Tresco - Being Silly in the Scillies - part 1

When Covid waved its nasty little wand and sent us all to our homes like the bad fairy in Sleeping Beauty, much time was spent bucketlisting and planning for the day when someone - anyone please! - might release us. Plans made at that time had a dreamlike quality, a sense that they might - or might not - ever happen. 

One such plan was hatched involving ourselves and three couples - old and dear friends who used to holiday together in Salcombe every summer when our children were knee-high or barely anything more. Bigger plans had been offered up involving all four families, our combined 14 children, their spouses and children and so on. Totally unworkable and a logistical nightmare. Start again. So we booked a house on the beautiful Scilly Island of Tresco for just the eight of us and as I write, we are here and it is perfect. But back to the start of our journey when we, from North Yorkshire, had the furthest to come. 

We set off early Friday morning to begin our holiday with an overnighter in Bath staying with my oldest and most dear childhood chum, Alps. She's Alps and I'm Stigs. Don't ask! We always say we'll go to Bath and do a touristy thing or two but actually we hunker down and chat and it's so, so good for the soul. Up and off early the next morning with just over 200 miles to go down the M5. It was deliciously quiet southbound and bumper to bumper northbound, this being the end of the half term/Jubilee holiday. We try not to say out loud how quiet the roads are/how brilliant not to be in a queue/how well the journey is going etc because that ALWAYS ends in disaster. But I must own up to some moderate patting on the back that we weren't at an airport queueing for hours, but I did do it silently! 

We arrive in Penzance first and in time for a very nice crab lunch at a little cafe near the front. Then on hearing that two of the other couples (couple 4 not arriving till Monday) had just landed (not literally) at the heliport we joined them in the departure building.  Actually there's only one building, arriving or departing. There's rather a lot of folks in there already and definitely more than one helicopter-load. Hmmm? Greetings exchanged amid much laughter as it's a lot of years since we've all been together. Then one lot of passengers are ushed out to the helicopter and take off.... And ten minutes later they're back. Tresco is fog-bound! 

We wait, drink coffee, chat and hope for a window in the weather. But increasingly it's looking like no one is going anywhere - on or off the island. Ahead of the game, my beloved starts to look for places to stay nearby because the fifty or so people looking disconsolate in the waiting room are all going to need places once the nice feller from Penzance Helicopters gives us an update. By the time the inevitable happens we are already booked into a holiday cottage in St Erth that looks half decent and is only a few yards from what proves to be a rather nice pub. 

So night one of the holiday - or rather night two for us - is spent in a pretty cottage in St Erth and we feel lucky to have found somewhere to stay. By the time we've had a few wines and a nice supper it feels like a good result all round - except that the alternative transport brilliantly organised by Penzance Helicopters on Sunday is not a 15 minute flight but is a 2 hour plus ferry to St Mary's and then a smaller ferry onwards to Tresco via Bryher. Not being a good sailor I know that I will be staying on deck throughout, regardless of weather, which turned out to be damp and cold for the majority of the voyage. But as we pull into St Mary's the sun breaks through and having hopped on another, smaller boat, finally we arrive less than 24 hours after originally planned. 

To be continued...

https://www.corkandfork.uk

https://www.thestarsterth.com

https://penzancehelicopters.co.uk

Spotted these three teenagers on their phones on the ferry! 

Coming into St Mary's at last! 

Walking the Walls - Finally!

It seems funny having lived in this beautiful part of North Yorkshire for our entire married life (38 years and counting!) that we are still discovering great places to visit and enjoy within an hour's drive of our home. We believe that part of our latter-day careers as hosts of our beautiful holiday home in the converted barn next to our house is to check out local attractions that we can recommend to guests. What we also realise now is that we are often pretty busy at weekends with such excitements as cleaning and bed-changing so we try to make time midweek for a little light tourist activity of our own. 

Most of these excursions are an absolute joy and we sometimes kick ourselves that we haven't been before  - new discoveries include Nunnington Hall, and Gibside which is rather further afield near Newcastle but was an add-on to a suit delivery to number 3 child who had a wardrobe emergency. Other times we've headed back to favourites like the Seven Bridges Valley Walk, Brimham Rocks and Thorp Perrow to remind ourselves just how lovely these places are.

