Three beaches

I've been to the seaside.

Several times, and in two different countries. Yes, get me.

The first was a day trip to the Dorset coast, along with Mr WithaY and the dog.  Despite it being autumn, the weather was absolutely gorgeous.  It was so nice that I even braved the water and went for a paddle.

Look at it! It's like July!

Mind you, I lost all feeling in my feet after about 30 seconds in the water. Also, I forgot to take a towel, so had to put my shoes and socks back onto cold wet sandy feet.

The dog had a whale of a time digging in the sand, and running in and out of the sea.  See note about lack of towel, above.

We walked the length of the beach, intending to sit outside the cafe and have fish and chips, but all the local smug newspaper-reading bastards were already there, refusing to move, watching passers-by with narrowed eyes that clearly meant "This small cafetiere of coffee WILL last me for the next hour, so fuck off out of it, you sad wannabe table scrounger.  And your little dog too."  We went home and had tea and buns instead.

The next beach trip was to Brighton, with my lovely sisters.  We stayed in a hotel right on the seafront, and were able to watch possibly the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen from our bedroom window.  Yes, all three of us shared a room. It was hilarious.  And noisy.

We drank cocktails, walked MILES across Brighton, around the shops, through the Pavilion gardens, up hill, down dale, along the seafront and even round an amusement arcade where we won a selection of tat for shoving hundreds of 2-pence pieces into those tipping point machines.

The weather (again) was excellent, dry and warm enough to make a trip on the Brighton Eye fun.

The view from the Eye looking out across the Pier, amusement arcade at the end there.

And the view inland, with the building that housed The Hungry Years heavy rock nightclub taking left-of-centre stage. I loved going to that place when I was young and thin. Well, thinner.  

I know sunset photos are a bit of a cliché, but just LOOK at this. It was just fantastic, all three of us took turns gawping out of the tiny window above my bed to take photos.

The third beach trip was in the South of France.  Mother-in-Law WithaY was 80 in November so as many of the family as possible went over there to help her celebrate.  Mr WithaY and I stayed in a small hotel in a place called Banyuls, where our room overlooked the sea. It was absolutely lovely.  The place has a rather funky modernist feel to it, and the food was truly excellent. 5/5 will visit again.

It was rather like being in a Jeeves and Wooster story, though, what with the sea lapping gently all night, and splendid aperitifs before dinner each evening. Not that I'm complaining, dear me no.

The view from our room.  Lovely.

The giant wine barrel at the top of the hill.  We did buy some local wine, and brought it back very, very carefully in our suitcases.  It all arrived unscathed, as did the pate, chocolates, turron ( nut delicacy not unlike peanut brittle) and black olive tapenade we crammed into our bags.

I discovered that I speak fluent* French!  For the first time in my adult life I had no worries about making myself understood to real proper French people. I told the lady in the supermarket that "nous somme touristes" and she gestured at the shopping in what can only be described as a laconic Gallic manner, and sighed deeply, as if to say "well DUH!"

This new-found fluency has much more to do with confidence and, I suspect, lack of shame, than actual skill,  I got to tell a shopkeeper "Ohh....je suis desolee" when they told me the fuzzy felt slippers I was admiring weren't available in my size.  That's something else crossed off the bucket list.

Note the small metal square on a pole in the bottom right of that photo. It is a conveniently-placed frame through which you can admire a perfect view.  What a great idea.  There were many of them scattered around the place.

This is it up close.

And this is the view, through the frame.  Nice, eh?

As you see, seasonal November weather. For Collioure. So, we ate perfectly-cooked fish by the bucketload, drank the finest wines available to humanity and walked alongside an azure sea in the sunshine. Not a bad way to spend a week.

In the midst of it all, we got to see Mother-in-Law Withay, brother and sister-in-law, niece and various old family friends, so that was good for the soul.  A birthday lunch in the glass-box restaurant at the hotel overlooking the sea was enlivened by a rattling thunderstorm coming in over the mountains, complete with end-of-the-world rain.  You get a lot of weather for your money down there.

Other news:  Still very sad. Trying not to be.




*very basic C-grade O-level French

Stoned

Stonehenge!

Where the demons dwell.  And the banshees live.  And they do live well.*

Yes, last week I went to Stonehenge.  I know the Solstice celebrations aren't till the 21st but I like to be early.  Beat the traffic and all that.

Inevitably, I took a bazillion photos. Well, of course. It's a spectacular place, even more so on a glorious early morning in June.  We were fortunate to have been invited to go along as part of a small group by the English Heritage team with whom (posh grammar eh?) Mr WithaY has been working recently. So at 0730, bright and breezy, we rocked up in the car park and met the rest of the group.

It immediately became apparent that we had dressed over-optimistically for the trip, as a stiff wind was blowing, but being British we gritted our teeth and ignored it.  Take that, weather.

There are some semi-tame rooks living in the monument, some of which were interested enough to come and watch us.

