Salop Steam Rally, Onslow Park 2013 (Take II)

We've just spent a fab Bank Holiday weekend at Salop Steam Rally, Onslow Park

A few pics and clips of what we got up too.

'Taxi!'



and just to round it all off .....

Well and truly zonkered ....... but what a weekend.

Something Borrowed

Whiskas for Hedgehogs

My son's partner took this great photo of a hedgehog helping himself to her cat's food one night outside her front door. I think it's brilliant, don't you?

How to annoy people without trying

Have you got any annoying habits? I have this awful Welsh thing about repeating everything twice. When we were coming home from our holiday we travelled with National Express and had to change at Birmingham to catch the bus back to Shrewsbury. The cases were all piled up in the luggage compartment and the lady bus driver was having a right job trying to sort them all out. I pipes up -'There's my suitcase. THERE'S MY SUITCASE.' She turned on me  with,
'GIVE ME A BREAK, I'M DOING MY BEST''  (or something like that)
Oops!

When we were on the ship, I went for a wander around the Shopping Emporium. On certain days they have a 50% reduction on different items. On this particular day there were two couples there, obviously from Wales. The women were rooting through the handbags sorting out which ones they liked best. One of the husbands (brilliant Welsh accent) chimes up :- 'Remember that woman we met.'.....

'I COME HOME WITH A JACUZZI!'
her husband says, 'I don't want it. I DON'T WANT IT.'
An' she says, 'It was on offer. IT WAS ON OFFER!'

Don't you just love it.
Do you annoy people?

Taming the Weeds

How is it that you never notice things growing and altering until you go away and come back, if you know what I mean. I've just shifted a carpet of bind weed out of  the polytunnel, it was itsy bitsy tiny before we left.  All the runner beans have gone to seed and the leaves on the sweetcorn have paled a deathly yellow.

Been really busy yesterday and today. Stripped all the bottom leaves off the tomatoes and removed about seven barrow loads of weeds from between them. They are starting to ripen now and we've had a few for eating already. I find a ripe banana left at the base of the plant helps to kick start them into ripening. Read that tip somewhere and it does seem to work. I've picked all the  tough beans off the runner bean plants and sloshed lots of water down them. There are quite a few flowers on the sticks so hopefully we should have another crop in a week or two.  I put a good scoop of dried chicken poo, (the type you can buy in buckets in the garden centre) into a watering can, filled it up with water - a good stir and then watered in the middle of the rows - seems to  get a second crop quicker. I've given the sweetcorn loads of water. The tops of the cobs are a bit shrivelled. The leaves have all gone yellow, but we've tried one or two cobs and they seem pretty edible. Got a great big heap of overgrown courgettes so don't know what I'm going to do with them yet - probably end up on the compost heap.

The red cabbages have all come at once.

Another weeding job tomorrow amongst the leeks.

And I found a nest of pheasant eggs, nestled in the flower border by the front door.

I want to say a big thank you to my lovely sister-in-law who popped down a few times to keep things ticking over while we were away. We'd have had nothing without her. I loved our trip, but it's nice to be back.

Back Home Again

Boarding at Southampton

We've had such a fantastic time, it's not true. Visited seven countries.

Huge vase at Kristiansand, Norway

Heading through the Baltic Sea

Sunbathing on-board

Gydinia, Poland

Big Ships that pass in the night

The Church of Spilled Blood, St Petersburg

 Galleon

Waterways of the Neva

And Fabulous Arcitecture

Palaces of the Tsars and the Peter and Paul Fortress

The Golden Spire built by Peter the Great

Market stalls along the harbour

Shadows on the bridge

Meeting up with my daughter's  friend.
The other side of the world, we got chatting to one of the sales assistants in the Shopping  Emporium only to discover that before she landed this plum job, she worked for the same company as my daughter and was also one of her  friends as well. Small world.

One of my favourite stops was Tallin in Estonia - cobbled streets and market stalls - I loved it.

D'you like my slippers?  They are soooo comfortable.

Little cobbled streets, nooks and crannies. Would have loved to have spent more time here.

Sunrise

Sunset

Me, who's never hardly moved more than a thirty mile radius in the whole of my life, on a cruise like this. Wake me up - I'm dreaming