Birthday week

Took a few days off for my birthday back in August. For the day itself (a Wednesday), booked myself in for a Spa Day at Aqua Sana Woburn Forest, Center Parcs' newest 'village', opened in 2014. Had been quite impressed by my visit to the spa at Longleat Forest back in 2009; also had heard a number of glowing reviews of the Woburn Forest spa from people at the OU, especially my colleague Jill, who actually spent Christmas at Center Parcs a couple of years ago and recently spent a Luxury Spa Break there with her husband to celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary. The LSBs are rather expensive but I've tried hinting to Ruth that one might be nice for some special occasion, but have so far got rather a lukewarm reaction.

Have set up an Aqua Sana account, just in case I may want to go again. According to the copy of Spa Escape I picked up, the revamped AS website offers 'a fast track to spa bliss'.

Spa Escape also noted that, although spas are attracting more men than they used to, the UK still lags far behind the rest of Europe when it comes to spa-going. I saw a few men there, most with their wives or girlfriends though I did see a group of three chaps together making their way to the restaurant. My boss Judith recently told me a story of a work trip to Germany she once went on, where it was quite the done thing for work colleagues to go to the spa together after work, presumably in much the same way as Brits might go to the pub. Clothes were apparently not worn. Both our minds boggled somewhat at the thought of sitting around naked with your workmates/superiors, but I suppose it’s normal in context … Tricky to give someone a stern talking-to about their work progress the following day though if you’ve been nude in front of them the evening before??

Found my way to the Center Parcs site relatively easily but managed to become confused once inside and drove several times around a massive featureless car park, before retracing my steps to the entrance lodge in hangdog fashion, to be given directions by the friendly girl on duty. On arrival, discovered I was entitled to a complimentary coffee and pastry, which I didn't need to eat having in fact had coffee and pastries before leaving the flat, but did anyway. Changed and spent a pleasant few hours mooching about the various different areas within the spa, including a brief swim in the little pool. I had booked an Elemis Intensely Cleansing Salt Scrub (frangipani-fragranced), which was pleasant though more modest than the two previous all-over body scrubs I've had at spas, in that the therapist kept you partially covered by a towel the whole time (despite the paper pants) and confined the scrub to legs and the upper part of the back, leaving me - as I am, to Ruth's surprise, relatively unself-conscious in a spa environment - with a vague feeling that I hadn't quite got my money's worth. The spa itself is very nice with an impressive number of different rooms.

My first visit to Center Parcs was with a group of other young(ish) people in 1991. Can't seem to find a photo of myself, but here's a photo of two of the other women in the group, neither of whom I am still in touch with. The chalets have been poshed up a good bit since this. That visit was to Elveden Forest in Suffolk, at the time one of only two CP sites in the country, the other being CP's first village at Sherwood Forest in Notts. Sherwood's spa has evidently recently had a refurb and looks jolly nice. Already pondering how I might justify a visit.

On the Thursday, did some domestic stuff including arranging things in my lovely new Joseph cutlery organiser. Pic nicked from John Lewis, but I'm sure they won't mind as I've spent plenty of money there over the years. Drawer was certainly in need of a clean out.

Then went for a 7-mile walk via the new housing development at Oakridge Park, via Great Linford, where I stopped for a cup of tea at the Costa at the little shopping centre, and then into Central MK.

Grand Union Canal near Oakridge Park

Went down to Abergavenny for the weekend and baked myself some birthday fairy cakes to accompany a tub of gin and tonic-flavour icing I'd bought from Lakeland. Also baked a batch of regular fairy cakes, which Nia and Alys helped to ice and decorate - I'd purchase the tub of jelly diamonds imagining one per cake, but after Nia had arranged about eight on her first cake I abandoned the idea of there being any left over.

On the Saturday Mum, Ruth and I walked over to Abergavenny Castle to see a quite interesting exhibition in the museum on significant local women.

Castle grounds with Blorenge behind

Walk around Hurley and Temple, 6.9 miles

12 August

Bit of retrospective walk blogging.

