When in doubt, skate it out

I knew it would happen!I knew if I came to the Cariboo I better drive around with skates in the car because eventually, I'll come to a frozen, snow-free lake.And then it happened.Driving past Williams Lake I noticed people walking and skating around.So I found the right street to the city park and parked up and laced my skates up.And then I jumped tenderly skated right in!So it took me a while to adjust to the wobbliness and the melt, freeze, melt patches of lake ice, but once I decided I'd just have to bulldoze skate over the frozen waves at a good speed, it was the most amazing thing in the world.Cracks and all.I took a good hour around that lake. I skated to the middle, I skated back and forth along the shore, I skated over thin ice and thick. Over cracks and thru slush.It was the best, most glorious feeling.My advice is to skate every day!

Alice in the Palace

Christmas at Blenheim is always a treat and this year they did a special Alice in Wonderland exhibition in the grand palace rooms.This was just so magical!I loved every minute of it.Here are just a few pictures.The bright coloured lights combined with the lower, magical light illuminations were very hard to photograph, but I hope you get a little glimpse of the magic.

June catch-up, in the Okanagan with the littles.

I might just have several random posts hanging in my draft folder from when my great and mighty pc died.By the way, I still don't have that pc (under full warranty and at HP headquarters) back yet, and HP is being very unresponsive (except for the social media rant...they didn't like that at all and stirred their stumps).No more HPs for me. I think I'll stick to custom built Acers like all my past pcs.But I digress. Since there are some random posts hanging about, and since all my family, (as well as me), love to reread the posts and remember the lovely times, I thought I'd get them posted.So here is one from late June.Chloe and I drove to the Okanagan to stay with Kerstie, Adam and the littles.Late June is a perfect combination of green and hot. Not yet too hot, not yet too dry, but that first taste of warm air and cool water which will be the ideal Okanagan summer.So, while we worked on Chloe's airstream and helped Kerstie with baby Nate, we also jumped in the lake.It turns out Ruby is a great swimmer.She was in there solidly for 2 hours and only getting out to have a pee and then jumping right back in.And so we spent a few days swinging,and swimming,and floating,and beachcombing,and swimming......and generally having fun :)While baby Nate slept thru it all.

Buying an apple tree

Hi everyone,I was very excited today because today was the day we decided to buy a replacement apple tree for the one we had to take down last year to make way for the carport.Buying an apple tree is serious stuff for me because this is the ONE apple tree we can have in the garden, so we took some time to chose the one we wanted.First, we went to our closest garden center Frosts Farm, and we had a cup of tea and a brownie and sat for a while with our apple book and I explained a little about malling rootstocks to Robbie so he understood the choices and could be in on the decision.After looking at the selection of apple trees, we decided that Frosts didn't have a tree which would grow tall enough for us, but did have a great deal on 2 for 1 dahlias! I also needed a new pair of my favourite leather gauntlet gardening gloves, so I got those too.So we drove off to my favourite garden center Burford.We went straight to the apple trees and found our tree.We decided on a Braeburn apple on an M106 rootstock which will grow the height we want it to.Whew, when you only can buy the one tree! That's a big decision.Then I tried to pass up the other great deals on offer!But I did need to look around, (and garden twine, I definitely needed garden twine), so we parked up our tree and had a lovely walk inside the store.(you can just see our apple tree peeping up above the jasmine hoops)In our hood, there is a lot of spare turf off-cuts from the lawn which is being put into the new housing development and I was wondering if it might work to grab the off-cuts, turn them upside down, pile them into a mound, or into a barrel, and plant potatoes in that somehow.Has anyone done that? I've heard of it before.I think I might try.Oh swoon!Look at these amazing secateurs and gardening tools.And, for anyone needing some pest extermination work, there's a Dalek for that.I fell in love with this beautiful heart shaped trowel.I also fell in love with the potting bench the tools are on!There's my twine.Grabbed one.Now let's look around the store some more.This place is more than a garden center. It's a home, gift, beauty, antique, restaurant, deli, wine, toy, garden center.And they tend to have unusual things which I haven't seen other places.Look at those beautiful, multicoloured lights. They seem to be made from hand-blown bottles all bound up together. And those shiny velvet ribbon spools!I'd buy them just to have them around to admire and touch.These guys!This might be silly, but I'd love three of them just sitting like sculptures in the front hall.Some of the fabrics and cushions here are amazing.Handwoven and embroidered throws, kilim rugs, hand-dipped candles...And the colours!I love them.The throw, hung here on the wall like a tapestry, was a printed throw but really beautiful too. I love that whole feel of old botanical illustrations come to life.Also love the fox doormat.Here in the outdoor section is my dream apple storage cabinet for when my apple tree starts producing enough apples that we can store them up for winter, and my dream, hand-forged firepit for those late autumn evenings under the apple tree.Sigh.But too soon it was time to pay for the tree and twine and take our new baby tree home.I think I might have to make some time to visit again.

