THE EMERALD ISLE

Onwards to Belfast to see Richard and Pamela who stay not far from where Conal's mother lived until she married Monty. Richard and Pamela had only just arrived back from Plettenberg Bay where they spend most of their time and are in the process of selling the house in Crawfordsburn to downsize. We were fortunate to see Claire as well - she's waiting to hear about a house that she's wanting to buy.

1 Osborne Road - where Clare was born

Pamela, Claire, Pamela (Richard's sister) Richard

Ireland - an emerald country to be sure of a brilliant green that dazzles and a soft light that delights - constantly changing from the very occasional burst of sunshine, mostly moody and overcast.

We had a quiet time mostly having R&R going for walks in the countryside, watching Wimbledon and  going into Belfast one morning for a brief spell of shopping. 

Grey & moody Groomsport

We saw a small croft-like houses in Groomsport where they were burning peat - the first time I've smelled the pleasant sweet smell described in books I've read.  

Richard & Conal in front of croft

HORSE SHOE FARM

Singing in the rain - Jill, Conal & Andrew

at Wakehurst Park

We spent the weekend with Andrew & Jill at their beautiful Elizabethan house down a country lane near East Grinstead. It's a heavenly place with acres of green garden and lovely trees. Close to their farm is yet another National Trust House called Wakehurst Park with the most wonderful layer upon layer of trees so we went for a long walk in the ever-present rain - the rain coat I bought in Melbourne is moulded to my body and has been worn almost every single day since we've been away.

The gardens are lovely with little water falls, streams, lakes and the trees in every shape, size and hue of grey, green and of course the marvellous bronze of the copper beech. Wakehurst is aligned to Kew Gardens and they are collecting every seed of every plant and storing them - quite an undertaking I'd say. 

Andrew & Conal go back a long way and I remember many years ago when Jill and I wheeled our babies through Green Park while we were staying in the UK. We slipped into the easy, relaxed friendship like an old glove chatting and catching up on important matters like grandchildren. We had a lovely braai on Sunday for old times sake before hopping the train back to London. 

LONDON REVISITED

I'll never-ever tire of London and it'll forever be a place of magic for me. We've wandered down Regent Street for old times sake - and walked and walked. Thank goodness for those Merrell shoes bought in the States! There's a huge amount of building and roadworks going on - I guess in anticipation of the Olympics next year.

Elena, Elio, Luciana & Oscar

We've taken bus trips right across the city from Battersea to Archway to see Elena whose little boy Oscar was born in May. It was so good to be able to catch up with Elio and Luciana who were helping Elena - her little boy had a tough time at first but thankfully looked well and bonny when we visited.

We've been to Harrods and Christie's where we went to an auction of the Dylan Lewis sculptures, been to the theatre to see the extraordinary play War Horse where the life-size puppets manned by 3 men were so realistic that one suspended belief, wandered around the Tate Art Gallery and attended the final exhibition of the students work at the Chelsea College of Art with Peter. It's a real privilege chatting to Peter about art - who knows more about contemporary art than anyone I know. And in between I've coo'ed at the twins and cuddled them, had lovely chats to the family and watched and waited for Jessica to produce her baby.

OXFORD - THE 'OTHER' PLACE

Oxford is referred to as the 'other place' by Cambridge and I'm so pleased that Conal was able to see  both. Garry kindly drove us to Ian & Sheila's who live in a beautiful flat set in 12 acres on the outskirts of Oxford in an area called Littlemore. The lovely Georgian buildings were once a lunatic asylum until they were recently sold and renovated.

We hopped a bus into Oxford and wandered around - Conal was able to see Brasnose where Nicky studied, and Balliol where Matthew will be staying next month.

Conal & Ian in front of the Camera - Brasnose in the background

Balliol 

We managed to get to the Ashmolean Museum and wandered around for a few hours before hopping  the Oxford tube back to London. 

We're managing our quick visits well and take only a small bag each leaving the bulk of our stuff at Peter's flat. Our rather longer trip to Ireland will be a bit more of a challenge - the weather has been cool and we still wait to wear our summer clothes! 

BRIGHTWELL-CUM-SOTWELL

Yes that is the name of the village where Garry and Pamela live. Garry is Conal's cousin - and he and his wife Pamela visited us in St James a number of years ago and we made a real connection. Garry is a retired nuclear physicist and his wife Pamela a physio.
We left London on the Oxford tube - a misnomer because it's certainly no tube but a red double-decker bus - on Saturday morning and beatled along to a place called Lewknor where Garry and Pamela were waiting for us. We went for a lovely walk on the clumps - rather like little rounded hills - where one could see forever across the flat countryside with the Thames meandering below. The fields are planted with daisies to attract bees and so the sides of the hills are covered with white daisies.

Sunday dawned grey and rainy and we spent the morning preparing for the family lunch a family reunion for the 5 first cousins and the rest of us - ten in all. It was a wonderful get-together with lots of chatting and catching up and a real treat a treat to meet up with them all again.

Front: Pamela (holding Morag), Garry

Back row: Elizabeth & Elkin, Rosaleen, Conal, Caroline & Laura (Caroline's daughter)

SISSINGHURST - THE BEST LAID PLANS

I've always wanted to go to Sissinghurst so we set off early in the morning to catch the train from Waterloo and on arrival at Staplehurst station asked a woman where the bus left for Sissinghurst - and she offered us a lift there. Turned out she'd just travelled to the same places that we'd been to in the States & when visiting Sydney went to yoga in Manly with Jaqui! Small world. It was a disappointment though to find Sissinghurst closed. What now? We were miles from anywhere and about to traipse back to Sissinghurst Village when we met another couple who had made the same mistake and were wandering around disconsolately looking to see what other gardens might be open in the area. They decided to go to Scotney Castle not far away, regarded as one of the 10 best gardens in England and sensing our disappointment offered to take us with them. John and Josie Mitchell are the kindest people - we found lots in common and they not only took us to Scotney Castle, but dropped us back at Staplehurst station.