Picked Ray up from the marina early and drove to Marlow. Parked in the car park off Institute Road and walked up to Bill’s on West Street, where Ray treated me to brunch as an early birthday present. After stuffing ourselves we waddled off down Portlands Alley to Pound Lane. Turned down Lower Pound Lane and walked for a while past what seemed to be the development of a flood relief scheme. As we passed the private house Pens Place Ray speculated as to whether there might once have been a larger and older house of that name nearby, but I couldn’t find anything on a Google search.

Reached the river and paused for a while for Ray to point out some planting across at Temple Marina that a friend of his had done, plus the new house owned by the marina owners. Walked on past Temple Lock and over the elegant footbridge, where Ray paused to ring his sister Sharon, who lives in the residential bit of Hurley Riverside Park with her partner Keith, to see if she was available for visitors – Sharon is currently laid up with her ankle in plaster following a fall down her decking steps. To give her time to get sorted we had a pleasant stroll around Hurley, including walking a short way down a footpath leading off the high street.

Old road from Hurley to Temple

This piece has some interesting stuff about an old tunnel running from the Olde Bell to the Priory. Didn’t spot the entrance gate pillars of the former driveway to Temple House referred to – will have to go back and have another look. The former Temple House looks to have been a big old pile judging by this photo. There’s now a new-build (though olde-style) house called Temple House next to Temple Marina, apparently formerly owned by the marina owners according to Ray but now sold as a private house. Rightmove picture here.

After leaving Sharon and Keith's, we walked along the old road - Temple Lane - leading from Hurley to the village of Temple - apparently this was an actual road for cars at one point though I haven't been able to find out when it was closed to traffic. Just before reaching Temple, some fellow walkers pointed out the jolliness that somebody had added to these slabs.

We continued on through Temple village to join the road that runs off the roundabout through Bisham and over the suspension bridge into Marlow. We had tea and cake at Satollo before returning to Caversham.

Ray on Marlow Bridge

Route below.

Here's the pace/elevation graph, though being mainly near the river there wasn't much elevation to speak of.

Week off

Took the week 3-7 July as leave. Had mooted the idea earlier in the year with Ruth of possibly booking to go somewhere, but that didn’t come off so decided a couple of months ago to go down to Abergavenny to visit Mum and Dad. Headed down to Wales on the Sunday morning, starting off by calling at Dave’s house in Newport, where he was spending the day in charge of Alys and Huw while Hazel was away for the weekend (and Nia on a Rainbows outing).

Newport Wetlands

Huw was a good deal more smiley and alert than when I last saw him and now appears to be enjoying the musical playmat that both the girls have used. The four of us went out for some air to Newport Wetlands, where I pushed Huw and Dave carried Alys on his shoulders for most of the outing, having tried unsuccessfully to interest her in walking. We spent some time watching the little fish in the lakes there and Alys reiterated that she does not like swans. Stopped for an ice cream in the café. Returned to the house where Dave and I had lunch and Alys had a sleep.

On the Monday, I went down to Newport again with Mum as recently she has been accompanying Hazel to the local leisure centre so that she can mind Huw while Hazel and Alys attend a mother and toddler swimming lesson. I sat with Mum up in the viewing gallery and observed the class, which hopefully Alys enjoyed, though I couldn’t really tell. Mum managed to get some milk into Huw – who is tricksy about food – but was then a bit downcast when he brought most of it up again. After the swim we walked through Newport’s new town centre development and had lunch at Boswells. Alys seemed underwhelmed with her chicken nuggets but excited by the play equipment in the shopping centre.

On the Tuesday Mum and Dad set off for their annual reunion with their school/college friends, this year down in Somerset though I’ve forgotten the name of the village. One of the trips planned by the organizing couple was evidently to some sort of willowcraft centre, leading Dad to make all sorts of doleful pronouncements before leaving to the effect that they were all going to end up ordering coffins.

On the Wednesday I went for the walk on Blorenge noted earlier. Ruth arrived by train late afternoon.