This one is called Gerontius and is trained to peck out your eyes if you fail to return your audio tour.

We were given strict instruction not to touch the stones because the acids in our skin would damage the lichen, apparently.  Perhaps they had a bad experience with a visiting group of Geiger aliens.  We were also warned not to climb on the stones, deface them, lick them or try to push them over, or they'd set the rooks on us.

I've always thought Stonehenge was a tad unimpressive, to be honest. I know it's a world heritage site and all that jazz, but when viewed at 50mph from the A303, it seems underwhelming.  Even when I've paid to get in, and walked around the outside with the audio tour (which I was careful to return, for fear of Gerontius) it's felt a bit, well, commercial and dull.  Plus you're always surrounded by massive crowds of tourists, probably all feeling as disappointed as yourself.

Last week, though, it was very different.  The stones are HUGE.  Really, really big.  And when you stand next to them, you appreciate how incredibly hard it must have been to move them from where they were found, organise them into the correct alignment, and then stand them up.  And then, incredibly, somehow hoist the equally-massive lintels onto the tops of them.

The guide, bless him, tried to explain all about Stonehenge, but was hampered by the fact that he did not have answers to the burning questions we all wanted to ask, viz:

1)  What's it for?

2)  How was it built?

He gamely explained various theories, backed up by the archaeological evidence, but basically had to reply to many of our questions with a smiling "We're not sure..."

Here's one of the rooks, keeping a wary eye on the group:

We were there a few hours too late for sunrise, but it was still lovely to see the long shadows crossing the centre of the circle.

That's a view of the Heelstone between the central pillars, thankfully without any traffic passing by on the road behind it to ruin the atmosphere.

This is one of my favourite pictures which gives a sense of the circular-ness** of the monument from the inside.

And this is the view off to the north west, across Salisbury Plain.  Usually there would be a thick crowd of people in an unbroken line around the path, so it's gorgeous to just see the stones and the big sky.

When the new visitors centre is opened, it will be a very different experience, and I am looking forward to seeing the changes.

Mr WithaY and I amused ourselves as we walked around by quietly exchanging comments in the "Neolithic Accent" as seen on Armstrong and Miller's TV show.

One careers option I was made aware of that day, and never offered at school, is "Astro-archaeologist."  I demand to know why not.  Is it because it sounds like a load of made-up bollocks?  Or just that the people who write horoscopes AND have a keen interest in digging holes want to keep it secret from the rest of us?

The truth will out.

In other news, the catering business is making slow but steady growth, and I am selling more of my home-made chutneys to people.  Mr WithaY has been carving some beautiful wooden bowls recently, and I am trying to persuade him to sell them online.

We've been making the most of the last week of fabulous weather to get stuff done outside and have  replaced the roof of the shed, planted more fruit bushes, cleared a huge (and I mean HUGE) amount of assorted shite out of the garden, and planted a lot of mixed wildflower seeds.  I have high hopes that in a few weeks we will have more flowers.

This of course, is a celestial cue for torrential rain until September.



*I still adore Spinal Tap.

**Yes, it's a word.  Shut up.

Cheese. Thousands of them.

Autumn is definitely here. The misty, cool mornings.  The evocative smell of woodsmoke on the air.  Birds massing in the sky in a slightly menacing manner.  Hedgehogs and that.

And what happens at the start of Autumn, lovely readers?  Why, the Frome Cheese Show happens.  And I was there.  Well, me and Mr WithaY.  And the dog.  We were all there.

Last time we attempted to go, we left it a little too late in the day - about 11am, as I recall -  and were thwarted by ridiculous traffic tailbacks which went on for miles and miles.  We turned tail and came home, disappointed and annoyed at our lack of forethought.

This year it was different.  I bought the tickets in advance, saving us 6 quid in the process, marvellous, and we were up early, turning our shining morning faces to the sun, dog all fed and brushed and ready to go, cheese money burning holes in our pockets.

We do like a bit of cheese in our house.

The dog was very excited.  Well, we all were really.  We left home at 8am-ish, drove the short distance to the showground - no traffic - and in we went, unimpeded by queues or hassles of any description.  It was quite misty, and the grass was soaking wet, making everyone* pick their way through it, grumbling about wet feet.

The first thing we spotted was this:

I think it's a tribute to Thelwell.  The children were all fiercely determined, grim-faced and focused as their teeny ponies trotted back and forth in an endless competition of some kind, more or less under control.  It was just lovely.

As you can see, the mist is already burning off, and the blue sky behind it can be glimpsed.  We decided to go and look at the cheese tent.  We took it in turns, one of us standing outside with the dog while the other one went in and admired the cheese. And by Swansea it was admirable.

This one looks like the winner of the CSI Somerset Crime Scene Reconstruction section.  I was tempted to draw a chalk outline round the grisly remains, but there were many burly cheese officials wandering the tent, and I lost my nerve.

Some of the cheese categories were baffling.  At least to the uninitiated.

