thames Path: Chelsea to the Tower of London

Last Friday M had planned a trip to London to meet up with friends which fell through at the last minute, so we decided to do another stretch of the Thames. This leg was through Central London, and rather to our surprise we found it less enjoyable than the previous walks. We decided this was because the earlier sections had been through places that were new to us (or at least long forgotten), so it felt more of a journey of discovery, finding unexpected delights along the way. This central section was through areas we already knew well so didn't have the same joy of the unexpected. Lots of iconic London sights, but for us familiar ones. 

We started off at Albert Bridge and found the first section through Pimlico rather dull. Once we reached the Tate Britain art gallery it started to get more interesting. Tate Britain was the original Tate Gallery, which now has offshoots in different locations - St Ives in Cornwall, Liverpool, and the Tate Modern in a converted power station on the South Bank opposite the City of London. 

Next up was Victoria Tower Gardens in Westminster, just to the south of the Houses of Parliament. This rather splendid Gothic water fountain was built as a memorial following the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1834, and to commemorate the role of the Members of Parliament who worked to bring it about. Victoria Tower Gardens also gave us the best view of the Palace of Westminster - not hard as this iss the only side which is not currently covered in scaffolding! This tower is the Victoria Tower, which houses the Parliamentary Archive. When I was an archive student a tour of the archive was organised for us, but disappointingly I wasn't well and had to miss it. 

We walked past Westminster Abbey, round Parliament Square and up towards Horseguards as Google Maps told us there was a cafe and we wanted lunch. The lunch jinx struck again as we found the cafe was closed and undergoing building work. Plan B turned out to be Greggs as Westminster tube station - vegan "steak" bake for me and non-vegan steak bake for M. At least the failed lunch attempt gave us this view of the north door of the Abbey. M, who is far better at recognising faces than I am, also spotted the Education Minister, Gavin Williamson, walking past us. 

We sat and ate our lunch on the Embankment looking across to the London Eye. At this time of year this part of London would normally be packed with tourists and the emptiness was very noticeable; the number of former commuters who are still working wholly or partly at home also contributed to the quietness.. In one way it was good to be able to avoid the crowds, but also dispiriting to think of the difficulties suffered by all the people who rely on the tourist trade and commuters for their income. 

One new discovery was that the boundary of the City of London is marked by two of these silver dragons, one on either side of the road. 

At Blackfriars we were diverted away from the river for a short section, so decided to go in search of tea or coffee and cake and after M decided that the first couple of coffee shops we found did not have any cakes he liked we ended up in Starbucks. A bit further along we caught a glimpse of St Pauls peeking out from behind the Millennium foot bridge. 

As we walked along the southern edge of the City we had good views across to landmarks on the Southbank - the National Theatre, the Globe, Tate Modern and the Shard. 

Another discovery was Walbrook Wharf, a working freight wharf in the heart of the City. When we reached it a container was being moved onto a barge so the footpath was temporarily closed and we were able to watch the crane in operation. When we were able to walk across and get a closer view we guessed (rightly) that the containers were being used to shift refuse out of the City. 

We ended our walk at the Tower of London. The last time we were here was in 2018 to see the extraordinary art installation set up to commemorate the end of the 1st World War - a ceramic poppy was made for each British serviceman killed in the war, with some spilling over the walls of the Tower like blood and the rest planted in the moat. After the display was removed the 888,246 individual poppies were sold to the public - demand was so high they could have been sold several times over. 

This section was 6.5 miles long, but with detours and the walk to and from the local station we ended up walking 10 miles in total. Only one London section left to go now, from Tower Bridge through Docklands to the Greenwich foot tunnel. 

Thames Path: Fulham to Chelsea

I have got very behind with posting here ... since my last post we have done two more legs of our walk along the Thames Path through London. I want to record them both here so will do them as separate posts to keep them straight. A combination of a busy couple of months and doing All The Things since everything started to open up again makes it look as though we are never at home, whereas in fact I just haven't got round to writing about the ordinary days. 