Hello from Sunday night and the historic WWII RAF Bicester and Blenheim

Hi everyone,We've had a packed Sunday!So much for our "take it easy Sunday" philosophy.You all know how we love a good car show. The more interesting cars to look at the better. So today we drove a few miles away to the historic RAF Bicester where a group show is held several times per year.It's called a scramble, and anyone who likes to can come show their car.Bicester is a huge Royal air force base, about 400 acres, and serves as an airfield for the RAF Gliding and Soaring Association. At its RAF WWII beginnings, it functioned as a secret assembly site for huge bombers and, as the war progressed, as a base for Spitfires, De Havilland Mosquitoes, and other warplanes. It was a training site as well as a home for five RAF squadrons, so you can guess the sheer enormous space and importance this place holds.Now the red brick buildings are listed heritage buildings and function as workshops and showrooms and other such commercial spaces.And so we came, in a bitter wind which felt like -40 rather than +4, and along with hundreds of people also brave enough to go out in this wind......we bought a cup of tea and a couple croissants and walked around the whole grounds viewing the cars.I really loved seeing all different kinds of cars against this beautiful backdrop.Here are three Triumphs.Here is a Morgan driving by and a beautiful TVR (similar to mine) parked up just behind it.A lot of the old buildings have been turned into car reengineering shops and most were open for us to have a look into. It's super helpful for Robert to see the older cars because he is at the moment designing mudguard fittings and thinking about windshield/no windshield on Medusa.A Bently and two Riley bonnets.Here's a gorgeous Landi...like mine.This one is beautiful. It's a Riley and we figure it's an early one...maybe 1920-30s. I love the silver hare on the bonnet.We walked around until the freezing wind got to me and then I left Robbie to look while I went to the ladies and planned to head back to the car.Ha!This whole area had about two toilets and the line-up was 20 minutes long!So I guess military airforce bases don't really think about the necessity of ladies rooms. LOLIt turned out that by the time I waited thru the queue, Robert was finished looking around and we arrived at the car at the same time.One lovely thing about going to Bicester is that we drive right by Blenheim.Being in the car warmed us up and we thought we would be safer from the wind on the Blenheim grounds, and since the day was so stellar, we decided to have a walk around the palace grounds and pop in for lunch.We flashed our membership cards and parked up, and walked the 3 mile short walk around and across the river.That's us bundled up in our warmest hats!Look at this beautiful view across the river to the palace.We saw tons of birds...mostly sea gulls...but still.I couldn't stop taking photos in this beautiful, cold, blue, winter light.Lots of people were on the path today. Lots of people and their dogs.After our walk, we popped into the palace cafe and had a wonderful lunch. We split one order of roast pork and roast potatoes and one order of penne in a cream and blue cheese sauce with tons of veggies, and after that huge lunch, we split an enormous slice of Victoria sponge cake.And then!Then we stopped by the Blenheim shop and bought some clotted cream fudge and some tablet!It's a good thing we walked so far today. :D

