Travels of a Fish Nut

My aunt and uncle, Betty and Ray, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary this weekend. Fifty years together and still going strong. Congratulations! I hope you have many more happy years together. They had a party on Saturday night and I wore a dress. Yes, you read that right and it wasn’t a typo! For the first time in about 8 years I wore a dress and here’s the proof: See, I am a female really!

When I was a kid, maybe six or seven, I went to a castle which had a dungeon and a kitchen with a pyramid-shaped block of sugar and sugar-cutters. I’ve always wondered where that castle was and on Thursday I found out – it was Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire. Berkeley Castle is a nine-hundred year old castle which has been lived in by the same family for its entire history. The family has been involved in some big moments in British history including the murder of Edward II, the signing of the Magna Carta and the Civil War. In fact there is part of the external wall which was blown up by Cromwell during the Civil War. Some deal was done by the steward in charge of the house that allowed the castle to remain neutral if the wall was not rebuilt. The deal became law so that even today, if the wall is rebuilt the army is legally entitled (if not obliged) to blow up the castle. It’s rules like this that make our country what it is today! Anyway, the castle was fantastic. We had a tour wh...

The weather has been a bit iffy recently but the forecast looked good on Tuesday so mum and I went to Kew Gardens. We were really lucky with the weather and had a fantastic time. There was more to see than we had time or energy for but what we did see was amazing. It was really nice to see flowers! We saw the Temperate House first and it was huge! There was a walkway around the main section of the house which was really high and gave a very different perspective on the plants. There is a palm at the centre of the house which is the tallest indoor plant in the world. We went around the 'rhizotron and xstrata treetop walkway' next. I have no idea what the name is about but it was amazing. It involved climbing up a set of stairs which led to a walk in the treetops and gave a fantastic view of the grounds and a unique view of the trees around which the walkway was built. The palm house was next. It has palms and flowers from different regions. The palms were huge and the plants we...

Well, the weather's taken a decidedly wintery turn but it's still better than what I'd be experiencing in the Falklands (or at least that's what I keep telling myself!). Mum, Steve, the dogs and I went to Saul on friday for the narrow boat festival which was great fun. The weather wasn't as good as I'd hoped and I spend saturday wandering around the show and going to the local church with mum for a look around (it's called St Andrews and was built in the 14th century). On sunday the weather turned a bad and I began to get a throat infection (it's typical, I go to the ENT specialist who says I should be ok now and less than a week later I get a throat infection. Sods law reigns supreme!). The combination of the two with the later addition of a bleak forcast led to us deciding to go home on sunday rather than monday. We headed off in the afternoon and got home just before the bad weather really set in. Monday was spent feeling sorry for myself. On tuesday ...

I've been back almost a week and it's been lovely. The weather has been glorious although it started raining a couple of hours ago but at least it means i don't have to water the plants tonight! (Mum and I went to the garden centre on sunday and got new plants for the tubs - we have pelargoniums, busy lizzies and sweetpeas in the three main tubs . . . and a strawberry plant, chives and two tomato plants which were going cheap. I had an eye exam yesterday which isn't normally interesting news but they took photos of the inside of my eye and gave me a copy. It's pretty cool - I thought it looked a bit like a nebula! Apparently this is a healthy eye which is good to know! The bright spot is where i was focusing. There's not really much else to tell. . . Oh, I got an interview for the job I applied for so I'm off to Cambridge on the 15th. . . Um . . . I'm going Saul for a narrowboat festival at the weekend weather permitting. I shall be spending the weekend ...