Outings and celebrations . . .

It's been a very 'social' weekend. Number one son and I went to the Monteczuma Exhibition at The British Museum on Friday evening. I have to admit almost total ignorance of Monteczuma before the outing. Like many people, I recognised the name (at least I'd heard of 'Montezuma' at any rate!) and knew he was something to do with the Aztecs. We tended to concentrate on European history at school so the name of Cortez was more familiar to me but for some reason I hadn't realised the connection between the two.

After furthering our education, we had time to go and have something to eat before our coach left at 10pm and we found a lovely little Italian restaurant nearby so it was a very successful trip all round.

Yesterday evening we had our annual Teams celebration in a local church hall. Every year around this time we celebrate the founding of Teams of Our Lady in Paris. This year, being 50 years since Teams began in England, was extra special.

Finally, this afternoon was the last Rosary and Benediction for the Holy Souls in our parish which was a beautiful way to complete our busy weekend.

Bank Holiday . . .

The last Bank Holiday before 'you know what'. I refuse to use the 'C Word' until at least the beginning of Advent.

I persuaded the family, or least those of them at home, that they really did want to go for a nice healthy walk as it was going to be such a beautiful day. To be fair they didn't really need much persuading.

We had a lovely walk around the Devil's Punchbowl at Hindhead, and managed not to get lost this time. The first time we tried it we ended up lost and spent ages trudging through heavy rain until we finally found our way back to the car - not a lot of fun. Now, we have a map!

We met this chap en route - highland cattle. (Can you refer to a single animal as cattle? I'm not sure of the singular of cattle?)

Number 1 son managed to put himself outside a very tasty-looking plate of sausages and mash afterwards and the Pater Familias and I also treated ourselves to a 'little light refreshment' at the Café.

We stopped at Ranmore Common on the way home for an ice cream and to admire the view. A lovely day all round and still home in time to do a few little jobs.

Update . . .

I realise I haven't written anything for a few days so thought I'd let you know how our weekend went. Grand Designs Live was good fun; plenty to see and also plenty of time to sit and chat too.

I hadn't been to the ExCel exhibition centre before and we were lucky that despite the earlier weather forecast, we had good weather for the drive up and back on the coach. It was interesting to see the 'regeneration' of London's Docklands first hand. Traffic wasn't too bad either although we were slowed a bit at one point by workers putting out barricades in anticipation of the London Marathon the following day.

We saw the great Kevin holding forth in front of an audience but decided not to stop but to try and see as much as possible. I had to nudge my friend a few times as she was getting stopped by salespeople keen to 'make a killing'. I had to repeat the Mantra, 'don't make eye contact, just walk purposefully by' several times!

And I managed to leave without buying anything except a few delicious home-made sweets, how about that for self-restraint?

Sunday's family visit also went well. We made such good time on the M1 (yes, no traffic problems on the M1, can you believe it?) that we had to stop and have a coffee (oh, I really suffered!) as we would have arrived too early otherwise.

It's a long time since I've been on the M1 as we don't usually have reason to go directly Northwards and my memories of the past times I've travelled this way are constant roadworks and continuous convoys of HGVs. Not this time. We couldn't believe how few goods vehicles we actually saw. The paterfamilias put it down to the recession - how sad if this is the case.

A busy weekend ...

It's going to be a busy weekend but hopefully good fun.

Tomorrow I'm going on another 'Works Outing' with a girlfriend to see the Grand Designs (of Kevin McCloud fame) exhibition in London.

It should be very entertaining seeing how 'the other half' live and drooling over all the super new products and maybe laughing at some of the ideas over coffee and chat - at least I hope there'll be plenty of time and places for that very important ingredient in a Girls' Day Out. I expect the Paterfamilias is already bracing himself for my return full of 'great ideas' of things to do to our own humble abode.

I hope the coach is more or less on schedule. We need to go to the Vigil Mass so that we can get away early on Sunday morning as we're off to Nottingham at the crack of dawn - well about 8 O'clock at least - to drive northwards to see some of our family who have other relatives visiting from overseas so there'll be quite a few of us, adults and children. Then back again the same day so we'll probably be worn out by the time we get home.