London day out at the museums

London Town!Oh boy, we're such country bumpkins that we rarely get down to town.We do have a tradition of getting out of our little village to London at least twice per year. Once in July to celebrate my birthday and once in winter to celebrate Robert's.I go to Kew and R goes to the museums.The trouble is that R's birthday is late November and we're not usually together till early December, so we pick a random pleasant weather day and go into London.We love to drive into Oxford and take the train into Paddington and then to tube to the museum district.It's a short walk from the tube past one of the best named little bistros around!(You know what? I really love the look of gloss black doors.)The Science Museum, the Natural history Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum are all in one area and they're all free!Our first museum stop and Robbie's favourite is the Science Museum.We walk into the great hall and past years and years of scientific breakthroughs, like steam engines and light bulbs, telephones, the first manned space flight module, the first MRI machine, Bakelite, Plastic...computers...it's all here.Then we go up to the second floor to look at the invention of flight and the various engines.Together this translates as, "Warning, do not turn the engine at the fan wheel", separately it translates as "warning" "do not turn on" "fan" "go berserk"! We laughed puzzling it out.This beautiful illuminated clock has a four-story long cable with a pendulum swinging above it measuring time by the rotation of the Earth on its axis.I want this on my ceiling!Here is the view from our lunch! The cafeteria has some mezzanine seating and we love to have our lunch looking down at all the activity.After lunch, we decided to see one other museum while we still had time and daylight.In this photo, you see the Natural History Museum on the right and the V&A on the left.When we arrived, 2 hours ago, there was a long queue to get into the Nat. His. Museum and the queue wasn't getting any shorter. It seems that some of the school children don't go back to school till next week and it seems they all chose today to visit, so, not being keen on standing thru the queue or being surrounded by millions of screaming littles, we went to the V&A.Which is just fine with us. We love the V&A.It's an amazing Tardis of a building.The first exhibit we came to was a fashions thru the ages sponsored by the fashion house of Balenciaga.This showed the most exquisite clothing from Edwardian times, thru Victorian times, and on thru the 20thC.Here is a beautiful silk caftan from the 1920s.Suits to die for (or have a rib removed for...lol) from the 40s.And the 50's.And no place to hide the muffin top dresses from the 60's and 70's.So, after committing to daily yoga and workouts and knocking off the 10 unwanted Christmas pounds, we went on to explore Asian influence in Victorian England.Here's a peek into the National Art Library.Next, we came to all things gold and shiny. Buddhism, Renaissance church artifacts, stained glass windows, crowns, crosses...golden heaven.I was looking at this little statue and said, "she's beautiful."Robbie was reading and said, "She's a he."I read the text and said, "those hips, that tiny waist...damn girl!"There is a small painting gallery in the V&A.Just four halls, but exquisite works.I loved these:Charles Robert Leslie 1837Charles Robert Leslie 1849The pearls on this alter piece Madonna 16CTurners!Was there ever a greater master of atmosphere than Turner?I was fascinated with the brush strokes he made to paint these waves.You can feel the fury of the turbulant waters.And Constable.King of pastoral paintings.That's about all the time we had on our day train/tube passes; which run out at 6pm, so we had to make our way back out to the great hall.I must admit a slight feeling of envy when we passed these art students.I used to do this, and wish I had more time in my life to sit and paint in museums. If I lived in London I'd probably be here every day in the winter and at Kew every day in summer.So Robbie waited for me under the Dale Chihuly chandelier while I had a quick mooch around the gift shop. I bought a few lovely things......and we walked out of the V&A, walked down the block to the Natural History Museum, watched the people for a few minutes, and walked down to the tube, and started our return trip back to Oxford and back home.

From this time between Christmas and the New Year when you have no idea of what day it is...and you don't care!

