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During the few weeks since the last newsletter we've said goodbye to Winter and the grass cutting season has now well and truly started and the garden is coming back to life. The clocks went forward last weekend so it is light well in to the evening and the cold rainy spell of early March has been taken over by warmer sunnier Spring weather. So, all this means more time outside, either working in the garden or getting out and about around the English countryside.
With The Great North Run to train for, I've been out plodding the country lanes in preparation for this half marathon up in Newcastle next September. It's not so much the distance that'll be the problem, more the time that I could take in running the course! I now regularly run a 5 or 7 mile circuit but the time taken hasn't come down at all and all I'll say is that the top runners would almost complete the half marathon in the time I am taking to do my run! My excuse is that the first two miles are all uphill, and it's just as hard running downhill afterwards! Anyway it's nice to get some fresh air. The Newcastle Great North Run will be the World's biggest half marathon with 50,000 entrants, and it is all in aid of chosen charities. I am running in a team of 6 representing Persimmon Homes, and our charity is 'Dreams Come True', which helps terminally ill children to fulfil a wish. So, I'm going to be looking for sponsors over the coming months. Getting accommodation in the city proved to be a nightmare with over 100,000 extra people descending on the city for the event, and I was unable to get a vacancy as far away as 30 miles out! Another runner mentioned a new hotel being built by the river, not yet open and not taking any reservations until. However, after much pestering and paying up front, we managed to secure 7 bedrooms for the weekend which was great as it's a good quality hotel just a couple of miles from the start and on mile 3 of the route, so our supporters can take a leisurely breakfast in bed and watch us run by from their bedroom windows! My training programme was interrupted for a while after an accident involving a flight of stairs and an excess of alcohol, the result being several visits to hospitals and a sore back. It was during a dinner party in a private house in London and though I had drunk lots of champagne and wine, the slippy socks on the slippery staircase didn't help, so naturally I fell down them all, landing full weight on my spine. It was only the next morning when I couldn't get out of bed to feed the parking meter outside our friend's house in Belgravia that I realised something was wrong. So Dennis drove us back up to The Cotswolds, stopping off at Banbury hospital, by which time I was racked in pain and tension from the drive up(!) and needed a wheelchair to get in to Casualty. With lots of damaged muscle and broken ribs I was prescribed numerous tablets to kill the pain, and later on went to a Specialist in Oxford who told me to work through the pain barrier to stimulate the muscle to recover. So, what better way than to return to the gym, so it was back upstairs to train intensively daily, but I also had the idea to join a gym I'd heard of in Birmingham where they specialise in hard-core training and equipment. Well, it was down a back street in a basement and was more like a torture chamber than gym, but the machines isolated the working of every body part and it was simply a place to work hard. The biggest drawback was the travelling time of over an hour so I've been putting in more effort at home instead. So what's the outcome? Well, I seem to permanently ache all over, take at least two days to recover from each run or workout, and overall feel worse than ever, so it must be doing me some good!! On a much more interesting note, let's now catch up on latest developments on the car front. As you know from last year's newsletters, we built another two garages and carport for any later additions to the fleet. The Rolls Royce remains in pristine condition, but unused as Dennis wishes to maintain it's unusually low mileage of under 5,000 in 23 years. In fact, just recently we have been getting enquiries from interested Rolls Royce collectors through a dealer about the car, but Dennis does not intend to sell unless the price is suitable. Meanwhile the B.M.W. and Mercedes convertibles also remain unused but were polished last weekend and now ready for some leisurely outings this Spring. The 'workhorse' is the new Mercedes which has already clocked up over 20,000 miles and has turned out to be a great 'allrounder', being practical, comfortable, fast, and economical. It has all the 'bling' on board inc. sat nav, parktronic and everything tronic, and returns over 40 m.p.g. Having cancelled the order for the new model Bentley Continental G.T. after the dealers up North messed Dennis about and couldn't supply until 2005, we started looking around and were offered a beautiful Bentley Continental T, a similar sounding car but in reality totally different. It was the last of the 'true' Bentleys, a bit of a bruiser and definitely no V.W. components hiding under the bonnet unlike the new G.T. We were introduced to a gentleman who supplies such cars and he demonstrated a particularly nice model at the house. Rather than describe it, here are a couple of photos of the 'T'.