The first of the two Thames walks was on the Friday before last. Friday is now the best day for a longer walk as TG does not have any dance classes in the evening and is happy to let herself in when she gets back from school, so we do not have to be home at any particular time. We caught the train down to West Brompton, then took a bus to our starting point at The Crabtree pub in Fulham. Not far into the walk we had to divert inland and walk round Fulham Football Club's stadium, which sits right on the river. 

After the football ground, we cut back to the river through Bishop's Park, where I spotted this duck and duckling on a rock by the lake. We hoped to pick up lunch at the cafe in the park, but it was closed for renovations. There was a stall outside, but it was only selling ice creams, drinks and cake, which wasn't what we needed. 

After failing to find lunch in the park, we spotted a sign for a cafe at Fulham Palace, the official residence of the Bishop of London which has an entrance into the grounds from the park (the gardens are open to the public and free to enter). The cafe was very nice, the squashy sofa variety inside, with tables on a patio outside, but the food mostly involved cheese or bacon, neither of which M eats, so we decided to wait and find somewhere else. The part of the Palace we saw wasn't particularly inspiring, but I loved this quirky Gothic style lodge at the entrance. Just look at those twisty chimneys! 

We finally found lunch at a cafe just round the corner from this bookshop. Just look at this window! We didn't stop, as lunch was definitely the priority by that stage. We bought filled baguettes and took them to Hurlingham Park to eat. Compared to the pretty Bishop's Park, the public section of Hurlingham was definitely more functional - tennis courts, cricket / football pitches and a children's play area, rather than lawns, flowers and ponds. 

By the time we got back to the river again after lunch, it was definitely getting more city like, with high rise buildings like these on the south side of the river at Battersea. 

We walked past new blocks of flats at Imperial Wharf, with a green public park between the buildings and the river, and on to Chelsea Harbour. Again, lots of modern and extremely expensive flats. I just browsed properties for sale - £15 million for a 9 bedroom, 8 bathroom apartment, or £400,000 for a small flat. House boats are more affordable! 

 

The last stretch was along Chelsea Embankment to Albert Bridge. I was intrigued by the sign on this old tollbooth  - "All troops must break step when marching over this bridge". It is near to Chelsea Barracks, so I presumed that must have something to do with it. Google tells me that a general order that troops must break step when crossing a bridge was issued in 1831 after a suspension bridge collapsed when 74 soldiers were crossing. The reminder on this bridge was indeed due to the proximity of Chelsea Barracks. The Barracks closed in 2008, but the sign remains. 

We hopped on a bus to Victoria, then the tube to Euston to catch a train back home. The official length of the walk was 5.5 miles, but in practice it was more due to occasional diversions, and walking to the station  from home and back adds an extra 1.5 miles. It was a warm day, so by the time we got home we were quite tired. We anticipated this and decided just before we reached the Chelsea Embankment to order fish and chips to collect after we got home. Amazing that it is so easy to pull out a phone and place an order! 

The Cotswolds: Day 2

We started Day 2 of our short break with an hour or so exploring the town of Banbury. Our hotel was only a few yards from Banbury Cross, which I assumed was the cross mentioned in the nursery rhyme ("Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross ...") but apparently not - the rhyme dates back to the 18th century, and this cross was built in 1859 to commemorate the marriage of Queen Victoria's eldest daughter. 

We then headed south to the small town of Woodstock, near Oxford. Woodstock itself is very pretty, with lots of golden Cotswold stone. We wandered around in search of a light lunch and stumbled across the Oxfordshire Museum, where we had a quick look round the galleries before M had a sandwich in the cafe - they didn't have any sandwiches I fancied and I had seen a nice sandwich bar earlier so I waited and got a takeaway baguette there later. 

Woodstock is on the edge of the Duke of Marlborough's Blenheim estate. Tickets for Blenheim Palace itself are quite expensive and have to be booked in advance, but it is possible to explore some of the park without needing a ticket if you stick to public footpaths. We walked a five mile circular route through the park and the surrounding farm land, before ending up near the Palace where we made an unexpected discovery - the Whomping Willow!  