Oh, I'm thinking that I shouldn't even mention the weather to a lot of you, my friends, who are freezing your shnurkles off.We've had about three days of snow and below freezing...only just below freezing......but we've enjoyed every one of those days.We've walked to the village, past snowy fields, past the pub, past the church,Past all of our friend's Cotswold stone cottages.And back up past the snowy fields again.Yup, that was our winter. All three glorious days of it.Now it's up to 10 degrees above and the snow has long melted.But the heavy snow did leave a torrent of broken trees and branches in its wake. This one at Blenheim.There's been a lot of snapped trees in our hood too around the Windrush and Thames rivers.I made us an advent calendar while I was still in Vancouver.I got a few postcards and cut and glued silly Christmas jokes on them, put them each into an envelope and stuck a little game, toy or treat inside. The things I found were usually thrift store finds...like Ken doll shoes for our fingers and a little boombox to play a beat and we had a finger breakdance dance-off. There was silly putty, and there were ornaments, and two intricate, laser cut metal airplane puzzles, some bracelets which say The Doctor and The Companion...And these silly Korean beauty panda masks. (There was no way Robert was going to put his on!)We've tried to reduce all the Christmas stress by preparing ahead of time and having as much comfort and fun as we could. We've had open fires almost every night.Robert asked our lovely friend Maureen, who lives in the village, to make our Christmas cake this year. We usually leave it to the last minute and it's such a hassle. Maureen did an incredible job and the cake is so good. She even used Robert's little cake ornaments which he's had for a million years.On the 15th we popped down to the Christmas barn in the neighbouring village of Appleton.We said hello to the reindeer...And chose our tree.I love our Christmas tree this year.I really wanted a very tall one, (in our little cottage we usually have smaller trees), but this year we got a floor to ceiling one and I realised we didn't have enough decorations to make it really beautiful, so a few precious new ones from the Christmas barn and a couple jaunts around the thrift stores was all that was needed.I have a story about our turkey. Well, were we ever organised! I made the stuffing the day ahead, we prepared the turkey by 11 am, turned the oven on and stuck it into the big oven in time for the traditional 3 pm British Christmas lunch to have it ready for the Queen's speech. So, we set the timer for 30 minutes at a higher temp, then 2 hours at a lower temp. Two hours later we came to check on the turkey and take the foil off only to realise that we turned on the small oven (which we always tend to use) and our turkey was stone cold! Our British Christmas lunch turned into a Canadian Christmas supper with Dr. Who. But we loved it.Yes, the Theo blimp got turkey.And this is the way our days went.One lovely day blending into the other. Lovely old movies, twinkly lights, good food, comfort and warmth.Then Boxing Day came and with it deep Land Rover tire groves thru the paths in the fields, the barking of dogs and the pop, pop, popping of guns.I've been walkign the fields in light coloured clothing...just in case...lol.I know it's tradition, but I really don't like the Boxing Day shoot at all.The ritual goes on for a few days as beaters beat the hedges flushing the birds out and the shooters shoot them down and the dogs retrieve them.Although the shooting party has to stay off the footpaths, I can hear them on my walks and turn back rather than going on.And I also mentally send "run and hide!" vibes to any bird I see.Another little bit of fun we've had is making Medusa Christmas cards for Robert's car crazy pack.We took Medusa out of the garage and......had some Christmas fun!That's my crazy Christmas sweater.Now it's the evening here in Oxfordshire, on the last day of 2017 and I'm only getting around to posting this post. I've been so bad these last few months and have told myself to be better.But I do hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas and I wish the best for all of you in 2018. Get your thoughts, memories, and resolutions, (if you do that), together and have a lovely New Year celebration.Thank you so much for venturing over into my life and letting me be a part of yours. Much love and see you next year. :D

Christmas at Blenheim

We drove off to Blenheim, like we do most British Christmas years, to see the opulence and festivities at our palace next door.Most years Blenheim is decked to the nines and is so over the top festive that it takes our breath away.I was really pleased that we took the time this year again, however, Blenheim has done something new. Instead of Christmas opulence, Blenheim was featuring a solo exhibition by an artist named Jenny Holzer, whose message is an opposition to war. Therefore, large abstracts featured prominently, and, instead of tables decked in finery and cupboards full of exquisite china and crystal, there were human remains and bones on those tables and in those cupboards. Not really my cup of tea. But parts of the palace were still festive and that's what I'd like to show you.The entrance to the palace had the usual Christmas trees, and the busts were crowned with beautiful ivy or holly crowns.Actually, every room had a Christmas tree.Each Christmas tree had a theme. Some were turquoise and full of peacocks and some, like this one, had these exquisite golden crowns. Also, most of the fires were lit. This is the first time that we can remember seeing the fires lit including both in the great dining room.My favourite room, the great library, had several beautiful Christmas trees.And this is where a more intimate table was set in front of the fire.Look how beautiful each place setting is. We loved the addition of the jewels on each Christmas cracker.We had some lunch, and after lunch, we had a peek into the gift shop. Actually, it may have been more than a peek; it may have been a proper mooch thru, but you can only exit the palace grounds thru the gift shop, so then again...I have to show you this display. It's a life-sized father Christmas and reindeer made from dried plant material.I thought it was fantastic.Here's a closeup on father Christmas so you can see the dried peppers and pinecones.And here's a closeup of the reindeer body. It all smelled amazing!So we bought our usual: butter fudge for me and tablet (a fudge-like sweet) for R, and I also bought this sweet little card. It's by artist Lucy Loveheart and I love her whimsical style. At the moment it's making me feel happy as I sketch the mistletoe I gathered the other day.

