Still swimming the Channel

I am still diligently swimming twice a week and am noticing a positive change to my silhouette, not to mention my fitness.  I managed to reach my goal which was to swim half a mile in half an hour.  Then I hit a bit of a plateau.  It wasn't getting any easier and I was getting a bit bored.  So my swim buddy and I decided the new challenge is to swim three-quarters of a mile in 45 minutes.  This equals 48 lengths. It also means that we can't waste time having a chat in between lengths! 



My best-to-date is 40 lengths in 40 minutes, so watch this space.  Ultimately, I want to be able to swim a mile (64 lengths) in an hour.

According to my swimming log, I am now 59% accross the Channel.  Go me.

Smooth

My mother-in-law has recently celebrated her 70th birthday.  She has always wanted to go to Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club, so as one of her presents her younger daughter arranged for the females of the family to go for Sunday lunch.

I have to admit that I am not a fan of Jazz, but on the Sunday we went, a gentlemen called Gary Williams was singing and he does a lot of swing - Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and other 'Rat Pack' stuff.
 
 

It was such a brilliant way to spend a day - I would thoroughly recommend it just for the experience, even if the music isn't your thing.  I actually really love all those Rat Pack songs and was surprised at how many I knew thanks to my mother's constant singing when we were growing up! 

The Patriot Girls opened the show and they sing close-harmony, a bit like the Andrews Sisters.  We also were treated to a bonus of 'Dean Martin' as one of the girls is married to the guy who played Dean in the Rat Pack Show (apologies, but I don't remember his name) and he joined Mr Williams on stage.

 
We were asked not to take any flash photography, hence the lack of photos - also, I am not sure that my in-laws would appreciate me sharing their post-champagne images!
 

 

The meal was fine - not gourmet - but you are really not there for the food and it was so dark that you couldn't actually see what you were eating.  It came in at a very reasonable price too, so well worth it.

 

 

The venue is very intimate and Mr Williams worked the crowd well - he even came over to wish my Mother-in-law a Happy Birthday and the audience sang to her - what great birthday treat.

 

Caution is required on the stairs down to the toilets though - not sure if it was her heels or the champagne but one of our party did a swan-dive from top to bottom, with her fall being broken by an elderly old gentleman who was celebrating his 82nd birthday. He sustained minor injuries and was eventually able to return to the audience, as did our relative!! 

 

 

Swimming the Channel

As part of my master plan to become more healthy, I have taken up swimming again.  My dad taught me to swim many, many, many years ago and every Friday evening our family would go for a swim at Hatfield Pool and afterwards we'd get fish & chips. 

I am swimming twice a week and have seen a huge improvement in fitness and stamina already.



After just six weeks, I am able to swim half a mile, in half an hour.  I have found this website where you can read tips to help improve your technique and log the number of lengths completed.  To date I have crossed 22% of the channel!
 

 

I will do everything in my power to avoid bingo-wings and no, I am not having fish & chips afterwards.

West Dean: part III

The greenhouses at West Dean are splendid. 

 Just look at this latch - it's a little piece of art in it's own right. 

Every detail is delightful:

 

from the roof

 

to the floor. 

I think there were about ten greenhouses - most of which had already been fully restored and several of them planted with well established fruit trees.

Each had it's own little name tag on display.

There were rows and rows of strawberry plants

You could imagine the greenhouses running at full production, keeping the big house well supplied with delicious fresh fruit and vegetables.

 

Look - a perfect lettuce!

One of many.

It makes me smile to think of years of footsteps wearing down this step as industrious gardeners go about their business,

 

while a sneaky visitor laps up the sun. 

West Dean: Part II

Whilst at West Dean we decided to do the circular Parkland Walk.  It is about two and half miles long and takes one through the estate and St Roche's Arboretum.  

Above is the River Lavant.  Or rather, it is where the River Lavant should be if we weren't in the grip of a drought.