As you can see, the 'Silver Shadow' is in the foreground on the left hand picture. We gave the car a good spin, and she's certainly a substantial piece of machinery, very powerful, luxurious, and solid, with a stately presence. We felt, though, that the car would remain in the garage most of the time as we wouldn't wish to use it as the daily car, and that a future addition should be an out and out sports car….but what? Well, as luck has it, Dennis managed to coincide the acquisition of a new Aston Martin DB9 during the week of my birthday, thereby relieving him of the annual burden of finding me a present! The icing on the cake was 1300W 20 speaker Linn hi-fi system and every possible extra, and so we are now eagerly awaiting its arrival next month. The DB9 isn't officially launched until later this April, and we are receiving one of the first from the factory in Gaydon, about half an hour away from us. In fact next week we are going to the factory to see the car being built. The next newsletter will no doubt be liberally packed with photos of it, but for now here's a taster taken from a car magazine.
This new Aston has been receiving very encouraging write-ups and has become already a great success with waiting lists well into 2 years. In fact, the car is attracting £20,000 premiums for early deliveries, but as one report put it ' If you're tempted to sell, don't sit in it or drive it first, because you won't be able to let it go'. Well we are going to sit in it and drive it a lot and so won't have any intention of selling it on at any price!! We're already thinking of places to go in it and Scotland in early Summer is way up the list, and even in to Europe. (Basically anywhere without speed cameras!) Having spent the first half of last year building the garages and landscaping and reseeding the land at the back of the house, we were informed by the local council that they objected as it was a change of use of land from agricultural to garden. Well I could now write several pages on the following exchanges of letters, but will instead just say that despite the local councillors, and with the full support of Stratford Council, full planning approval was granted, and in fact at the last minute the local council withdrew all objections, which included references to an old map dated 1950, and a mention that cows used to graze on the land. Well maybe they did in 1825 or some such time, but since then a great big house has been built on the land and Stratford Council suitably pointed out that such a place should have complementary gardens rather than a combine harvester reaping it's crop within inches of the kitchen window! Basically, common sense prevailed, despite the small mindedness of one local councillor in particular who seems to abuse his position on the local council to bear grudges. For instance, he told us himself that during construction of 'Oakfield', he objected to the adding on of the conservatory only to 'get back' at the builder, and then added that he objects to wealthy people moving in to the area anyway! Perhaps it should be suggested that his resignation be called for as his arguments seem to be personal rather than professional. Last month we picked Mum up from Cheshire and invited her back here for a few days. We did the usual visiting of places of interest, i.e. good restaurants, and had a super lunch at the famous 'Cliveden' country house hotel by the River Thames in Berkshire. The hotel has recently been acquired by The Von Essen group of hotels, as has the nearby Buckland Manor and our favourite Sharrow Bay on the shores of Ullswater in the Lake District. Many other 'Relais & Chateaux' hotels have been bought by the group, headed by Lord Andrew Davies, and together they now form the most prestigious portfolio of hotels in the country, complemented by a fleet of helicopters and cars to transport guests between establishments.
The two photos above were taken in the grounds of Blenheim Palace at Woodstock, a magnificent country house surrounded by hundreds of acres of parkland. Last week we were visited by a helicopter pilot and ground school instructor in a Bell Jet Ranger that landed on the back lawn, to take us flying and discuss our training towards a pilot's license. We have been contemplating doing such a course for some time now, and wanted to try out the machine that we'd choose to fly, so, already having tried the smaller Robinson 22 and 44, we felt the Jet Ranger to be more substantial and suitable.It was our journeying around the world when we chartered helicopters on numerous occasions that whetted our appetite to fly more, but the practicalities of combining ground school and flying lessons would require a couple of days away each week in Sheffield, so it's an option we have to consider.Here's the chopper landing and me at the controls 3,000 ft up over the Warwickshire countryside.
A while ago we purchased a dozen or so attractive table lamps from a company in The Midlands, and visited the factory to see the full range. A pair now sit in the hallway where we also have two large stone columns supporting the upper landing. They were painted in cream and we thought they'd look more suitable coloured in the same marble effect finish as the lamps, so Dennis contacted the manufacturer and we returned there to discuss with their artist, Larry, to come to the house and add his 'magic touch' to the columns. Well they look great, or at least we think so, and her are the pictures showing the result.
