John and Mei and Currin News
.
We are now in Windsor and I would have to say that Mr and Mrs Windsor have gotten themselves a tidy little weekender here, not that we have had a look around yet we are leaving that for another day, but it does look pretty impressive.
I last posted from Tilbury Juxta St Clare, well it seems that Clare was not quite as Saintly as I had thought and the real name of the village is just Tilbury Juxta Clare. There are several villages around which incorporate Clare in their name, such as Stoke by Clare and simply Clare itself. Anyway the day after last posting we were off to indulge another of my interests at the Imperial War Museum at Duxford Air Station. At Duxford I find that there are examples of the first plane in which I ever flew (DC3), the two planes in which I flew to Britain in 1965 (Handly Page Hastings and Bristol Britania) plus the only helicopter I have ever flown in. (Wasp)
I last posted from Tilbury Juxta St Clare, well it seems that Clare was not quite as Saintly as I had thought and the real name of the village is just Tilbury Juxta Clare. There are several villages around which incorporate Clare in their name, such as Stoke by Clare and simply Clare itself. Anyway the day after last posting we were off to indulge another of my interests at the Imperial War Museum at Duxford Air Station. At Duxford I find that there are examples of the first plane in which I ever flew (DC3), the two planes in which I flew to Britain in 1965 (Handly Page Hastings and Bristol Britania) plus the only helicopter I have ever flown in. (Wasp)
RAF Hastings
The range of aircraft on display is as remarkable as the quality of the exhibits and so it was quite easy to spend a couple of hours or so wandering around....totally forgetting Mrs Currin who had settled down to an hour or so with the morning copy of the Times. Alas, she had not counted on nearly three hours of such luxury and I found myself quite lucky not to be in big trouble. By the time we got to Cambridge there was not a great deal of the day left so it was quite fortunate that we had visited before and so there was not that much left undone.
The remainder of the week included a visit to Norwich and another of those particularly English icons, the beach resort (Great Yarmouth), but enough said on this subject. What does go on in East Anglia (the collective name for Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex) and they have tried to keep secret is the past time known as Twitching (birdwatching to us non believers) and like most pursuits in this fair land it is undertaken with a passion one normally reserves for ones wife. Whole pubs can be taken over for discussion groups and you can only imagine the excitement we a new variety of the Great Speckled Tit is spotted. Talking of that, a discussion with our new landlady has revealed that the Great Speckled Woodpecker (the black and white one that I saw at Westbrook) is in fact the rare one and the Green Woodpecker the more common. I saw several more Great Speckled but not one Green whilst we were at Tilbury Juxta Clare, so I am not too sure who knows what about Woodpeckers. OMG maybe I'm turning into a Twitcher, should anyone notice any such odd behaviour please do give me some sort of sign.
During our wanderings we came across Flatford Mill, as we had done on a previous visit and returned for another look. This is the site of some of Constables best known paintings and a Constable is my favourite landscape painter I enjoy this little area that has been conserved in his memory.
Cottage at Flatford
On the way back we passed The Crown, the pub owned by the Hotel Inspector on TV, so it seemed a good time to see if she practised what she preached, and I am pleased to say that she didn't do too bad, lovely lunch and some good old Kiwi Sav. Blanc for Mrs Currin. We have since read in the paper that the local council were not as impressed on some aspect during one of their inspections. 
Mrs Currin outside The Compass
As can be seen, it is still not all that summery.
On the way out this morning were again held up by two trucks which had become somewhat entangled but managed to disengage with a minimum of damage. Then on the way home St. Thomas the Navigator threw another wobbly and sent us some miles down a thoroughly disagreeable little road, saved a few miles I guess.
Some of these lanes are just a wee bit less than they could be.
All in all East Anglia has proven to be well worth visiting, oh and I should mention Sutton Hoo (not Hoe or Ho but Hoo) where some years ago some of the most significant archaeological digs in Britian took place and the burial chamber of one of the original Anglo Saxon Kings and associated treasure were uncovered and some of these items are displayed in Sutton Hoo together with the farm house complete with 1920s paraphernalia.
This brings us to Windsor where we arrived last Friday. This place, The Royal Borough of Eton and Windsor are dominated by the castle and as it is open to the public we shall have a bit of a nose around before leaving. What has happened here is a reawakening of our love of Asian Food when we ate at the Thai restaurant at the hotel where we stayed Friday night. It seems our cottage had a problem with it's boiler and so we had been booked into an hotel for the night, very nice, not your cheap and nasty, but it was the Thai food that did it, it was just like being home again.
Anyway as is well known it is some 60 years since Mrs Windsor's coronation and there is quite a bit of celebrating going on. So it was that we found ourselves in Henley on Thames and a sail past of the most odd collection of little boats that one could ever hope to assemble.
This was a most colourful event with well over a hundred vessels taking part, jolly good fun.
Today we have been to Oxford but, as with Cambridge, second time around, although these are great cities, not too much new for us to see here. Never mind.
And so it is goodbye from the Royal Borough where the weather is fine and the temperature is warmer.
Take care.
David
.
.
.
.
Have a nice day - this is our weather
No comments:
Post a Comment