Right folks. A history lesson set in stone - that is what the blurb told us on the leaflet we were issued with when we arrived at Chepstow Castle. Join me on the first of a journey through the first of many castles we will visit on our trip. Now I am going to sound like the commentator on the news who says "Look away now if you don't want to hear the football results". If you don't like castles - it is time to look away. For a few blogs at least. Matsuo Bashi wrote " The past remains hidden in clouds of memory". Certainly we agree as we are spending more and more time in the past and in those clouds of memory. Hereford with its map; Tintern and its monks. Now it is ... read more

Gabby and Sion are on the road again and it is a good feeling. It's about time too. Time has been flashing past us and we are been too preoccupied with our house sale. We needed a well deserved break and this would give us a good chance to test things out in Gabby and carry out a shake down trip. We loaded Gabby up with clothes, food , essentials and non essentials. We forgot coffee - need to add that urgently to a list of things to buy. The weather wasn't kind to us . A touch of snow which turned the tarmac white. A scrap off of the ice from the windscreen . Then there is the wind and the rain. Every day heavy rain and wind that raced through the trees like an ... read more

"Everything has beauty but not everyone sees it" Confucius utters common sense again . Hold that thought. This will be going somewhere in the direction of ugly things and industrial history. Not to everyones taste hence the beauty that some people miss. Gabby was taken up again to Preston for the satellite dome to be fitted . The silly sat nag takes us a different way everytime. Sometimes south and then up the M6 to Preston, sometimes across country east to west through Disley and the Airport ring road. Occaisionally she has taken us to Sheffield , over the tops to Manchester and today right up to Leeds and across the M62. A bleak and windswept motorway if ever there was one. Perhaps it feels worse to know that we are driving over Saddleworth Moor with ... read more

Hello Blog. It has been a long time. I have not forgotten you. It is just time is flying by and I feel I have done nothing. No trips out since our walk around Linacre Lakes. The weather has been particularly springlike so why are we not on the road? Christmas disappeared in a haze best forgotten. The advertisements began to tell me I should buy in the New Year sales . The holiday companies started to bombard me with offers I could not refuse. Still we sat here without a house to move to and without our sale going through. Each phone call suggested that things were fine and were moving along . Our buyers buyers had for some reason asked three questions which required answers. No problem that would be sorted out quickly and ... read more

"As soon as you have made a thought , laugh at it ". Lao Tzu How many times during a year do you make thoughts and either laugh at them or cry at them? . This year quite often I would think. We thought life would be normal for us during 2018. Whatever that was going to be . Holidays. Planned and arranged . Work - well I was going to be still there and then like a bolt out of the blue we found ourselves spending most of the first half of the year caring for Glenns mum. We had to laugh many times during her illness and we cried a lot at times when things got too much. Life rumbled on as did the year. Spring passed us by. Summer flew by in the ... read more