On our longtime bucket list has been walking the York Walls - these being the "most complete example of mediaeval city walls in England", but it gets busy so we wanted to avoid weekends and school holidays to get the best possible experience. And yesterday we finally managed it and it certainly lived up to expectations. 

To put this in context, the jaunt was in large part a result of my gorgeous goddaughter gifting us a night in a boutique hotel in York which we had to postpone from my beloved's birthday in March where, instead of a conventional gift, I gave him covid. Oh dear but at least it was yet another shared experience, though less pleasant than most. 

So on a fair Tuesday morning we parked close to Lendal Bridge and walked through the Museum Gardens (which are worthy of a visit any time) and found our way to the walls at Bootham Bar. The first part of the walls which run around two sides of the Minster at this point are the most spectacular in terms of catching a glimpse of the beauty and history of the City. With the gift of hindsight, we should have gone anti-clockwise and saved this best bit for the end. However, looking down into the gardens and glorious historic buildings inside the walls at this point was truly a treat. 

The whole walk took us a couple of hours and there are a lot of steps to be climbed up and down but there are gaps where the Wall no longer exists and this is, of course, the perfect time to step off for an early lunch. A tapas bar in Fossgate proved irresistible, particular for my foodie other half. But we were surprisingly sensible because I had booked a fabulous dinner in celebration of the covid-infested birthday. Back on the Walls and we completed the circuit with only one more big break which is close to the Barbican and Clifford's Tower which we elected not to clamber up to on this occasion. I've done it before with various children who were always less impressed than me (I think views don't do anything much for small children...?). Finally over Micklegate Bar through the part of York I know best by the railway station and back to Lendel Bridge and another stroll through the Museum Gardens - though this time with a vanilla and tinder toffee ice cream cone! 

Despite having walked a proper distance during the day, we actually walked from our hotel to our dinner date at The Star Inn the City which was absolutely fab! We did manage to stop on the way at a bar for a beer - him, and a cosmopolitan - me, but frankly the latter which came with a great river view was the worst cosmo I've ever had. Anyway, The Star well and truly lived up to billing and we had a really - dare I say it? - romantic dinner for two to celebrate the birthday of himself. 

York has so much to offer and it is a great historic with lots to discover. Walk the Walls and see for yourself. 

https://www.york.gov.uk/CityWalls

http://www.starinnthecity.co.uk

In My Life - My Beatles Tribute

"There are places I'll remember

All my life though some have changed

Some forever, not for better

Some have gone and some remain

All these places have their moments

With lovers and friends I still can recall

Some are dead and some are living

In my life I've loved them all

But of all these friends and lovers

There is no one compares with you

And these memories lose their meaning

When I think of love as something new

Though I know I'll never lose affection

For people and things that went before

I know I'll often stop and think about them

In my life I love you more

Though I know I'll never lose affection

For people and things that went before

I know I'll often stop and think about them

In my life I love you more

In my life I love you more"   John Lennon

In 1963, The Beatles played the Coventry Theatre and Beatlemania came to the Midlands city close to where I grew up. I feel like I can remember, though I was very small at the time, the images on the local news. The screaming girls, literally crying out their black and white eyes on our tiny television screen in our Leamington Spa home. Barely at school, I can remember the some of the impact of this unique cultural wave. "Love Me Do", "Please, Please Me", "I Saw Her Standing There" - I knew the words back then and despite all the other stuff that rattles about in my skull, I remember them now. 

Fast forward to this week and I am paying homage to the voices and lyrics of the ultimate pop group in their home city which is now also home to Number 1 child and her growing family. Number 1 kindly organised for my beloved and me to join the Magical Mystery Tour in the city which is forever honoured through the soundtrack of the sixties. 

I came to Liverpool the first time - not this time as we've paid a few visits in the last twelve months - with the preconception of 'another Northern city'. Another Leeds or Manchester, industrial with modern gentrification round the edges and too many chain stores ripping the soul out of the city. I'm a country girl and it takes perhaps too much for me to see beyond that. But climbing on the big yellow (and slightly psychedelic) coach at Albert Dock took me on so much more than a tour of Liverpool. This bus tour takes you on a tour of the lyrics of those amazing and unforgettable songs - a reminder that many of The Beatles's songs were a love song to the city. 

I hear you thinking Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields but it's more, so much more.