This hedge would have been laid in last Winter, when the sap was down. 

Amazingly this Beech tree was still alive, despite being broken nearly in two and was ready to burst into leaf.  I suppose it is the same principle as the hedge-laying?

 

 The views would have been even better if it hadn't been such an overcast day.

 

At the end of the walk was the lure of the Gardens Restaurant

 

and of course, a cream tea.

 

West Dean: Part I

Over the Easter holidays, I took the children to West Dean Gardens.  I hadn't visited West Dean for at least 15 years - I can remember having lunch there with my mum, but it was before my first daughter was born - some 15 years ago!

Our elder daughter brought along her BFF and BFF's mother - who also happens to be a good friend of mine.  The weather for the first week of the holiday had been pretty good except the day we chose to go.  The clouds blew over and a cold wind was blowing.  Still, at least it wasn't raining.

The gardens were delightful. Hellebore's were everywhere.  They are one of my favourites. I love the way they bow their heads with shyness, but I have had no luck growing them in my hot, dry little garden. 

 

 Dwarf Daffodils and Snake's Head Fritillaries (sorry, no photo) were abundant.

The heavy limbs of  this tree had weighted themselves back into the ground and were sprouting up again in their own right.

 

West Dean boasts a 300 foot pergola.  It was designed by Harold Peto towards the end of the 19th century.  It has recently been restored to it's original design and is planted with Honeysuckle and Roses.

 

Although the plants are not yet in leaf or flower, they still look beautiful

with each stem either spiralled or latticed around the uprights.

   

I am looking forward to going back to see it all in bloom.  The smell must be amazing.

To one side of the pergola there is a little summer house, with a thatched roof.  The floor was made of cut logs, set into the earth.  I would love to do something like this in my garden .....

 

or maybe this ....

Mothering Sunday

 The Sunday before last was Mothering Sunday.  Good weather was forecast, so instead of spending the morning in bed, being waited on by my devoted daughters, I got up at 6.15am - yes, really - and joined my husband as he undertook the morning sheep-checking routine. 

It was a beauiful, crisp, almost cloudless morning.  As it was so early, the shadows were still long and no-one else was about.
As the morning wore on, it became quite warm.

We started off by checking all the pregnant sheep, a few of them had lambed early, but all was well.

They know that if my husband turns up on his quadbike, that it is feeding time and they mob him.  You can see them all belting up the hill as fast as they can so as not to miss out!

There is one particularly tame ram who has become a favourite of my husband.  He pushes to the front of the crowd and tries to get his head into the feed bags - he is right in the middle of the picture below, with a black face.

The blue spot on their sides denotes that they are carrying triplets.

One of the ewes was 'cast', which means she had rolled on to her back and wasn't able to get up again.  Sheep have many design faults, but this one is potentially fatal.  She had probably been lying on her back for most of the night and had developed a prolapse (not nice and always puts me in mind of James Herriot). She was in a sorry state.  I was careful to only photograph the head end!!

 

 As sheep are ruminents, if they lay on their backs for too long their stomachs fill with gas.  My husband battled with the prolapse and then we had to prop her up the right way while she expelled methane burbs.  I am purposefully not going in to too much detail. We left her in the field with the promise we would return at the end of the morning to check she was fully recovered. 

Next to check were the ewes with lambs that are already a few weeks old.  The ewes rush over to eat the feed and the lambs all crowd together for moral support.

 

The number on their sides links them to their mothers, who also sport the same number.  They are always marked on the same sides so that the shepherds can easily check the numbers.  Here we were in a field of twins.

A cow has managed to infiltrate the flock.  I think she was supposed to go off for the chop, but managed to get herself pregnant in the meantime and now has this gorgeous calf.  She has now aquired a taste for sheep food.

 

I kept pointing out lambs that appeared to be abandoned and would clearly need to be hand-reared, in our kitchen, but my husband was having none of it. 

 

This is the one I particularly want.