Tuesday – glorious weather and a full Lake Windermere steamer trip, Ambleside to Lakeside and an hour stop-off (and a half hour at the wonderful Lakeside Hotel) and back via Bowness. Heaven! Before going back to Jane’s for the car I sat with my feet in the lake and fed the ducks.


On Wednesday more brilliant weather and a day mostly spent on the lounger in the garden under the white flowering buddleia in the company of numerous butterflies – red admirals, large whites, peacocks and tortoiseshells. It was totally restful and lovely.

Thursday dawned dry and bright again and Hector thought a day at the seaside was a good idea. We headed to the East coast to Redcar. Neither of us had been there before. It was pretty chilly in a stiff breeze, but I bought cheapo socks and we covered up in a towel to snooze with a book. I loved paddling in the warmish sea and watching the birdlife on the beach at Redcar today I saw at one time: cormorant, herring gull, oystercatchers, sandpipers, sanderling, black headed gulls, little gulls, ringer plover, common sandpiper. Not bad eh?



At Redcar I noticed some remnants of tree stumps at the surfs edge. Had it been just tree trunks I wouldn’t have been to curious but tree stumps made me think that this was the remains of a submerged ancient forest from before the last ice age. Sure enough on looking on line later I found this info

“At the base of the steps opposite the Information Center, and extending seaward for over 100 metres, were exposed black peat beds, springy underfoot, packed with wood fragments and even tree trunks, some in growth position. This is the Redcar Submerged Forest (aka. Peat & Forest Beds). Other minor examples survive within the Lower Tees Valley, both underlying parts of Middlesbrough and also beneath beach deposits between Seaton Carew and Hartlepool. Here the beds are known as the Hartlepool Submerged Forest. The peat and tree trunks date from a time shortly after the last great ice-sheets (glaciers) to occupy this part of N.W. Europe retreated northward as the climate warmed c.13,000 years before present (BP). When immense ice-sheets form, like those which occupied N. Britain during the last Ice-Age, prodigious amounts of water are sequestered as ice, a process which draws down global sea-level. When the climate recovers, the ice-sheets melt and sea-level gradually rises again. By c.10,000 years BP, ice which once occupied Northern England had retreated, and the newly exposed post-glacial landscape was recolonised by vegetation. Sea-level was still some 150 metres, or so, lower than today and the place where Redcar now stands was part of a forested upland similar in altitude to nearby Upleatham Hill! Continued wastage of the ice-sheets farther north gradually raised sea-level until between 8,000 and 6,000 years BP, it attained its modern position in the process overwhelming the ancient forest and producing the Peat and Forest Beds. The deposit was formerly much more extensive though most of the remains have been removed by modern erosion.

[Source: http://www.tvrigs.org.uk/archives/654]
This is an image from that website

Friday quarter to five – Been lolling on a lounger in the garden since 10am. Weather still wonderful. Our friend Frank dropped by for a chat and stayed for a beer, Hector and he moved a pine desk in for us. Read half a book, snoozed and now freshened after a shower and fancying a glass of cold dry white. (where’s the waiter?) Hector is making dinner – Cranstons steak pie and mash. Yum!

The wedding in the church today was a proper local country wedding. The church was FULL of sweet peas, every window sill, the pew ends, all the shelves around the pulpit – simply everywhere.

I went in after the wedding party had left for a reception to enjoy the atmosphere, ambience, sight and scent; just me, myself, I..

I have been researching the family tree for a short while and found out a bit more about my Fathers side. They were fishermen who had originated in Brixham, Devon and settled a while in Ramsgate and eventually moved around the coast to Hull to fish in the North Sea.
Jane (sis) and I took a weekend off and headed over to Hull (staying with Chrissie in N. Lincs) to find out more……

A wonderful evening on arrival with Chrissie et al and an early start to drive over the fabulous Humber Bridge and a first treat of a visit the The Deep. Love it.

We spent a bit of time on the foreshore there too, knowing now that family had been there in centuries past when they set sail into the perilous North Sea. A short walk into the city to the Market Square and Holy Trinity Church, the parish church of our ancestors before a bit of window shopping and then the main reason for our Hull visit, the Maritime Museum. Fascinating. What a surprise to find a display that actually charted the start of the Hull fishing industry and guess what – it started with West Country fishermen from Brixham (our family) and Plymouth, via Ramsgate and a fishing fleet being blown off course found the rich fishing fields which became known as the Silver Pits, so bountiful were they.

A poignant display was the beautifully presented record of the family member who was lost overboard on the Horn Reef (Danish coastal waters) in 1885 aged just 18.

By now our feet were sore and we were worn out so we jumped in a black cab back to the Deep and to pick up the car before heading north to Beverley to visit close family there.

Another late evening with Chrissie and more laughter, good company and dinner.

Sunday morning we woke early – no choice really… the carbon monoxide alarm went off and as Chrissie wandered downstairs with it to try to turn it off the phone started ringing too. So, we got up, packed up, and headed homewards. It took 6 hours to get back and, unsurprisingly, I fell asleep in the sun in the garden late afternoon.

My favourite flower and the scent is heavenly.
I grew them from seed and for the first time had some success. I put it down to growing them in an old plastic dustbin, with holes drilled in and good compost. They like a long root system and it holds good moisture. Only problem is I have had to put a little set of steps next to them so that I can reach to cut the flowers!

At last a sunny day and time to bimble around in the garden – like the bees and butterflies were doing too.