The tree used as the Whomping Willow in the early Harry Potter films was at Ashridge in Hertfordshire, but it blew down in a storm and was replaced for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with this hollow tree at Blenheim. From the tree there was a good view across the lake to the Palace. It is one of the largest stately homes in England, built by the Duke of Marlborough in the early 18th century when he was given land and money as a reward for his military victories (including the Battle of Blenheim, from which the Palace gets its name). Winston Churchill, who was a cousin of the Duke of Marlborough, was born at Blenheim, and visited frequently throughout his life; he is buried just outside the park in the churchyard at Bladon, a village near Woodstock. 

After our walk we sat outside a cafe near the Town Hall and had tea / coffee and cake. There may also have been an ice cream on the way back to the car. It took us about an hour to drive home, and we got back shortly after TG. She had had a good time with R, going on dog walks and doing lots of eating. They met up with H on Saturday morning and all went out for breakfast. It makes me so happy that our daughters all enjoy each other's company (it wasn't always that way when the older two were teenagers!)

This week has been a bit hectic, with things feeling a bit out of control. Some major issues have developed at work, with structural and management changes and a colleague handing in her notice. It shouldn't affect me personally too much, but means there is quite a lot of stress sloshing around in the office. Covid cases had increased significantly in our local area, with outbreaks in several schools and many children being sent home to self-isolate because they have been in contact with kids who have tested positive. Fortunately TG hasn't been affected (so far!), but has had to go back to wearing a mask in school, which isn't much fun for several hours a day - she was very relieved when they lifted the requirement after half term. There is only three weeks left before the summer break, so we are hoping she makes it through until then. The country as a whole now has a weird mix of high vaccination levels and exponentially increasing Covid cases. The vaccines are doing their job and hospitalisations and deaths are staying pretty low, but because younger people were left until last for vaccination the virus is spreading most among the under 30s. We really should be very close to herd immunity now (85% of adults have had at least one vaccine), so the hope is that the surge in cases will soon burn itself out. The official plan is still for all restrictions to be lifted on July 19th, after delaying the last stage of reopening for four weeks in June. 

 

The Cotswolds: Day 1

Over the last month we have done a lot of playing catch up with things that had been postponed due to lock down. The last of them - I think! - was a night away, using a gift voucher that R gave for Christmas 2019. Yes, that long ago!  The arrangements turned into something of a saga. We decided we would like to go to the Cotswolds - not too far from home, so no long drive, but always lovely. The first hotel we booked cancelled as they had double booked. We rebooked into a Holiday Inn near Warwick, then on Thursday night decided to look at Trip Advisor reviews. It was a good thing we did, not because there were bad reviews, but because there was a review posted the previous day complaining that a booking had been cancelled because the hotel was being used as a quarantine hotel for people flying in from red list countries. M phoned and the hotel verified this. It also turned out they did not have any record of our booking. Oops! We had booked through the voucher company, and something clearly went very wrong. 

We decided that as we had already arranged for R to have TG to stay overnight on Friday we would make a last minute booking of our own and then try to unravel the voucher mess later, and booked in to a hotel in Banbury, about an hour's drive from home. We stopped off on the way for a wander around the town of Brackley, where we found a nice park with a lake and a group of geese pretending to be statues - we had to watch closely to spot any of them moving! After that we headed for Upton House, a National Trust property about 15 minutes the other side of Banbury. We had lunch in the cafe before exploring the house and grounds. 

It was bought in the 1920s by the owner of the Shell oil company, who decorated it in Arts and Crafts style, filled it with collections of art and china and bequeathed it to the National Trust in his will, with the provision that it should be left as it was so that the public could share his own enjoyment in the house and its contents. 

After puttering around the garden we went back to the cafe. Fortified with tea/coffee and cake we then went for a walk in the local countryside. Most National Trust properties have suggested local walks of various lengths - this time we picked the shortest as it was already mid-afternoon and the car park closed at 5.30. The highlight was this view from an escarpment looking over the site of the Battle of Edge Hill (the first major battle in the Civil War between Royalists and Parliamentarians, which took place in 1642). Apparently on a clear day it is possible to see 40 miles across to the Malvern Hills. 

