315 Apr to June 2019

10th of April 2019

We quickly realised that were were not too prepared for Meg and had to geta hatchback car real quick. We swapped the red Mazda 6 in for a Silver Mazda CX5. It is a Sports Utiliy Vehicle and to be honest is a lot easier for us to get in and out of. On top of that is is a lot shorter (and easier to park) than the Mazda 6 and has a huge boot for meg. 

 

 

19th April 2019

In the last year or so some soldiers that were involved in the 'Bloody Sunday' and other riots back in January 1972 and 1974 in Northern Ireland have been arrested for murder again, despite having already tried and investigated several times already and been found not guilty. They are to be tried again this year. I personally have a big problem with this as the guy that tried to murder me was released under the Good Friday Agreemet. In short, the IRA have been let off for their crimes and the Army are now being tried again for their mistakes (I say mistakes as they did not intend to murder anyone when they got out of bed that morning ).

As a result I joined hundreds of other soldiers, mainly ex Paratroopers, in a demonstration in central London against the persecution of our soldiers for something that happened 45 years ago. The main soldier, called 'Soldier F' in previous trials, is 79 years old and is dying of renal failure and has to undergo dailysis sevel times per week. 

 

Initial rally at the Duke of Yorks steps.

Ray with a couple of old buddies outside Buckingham Palace where we sang God Save the Queen,

And then on down Whitehall for a salute as we passed the Cenotaph.

 

20th April 2019

The little monster that we have decided to call Meg is a pedigree Border collie with a long pedigree and without her knowledge, she has been registered as a sheep dog with the Sheep Dog Society. We have no intention of using her as anything other than a pet so we need to socialise her with dogs and people as much as possible. 

So we took her to the beach with our friends Kevin and Sally-Anne. They have 2 dogs, a black ladrador cum spaniel and a small red (brown ?) border collie. They have also recently been presented with a granddaughter, Esme, from their daughter Gabby that came olong too. 

 

 

Meg.... "What is going on ?"

Gabby and Esme

Meg: "So when do we get to play in the sea ?"

We got things to do before the sea side!

 

We discovered that Meg is facinated by the sea surf.

 

Geez, this tastes grim.

Give me a minute....it's my first day.

I'll just watch for a bit !

 

Fot the past couple of months I have been helping Bob and Liz (our old friends from Ongar) to covert that barn that we had used as a home for our caravan prior to going to the USA in 2013. Bob had managed to get permission to convert a barn that was only 12 years old. Sadly the architect had made several cock ups, one of them very serious and Bob was getting very stressed about it. He asked me to come down and help him sort the problems out and I ended up staying during the week for several months to help him build it.

This is how it started out

With cladding stripped off, only 6 upright beams would remain.

The foundations had to be improved somewhat.

Not much remaining - for a conversion !!!

Metalwork almost done. The extra deep beams in the centre were the architects biggest cock up. He designed the roof at the wrong angle. This was only discovered after the steelwork was finished and had to be modified.

Walls going up.

Roof going on.

2 good chippies, Tony and Bill.

My biggest job. The floor, underfloor plumbing and insulation.

Getting ready for the concrete floor to be poured.

6th June 2019

Meg is starting to find her feet in the family now and has become acustomed to bullying us to take her out. She is becoming a truly wonderful and well socialised dog.

Come on Dad, get up and take me out....

So I like getting wet....  what's the problem ?

Tired now..  sleep time

Realy tired now.... knackered in fact

14th June 2019

We set off for a fortnights camping holiday with our friends, Kevin and Sally in the Cotswolds. Unfortunately, a breakdown in communication caused a long pre planned trip for us to London to see the Eagles pop group right in the middle of it. DOH!

We started out in a posh campsite at a large village called Broadway. It ws beautiful and only a 10 minute walk into the village. sadly, we learned that Meg, has a big problem with moving cars and the 10 mimnute walk to more like 20. As cars were passing, she was boing beserk. 

We spent a few days there touring the pubs and generally enjoying the old world picturesque village. We did a lot of walking whilst there and visited Broadway Tower at the top of a very long hill. 

It was a long way up !

A welcome break on the way back down to the pub.

20th June 2019

We moved to a smaller much more basic and cheaper site near a place called Broad Campden, (near Chipping Campden). The place was a working farm with 2 Border collies, one of which was a working dog. Meg had hours of fun with the pet one named Fly. Meg figured out that if the squeezed a squeeky toy, Fly would run around us in circles for a minute or so for no obvious reason.

 

En route with the pub dog to a pub in Paxford, a village nearby.

 

Managed to capture a Red Kite en-route.

We popped in the van and drove to Moreton in the Marsh.

They were having some sort of festival there. The local groups were pretty good.

23rd June 2019

My birthday is the tomorrow and Karen bought 'me !!!' a birthday present, a trip to see the Eagles pop group at Wembley.  Between Kevin, Sally and us two, we had managed to double book this day so we had to take a day out of our holiday and catch a train to London. Doh!

It is difficult to get good pictures in a dark arena when binoculars are more useful but I did manage to get a couple of reasonable ones.

 After a night in a seedy suburban hotel we got the train back to the Cotswolds and resumed our holiday.

Sadly, it then started to rain in biblical proportions and did not let up so we abandoned the holiday a couple of days early just in case we got stuck on the site.