We're now getting up to date with events, and I'll finish with the mention of a trip we made this week down to the coast of Devon. With the promise of a couple of sunny days mid week, we booked in to an hotel that we've always intended on visiting; Soar Mill Cove Hotel, located at the end of a single track lane, leading down to a remote sandy cove around the headland from the pretty fishing village of Salcombe. The journey down in the mild Spring sun took little more than 3 hours and we spent the afternoon ambling around the seafront of this coastal village. Being a very popular tourist destination, its summertime population quadruples, and property prices have soared due to the demand for holiday homes. However, just a week before the Easter influx of visitors, for us it was all very quiet and relaxing. Parking spaces are at a premium though! The following photos illustrate the colourful and scenic waterfront location.
You can't visit Devon without trying one of their famous cream afternoon teas, so of course we did, with scones the size of a loaf of bread and with dollops of thick cream and jam. With a large evening meal ahead, the only way to work up an appetite was a stroll down to the cove from the hotel, and bracing walk along the undulating cliff paths that follow the coast for miles. With the striking yellow flowers of the wild gorse bushes in full bloom, and the undulating green farmland edging the rocky cliffs and sandy bays, the coastal scenery was very colourful under the blue sky.
The Soar Mill Cove hotel has been run by the same family for almost three decades and is the sort of place that attracts visitors back year after year. It is a bit of a quirky building, a perfect oblong in shape, nestling in a dip and overlooking the sea across the fields. The bedrooms were lined up in a row, each having a large patio window opening on to the terrace to enjoy the view. Dogs were welcome and our neighbouring bedroom included a boisterous cocker spaniel who seemed very content to reside on the rear seat of his owner's new Bentley Arnage! Facing west, the dining room is famous for its sunsets as well as the excellent cuisine. With local fresh fish in abundance, that's what I chose to eat, though Dennis stuck with his usual steak! After an early morning run down to the beach the following morning, we had a full fry up for breakfast. The surrounding countryside of the South Hams of Devon county has an intricate network of single track country lanes which would be great for exploring on foot or bicycle, but a bit of a nightmare by car. We were there during a quiet period but still meeting the occasional oncoming vehicle meant, for one of us, and usually ourselves, a long stretch of reversing to find a passing place..not the right area to bring your stretch limo!! We wondered how the traffic copes during a Bank Holiday weekend, as the lane to our hotel was barely the width of the car, and also served a busy car park and caravan park too. Perhaps a good place to abandon the car and take up jogging! (nearest shops 3 miles away!) We headed off back home up the M5 arriving in the Cotswolds early afternoon where temperatures reached 20C for the first time this year. It was nice to see the sea again, having lived besides it in Spain for so many years, but also there's nothing better having been away to return to the comfort of home. We really like living where we are. Apart from the quietness and countryside, being bang in the centre of England, whichever direction we travel, any destination is within a 3 hour's drive, from the South Coast to The Lake District, with the capital of London taking just half that time. In fact we returned there on Thursday and had a dinner with several friends at The Berkeley Hotel, leaving late evening but being home by midnight. At the moment we're having April showers; one minute sun and the next rain. I was supposed to be on the sit on mower this afternoon but will have to wait for a drier spell. It's now the right time for planting in the garden and we've been adding some ground cover plants, though the wildlife seems dead set on digging it all up! There's a lot of activity in the garden each night time and by the morning the roots of the heathers and conifers are all exposed! The immediate area has become a breeding ground for rabbits, but it's also very popular with the pheasants, the occasional fox which Dennis started to feed but it left the meat and took the plate! Meanwhile this week a couple of ducks have been perusing the water features as if looking for a place to nest and I even found a large duck egg by the front door! The birds all take their daily bath in the fountains and the neighbouring field is full of newly born lambs full of the joys of Spring. Just to finish on the subject of animals, a Monday night ritual now involves bringing some nice filet steak down to the local pub for our favourite dog there called Willow. She's a particularly lovely dog, a cross between a Labrador and sheep dog, and is currently receiving an awful lot of fussing having undergone a recent operation. I'll finish this newsletter with some photos of the local wildlife, and will be writing again no doubt in May when hopefully I've got the DB9 to report on.
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