But first, you should take a seat on the bus with folks from all over the world and the far-flung regions of the UK because the appeal is literally universal. And the folks are young, middle-aged and as old and older than us. The guides, Dale and Charlie, love their subject. Nothing sounds like a lazily repeated anecdote, though every part of this tale is told daily on an hourly basis. Their chirpy dialogue combined with, yes!, songs as appropriate, was simply a joy. 

As soon as the bus cruised down to the banks of the Mersey, I was humming away - not to John, Paul, George and Ringo - but to Gerry and the Pacemakers, another of the Merseyside greats, with Ferry Across the Mersey. 

The tour takes us to the childhood homes of all of the Fab Four - two now owned by the National Trust and two very much homes to other folk. We pass Brian Epstein's rather posh pad and are reminded of the pivotal role he took in steering the band from skiffle group to the international phenomenon they became. We gaze at the gates of Strawberry Fields (a girls' orphanage where John Lennon unsurprisingly liked to trespass in his teens) and we stand by the oft-replaced Penny Lane road sign. We pass the barber's shop and the number 86 bus stop "in the middle of the roundabout" and we look at the bank where "the banker never wears a mac in the pouring rain - very strange". And between the commentary we sing along to the tracks that are a tapestry of growing up in Liverpool in the 50s and 60s. 

Our last stop is, of course, the Cavern Club which has been rebuilt in recent years having been demolished but it stands on the same site (or rather under!) and has been lovingly restored. It's tiny with a stage smaller than the one in our village hall. Imagine standing at the front to hear The Beatles or the Quarrymen as they were in a previous incarnation. 

So that's my Beatles tribute and as I write I can confirm that yes, I bought the t-shirt. Or rather Yeah, Yeah, Yeah! 

https://www.cavernclub.com/the-magical-mystery-tour/

The House in the Green Country (Part 2)

It's my birthday clickety click! And what better way to start the day than going to the Buddhist temple for a blessing. While we're waiting to go in, we watch coconuts being cut down from the towering palms. This involves an incredibly agile stick-like man wrapping rope round his ankles and climbing the trees at speed carrying a machete to send the coconuts crashing to the ground. Keep your distance! One of these would definitely take you out - permanently! 

A young monk dressed in an orange robe blesses each of us and ties a cord around our wrists. We put our hands together and bow in thanks. Then we make our way through the grounds to the holy places including the various statues of the Prophet and a 2,000 year old tree where the Prophet found enlightenment. It is a peaceful place and it is right to be respectful. 

It's a special day for everyone (not just me!) as it's Independence Day in Sri Lanka and a bank holiday so the staff at the Boundary House are having a holiday too but not before they treat us to the traditional Sri Lankan breakfast complete with rice hoppers and egg curry and many more things that I can't remember the names of! Seriously, everything is delicious and now we definitely want a cookery lesson! 

We have a blissfully chilled day by the pool, swimming and reading by turn and no one is hungry after the huge breakfast we have put away. But we are required to be dressed up (I'd forgotten what that's like!) to go out to the Why House for dinner and dancing for my birthday. Our hostess and fellow aquarobic enthusiast, Hen, joins us and the company and the fab trio who play great covers make for the most fun evening. We tuk-tuk home to bed. Such a special and unforgettable Sri Lankan birthday. 

-//-

Surprisingly, we are up for aquarobics the following morning with a few folk who have grooved round the dancefloor with us the night before. A full crew from the Boundary House including the Fantasia boys and number 4. Breakfast tastes so much better when you've earned it. 

We are having a relaxing day with nothing more stressful than a manicure (look at me!) before we travel half an hour away for dinner. A rather fraught journey, partly because there are six of us in a smallish car (number 4 on various knees but mostly mine) but more significantly because we have to stop the car whilst an enormous snake crosses the road. We are assured it is harmless and won't bite but it is a constrictor of sorts and it looks so huge. It must have swallowed a very large 'something'! We wait whilst it makes its way across the road and I try not to think of snakes for the rest of the evening. I'm not good at reptiles, and snakes in particular give me the wobbles. Another beautiful villa, this one by the side of the river. For the first time, number 4 and I get bitten. Itchy! 

