bye Wells / hello Christchurch and happy Bday

Monday June 24

Breakfast was a funny event today. James had granola and was sure the milk was off. He told the waitress, she checked and came back saying that he was right and replaced it. Kate went to help herself to orange juice and a gentleman whispered to her to be careful because he thought it was off, which it was. When Kate put something from the bowl of berries (which she had enjoyed the day before very much) on her granola she thought it was foaming. But, there were enough other things to eat and we thought it was rather funny. Nothing kills you.

David packed the car after breakfast and off we went. On the road again. David drove mainly little country roads. I was a bit too late but a minute ago this was like a one-way street with places to move into for oncoming traffic ... whoever is there first does it. Just like in Scotland I had written about earlier.

Kate and David's house in Christchurch is lovely. The weather was very nice and we took a walk around their garden. Ha-ha, I helped David pick raspberries. I am a good one to do that because I don't really care much about raspberries or blackberries. But I did help myself to a few gooseberries even though David said that they were not quite ripe yet. I thought they were delicious.

Kate had made a rhubarb upside-down cake in advance and we had that after supper.

Jane and Stephen had arrived in the afternoon from Windsor and after supper we all went to a quiz evening in a pub. Team of six. Jimmo was on a different team on the next table. He is a weekly regular. Stephen was our savior. He knew almost all the answers on the first sheet which were pictures of cartoon characters. 

Tuesday June 25

James is one of 5 siblings. The oldest (Jane) and the youngest (Stephen) have their birthday on the same day. Happy birthday, Jane! Happy birthday, Stephen! After breakfast: card opening in the conservatory. 

As a special birthday "treat" Jane got to sew patches onto Olivia's girl guide blanket. 

Lunch outside. So nice.

And then we decided to have a walk. This was new to James and me and we liked it a lot.

Wild horses!

River Avon flowing into the sea not far from here.

David and Stephen walked faster then us and waited at one point on a bench.

Typical gates on public paths were you actually sometimes walk over somebody's property.

Walking into Christchurch City Center.

Over the Avon.

Castle ruins (next to the Priory Church).

The harbor. Could not resist the concrete hippo with the duck sitting on the back. 

The Priory Church is over 900 years old. The Boathouse Restaurant (on the left) is where we celebrated James' 70th birthday . Memories!

Back at the house we had very delicious birthday cake. All chocolate. Of course we had to do the hip hip hurray twice.

Dinner was fun. It was planned to have Chinese take-out. "TopWok" was closed until 4:30 pm and David went to get a printed menu. It was too many pages to print from the website. A list was made, phoned in and it came delivered at the right time. They were big portions and (in my eyes) one of the best tasting Chinese foods I have had. No leftovers!

Before bedtime David asked whether we needed a nightcap. This bottle of Cognac actually had come from Cognac, a gift from visitors from that town. I think we helped start that bottle 1 or 2 years ago. Now we finished it. Good stuff!

Another splendid day over. Night night.