Sunset Boulevard ...

Yes, we did have a really good evening last night. We went to see Sunset Boulevard at The Comedy Theatre in London. It's a fairly small theatre with a very intimate feel about it - lovely. It was an excellent production. What a talented cast! A fairly small group of actors who effortlessly (or so it seemed) switched back and forth between being instrumentalists to singers to dancers and very convincing actors. It was amazing to watch.

We were lucky again to have time for a quick pre-show drink and a light meal. This time we found another lovely, friendly pub, The Imperial, very close to the theatre, which served delicious food, and very efficiently too. It was fairly full with a mixture of people having an after-work drink, tourists and theatre-goers but we managed to find a table straight away (thank goodness as I really don't like standing and drinking in a pub).

A good run home in the coach and safely tucked up in bed by midnight. Perfect!

Byzantium or bust ...

Well, the Byzantium exhibition was really good as expected. Our helpful coach driver had downloaded a podcast of a talk on the exhibition which he played during the trip up to London. A bit long as the expert was still talking when we arrived an hour later! And the fact that it was an audio podcast and the speaker kept referring to images, meant that quite a lot was lost ... but it was a thoughtful idea and and we did gain quite a lot from listening.

I made a mistake afterwards, however. I persuaded our son that we didn't really need a big 'proper lunch' and we could 'manage with a snack, couldn't we ... and enjoy dinner in the evening when we got home?'

That would have been fine, except that we found ourselves with a lot of extra time on our hands and spent most of it just wandering aimlessly, filling in time until the coach was due to pick us up.

With hindsight (a marvellous thing, if only we had it!) it would have been much better to have lingered over a proper meal in the warmth of a restaurant. Never mind, I've learned that lesson and next time, that's definitely what we'll do.

Mind you, we did take advantage of our early arrival in Picadilly to treat ourselves to a drink in the very superior cafe and patisserie, 'Richoux', not far from Fortnum and Mason.

See what I mean? I could quite happily have lingered here for an hour or more!

Visit to Wisley

We had a lovely evening at Wisley yesterday. Although it was rather overcast we escaped without needing our waterproofs or umbrellas once.

A wonderful display outside the entrance to the shop as you make your way towards the gardens themselves.

A 'living wall' of begonias just by the entrance gates.

A 'floral picture' made up of various sedums.

Just to prove I really was there.

We had a full 3 hours to wander in the very extensive grounds which meant we had plenty of time to visit one of the many cafés dotted around the site.

The very impressive glasshouse. What I haven't mentioned is that there were various items of musical entertainment around the gardens throughout the evening. Outside the glasshouse we stopped for a while to listen to a lovely 'Barber Shop' Group. We also came across Scottish Pipers, a harpist and a jazz band amongst other musicians.

Now I now that to all our Sri Lankan family Canna lilies are 'old hat' but to us they are something quite exotic even though they are hardy here and will grow quite happily outdoors in the summer.

One of many interesting natural sculptures we came across as we moved around the gardens.

Well, here's Cosmos but I wonder where Damian got to? (sorry, in joke for Catholic readers!)

Sunset at this time of year is around about 8pm so after watching the sun go down over the extensive rockery we made our way to the gift shop to do some 'serious browsing' before it was time to amble towards the car park and the coach home.

Wet, Wet, Wet ...

Today has been like that well-known Scottish band who formed in the 80s and had great success with songs such as 'Love is all around'. If you need any more clues see the title of this post!

Nevertheless, it's been another good day. After a lovely lunch out I came home to find the workmen had turned up and were working despite the dreadful weather.

Tomorrow I'm going to Wisley in the early evening with a good friend and hope the weather improves before then. I'm looking forward to strolling around the beautiful grounds and listening to some of the musicians who'll be playing in the evening. Also of course having a natter over coffee and pottering in the plant and gift shops.

Lots of lovely flower pics to post tomorrow, I hope.