A stop at North Arm Farm on the drive home

Stopping by North Arm Farm in Pemberton has been a tradition for near on the whole 25 years of our cabin life.North Arm Farm began as a very small seasonal fruit and veg stand and has morphed into this lovely destination!And can you imagine a prettier place for a farm than under Mt. Curry on these sunny Pemberton Valley meadows?Look at this glorious, huge barn which leads out onto a picnic area.The farm was busy with people. I think this was the last open weekend for the season and so everyone was out taking advantage of the lovely weather.I love the giant, metal firepit where everyone was toasting marshmallows and roasting hot dogs.Concord grapes...my favourite!Here is the outdoor snack shop, and inside there is a small bakery/lunch counter where I always buy a few butter tarts.And in the farm produce area, I bought a rainbow of carrots and beets, and, of course, I had to pick out a couple pumpkins to bring home.

The beauty and the beast at Blenheim

Here's something!I learned how to grab a still image from the GoPro movie files!Ha!Prepare to be inundated with more and possibly more interesting photos...lol. (here's a GoPro still)On Monday, Robbie and I jumped into our TVRs and hooned x-Oxfordshire to Blenheim.The drive was glorious and we expected it to take the usual 20 or so minutes, so we had a great time chasing each other (actually, what it looked like was me in my V6, trying to keep up to R's V8 turbo charged engine), but then we got stuck in a 15 minute queue trickling into the palace grounds.By the way, R's car is called Clara, as in Clara Bow, so I have to stop calling it beasty.(Hmm, my car doesn't have a name yet)So we finally got thru the queue and drove the cars straight into the show grounds, instead of into the parking lots. We didn't even ask...lol...and looked around for other TVRs but couldn't see them right away, so we parked up in our car year categories.As soon as I turned the car off, a little steam started escaping from under my hood.More gremlins!This time a bit of a leak somewhere, maybe?I tried to get Robbie's attention, but as soon as he parked up, he had a crowd around him! This always happens.But my pretty car got loads of attention and I saw four people take photos of it within just a few minutes. :DAnd, just parked up for a while, the car cooled off and the temps came down.Then the announcer called all older convertibles and sports cars into the central show.So I said let's do it!Robbie said, "really? No."But I said "please please please", and so he did.Then we went for a little walk and found the TVR club. Now we're not members of any club, but we asked if we could quietly trickle in and join the other TVRs.The club people said, "yes, no problem, the more the merrier". :DI said, "thank you, and, while I'll trickle in, Robert may not be so inconspicuous".So we jumped back into the cars and R blipped the throttle and roared...slowly...into the TVR club area.Yeah, I see you...and so does everyone else...lol.So we parked up the cars and I took the GoPro off the headrest and turned around...And there was another group around Robbie.Half hour later, and the group just got bigger.I was getting pretty hungry, so found a near-by tree, spread out our picnic blanket, took off my shoes and sunhat......walked back to the cars, grabbed our picnic basket and persuaded R to join me.Even with no owner there, Clara attracted a lot of attention.After our lunch, we went for a tour of the show grounds to see the other cars.We started with the TVRs.Here's a beautiful TVR M just like Robert's, but unmodified.That's something. Car club members can sometimes be very purist about their cars and a bit anti modifications, but mostly everyone is friendly and welcoming.Here's a yellow S2 like mine.And here is a classic 1980s wedge.The thing about the wedges; people seem to either love them or hate them.I loved this one in this golden colour.And here is our new friend Barry, who I met thru the TVR S FB group and his lovely S2 Garv.Isn't it stunning? I love the black and white contrast.We toured the rest of the field and I spied my new look!Love the ruby slippers...lol.Also, love the VWsHere is a beautiful mini engine like mine that I'm working on now for my grey mini.And look at this stunning vintage mini with a complete modernisation.Kind of cool.Interesting prismatic paint job.We walked past the bikers who were all called into the show grounds just then.Love that one guy's passenger. :DThen we came across this Batmobile.Oh people know how to have fun!A few more lovely cars......before we went to get icecream.Then we walked back to our cars, said goodbye to our new friends,and raced each other back home.We each got a metal show vehicle plaque for this year, and just before he roared out, a man came running up to Robert and awarded him the TVR car club mug for the best pre 1980s TVR!Well, if you can believe that...lol.