Mid week picnic

I love a picnic.

My love of a picnic is well known by my family.

I remember S woke up one morning during the school holidays a few years ago and asked excitedly 'mum where are we going to go and have our picnic today?'

It's what the summer is all about isn't it.

Mind you a picnic in the spring and autumn can be lovely too if you pick the right kind of day.

So when I saw today was International picnic day it provided me with the perfect reason for a mid week picnic outing.

We spent a lovely couple of hours up at the Common this evening making the most of the sun.

What a fabulous way to round off the day.

2 Days Off

I've just had two days off and spent quite a lot of my time on various trains.

Once a year I have to take S to Cambridge for a check up with the specialist eye unit based at Addenbrooke's. 

It's a long day involving 3 trains, 2 tubes and one bus.

We've done the trip 4 times now and so know our route pretty well.

We go prepared. 
When S was younger we would take sticker books and colouring books and this Shaun the Sheep book. As well as having a couple of stories it also contains 2 very basic games which we must have played hundreds of times on these and various other journeys over the years.
When S sorted out her book shelves this week this book was one she decided she no longer wanted. I must admit to feeling a little sad but hopefully when it goes off to the charity shop it will be bought by another family and enjoyed by them just as much.

G doesn't work Fridays and so he proposed we spend my second day off out and about somewhere together.

Bearing in mind we needed to be back in time for the end of the school day we needed somewhere within reasonable travelling distance.

The lure of a newly recommended vinyl record shop provided the idea for our destination in the end.

We took the train to Fratton.

I wouldn't recommend Fratton as a day out destination, there isn't very much on offer. Although we didn't really venture very far from the main high street, who knows there may have been some real architectural gems just waiting for us a street or two away. The vinyl shop was a bit of a let down too, lots of the stock was at a much higher price than G has seen in other places.
We did make a couple of purchases each in a Barnardos charity shop. G has two new shirts and I have a new tshirt and skirt. Like I need anymore clothes, but at £1.49 each I found them hard to resist.

A plus point for Fratton is that it's right next door to Southsea. In fact it's next to a part of Southsea we've never really explored before.
I was fascinated by all the buildings and array of housing we saw. Lots and lots of terraced houses but loads of huge detached Victorian villas, semi detached houses with attic rooms and cellars and all with such different features. If someone was organising a walking tour of the architecture in Southsea I'd be first in the queue to go.
One thing which was in abundance was original stained glass. 

Another thing Southsea has a lot of is pubs, it seemed there was one on every street corner. Naturally we went into one for our lunch, The Bold Forester, in case you were wondering. 
And churches, that's something else they have a lot of, it seemed there were nearly as many of those as there were pubs.

G ended up finding another vinyl shop and bought not 1, not 2 but 3 albums from off of his wish list. He was really chuffed with that little haul.

I found a car which looked like Mater

and at one point I may have said a bit too loudly and excitedly, 'oh my god there's a Tardis across the road.'

The L-Shaped Room

Tonight is my book club night.
This month we have been reading The L-shaped Room.
I am the youngest in our group (not often I can say that!) and most of the ladies read this back in the 60s and 70s and they were looking forward to re-reading it.
I'm looking forward to seeing what they think of it this time around.
The story is about Jane. She is 27 years old and living at home with her civil servant father. That is until she becomes pregnant and has to move out and so finds herself living in The L-shaped Room.
For the most part I enjoyed it. I was a little disappointed at the arrival of the great aunt who seemed to be like a fairy godmother trying to make it all better.
And the language used, on occasion, when referring to some of the characters did make my skin crawl. Words used to describe a Jewish boss or a young black gay man made for very uncomfortable reading.
I noticed that the Lynn Reid Banks went on to write two more books following the life of Jane and her child.
I have ordered the next one in the series as I would like to find out which path of life the author took her on.

One part of the book really stood out for me and I have shared it here. I like the succinct descriptions of each season.

Jane notices Spring is coming and observes....

