A film, an allotment, a curry and a haircut.....

Free tickets to see "Win Win" this morning.....cosy little American film with a happy ending. Nice way to spend a Sunday.

Next stop - our new allotment plot where we decided to
burn all the old wood, old cuttings, new cuttings and other allotment holders' weeds on an enormous bonfire tended by resident fire officer who's a dab hand a poking flames with a long stick! Here you can see nearly everything has been burnt except the remains
the tree round which the bonfire was built.









Too tired to cook so popped down to local curry house/pub for palak chicken, dahl, pilau rice, garlic nan and a few veggie samosas........yum heaven.  If you pay the bill you get chocolate which is a most acceptable way to round off a meal of any description - well I think so anyway. I love this place as they don't care that you/we haven't bothered to wash away the day's labours. I didn't mention that both of us smell like the smoked part of  "smoked kippers/bacon/pork scratchings" etc., so we both need a shower. Marcus also needed a haircut which he wanted before sluicing down....I have obliged and he is now completely bald!

Quite like the look of this shed for our allotment except we'd put the bench under the canopy
with a bbq etc....mmmm.....will have to give this some serious thought.

Thought I'd share this with you - our neighbour has FIVE of these grey cats and would have more if she could....this one is a bit daft but at least it's friendly.

Yesterday, just before dusk, the rain came and so did this rainbow....

Walk into town

Our neighbour's Russian Blue cat in next door's plant pot

This morning we walked with Bella down into town along Camden Cresent, where I took this photograph of Su with her new short hairdo.

Officially approved picture

Camden Crescent

 We walked on down Lansdown to Toppings bookshop where we had a coffee while we waited for a skyline walk to start.

Architectural feature

We were bemused by the purpose of these holes under several windows

Toppings bookshop

After the walk had started, the organisers told us that it would last for three hours rather than the one hour we had been originally been told, and that it was going to go to a part of Bath that we know quite well. So we decided to have our own way back home a different way via this bridge over the river

 We had a very pleasant lunch overlooking the part of the skyline where the rest of the walkers had gone...

Then we came home and I spent the rest of the afternoon marking fairly productively, so I've reduced one pile quite a bit.  We are now watching the excellent French film "Tell No One" on TV - seen it before, but it's well worth watching again.

We're back!

For all our faithful readers I must apologise for nothing being posted yesterday. It was not my fault.

I had originally intended to talk about returning to my yoga class, hence the pic above, but was distracted by a variety of matters.....ebay being the predominant one....as currently trying to sell a lawnmower.

Also contemplating today's visit to the hairdressers which has just about left a few hairs on my head and an arthritic knee which is giving me a lot of discomfort so I've made an appointment with a doc to complain to next week.

Will leave you with a couple of pics from our recent Greek odyssey....................

This is Lefteris whose Mum lives next door to the house we rented. She was lovely and rescued my trousers and gave us cheese pies.....

.....and this is just a weird painting of an eye
on a tree in Rhodes........

Went down into town first thing (for me, but not for Su who was awake really early today and so she has crashed out already tonight) to pick up my new glasses.  I've worn them all day and forgotten about them most of the time. After a cup of coffee and a read of the paper I managed to catch the infrequent and expensive bus back up the hill and got a couple of hours marking under my belt.


I soon had enough of that so I took Bella for an early walk up to my favourite place past the golf course.

At last I remembered to take enough pictures to make a proper panorama of the views from both sides of the hill, using the great iPhone app Autostitch.

This view is of Lansdown Hill , scene of a Civil War battle site (or rather the English Revolution, as Wendy remarked last week).

(for Greg to enjoy...)

After this, it was off to UWE for a meeting to discuss the organising of a research development day next month between our Faculty and the Digital Cultures Research Centre.  Picked up exam scripts to add to my pile of marking (I get another batch next Tuesday for my sins!).

Gardening.....and more gardening....

It's the time of year when the garden grows and grows and grows....but t'was not always so.  I was looking through old pics and came across one I took when we first moved here in September 2005.....

...... I took this one a few minutes ago ( it's raining so not a brilliant photograph) so you can see the work we've put in over the years....

But today I was working on someone else's plot with Bella to keep me company.  We went for a walk afterwards in our local woods but I only had my phone with me so again the pic's not brilliant....but you should get the idea. It was heavenly and so, so peaceful.

And to round off today's blog, and because I'm tired after my labours, I'll share this pic with you.....THE CANADIANS!!

Computers and Bluebells

A mixed day - spent a lot of it wrestling with computers doing backups and erasing one for eventual return to UWE stock. Also had all sorts of trouble with the Internet connection (hence the lateness of this posting) which culminated in the disconnection of the BT HomeHub and the reinstalling of our trusty Netgear modem router.  This is now the third BT HomeHub we have had that has proved to be less than equal to the simple task of keeping 1-5 computing devices connected to the Internet at any one time.  I now have to decide if I can face a long session with BT customer support to complain about it....


On a much more positive note,  this afternoon I decided that enough was enough so Bella and I zoomed off to Westonbirt, where we were delighted by their show of bluebells.  Mondays this May seem to be my bluebell days...

Came home to be invited out to dinner by my darling wife.  Went to the White Hart in Widcombe and had a very tasty meal before we topped it off with a quick grocery shop in Sainsburys. You can't accuse us of not enjoying ourselves!

Newbridge Arts Trail, Bath.

(both photographs show work by Carol Griffin, textile artist - www.carolgriffin.info)

(Su Trindle, handmade silver and resin jeweller

www.quercussilver.etsy.com or www.quercussilver.co.uk)

(Ann Hines, painter, Bath, U.K.)

These are just three of the many talented artists opening their doors to the public this weekend in Bath.  The standard of their work was so impressive and I wished I'd more time to go and see more. If I hadn't spent all my hard-earned on a recent holiday (!) I'd have happily scooped up one or two items to adorn our walls.  Bet Marcus is relieved I came home empty-handed as none of the artists were exactly cheap..... and quite right too as they are all professionals and spend many hours producing this fantastic work. The best thing about these art trails is getting the chance to talk to the artists which is much more interesting than wandering round a gallery trying to work out what's what.......

I'm now at home facing a mountain of laundry that needs sorting.....but looking on the bright side I've just won an eBay auction for a non-motorised lawnmower and the seller has kindly offered to deliver it to me. I wonder if he'd like to mow the lawn too?