-//-

I want to give you a flavour of the early mornings here. I am habitually an early bird - winter and summer, sun up or moon up - I am a six o'clocker shocker. Here in Sri Lanka, once my body clock has recalibrated itself into our five-hours-ahead mode, I am up early to swim lengths before I reward myself with a cuppa. A mist hovers over the pool and the paddy fields beyond, the monkeys rush from tree to tree and back again playing tag with the senior monkey hooting crossly. It probably isn't cross at all but the call sounds parentally firm. Kingfishers and woodpeckers and a host of small brown and black birds and pigeons (half the size and less arrogant than our own) swoop down to dip in the water or stand on the edges of the pool. They are oblivious - or nearly - to my gentle breaststroke. I'm hardly Adam Peaty! Peacocks, often three together, stroll around the garden before flying up to the roofs of the single storey buildings. Usually two males and one female, all young and so with only half the length of impressive tail feathers, strut their stuff across the tiles. The little squirrels genuinely take no notice of me at all and busy themselves running across the grass and up the trees. 

Beyond the garden, a fully-grown majestic peacock may call imperiously to any passing female before displaying his entire array of tail feathers like a Las Vegas showgirl. There are a couple of raised mounds in the paddy where they like to stage their performances, turning round and round with their feathers on full view. Early morning dogs bark, particularly when the bread tuk-tuk passes. It plays Beethoven's Fur Elise like an ice cream van and clearly the dogs as well as the local residents know that fresh bread lies within. I now know that the van is red so am thinking Postman Pat! And in the background is the distant chanting of the monks at the temple, softly rhythmical in the morning air. 

-//-

Today is another surfing day and we stand and watch on the beach whilst number 4 child is put through her paces by a Malinga look-alike (Sri Lankan bowler of some repute). We are unwisely in the sun for over an hour on the beach and although it's only 10 o'clock, we will be paying for it later. 

It's a blissfully lazy day by the pool, reading, snoozing and chatting. Old, dear friends together. I am trying to absorb and remember as much as I can of the sounds, the sights, the scent of jasmine by the pool, so I can take it back with me to Yorkshire. If only you could bottle it...

We have a fabulous barbecue under the trees strung with fairy lights and lit by torches. Prawns on skewers, chicken satay, pork with smokey barbecue sauce. Delicious! And sticky toffee pudding to top it off. All cooked by Delan who positively - and rightly - glows at our enthusiasm for his cooking. Bed early as we are off for an adventure tomorrow. 

-//-

The alarm goes at 5.30 but, as ever, when I know I HAVE to get up early, I am awake well before then. We gather our things together and Vinod is parked up and ready to take us to Mirissa where our boat awaits. I am a bad sailor. I have upchucked or felt like doing so on more boats than I care to remember. I'm better when we're moving than stationary but even the ferry to Dublin requires me to stand on deck regardless of weather. I take the seasickness pills I am offered and hope for the best! 

The boat in question is a fast speed boat as we are going whale-watching. By 7.00am we are on the water and heading at speed out to sea. There are plenty of other big tourist boats but the advantage of being smaller and faster means that when we spot a whale, we can be there well ahead of the following posse. We spot our first whale early on - the sheer size is incredible and we wait for the final flick of the tail as it glides back into the water. 

Nearly three hours of whale watching and we've been so lucky to see a blue whale and a pair of whales together as well as turtles and the spectacular spinner dolphins in pods close to where the fishermen are pulling big tunafish out of the water. Whales travel along the coast about three miles out to sea at this time of year. We have been fortunate enough to see whales before in South Africa before but this is such an exciting way to spot them. 

Back on land, there's more surfing and then we head up into the hills to the amazing Malabar Hill which is a brand new hotel created with beautiful Indian styling and it makes the most of the amazing views across paddy fields and forests to the sea. This is the moment for a Cosmopolitan, obviously. And folks who've been on holiday with us know that a Cosmopolitan with rooftop view is always on my to-do list. We take a tour of the hotel after lunch and this is at the very top end of luxury. Highly recommended. 

-//-

Today is the last of our out-and-about days but we start with aquarobics. Unfortunately my knee feels very sore after my morning swim and though I attend, I don't last for long and find myself poolside taking pictures instead. 

