A long bike ride

Sunday 28th June Humid and cloudy today. No opportunity for church today, breakfast wasn't until 10!
We went on 17km bike ride, my first time on a bike for nearly 30 years!



Our first stop was Wulfen, which has an interesting old church and statue.
On the way to Schloss Lembeck, we passed this old boundary stone (left).

We spent some time at the schloss (above right), several groups of impressive old buildings built in 1687, two on islands in a moat (right). The gardens are renowned for rhododendrons in spring, but are well worth visiting at any time of year.
Interesting places on the way back: a refreshing foot spring, built in 72 hours by a church youth group by order of the Archbishop; Lembeck village – old hand-pump for horse trough (below) outside the church, used to be the village water supply too; Wiesenthal hotel - Judith used to work there in the holidays; roadside strawberry stall - bought some to eat with ice-cream and to take back to Duisburg.
Once back in Duisburg, Jeremy biked home from the Hauptbahnhof, we took the U-bahn but were delayed at Duissern trying to get the station lift to work. A 10-year old girl in a wheelchair wouldn’t let Bruce carry her up the stairs, so she and her mother returned to the Hauptbahnhof to use the lift there! Jeremy wondered why we were so late.
We had a yummy dinner of tapas and the Spanish version of crème brulée by the harbour. The waiters helped us move to another table covered by an umbrella when it started to rain!
We arrived back at our hotel about 9.30, but were kept awake by noisy people in the middle of the night. It was hard to wake up the next day!

Brussels with Eleanor

Monday 22nd June Nice breakfast of yoghurt, croissants, bread rolls, juice and strong coffee. The waitresses were kept busy pouring coffee, clearing and resetting tables. All the guests except us were French-speaking Africans so we felt quite at home!
As Eleanor had still not turned up 20 minutes after the arranged time to meet, I went downstairs to try to phone her and was successful on the second attempt. She was having problems owing to a faulty Google map, and no-one seemed to know where the hotel was. However, our helpful hotel receptionist soon gave her the right directions, and she arrived very quickly, she’d only been a short distance away! I was touched that they didn’t charge me for the phone calls
After spending some time discussing where to go, we set off for the Cathedral on the metro. It's a great public transport system, a day ticket takes you everywhere within the city. Unfortunately our camera’s batteries went flat, and Eleanor’s were too!

We enjoyed looking at the Bourse and Grand-Place – fantastic buildings, some decorated with gilt. There were some lovely paintings on sale in the square, as well as plants in pots. After buying museum and transport passes, we walked to the palace through some interesting gardens.
We were quite amused by the guards’ slow march, each arm being raised up to horizontal at each step. What a boring job!
The yummy chocolates + beautiful lace in the shop windows were very tempting, but we resisted very well. We only came across the Manneken Pis by accident, nearly missed it as it’s so SMALL, but I really don't understand why everyone raves over it so much, I think it’s rather rude!
We ate some spicey Turkish kebabs for lunch, before returning to the hotel for a rest, our feet were sore after all the cobbles, which are laid in scalloped patterns.
There didn't seem to be a good restaurant near our hotel, it's in rather a grotty neighbourhood, so we returned to town, ending up in a Thai restaurant near St Catherine’s and the Bourse. The food was beautifully served; Bruce had an orchid on his plate + my beef curry was served in a clay pot kept warm over a candle in a bowl.
An amusing incident – a police car stopped in a side-street, a second joined it, blocking the entrance – 2 other motorists tried to enter the street, blocking the main road as they couldn’t get past the police cars! Traffic started building up in the main road, people started honking their horns! Eventually one of the police cars was moved, restoring everything to order!

mothing

Friday 19th A very windy night! We went mothing in the morning, the property owners have 5 moth traps that are set up and checked nearly daily. We saw 53 out of a possible 200 species. On a good day, you can get as many as 90! One species they haven't had there before caused great excitement. Pic: inspecting a moth trap; Elephant & Eyed Hawk Moths.








When we'd finished, we drove to Mannington Hall, a mediaeval moated house, which has a large collection of over 5,000 varieties of roses, ranging from species roses to modern types. Each group of roses is grown in a special area according to their date of origin, including a mediaeval garden, a renaissance garden, a Victorian flower garden and orchard, a knot garden, a trellis garden, a rather bleak 'between the wars' garden, & modern gardens.
You can also view the gardens around the Hall - I felt a bit uncomfortablewalking right past the windows! My favourite was the Scented Garden, designed in an elaborate knot, each bed having a different feature rose + an assortment of herbs giving off delicious scents in the sunshine! The house has some interesting chimneys with bricks laid in lattice patterns + some gargoyles on the eaves!
Garden pics: archway between rose gardens, the Scented Garden.








Diane cooked a huge dinner - a casserole of Lincoln sausages + 10 varieties of vegetables & dried fruit! They're so used to cooking on an Aga range, they find it hard using an electric stove! A. Nellie cooks at home, Diane on holiday. We showed them our NZ pics after tea, I dressed up in my Maasai clothes.

second day in Oxford

Wednesday 17th Hard to sleep in as our room was light by 4! I phoned my other aunts to plan our visits, but had to let Aunty Doreen know we wouldn't be able to get to Cornwall owing to the distance and the shortness of our stay in the UK. We all walked to the university gardens, coming back via the canal towpath, admiring the interesting long boats and gardens right to the water’s edge, picnic furniture ready for use. It was windy but mild.
After lunch, we'd just started to play a Bach cello/piano sonata when my 4th cousin and husband arrived, Derek and Shirley Owen. We looked at the family tree together + some old photos, having a nice chat over afternoon tea. They're about mum and dad’s age, with 3 children born from ’62-68! Derek used to work for the Bible Society as a book-binder. Picture below: Uncle Norman and Aunty Mary.