Month: January 2016

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With all this warmer weather the birds in the garden look very well fed. We have thrushes, that’s good as they have been saying their numbers are in decline.

One of our favourite places to stay is PowderMills Hotel in Battle and they now have a ‘less than half price offer’ on Travelzoo, which of course we have purchased. The grounds are really lovely and it is very dog friendly. They only charge £10 for a dog and they have their own springers who wander around the hotel too. The offer is still open if anyone else is interested.

Mal has the dates for his standardisation for OCR in Coventry. Last year I went with him and we stayed in Chesford Grange in Kenilworth. It has a lot of woods in their grounds, ideal for dog walking and so I took Ellie. They charged £15 for a dog for the entire three night stay last May. This year they are asking £20 PER NIGHT!! I find that a ridiculous price hike and written to their head office. Of course they haven’t bothered to reply so we won’t be staying there.

We are still discovering interesting dog walks and today was to Kearsney Abbey Park. We hadn’t been there before . There is a wooded side where you can let dogs run free and the other side of the lake you are asked to keep them on leads as there is a lot of waterfowl roaming, which Ellie was very interested in! There is also a cafe in the park, so after our walk we sat and had a coffee. A huge mug of lovely coffee for £1.60!!!!

It seems as though we were lucky and missed the snow. There were a lot of photos of Facebook of snowy scenes including some lovely ones Torin put on.

In an attempt to watch some remotely interesting TV in the evening we started to watch Walking the Himalayas which seems promising.

Thought for the Day – “Give as much as you can, but don’t allow yourself to be used.  Listen to others closely, but don’t lose your own voice.”

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Another cold day but we decided as there was a frost, we could probably walk over Preston fields . Some of it was frozen, some was still very muddy. It was a nice walk anyway. Parts of the lake were frozen too.

Thought for the Day – “When you smile about the life you live, you end up living a life worth smiling about.”

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Cold but a lovely sunny morning for a walk by the river.

Next into Canterbury for two new tyres. I always forget what the traffic is like getting into the city. I should know the years that I worked there but that was a long time ago, so more time sitting in traffic jams than actually having the tyres fitted! They did have nice coffee at the tyre place though and it’s free! I don’t remember having to book before but I am really out of “things” in the UK now.

David, who is kindly caretaking our villa in Cyprus has been in touch because we have someone who is interested in buying. He went through the estate agent and then tried to ignore the agent and go directly to us of course asking for a reduced price. That is not the way we work. Either he deals with the estate agent or forget it. We are not in a hurry to sell but I suspect a lot of people are now believing that there is soon to be a settlement between the north and south therefore making house prices rise in the north to bring them in line with the south..

Thought for the Day – “Happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you do are in harmony.” ~Mahatma Ghandi

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This is the coldest day this winter. Look at the lovely pattern on my windscreen when we went to take Ellie out.

It was a really cold wind on the beach but Ellie still wanted to go paddling. She’s having a good shake here.

It’s the first day this winter we have worn hats and gloves!!

Later we went into Canterbury to the Marlowe Theatre to see the Glenn Miller Story. Tommy Steele was starring in it. You have to give him his due, he is now 79 and still a good performer. I think it was in the ’80’s the last time I saw him in London in “Singing in the Rain”! It was a good show.

Thought for the Day – “Be conscious of your words, especially when you are not in the best mood. You never want to mix bad words with a bad mood. You can always reverse your mood, but your words can not be replaced.” ~ Kristen Butler

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We are making the most of the sun and having long walks. We went into Sandwich again as it is the least muddy.

I stopped at the Co op on the way out of Sandwich just to buy a couple of bits for dinner. I went to the do it yourself check out and every item I put into my shopping bag, it said I had to wait for assistance. After the third time the assistant said my shopping bag was leaning on my wire basket, so she moved the basket and the entire contents of my shopping bag fell out. The space to put your own bag (which you have to have now or pay 5p) is far too small. I was on my way out of the exit and someone came chasing me out asking if I had bought a jar of turmeric, which had rolled under the till!! I told one of the assistants I wouldn’t be using one of those checkouts again as it takes longer and she agreed and said this was always happening and it was far better to go to their check outs and have a chat with them!!

It’s probably the coldest night this winter and Torin is going to Stamford Bridge to watch Chelsea. At least they had a draw so he won’t be too miserable.

Thought for the Day – “Forgive but do not forget or you will be hurt again. Forgiving changes the perspectives. Forgetting loses the lesson,” ~ Paulo Coelho

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Down by the river in Sandwich for a walk in the sun. Ellie is so funny, she runs right next to the river to see if we are going to call her back and if we do she comes or I believe she would be in for a muddy swim! We did see a heron in the distance, not a very good photo as I didn’t have my better camera with me!

Later in the morning we took Ellie to Eagle vets for her booster injections. £33, I don’t know whether that is good or bad, I am totally out of the know with UK prices. The vet did check her all over, listened to her heart and weighed her. When we came to the UK she weighed 29.5kg and now she weighs 29.2kg, so that is good. There are a lot of vets nearer to us but I have been going to George for years, a long time before we moved to Cyprus. He has always been so very good.

I watched the news and I was shocked to see the bomb in Istanbul, exactly where we and many other tourists have been so many times, in Sutlanahmet.  How awful.

I have just heard on the local news that Kent council tax is rising 4%!! Perhaps they should stop supporting projects like Dreamland.

I have to say a lot of TV bores me but tonight we happened upon “Travel Man”. It did make us laugh. It was 48 hours in Paris.

Thought for the Day – “Sometimes you will never know the true value of a moment until it becomes a memory.” ~Iman

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RIP David Bowie, very sad news to wake up to.

We took Ellie to Minnis Bay and discovered not only a lot of jelly fish but cat fish too, We must have see about a dozen of them.

Lunchtime we met up with Shirley and Steve at The Anchor. They do a Monday and Tuesday £7.95 pensioners offer for a 2 course lunch. That’s what we all had and it was very good value. I do like this pub.

Thought for the Day – “I don’t know where I’m going from here but I promise it won’t be boring.” ~ David Bowie