Sensibly (rare for me) I stay with number 4 by the pool whilst the others go off to a tea plantation and factory. We join them for lunch at another beautiful hilltop hotel Kahanda Kanda (KK) for another fabulous lunch (great food and now no exercise = diet ahead!) overlooking the tea plantations. 

Somehow having burned not a single calorie (probably) all day, we manage dinner and movie at home. The latter proved far more entertaining than watching England play Scotland in the Six Nations earlier in the week - Eurovision Song Contest - The Story of Fire Saga. Very, very funny. 

-//-

Our last few days are, for me, largely limited to lying by the pool (ooh what a trial, I hear you say) but holidaying with a nurse, even a daughter nurse, means resting the poorly knee under her close supervision. That doesn't, however, mean that other folks are not going to aquarobics, surfing and, after a shopping trip for spices in Galle, my beloved is now sous chef to Delan, making amazing hoppers which I hope will be added to our breakfast repertoire in due course. 

We visit Galle at sunset to watch the sun slowly and spectacularly hiss into the sea from the Fort, taking in the view along with lots of locals and an increasing number of tourists. Both our outward and return flights were more populated by Sri Lankans than by British tourists but without doubt numbers are slowly increasing. Meanwhile there are a lot of Russians here and two gigantic yachts in the harbour which are most definitely from Eastern Europe. Even the surf instructors say nine out of ten folks wanting lessons are from that part of the world. Dinner is at the Fort Printers which is stunning and the courtyard dining area is reminiscent of the riads of Marrakech. 

-//-

Our last night and we have guests for dinner. Two other couples from Blighty who own houses here in this paradise. We envy them their escape to this green country where we are treated with such courtesy and kindness. We will return - I hope - one day. 

-//-

One final postscript on our journey home. We collect our car at Heathrow after an 11 hour flight with Air Sri Lanka (extra legroom recommended - the flight was rammed!) only to discover that the supersensitive in-car computer is showing a flat tyre. Experience tells us that it may just need a bit of air to put it right. Wrong. We have a fully fledged flat tyre and need a new one to be able to drive back to Yorkshire. Green Flag are very efficient and helpful and an hour and a half later we are on our way North. Not quite the ending we had planned but a truly wonderful holiday. 

Thank you more than I can say to Mr A and the Boss (who hopefully still like us!), Suranga, Prabat, Delan and all the Boundary House team, Hen at the Why House, Vinod and everyone we met along the way. Such a very special trip with very special friends. 

https://www.boundaryhousesrilanka.com

https://whyhousesrilanka.com

https://www.udawalawenationalpark.com

https://www.whale-watching-mirissa.com

https://malabarhillsrilanka.com

https://www.kkcollection.com/kahanda-kanda

https://www.thefortprinters.com

The House in the Green Country (Part 1)

This is the holiday I never thought would happen...

In every direction, the paddy fields wave their verdant pale-green grasses serenely in the breeze that cools the early evening air. The long, elegant buildings that comprise the Boundary House gaze across these gentle green seas to the taller trees and palms where monkeys perform random acrobatics and birdsong fills the air. As dusk falls - fast, in this part of the world - the monkeys make their way playfully back into the garden, the birds dip and drink on the edge of the pool and the squirrels, smaller and somehow more comedic than their British cousins, retreat for the night. This is Sri Lanka. 

We arrived yesterday, weary but with a 'lifer's' sense of release. I love my family, my home, my garden, my friends and the life we have made for ourselves, but to appreciate it to the maximum, sometimes - just sometimes - travelling another place is required. We watched, feeling moderate envy, as friends hit the airports last year when we had too many commitments to make a trip. Our time will come became a sort of mantra for us. And when Omicron brought the shadow of lockdown back into all our lives, it felt as though we might have missed the window. It might be... the saddest words in the English language ...too late. 

No need to go into all the shenanigans that went on in the last few weeks. Or the truly epic amount of form-filling that now takes the actual mechanics of foreign travel to an all-time low. Or indeed, the stress of cancelling and rebooking all our flights (3 people x 4 flights each) due the extraordinary level of chaos created by the airline Vistara altering our flights at the last moment and the Indian High Commission saying one thing on the phone and quite a different thing in person. The important thing is that we are here as guests of Mr A and the Boss, as she is known here. These are friends of 50, yes 50, years' duration and this, the Boundary House, is their home-from-home near Galle in Sri Lanka. 

