Not the Island of Madeira

Alvor in The Algarve on mainland Portugal was our main holiday destination this year. A quaint fishing village with lots of places to eat and extensive boardwalks through a nature reserve right on the coastline.

The sun shone. Temperatures rose. We lazed or walked away the ten days we were there, plus a nostalgic trip by speedboat to Lagos where we spent a family holiday sometime in the 1990’s.

It was a good holiday. Late April/early May is a good time to visit the Algarve but a little too early in year for it to be our main holiday. Note to selves – book two holidays in the year – one early and the other late in future.

Our hotel in Alvor

Alvor, Portugal

Enjoying ourselves

After nine long years of searching Alex finally found The Flying Scotsman. Each visit to the National Railway Museum in York had included a search for this famous locomotive ever since he was able to walk. We found an exhibition but no loco. We saw the chassis and wheels in the workshop but the rest was missing. This year, finally, the rebuilt engine steamed into York and took it’s place in the national collection. Alex was so excited, not only to see the old express engine but to stand in the cab too. Three cheers for everyone who put all the pieces back together in working order.

Not far from this tree stump, in Studley Park near Ripon, was an even older tree stump turned child’s seat that Wesley once enthroned himself upon as a small boy. Can you spot any resemblance?

Promenaders

At the Proms with Matthew and Laura in July

Matthew and Laura took us to The BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall this summer. What a treat. Sitting in a box, that can only be described as better placed than the one frequented by Her Majesty, we enjoyed the music and the spectacle that lay before us.

 

 

 

A house swap in June let us stay in Royal Wooton Bassett for a week. We cycled, walked and simply stopped to read whenever we liked. The weather wasn’t too good except for this one day when we cycled to Malmesbury Abbey. We walked on The Ridgeway, visited Lydiard Park and on a really wet day, when we just had to get out,  a Butterfly Sanctuary.

Claremont News 2016

St Michael le Belfrey during Illuminating York

Welcome to our Christmas family news blog. Please feel free to browse the stories that made up our year. Much more has happened of course but space and time constrain our storytelling. Enjoy.

Sapphire Year 
Bleak Walk

One Year On

Chase The Sun

Weekends Together
 
Still Crazy

A Pilot 

Not Madeira

Enjoying Ourselves

Claremont News 2015

Christmas Card 2015

St Williams College, York

Welcome to our news from York.  Join us as we look back, through these stories and pictures, at the year just coming to an end. It’s been a time of knowing the love and support of our families, friends and neighbours. If you count yourself among them, thank you.

At Peace
Days Off and On
Matthew and Laura’s House
Families Get Together
A Tale of Two Street Parties
That Island Again
Jubilee Year
Politics on the Left
Picture Gallery

Trusting you have a great Christmas and all the best for the New Year
Love from
Barrie and Joan

 

 

At Peace

Studey HD
Standing beneath the spreading leaves of the trees in Studley Park overlooking the glistening lake we scattered his ashes in the evening sunlight. The gentle breeze carried them away.

‘ …. He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted …. to comfort all who mourn and provide for those who grieve … to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy for mourning and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair …. “

We do not sorrow as those who have no hope – but we do sorrow. Continue reading