 

After our walk we headed to Banbury and dinner at our hotel, which was originally an inn built in the 17th century, now much extended but still with the old inn at its centre. The hotel has quite a history. King James II stayed there in 1687, and Jonathan Swift stayed there while writing Gulliver's Travels - he took the name of Gulliver from a tombstone at the church on the opposite side of the road. Also one of the rooms was used as a secret meeting place for Catholic priests during penal times.  

We packed quite a lot into Saturday, so I'll put that into another post. In other news all our young folk have now had their first dose of Covid vaccines, except TG who is too young as the UK is currently only vaccinating over 18s. R and H and R's boyfriend all had Moderna, which hasn't been widely available in the UK until recently, and H's boyfriend had Pfizer. H came over this evening to watch the new Disney movie Luca with us. It is set on the Ligurian coast of Italy, where H spent her year abroad in 2018/19, so that was quite fun, although as it was an animated movie with a fictional location we didn't exactly recognise anywhere! It did mention H's university city of Genova though. She brought strawberries and chocolate with her, and we have concluded that strawberries with melted chocolate may be the ultimate movie snack!

Weather Extremes & Afternoon Tea

This week has been very much a game of two halves as far as the weather is concerned. Monday and Tuesday were hot, and the forecast temperature was so high on Wednesday that we decided to set off early for a walk while it was still relatively cool. We visited a stretch of the Grand Union canal we had never walked before, starting at Cosgrove in Northamptonshire, walking down to Wolverton at the northern extreme of Milton Keynes and back. We parked up at Cosgrove and were slightly startled to find that our route to the canal towpath went under the canal through this tunnel. It was built to be wide enough for horses, so not as narrow as it looks in the picture - we were glad we were not tall though!  

The canal is carried over the river by a short aqueduct. The "Iron Trunk Aqueduct" was built in 1811 after the previous brick aqueduct collapsed, and was a pioneering piece of engineering at the time. Lovely views, particularly on a sunny day. 

We got as far as the derelict buildings which were once a huge railway works before turning round and adding in a loop round by the River Ouse back to the aqueduct. This pool where the river widened looked as though it could be good for wild swimming - nice and clear, though I don't know what the depth would be like.  I have a friend who goes swimming in the river a bit further upstream, but I'm not sure I am brave enough! 

By Wednesday evening it was both very hot and very humid, with a sticky night making it difficult to sleep. We bought a fan for TG's room as we could only find one - an old one disintegrated last year and I thought we had replaced it, but apparently not. Thursday was cooler with some rain, then Friday was chilly with heavy rain all day. Hard to believe it had been so warm only two days earlier! 

R had given us a voucher last Christmas for afternoon tea at the Luton Hoo Hotel, which we had booked for Friday. Built as a country house by the Earl of Bute in the 18th century, it is now a 5 star luxury hotel. M had been once before, but this was my first visit. I had the vegan tea and M the standard one with slightly tweaked sandwiches (he doesn't eat ham or cheese). There were four sandwiches each, two scones with jam and cream, and four little cakes, and of course plenty of tea! We were too full to eat all the cakes, so brought the leftovers home for TG. When we finished it was raining fairly heavily. As the car park is a few minutes walk from the hotel, the doorman offered us a lift to our car in the hotel taxi, which was driven round and we were courteously ushered into it under the protection of a golf umbrella - definitely the luxury touch. We are not used to chauffeurs and uniformed doormen treating us like royalty! Getting back to the car dry was definitely a bonus. 

Today has been mostly dry, but it is still cold enough to have needed extra layers. We managed a short walk this morning without getting rained on, and this evening M is working. TG is studying hard as she has exams at school all next week. The school are calling them mock (practice) GCSEs, though I suppose in reality they are pre-mocks as she will have another set in the winter before sitting the actual exams next spring. I think she is mostly bogged down in science, as she is taking physics, chemistry and biology as separate subjects and each has lots to remember.