-//-

As I sit at dusk on day 2 proper, watching the colours fade and the lights around the house and garden pick up shadows, I can hear the night sounds of the tropics. The call of the peacocks who splash blue into the daytime green of the paddy fields with their spectacular tail display, and the larger than life - literally - gruff hooting of the monkeys in the trees. I begin by thinking we are surrounded by gorillas but although their calls punch way above their weight, the monkeys are modest in size - if not in sound. 

Yesterday we went to a local beach - some by bike and some by car - along the narrow roads where at any moment a dog, cyclist, walker, tuk-tuk or anything else might be rushing to somewhere important, or not. The breakers were of Cornish proportions, each crashing on to the beach which was narrow and busy. But we were inside a beach cafe when the heavens opened, tropics-style, and the thunder and rain beat a loud patina on the roof. Hard but quickly over. 

Back at the Boundary House all the team are a delight. The food is sublime and so gently and politely brought to the table always with a smile. Nothing is too much trouble. We try everything, including the unfamiliar, and everything is delicious. I am humbled by their kindness and the care that they take of us. 

-//-

Aquarobics! At a charming boutique hotel, the Why House, which serves a richly deserved and delicious breakfast afterwards, we bounce about in the water whilst our instructor demonstrates on poolside the actions without the resistance of water. Nine ladies of a certain age in sensible swimwear, my skinny-mini superfit youngest child who has joined us for this holiday and four gentleman who compete enthusiastically to be the fastest bunny-hoppers and runners through the water. The last part of the class is holding on to the side of the pool - like a ballet barre lesson - and here the men separate themselves from the ladies and suddenly the hippos in tutus in Fantasia spring to mind and I am barely able to control my giggles. Got to burn those calories somehow! 

Today's other treat is a massage. I know I have so many knots in my back that I could name each one after the anxieties of the last two years. The massage starts gently enough but when she reaches my shoulders I suggest that we need to go hard. My knots are excruciatingly eradicated but two days later I can still feel my shoulders' tenderness. 

-//-

Mr A, our host and one of our oldest and dearest friends right back to my beloved's schooldays, wants to surf and number 4, our youngest and the only youngster on the trip, wants to learn to surf too. We sit on loungers as the surf rolls in. Number 4 has a 10  minute tutorial on the sand before heading out into the waves with her instructor. Five minutes later she is up and standing on her board expertly amongst the breakers. We can only admire. By the end of the lesson, she is without doubt the most confident surfer on the beach, waving to her parents as she glides majestically in. PMM*. 

We are city-bound this morning by car and tuk-tuk to nearby Galle. Here almost everyone wears masks everywhere and we are careful to comply. The narrow streets are a mixture of residential and every kind of brightly-coloured shops. We're heading to the jewellery quarter where the Boss (our hostess quite  rightly known as the Boss here) has some business to do. I'm not a jewellery buff but the stones are amazing.

A short walk round the hot streets is enough and we're back to the Boundary House via lunch at a stunning beach hotel. Tuk-tuk for me this time and it's such fun, if hair-raising, racing through the narrow gaps in the traffic. Tuk-tuks seem like the fastest mode of transport around here and they are driven with such gusto, slipping through the tightest gaps between bikes and lorries, cars and buses. 

This afternoon we are celebrating the second birthday of the delightful daughter of one of the members of the team here. She arrives in her party dress of pink and yellow tuile and frilly socks and shyly stays close to her mother as we sing happy birthday and eat very pink cake! Her family including her grandparents are there too and it is my honour to serve cake to the grandparents. Grandparents are most definitely to be treasured everywhere. 

It's a quick turnaround for drinks at the home of a friend of our hosts across the paddy fields. Everywhere the sharp green colours are surprisingly as soothing as a rhythmical gentle sea rushing across the sand. It has its own serenity and the colour palette of green shades calms and heals.

-//-

More aquarobics at the Why House but with a much smaller cast. Sosanta, the instructor is significantly more interested in the absence of number 4 child than the fact that the entire cast of Fantasia hasn't turned up. I think, in revenge, he ups the anti and makes the class harder. I have inhaled half the pool! 

