Over the past couple of months I've been busy: three more trips in the motorhome; a family holiday to Israel; a weekend hotel break with Linda; another long distance path; further gardening efforts; a laser cutter project completed and some regular volunteering started at church.
The motorhome has continued to provide regular use. I've used it for another two LARP (Live Action Role Playing) events - one as a player and the other as part of the crew team. I think I'd now be very unwilling to go back to using a tent. I also went for a short break with Tazmin to the New Forest, which was her first opportunity to experience the motorhome and resulted her achieving her longest walk ever. ( Click Here for walk photos and details. )
Over the autumn half-term break, we went to Israel. Since Linda is still teaching part time, we're limited to school holidays, but she doesn't work Mondays or Fridays. To maximise our time, we left UK on Thursday evening, returning ten days later on a Monday evening.
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| Hanging out in Capernaum |
Linda and I went with my Father, Louise and Cordelia and my son-in-law, Jamie. For more Israel holiday details, some walking madness and photos - click here.
In November Linda and I went on a quick hotel break to Herefordshire, staying in The Pilgrim Hotel about half way between Hereford and Ross-on-Wye. Not much walking as conditions were super wet, but we had a chance to explore both Hereford and Ross-on-Wye over the two days we had. The highlight for me was visiting Hereford cathedral and seeing the Mappa Mundi and the chained library - well worth a visit if ever you get a chance.
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| The Mappa Mundi - about 700 years old, largest medieval map known to exist |
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| And that's what the UK looks like on the map! |
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| The Chained Library - so many really old books! |
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| Hereford Cathedral |
Back in September I ticked off another long distance path that's been on my 'to do' list for a while. The Three Castles Path links Windsor to Winchester. I did the walk over two days. Click here if you'd like to see what I got up to and some photos.
On the gardening front, I've simply not kept on top of all the stuff I wanted to do. There have been a couple of areas of improvement. There's a large oak tree that's been increasingly bothering me. It's adjacent to a border with one of our Quelm Park neighbours and given the size, must have completely blocked the sunlight from their garden for most of the day. It had also started to impact the growth of some of the smaller trees in my orchard area. When we moved into our home over twenty years ago the tree was not an issue - time changes that. I'm pleased to say that armed with my trusty Stanley saw, a pile of ropes and a long ladder, the oak tree is no longer an issue. I've also finally got round to clearing the back of the garage as well as clearing the flower bed adjacent to our neighbours garage. As always seems to be the case for gardening, much more to do.
Before
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After
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| A dramatic difference to the skyline. It must have significantly improved the light in my neighbours garden! |  |  |
| A rampant kiwi vine along with brambles had been left to fester for too long. Now we can see our neighbour's garage. |  |  |
| More clearance work at the back of our garage. I don't think I've ever seen that concrete path before. |  |  |
Back inside, I've started playing with the laser cutter again and just completed my latest project: an advent calendar for Linda. What started as, "something I'll quickly knock up" ended up taking me far more time than I anticipated. As these projects always do - and for some reason I'm always surprised! I'm particularly pleased with a latch type mechanism that I implemented that means the draws gently click into place when you insert them and won't fall out even if the whole calendar is shaken whilst holding face down. For scale - the front face you can see is about A3.
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| The contents of draw 1 after Linda opened it on Sunday |
Finally, one of my intentions upon retiring was to spend some time helping at church and I'm very pleased to now be helping with some of the office admin on Wednesday afternoons. So far it's interesting and I'm enjoying it - but then I've only just started. Will see how it goes.
Can you post a photo of the latch?
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