'The Spring can be more painful than any other time of the year. Summer is lazy and indifferent; Autumn is demanding and invigorating: Winter is numb and self contained. But Spring has none of the palliatives. Every emotional nerve is close to the surface; every sound and sight, every touch of the air, is a summons to feel, to open your doors, to let life possess you and do what it likes with you.

Have you read it? What do you think of this description?

Bandstand and Buses

Our afternoon out yesterday had a very vintage feel to it.
The first part was spent, with a picnic, at Southsea bandstand.
Most Sundays during the summer free musical entertainment is to be had at this venue and it's a fab way to while away a sunny afternoon. Each week features a different style of music and this weekend was the one which grabbed my interest as it was billed as 40s and swing.
Playing and singing were The Bevin Boys and The Three Belles both of which were very good indeed.

The event was really well attended and from the start the dance floor was packed. We were thoroughly entertained by the dancers, they were clearly enjoying themselves and that happiness is infectious.

Some people came along dressed up in vintage style clothing, you may be able to see some on the dance floor, the hair styles caught my eye too.

For the second part of our afternoon we had to wander past the D Day museum and these stunning huge and glossy red poppies

towards Southsea Common where the Southdown 100 rally was being held. We didn't actually know about this event, we saw it advertised on our journey down to Southsea, but it seemed to good to miss seeing as we were on the spot. We're not bus enthusiasts by any means but we couldn't resist a wander round the vintage examples.

I said to G that if we were getting married now (and not nearly close to celebrating 18 years of marriage, how did that happen?!) then I would love to hire a bus to transport us and the wedding guests.

There were a fair few examples of open top buses too

and we even got to sit on one which I have to say I probably was more excited about that S!

And finally I just had to take a snap of one person who came along with the perfect accessory for such an occasion.

Fareham

For three years G's office was based in Fareham and for 2 years I passed through Fareham on my way to working in Cosham.

This link explains the town's coat of arms.

As the train would slowly trundle out of the station upon this railway viaduct I would see Fareham creek surrounded by lots of green open space which looked like it could provide an interesting walk.
After making the journey there for work each day during the week G never really fancied going back again at the weekend. Now he doesn't work there any longer I suggested maybe we could try out the walk, so that's where we went on Saturday.

We took S's friend L with us again, she's not as used to walking as S and found it hard going towards the end, but I made sure I had a bag full of little snacks to bring out whenever the energy levels waned.

We had to walk down a residential road to begin our walk and we spotted this moon attached to the outside of a house and I wondered if it was lit up each night.

This is the view more or less from by the railway viaduct looking across the creek to Cams Mill pub. Very nice it looked too. This link shows the original mill around 1900 which was situated a little further upstream. It was demolished in 1919.

Some boats are given quite unusual names, sometimes the names are linked to the sea, sometimes they are exotic. The boat on the right is named Barry. Love it!

Just poking out from among the trees is Cams Hall. The original Hall was mentioned in he Domesday Book. It has a long and varied history which you can read about here. It was badly damaged during WW2 and fell into dereliction but in recent years has been restored and is now a business and office park

and the grounds have been converted into a golf course.

S and G posing together whilst having a sit down snack break.

I'm not sure what bird this is, I'm sure Louise will be able to tell me. The information boards said little egrets have been seen here, maybe it's one of those?
edit to say Louise has confirmed this is a heron and G has reminded me he said that when we saw it and I had forgotten!

Towards the end of the walk we had a wonderful view down towards Portsmouth, the Spinnaker tower on the right instantly recognisable.

Apparently it's possible to walk another few miles along this footpath down to Portchester, but for us this was the point were we turned off to head back into town. Much to the girls relief.
We came out onto another residential road, which has one the loveliest names I've ever seen. 

The last leg of the walk took us along a very busy A road where we saw this sweet little house on the other side of the road from us. I wonder what it's like inside.

 Fareham website has information on various walks and this is the one we did.

Streets of Winchester

Did I fancy a trip to Winchester on Saturday G asked.