Lemon meringue?  Really?

I did like the shy mozzarella, which is like a badger cub on Springwatch, needing to be coaxed out of its bag.

I expect the judges used high-quality crackers to lure it.

Competition categories were inspired.

I wonder who the cheese-judging celebrity was this year?  And how do they phrase the invitation.

"Hello - Elton?  Are you busy on the first weekend in September?  No?  Would you like to come and judge a huge tent full of cheese in Somerset for a morning?  No?  Really? Are you sure?  Hello...?  Hello...?"

This sign leaves little to be queried:

I assume the competitors have to make up their "cakes" before they arrive, rather than forage around helping themselves to cheeses which look the part.  But I do like the idea that there are people casually pocketing cheeses as they go round, thinking "This one is shaped just like a teeny bridegroom! Perfect!"

This cheese captured my heart, just because it's so completely mad.

It was big, too.  About the size of a watermelon.

This category was nicely specific.  I imagine the judges measuring each entry and flinging those on incorrectly-sized boards out into the pony-competition ring in a fury.

Some cheeses had the look of a cheese which had been made to take part against their will, under protest.

"But Muuuuuuuum!  All the other cheeses are way bigger than me!  I'll be laughed at!"

I bet they were told, "Oh, you'll be fine, stop making a fuss."

Ha.

Exhausted by so much dairy produce, I went and watched the dog obedience teams while Mr WithaY went and looked at the cheese.  The dog was supposed to watch and learn.

I don't think she was taking it all in, to be honest.  She certainly didn't seem too keen when I suggested she had a go jumping through the hoops of fire.

The day was heating up by now, and we had bought quite a lot of cheese - which gets heavy - so we decided to go and look at the animals for a bit, where it might be shadier.

I love the Tent Of A Thousand Goats.  Sadly, no dogs allowed, so I popped in and admired the poultry tent while Mr WithaY took the dog to see some tractors.

Again, a wide selection of competition categories, some stranger than others:

Gosh, that's a bit, well, harsh.  Surely beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and one man's ideal egg is another man's marginally less ideal egg?  Although that one is a corker, I must say.

It's an EGG.  What do they expect to be inside it?  A previously undiscovered novel by Dickens?  A jewelled clock?   Shergar?

Cuh.

I suspect foul** play here.  Not only has an element of the category title been redacted in a professional, indeed an almost FBI-like, manner, the eggs themselves are missing.  Where are they?  Stolen?  Kidnapped?  Currently making up part of a prizewinning Victoria Sponge?   I demand answers.

How Victorian.  A freak show.  Again, note the sinisterly empty egg plate in the top left corner.  I hope the hens who laid these at least got a cup of tea or something afterwards.

This is just a very pretty little decorated egg which I wanted to photograph. Awwh.

Ah, even here, the cult of shallow shell-deep beauty permeates.

Mind you, if I was brought a boiled egg or two on a tray looking like this, I'd be thrilled.

Fantastic.  I wonder if they all came from the same hen?  And if so, what are they feeding her?

Personally I preferred the one with the blue eggs, but hey, I'm not an egg judge.  Ohhh, I've wasted my life.

By the time I had finished wandering through the poultry tent, making admiring noises and chuckling to myself, it was getting really hot.  I went and found Mr WithaY and the dog, and we all sat in the shade having a drink and a bit of a nice rest.

A little bit more wandering through the show, and it was time to head home.  I was deeply gratified to see the massive queues of traffic, stretching all the way from the showground, far across West Wiltshire, cars full of hot grumpy people who hadn't got up as early as we had.  Bwahahahahahaaaa.

In other news:  The dog has been a bit poorly, so I took her to the vet yesterday.  He diagnosed a bout of colitis, which apparently is really common in young dogs, particularly the ones which hoover up anything and everything in their path when they are out for a walk.  So, she's got some special anti-squit medicine to help sort her stomach out, and some goopy brown stuff I add to her food to restore her internal bacteria balance.

Last night, for the first time in several days, I only had to get up and let her out into the garden once (at 4am) rather than on the hour, every hour, as it had been recently.  A huge relief for both her and I.

Other, other news:  We've had the go-ahead from the environmental health lady and so our catering business is officially up and running.  We have our first job booked for October, but this week we are going to get some business cards sorted out and some adverts in the local press, and hopefully pick up some more bookings.

Also, I have had my hair cut short.  I decided that I was bored with it - I've had long hair for at least 10 years now - so went into Salisbury last week and had about 10 inches cut off it.  It's quite liberating.  I realised that I almost always wore my hair up, and it seemed a bit pointless having long hair if whenever it was down I just got annoyed because it was in the way.

So, a new look, a new business, a new season.  Oh, and I've lost a stone, thanks to walking the dog.  Hurrah.





*Everyone not wearing sensible boots or shoes with gaiters.  I had fabric shoes on, and my feet were SOAKED.


**heh