On the Thursday Ruth and I took the train into Hereford, as she hadn't been there before, and had a walk around. We went for lunch at Gilbies Bar & Bistro, which seemed nice, and then for a walk to the cathedral via M&S. Had an ice cream. Walked to Hereford's new Old Market shopping area and had a mooch about. Got the train back to Abergavenny. Cooked a meal for Mum and Dad out of Delia's Summer Book.

On the Friday we went for lunch at Plas Derwen, partly because Mum wanted to book rooms for Steve and his sister, who are wanting to stay there later this month. Nice lunch once we - and some other guests - had fended off the unwanted attentions of an annoying man at the next table.

Returned to Milton Keynes on the Saturday morning, and Mum and Ruth left together for Newport where Mum was heading into Bath to visit Hannah. Nice week though was plagued by hayfever for a good deal of it, coupled with developing a minor cold. Both have thankfully gone now.

More produce

Haven't yet tried the chutney.

A pic of the tiny aubergine that we managed to grow, though we realise that the plants are not best suited to being outdoors in the British climate. Along with some more of the still-green tomatoes, and a courgette.

Here's my previous experience at growing an aubergine, another tiny fellow that Ray and I managed to grow on our balcony at Belgravia Court in 2005.

Our courgette plant has produced a lot of courgettes, as is their way. I always like the idea of doing something with the flowers, ever since Mum told me about a delicious-sounding dish she and Dad were served in France involving courgette flowers stuffed with some kind of seafood, but have never actually attempted it. Have eaten a few of the courgettes, which tasted pretty much like courgettes from Waitrose, but hey, it's nice to grow your own stuff.

Luckily we only have the one courgette plant and so far have managed to harvest them before they turned into marrows. Mum and Dad still seem to have a glut of marrows on their allotment. From what I gather my Uncle Ian is the only known person who is keen on stuffed marrow, so quite a few have been going their way.

And we didn't grow these, but here are some peas our neighbour Kris gave us from his allotment. Or possibly his dad's allotment. Ruth seemed surprised I'd never shelled peas before, but I pointed out that most of us grew up in suburbia and have always had our peas out of the freezer. They were nice enough, but I have to say frozen peas will probably do me. There's only so excited you can get about a pea.

Homemade stuff

As per the perverse way of ugly plants producing fruit that nobody likes much, the rhubarb plant in the garden in Caversham had done extremely well for the last few years, producing loads of fruit, some of which is still languishing in bags in the freezer. Back in May Ruth made the decision to get rid of it in the interests of freeing up space to grow other things we might be more inclined to eat and, as I balked at the thought of yet more frozen rhubarb filling up the freezer, she got the idea to try and make wine out of the remaining fruit. This led to the purchase of a good deal of kit from a company amusingly named Bigger Jugs. Here's the initial stage of the chemistry, with chunks of rhubarb soaking in one of the supplied fermenting bins:

And below in its current state, which is a peachy-orange liquid. The space it's in just happened to be an available space in the kitchen, but it's perhaps unfortunately placed next to various cleaning products. Hopefully it will, in due course, taste better than those, but I'm not overly hopeful. Apparently it's supposed to rest in its demijohn for at least six months, so we're anticipating a sampling of rhubarb wine sometime around Christmas.

Second bit of River Cottage-type industry: the tomato plant we acquired earlier in the year has grown plenty of good-sized tomatoes, but they haven't ripened - Ruth thinks it might have been a variety that's supposed to be grown under glass. Picked the larger ones yesterday and looked for a recipe for green tomato chutney - I'm not hugely into chutney but remember making it from green tomatoes once before and it being quite nice.

Couldn't locate the recipe I used last time, so used this Nigel Slater one which mixes in some regular ripe tomatoes with the green ones. Not too sure about some of the ingredients (raisins?) and, contra Slater's assurances that it should only make a couple of jam jars' worth, I found it filled five jars - though admittedly there was quite a lot of liquid; perhaps I should have drained some of it off. Not too hopeful that the end product's going to be a treat, but you never know.