We are off to see elephants today with our guide Vinod at Uderwalawe. It's a two hour drive punctuated by stops to see dams and reservoirs and fruit bats. The latter like black umbrellas hang from the thickly-leaved trees during the day, only occasionally disturbed into making a short flight overhead. At night, it must be party-central. Number 4 is more worried that she'll be pooed on from a great height! 

First we go to the Elephant Transit Station where orphaned and injured elephants are cared for until they are 8 years old. We watch them come in groups of four or five into the compound for milk, each trying to barge their way to the front for their share, with their comedy tufted hairstyles. Then it's off to the Nature Reserve proper in our jeep with Vinod expertly spotting animals and birds for us. We had been alerted by our birding friends that Sri Lanka had some amazing birdlife ("You MUST take 'binos' and a bird book!") and they are of course right. Hornbills, hoopoes, jungle fowl, bee eaters, parakeets, kingfishers, eagles of many varieties and much, much more were easy to spot and obligingly some even stayed still for the camera. Elephants, water buffalo, crocodiles and mongeese/mongooses were all out and about and many, many peacocks. Of course we are surrounded by peacocks all day at the Boundary House so we're a bit 'oh yeah' about them by now. 

It's a long day and we return in the early evening tired but delighted that we had made the trip. 

...to be continued...

*Proud Mummy Moment

https://www.boundaryhousesrilanka.com

https://whyhousesrilanka.com

https://www.udawalawenationalpark.com

https://www.whale-watching-mirissa.com

https://malabarhillsrilanka.com

https://www.kkcollection.com/kahanda-kanda

https://www.thefortprinters.com

"One Christmas was so much like another in those years..."

Today is the first anniversary of my Mum's death - Mum, Granny Gin, Granny Great aka the Intrepid Granny on these pages. Please don't sign out on the grounds that this is going to bring down your festive mood. I promise it won't because this is a celebration of all the things that made up our Christmas with the Intrepid Granny for many years. 

She had declared, well over 20 years ago, that she intended to spend all her future Christmases in Yorkshire. With a few exceptions she pretty much pulled that off and the first ringing of the Christmas bell would be in August when she would ask: "What are we doing for Christmas?" Love it! In just six words she was announcing her intention to come to us and whatever we were doing, she was doing it too. 

We would try to hold off her arrival at York Station until the 22nd or 23rd of December because a) we'd only just celebrated her birthday and b) once she arrived we had to be ready to entertain her. I or latterly any of the children with a driving licence would collect her from a member of York Station staff who would be clutching her many bags crammed with things she thought we might like - or sometimes things she thought might 'go off' whilst she was away. And of course, she instantly wanted to know the full programme of events. 

Fast forward to Christmas Eve when my beloved wouldn't even have started wrapping, and me peeling, chopping and stuffing for all I'm worth in the kitchen. There would be church at some point - either during the day when the children were small and could barely contain their excitement - or at midnight when Mum and I would creep out of the house for the magical counting down to Christ's birth in our quiet village church. My beloved would still be up wrapping on our return when we were leaving bite marks in the reindeer carrots and knocking back Santa's sherry.

But before all that, after supper on Christmas Eve we would sit and read Dylan Thomas' A Child's Christmas in Wales, which always started with me reading: "One Christmas was so much like another in those years, around the sea town corner now and out of all sound..." and then the book handed round for each of us to read a page or two. One of my favourite parts of Christmas - no television, no music, just the sound of our voices telling the beautiful story of mischief, snow and cats. 

I have lots of pictures of us all on Christmas morning sitting in dressing gowns with a discarded wrapping paper mountain of excitement. The believing years were, of course, the most special and the two older were very good about not letting cats out of bags for the younger two. The Intrepid Granny would sit in the middle of it all, unwrapping her stocking with slightly less giddiness but twinkling as only grannies can. 

Our only social outing of the day would be up in the village to our always-hospitable Irish chums. Half the village would be there, quaffing fizz, eating smoked salmon and swapping Christmas news. Teenagers wearing whatever new Christmas clothes they had been given, then in later years, bringing along fiancés and new husbands or wives. Our whole family was always welcomed including Mum. Other grannies would cluster in a less congested part of the kitchen, chatting amongst themselves, each unable to hear the other in the hubbub. Not the Intrepid Granny... she would be regaling the young cricketers of the village with her tales of Edgbaston, Lords, the Oval, and the MCG, for she had travelled the world watching England play cricket. I always wondered whether it was polite respect or genuine enjoyment on their part - I think the latter because she was a great storyteller of sporting derring-do.