The answer was, of course, yes I do.

G is a regular visitor to the record fair held in Southampton but fancied having a mooch around one held this weekend in Winchester.

On the way to the hotel where it was being held G took us on a little detour to show us the offices he'll be working from in October. He works not far from home at the moment and this move will mean a longer working day and two train journeys. 

But we live the station and once in Winchester the offices are a short walk from the station so those things are definitely two pluses.

The offices look to be as good as offices can be, it was the row of houses we walked past I liked the look of.

Castle Terrace is a row of three storey houses and all looked well loved.

When we got to the record fair I decided not to go but take a wander down the road it was in, not one I had walked along before. In just a few hundred yards I saw....

a magnificent wooden front door

stained glass windows in subtle tones

a beautiful letter box inside the hotel

a giant sized pair of pine cones

something which is possibly a griffin?

and a very obliging blackbird who sat on the wall just long enough for me to take his photo.

G left the record pair empty handed this time, which is good in some way as he'll have more money to spend when he goes off to a rock festival in a couple of months time.

It was a beautifully warm day so we made our way to the cathedral grounds where we sat and ate our lunch.

Another hour later we made our way back to the station, retracing our steps the way we had originally come.
Past the Elizabeth Frink sculpture of a man on a horse

to the Age Concern charity shop where we had made a purchase earlier in the day. 
I was very pleased to find a fairly large wicker fish bowl shaped light shade. It's amalgamation of a couple of shades I had seen recently and had been considering as options for our hallway.
I grabbed it as soon as I spotted it and when I showed it to G he said he liked it (bonus) and as it was £3.99 (bigger bonus) I bought it. 
Thing is although it was light it's a bit big and quite delicate and they couldn't find a bag big enough to put it in and so we decided leaving it in the shop and collecting it just as we left was the best option.
S then found her own solution to transporting it home safely.

Donkeys and Drawers

Going into town at the weekend for a spot of clothes shopping isn't my idea of fun.

But as my 10 year old daughter is growing at such a pace right now it's something which needs to be done.

To make this task just a bit more interesting we decided to combine it with something much more fun.

Just before midday me, G, S and S's friend L-R drove into town, left the car in the multi-storey and hopped on a train.

Five minutes later on arriving in Totton we hopped off again.

I had packed plastic cups, plates and cutlery so for picnic supplies we made our first stop Lidl (I know, exciting or what!).

From there we went to the local recreation ground as being held here was the reason for our trip, a donkey derby, an event now it's 20th year organised by the Eling Sea Scouts.

Before going in we settled down next to the play park where S and L-R played for ages. They ate some food, went and played, popped back for more food and then played again. Where we were sat the ground gently sloped away from us and this provided excellent downhill rolling opportunities for the girls as well.

We did eventually make it over to the donkey derby and watched a couple of races before S said she didn't feel so well.

Possibly a combination of the heat, the food and the downhill rolling.

Who knows but she didn't look too bright so we made our way back to the station.

The photo above was taken pre feeling groggy.

Feeling off colour meant that she was in no mood for the clothes shopping part, so all that's still to be done.

Sunday we were going to go to the car boot but S wasn't in the mood and we had all slept in a bit longer than we normally do so decided to give it a miss. My sister sent me a text me later in the morning to say we hadn't missed much so I'm glad we hadn't bothered to race round getting ready and went for the more leisurely pottering.

There is always plenty to do at home and I wanted to try and finish a project I had started a few weeks back.
In our bedroom we have a plain wooden chest of drawers which I had wanted to paint. We bought it years ago from Argos, I can't find it on their website, but this is the bedside cabinet from the same range, just imagine it taller with six drawers.
This photo doesn't show the true colour it is now, it's greener and brighter in real life, but I'm really pleased with it. Some of the drawer fronts need anther coat but it's nearly finished. Our bedroom has been an ongoing project for a while now and it's still a way off being finished but at least this little job can very soon be ticked off the list.

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