Catherine Howard

Have not yet blogged that in February, and following Beau’s sad death in December, we (well, Ruth) adopted another female rabbit as a companion for Harley – a young, pretty grey female who had come into the rescue centre with one or more siblings (I forget how many). As they often do during bondings, Reading Rabbit Rescue posted a video on their Facebook page of her and Harley in the ‘bunny moon suite’ during their stay. RRR hadn’t published photos of any of Harley’s bondings since his none-too-successful bonding with Lexie, so they were evidently feeling more confident about this one.

Sandra, almost in the same breath, praised Harley’s longevity, attributing it substantially to his being a house bunny, given his respiratory problems, and commiserated with us over our bad luck with our females.

The new bunny was referred to as ‘Greybun’ during her time at RRR and initially by us; on pressing by Sandra, we chose ‘Pippa’ as being a cute sort of name, so this was duly entered on her card. However, between ourselves we had taken to referring to her, wittily, as ‘Catherine Howard’, given that she is Harley’s fifth female companion. The nickname has inevitably stuck, though I’ve at least once exclaimed loudly in public something along the lines of “Catherine Howard let me stroke her this morning!” which could raise eyebrows. There are advantages to more traditional pet names such as Snowy, Fluffykins etc.

CH is the youngest bunny we’ve yet adopted, as she only turned one in April. As Harley is now around nine, we’re trying not to feel guilty over having separated her from her sibling(s) to come and live with an old man. She and Harley seem to be working well together, though perhaps inevitably she is livelier than he is. Here they are, with Harley in the typically subservient pose he adopts with females, presumably in the hope that they will accidentally groom his head while reaching to lick their own foot.

Pics of our five females below:

Lola	Lexie
Willow	Beau (with Harley)

Catherine Howard

In an idle moment we had a go at pairing the females up with one each of Henry VIII’s wives. Lola, our first female, would fit with Catherine of Aragon, we decided, given that she was with Harley for the longest - four years until her death in 2013. Spirited, wilful, furniture-loving Willow we decided would be Anne Boleyn; shy, short-lived Beau (in terms of her time with us – she was actually around five when she died) would be Jane Seymour, leaving thumping great bruiser Lexie to be Anne of Cleves. Obviously, we’re hoping not to get a Catherine Parr any time soon.

Walk around Blorenge summit plateau, 4.98 miles

5 July

Well, it's been a while. Did this little walk while spending a week's leave this last week staying at my parents' house. When there I always enjoy looking up at Blorenge, a cuddly-looking hill to the south of the town, and had been idly pondering a walk up it. This week got around to trying a route out of Chris Barber's The Seven Hills of Abergavenny, which includes four walks on Blorenge - I chose 'Around the summit plateau', which is a bit of a cop-out in terms of actually climbing the hill, as most of your ascent is done in the car driving up the B4246, which has great views and one positively hairpin bend.

Keeper's Pond	Summit of Blorenge (albeit I didn't actually climb it)
Looking down towards Abergavenny	Another view

Parked at the car park just off the B4246 next to Keeper's Pond at around 9:00 am - just me and a dog walker (and his dog) there - and took a brief stroll along the path around the lake, to admire the views. The little lake - which was glinting v. prettily in the sun - is apparently artificial; the book informed me it was constructed around 1820 as a water supply for the Blaenavon Ironworks and Garnddyrys Forge. From the pond I walked a bit further along the road to the Foxhunter car park, next to two prominent masts, and then took the pretty obvious path across the moorland that leads straight to Blorenge's summit. Had the summit to myself so stood for a minute attempting to think deep thoughts, and taking a selfie.

Followed the path onwards towards the edge of Blorenge's steep north east face which overlooks Abergavenny. Again, had the place to myself apart from the sheep. Admired the views for a while, then attempted to 'contour around the lip of the escarpment to the left', as advised by the book. Path initially not too obvious but became more so further on. Followed the path back to Keeper's Pond. It apparently joins an old tram road en route though I can't say I noticed the point where this happened.

The route as shown in Chris Barber's book