Interlaken

Came here on Sunday. It is already Tuesday, hotel ok but restaurant a bit weird. Went to Grindelwald today, went to 7000 ft. Home again (hotel) but quite exhausted.
The Church clock chimes every quarter of an hour ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT! Hope my rain will compensate.

A visit from Helena today!

This is Mum on the beach with her rainbow hat on!
We welcomed Helena who had the day off from work and arrived here at 08.45! She spent the day with us, we visited the Heritage Centre in Rustington and.. she even went for a swim!

What a lovely surprise. She was back home at 5.45 pm.

A postcard arrived from the daughter of an old colleague, she asked me to call him on the phone. He is Herbert Whitby and we spoke for a while. He will be 103 in September. He lives in Saltdean, Cornwall. I know him from Rutherford lab where he mastered an excellent rf system for the Nimrod injector! What memories of the past come flooding back.

Gardening means going to the tip!

We tried another root of potatoes and it came out at 2 lbs.

Joan and Debbies present of a hibiscus is doing well!

I cut the hedge next to the Kings yesterday, they were away so I used my trailer as a standing point, we have a wasps nest so I had to leave a bit on our side near to it.

The trailer is ready for dumping but I had no energy today.

First Fruits!

We have been picking and eating our strawberries and raspberries and now I tried one root of potatoes. They aren't very big, but should taste OK. Christina gave me the seed potatoes earlier in the year.

Yesterday we spoke to Karen and Michael on Skype and then Helena joined us. We shall repeat next Sunday at 10 pm our time!

It is a lovely sunny and warm morning here and the East Preston Festival finishes today.

tidying the garden!

We have had an onslaught on the rear bed. The irises had come out and inspired me to do a lot of clearing out and making a new bed for some plants including Ursula's new sunflowers. I had to make at least one trip to the tip to get rid of discarded plants and weeds. I have today continued on the southern rear bed and again I have a trailerload for the tip. This is from Debian 5, but on the same machine I have a sata disk with ubuntu 9 and mandriva spring. My interest just now is the video camera running on "cheese". On this machine it works on ubuntu but not yet mandriva.

We look forward to a skype chat with Karen and Michael which is scheduled for 9 pm our time!

Vistors from Houston!

We were delighted to have a visit from Richard Long, Karen, Michael Long and Susan, Karen's mum.
They arrived on Friday May 22 at 4 pm in the afternoon from Cheltenham where Richard's grandma lives. We took a walk to the beach where the tide was way out and walked on the pebbles and sand. We surprised a man who was digging for worms (as bait for his fishing habit), funnily enough he knew my name as he used to help in the local butcher's shop when David Cheal was still operating in East Preston. He showed the worms to Michael who wasn't very impressed! We walked home va the village and saw the chidren's swing park and the shops.

Ursula .cooked a nice supper and after a while we all retired to bed after a busy day. We had all sorts of plans for the next day but our guests did not want to go far, they had had quite enough of being in the car so we took the bus to Littlehampton and saw all that could be seen there.

We had fish and chips, ice cream, rode on the little train, (the three men only) and finished up at the "Look and See" museum where we could see all around us and find out about local history. We decided not to go on to Arundel so went home in a double decker bus to a nice tea and a quiet evening. And so to bed.

Sadly they left us at 11 am today Sunday for Heath Row where they will be in a hotel until their departure for the States on Tuesday. They will be "doing" London today and tomorrow, Michael is hoping for cookies with the Queen in Buckingham Palace. They will chat up the changing of the guard soldiers and also go to the tower of London to see the Beefeaters, the ravens and have a look at the Crown Jewels.

We just loved having them although we haven't the amount of space that they are used to. They were perfect guests and we loved having Susan as well. She gave us a lovely mug with Abraham Lincoln's face on it, it matched one we have which talks of "Too early for Martinis, have a cup of tea"

Bon Voyage to our visitors!

25th Wedding Anniversary

Last Tuesday my nephew Paul celebrated his 25th wedding anniversary and had a family gathering. I have had some pictures from Paul's sister, Gillian. Kate, Helena, Christina, Amy and her dad, Christopher in the upper picture.
Below we have Jennifer, Louise, Emily, Charlotte and Laura!