Scotney Castle is not one - but two houses. One, a manor house built in 1837 for the Hussey family, and the other the ruins of a medieval castle complete with moat that the family "deconstructed"when the manor house was built, using the original building as a folly. The old castle dates back the the 12thC. The gardens are glorious - although I think they would be at their best when the rhododendrons are in full bloom. The estate was left to The National Trust in 1952 when Edward Hussey died, on condition that his wife Betsy could live in the house until she died. She lived until she was 99 dying in 2005. The house is charming and looks as if the people living there have merely gone on holiday.  Lots of comfortable chairs and loads of books in every room - & lovely paintings some by John Piper. Needless to say a number of interesting people have been house guests - including Vita Sackville-West.

Manor House with flowering Kalmia in foreground

Scotney Castle Folly

CAMBRIDGE - Brains unlimited.

We hopped a bus to Cambridge on Saturday to visit Claudia and were lucky to see Vivian briefly before he left for Cape Town after lunch - and both the boys Richard and James who were on half-term. We were also lucky with the weather. We stayed next door at a little B&B as Claudia is in the process of doing major alterations. She leads a full life and has done exceptionally well at Cambridge University Press where she manages a number of publishers and travels frequently so we were touched by how she generous she was with her time. Richard boards at Oundle School while James attends King's College School - he has just won a hard-fought scholarship to Oundle and will join Richard at Oundle next year.

Richard, Claudia and James

Cambridge - well lots has been written about it and it bowls one over on so many different levels. Extraordinarily beautiful of course and then it seems to pulsate with the high voltage intelligence of past and present people. Sylvia Plath used to live in the same road as Claudia, as does Tom Sharpe's wife and then of course Newton, Watson & Crick, Hawkins - the names of famous scientists and writers etc goes on and on. And the people one sees in the street are like caricatures - we saw three Daumier like academics strolling along in full academic dress, motar boards et al whose body language was all about the arrogance of superior intelligence.

We walked to the town through beautiful meadows and after a meander went to evensong at King's College Chapel where the music played and sung was written by Gibbon whose life was being celebrated and needless to say, he studied and wrote most of the music for the Chapel. Complex harmonies sung by the choir soaring to fill the high vaulted ceilings with clarity - heavenly sounds.

   King's College

We were fortunate with the weather and on Sunday Conal & I wandered up to the town from Newnham where Claudia lives to hop into a punt up the river past the backs of the colleges. Conal fortunately decided not to do the punting himself, a wise decision as I saw at least two people topple into the river. The guy who took us is a Canadian lawyer who chose to take a year off while his wife studied for her Masters. An articulate young man who had lots to tell us about the bridges and colleges we passed. Such an idyllic way to see the Cambridge in a leisurely way on a Sunday morning. 

Bridge of Sighs ----

As I mentioned - we were lucky weather -wise because the heavens opened as we drove home and we arrived home wet and bedraggled.

HELLO LONDON!

We had to travel via Chicago on United Air and all I can say is that they are a no frills kind of airline - none of the usual hand-outs that we've grown accustomed to even in cattle class - not even a bottle of wine with meals. Correction - you could have a bottle of wine but had to buy it $7 for one of those miniature bottles. But - we arrived at Heathrow early and must have been the first to land because we shot through so quickly that we were at Peter's just after 7 am - record time.

Peter lives just across the Battersea Bridge and Battersea Park is at the end of the road. It's a wonderful location - we walk past the Norman Foster offices and the donut building he designed, across the Albert Bridge (presently being renovated) , past the house where Scott of the Antarctic lived to King's Road, Chelsea.  What I love about London are the layers of history and unexpected surprises around every corner.  We love wandering along King's Road people spotting and boutique gazing stopping to have our morning cup of coffee at one of the Italian coffee shops - the shops of course are deeevine and the people fascinating. Just anyone who is anybody can and does pop up in King's Road. Being here is such a treat. Peter's daughter Jessica and her husband Symon, live next door and they share the garden and there is a constant flow of people and we never know how many people there will be for dinner. Peter went to Ballymaloe cookery school near Waterford and produces delicious food effortlessly like a magician. We've met up with so many of our family here - we met the twins born to Chris & Davina on the 13th May, Cathy (Stephen's daughter) who lives in a flat two doors away and Caroline and Lucy (Stephen's wife and daughter) spent a few nights here.

The twins Archie and Hugo Lanigan-O'Keeffe

GOOD BYE DENVER

No trip to Denver is complete without a visit to the Tattered Cover Bookstore. It's moved from Cherry Creek, Maeve's local shopping centre so it's more difficult to get to but David kindly took me there yesterday. I'd had indifferent reports about it so I was pleasantly surprised. The TC is now in a little theatre complete with stage and is just as lovely although smaller - I could live there. We arrived to the smell of really good coffee - the same green carpet and wonderful wooden bookshelves, large old comfortable sofas - such a welcoming space to read and browse. There were constant references to the theatre - a reading pit with some of the old theatre seats and the dummy reading a paper that was the signature of the Cherry Creek store sitting up some stairs to one of the boxes. It's a pure delight ---

Next stop - London.....