Blog? What blog??

. . . ah yes - this one.

What's to say? It rained, the sun shone, it rained again. SO got a job - did I mention that? Actually I did, elsewhere on the interweb-thingy, saying, approximately, that he had a new, exciting, slightly-over-his-head (but-in-a-good-way) senior senior job with (insert company name here) (AND THEN TURN IT INTO A LINK).

Oh No! I had completely forgotten the sort of software (see? I know it exists but I have NO idea of what it's called) that trawls the web looking for mentions of your website. One way of looking at it is that his new employers know I just called my Significant Other incompetent in front of the whole world.

OR, and this is the interpretation I myself prefer, the company is actually so huge that they probably don't run this software anyway.

Thank goodness my infinitely competent sister went vociferously for option b). SO much prefers to believe anything when I'm not the one saying it.

Also, well, I guess there were the Perseids - SO and I lying on the trampoline at eleven o'clock at night, not nearly well wrapped up enough, staring into the light-polluted sky and marvelling at the unparalleled beauty of the aeroplane lights - a major benefit of living so close to a flight path. Our viewing was totally undistracted by random shooting stars, thank goodness. They get so in the way of a decent bout of plane-spotting, dontcha find?

You win some, you lose some

We missed Audley End. Extremely irritatingly, it was shut. Three days a week! Ha - I knew we were right to join the National Trust. Those English Heritage dossers are an idle bunch.

To SO's delight, the next possibility was Duxford Air Museum (by that point I didn't care, as long as it involved lunch). Being as how the major exhibits are all aircraft, the place is huge. We got to see inside a prototype Concorde, and ride on an electric train from one end of the museum to the other.

I found myself profoundly disturbed by the Land Warfare exhibition, which concentrated on WWII and the Normandy Landings. (I know. At my great age.) I know we weren't in there for that long, and certainly didn't see absolutely everything, but nowhere in all the diagrams and pictures and video footage that I saw was there any mention of the lives that were lost. No idea at all of the scale of human destruction. Yes, I understand that small children would be quite unjustifiably frightened by graphic representations, but no mention of the dead at all? It seems such a blatant omission, and such a cynical one. I don't understand why veterans' groups don't make a bigger deal of this.

Argh

My Aralia Elegantissima

My mother-in-law's Aralia Elegantissima

Daisy, Daisy

Our friend Daisy, who is one week short of her fourth birthday, and has a twin brother (Current Thinking has it that, developmentally at this age, twins generally lag about six months behind singletons), has just mastered the art of riding a bike without stabilisers. (Which I think is bloody good going. There's one in the eye for for Current Thinking.)

While her parents stood in the garden chatting, Daisy rode her bike straight into the back of her Dad's legs, and fell off. Bouncing up, hands on hips, she berated him 'DAD! You MUST learn to look where you are going!

Under his breath, Daddy retorted 'Hmph! Women drivers!'



We are off to visit the parents-in-law for a few days. Weep for me.

We're Back

Two whole days ago, and we've been having a well-earned rest after the rigours of the holiday. On the left, a picture taken on our first, and on the right, a picture taken on our last day. Ha flippin' ha, eh? Well, I guess it was bound to happen.

We went to the Blue Reef aquarium in Newquay, which is the most charming aquarium I've ever visited - small, but perfectly formed. This by way of an excuse to show you my favourites, the jellyfish.

And we saw the Green Flash! It was quite, quite perfect. (SO didn't believe me, a) that it existed, and b) he banged on about latitude and atmospheric conditions and blah blah blah. Imagine my intense irritation when, on the first possible evening, I had my camera to my eye, and missed it, AND HE SAW IT. Aaaarghh!) I learned my lesson the next night though, and was privileged to see, for a fraction of a second, the most beautiful green.

Our way home, on a very beautiful and warm day, took us through Lacock, where part of Harry Potter had been filmed. The Cloisters, and the rest of the Abbey, are indeed fascinating, but the item that caught my eye was the Monastic Drain.



What?