Then there was the squeezing of lunch into the gap between socialising and The Queen. Other guests and family members might arrive and somehow food would make it to the table. Some years, pudding didn't happen until after Her Majesty - and sometimes, if we were too full, not at all. Then standing for the National Anthem - always - and silence throughout before Mum would comment at the end on how well HM looked, how wonderful were her words and so on. Polite nodding before the second unwrapping began. 

An innings collapse in front of the television for the whole team and some quiet snoring from one or two older members or if we were feeling more lively, we would do Granny's Christmas Quiz which had usually been garnered from the Golf Club and which generally took us three or four days to complete. 

Mum loved it all. The centre of all things, sometimes driving me mad with questions and requirements when I was wrestling the bird, or the ham or anything else. Her insistence on everyone having a sprout. Her absolutely intention of not missing a moment. 

It's the changing of the guard for our Christmas now. It will never be quite the same, whether here or in Liverpool or wherever we land. But we'll always be thinking of her. Especially when the plates of smoked salmon* come out. 

                                    Mum on her 90th birthday cruise - still a little girl at heart! 

*Her favourite food along with Marks and Spencers' chocolate eclairs! 

Crow House Barn - the Kitchen Project

First, a quick context-setting... When we embarked into the world of hospitality with our Barn - this being in a career sense rather than the cork-popping, let's have friends round sense - the world was a different place. Our model for this new enterprise was based on guests sleeping in the Barn, eating breakfast in our conservatory (lovingly cooked by my beloved with waitressing/washing up by moi) and then them going out for the day. Hmm...

These were the halcyon days of pubs and restaurants being open for food pretty much seven days a week and people feeling safe enough to use them. This all worked well in our first summer. We were urged, even then, by our expert Lake District holiday let hosts/dear friends, to put in a kitchen. But we were rammed with bookings, we argued. Also, and I argue now from a smug position of strength, what we might have done then in terms of facilities is not what we have done now. The world is a different place after all. 

Once the dreaded pandemic started, despite deciding that guests could not come into our home for breakfast, and taking them bespoke bacon sandwiches instead, even with no proper kitchen, we continued to fill the Barn with guests whenever there was a break in hostilities. Opening up in April this year when Boris cut the 'going out' ribbon, we have been pretty much packed all summer. Part of this is the necessary result of moving lots of bookings from months when we were closed, of course. We've had wedding groups, families with small children hurtling round the garden (Darcy, the dog loves this!) and folks just wanting to 'chillax'. But the need for an actual kitchen (cooker, hob, fridge/freezer/sink) was becoming increasingly apparent and we have now bitten the bullet. 

When my friends complain of having workmen in the house, I always look at them with poorly-disguised envy. 'You're actually paying people to do home improvements?!' For much of my adult life I have only been able to dream of this! But I do understand how cross people get when the workmen don't show up on the agreed day and suddenly the next workman (plumber, tiler, electrician etc) can't do their bit because the other carpet fitter, heating engineer, etc, etc hasn't turned up on the previous day. This anxiety is magnified many times over when you close your business for three weeks and there are bookings after that. 

A month ago we waved goodbye to lovely Tracey and her family (regulars here) and began - almost before their vehicle was out of sight - to shift furniture, take down pictures and rip up carpets. For three hectic weeks, my beloved along with heating engineers (because we have replaced the heating system for a faster, more efficient version), kitchen fitters, plumbers and electricians have done an amazing job. Credit where it's due, my beloved absolutely nailed this despite my prophesies of gloom and doom and cancellation of bookings. 

Darcy loved having workmen-with-sandwiches around all day and despite our best efforts to turn her into a slimmer version of herself, she shamelessly showed off to anyone and everyone on site. This did give Trevor, the postman, a break because she has to be removed from his van on a daily basis because he gives her treats! 

The kitchen was finished with less than 24 hours to spare and after three lots of guests it still looks gorgeous. Big thanks to Wharfedale Heating, Daryn Forster, Steve Drake and Walter Hartley Electrical who turned up on time and did a great job! 

"I'm not speaking to anyone until those nice men with sandwiches come back..."