The Darling Buds of May

Arrived to a rainy, cool Heathrow – surprise, surprise. But more or less since then has been unseasonably warm and sunny – positively hot some days. According to the paper the last few days have been hotter in London than Barcelona or Corfu – and we are proud of it!! Apart from this aberration with the weather, England is as ever – green, busy, traffic appalling, no air conditioning and still a bit expensive. Though the dollar has definately helped improve things there – now it’s only a little bit pricey instead of ridiculous. Have spent the last week with my cousins in Surrey – good to relax and enjoy some home cooking and decent beer. The beer makes up for other failings – though the baked beans are better too for some odd reason – and they do feature prominently on most pub menus! Spent about half a day in what seemed like the world’s largest Tescos – you can get anything – including stupidly cheap clothes such as three quid jeans – I resisted the temptation… The tabloids still as bad as ever and everyone has about 100 TV channels to choose from – doesn’t mean anything better to watch though.

Spent a couple of days in London doing work things – visited the BBC which was very interesting – they have over 400 staff in their archive’s branch! And also OTAB – part of a larger archive of sporting stuff. That was also a good visit but I was an hour late – finding it was very difficult…I thought I knew West London OK but was totally wrong…they didn’t seem too fazed but I was a bit embarrassed!

Spent a day at Wisley – the home of the Royal Horticultural Society – so beautiful gardens, lakes, etc etc. If you like gardening – very popular here – its just brilliant…I’ll stick a couple of pics up later. Am now typing this on the train as I head up to Norfolk for a weekend catching up with old school friends – the inter-city trains are great, if expensive.

OK, an update – spent weekend with ex-school friends who I have known for almost 50 years..and we still get on really well. Got through outrageous amounts of wine and beer and lots of great food – the host is a gourmet cook. Did some touristy stuff – walking and on a boat out to Seal Island – yes, lots of seals checking you out. All-in-all a great, relaxing weekend – esp. as the weather was so good – needed sun screen and hats.. Now in Manchester – more on that later.