Christmas is coming!

Just watched "A Christmas Story", my favourite Christmas movie. Now we are going to put up some decorations, which is going to be entertaining. This is our first time with the new sofa and it is so big it takes up the usual tree space!

Wish us luck!

My home town

I grew up in, and have returned to, a smallish (population around 35,000) town on the north coast of Kent, more or less directly north of Canterbury.

 

It is called Herne Bay, or to many of the locals "Hernia Bay" in honour of its large retired population.  I find it funny that many people who have moved here recently take offence at this name while those who were born and bred here use it with a certain amount of affection!

 

When I was a child there was a roaring tourist industry.  People flocked from London to swim in the  (cold) sea, eat ice cream and walk along our famous pier.  Even at Easter, when the weather is notorously cold, wet and windy, bus loads of elderly tourists would arrive and battle along the prom to catch the "fresh sea air". I used to wonder what the attraction was, but they seemed to thrive on the challenge of getting to the next tea shop without being swept into the sea by a huge wave.  I guess this was the wartime generation who, having survived The Blitz and D-Day, just took a bit of rough English weather in their stride.

 

 

The pier was the second longest one in Britain, and if you were too lazy to walk it you could take a small train instead.  In earlier years there had been paddle steamer trips from the end of the pier which went across the Thames Estuary to Southend, where they had the pier that was longer than ours (curse them!).  I remember the train, but not the steamers.

 

Since then, things have taken a down turn.  Tourists no longer pour into our town, they fly to Spain instead.  Storms and fires have battered the pier.  Currently there is no pavilion and the pier head is marooned out at sea, as the long stretch out to it having been demolished years ago.  Over the years there have been several grand plans to rebuild the pier - the latest involves the creation of a huge marina around the pier head, which would cost millions. 

 

Very nice, but who would really come here for that?  As indicated by our sorry Christmas Tree, the town is rundown, most shops have closed and/or moved to Canterbury and we don't even have a single hotel so even if people wanted to take a holiday here it would be impossible.  IMO, we should just accept that the Glory Days are over and Herne Bay is now no more than a fairly pleasant retirement and commuter town.  Sure I complain about the place, but every time I go somewhere else I get the feeling that , hey, maybe the old town ain't so bad after all.

We got SNOW!

I woke to the guy on the radio telling us that snow was on the way.  I got up and checked the forecast on the web, but there was no indication of snow.  We had a bit of rain at that time, but no snow.

 

So I wrapped up well and set off for work.  By the time I reached the half way mark, the snow was falling.

 

 

By the time I got to work we had big flakes falling and it was settling just about everywhere.

 

Couldn't resist taking a shot of berries with snow on them...

 

It has stopped falling now - not sure if it will hang around or melt or even if we might get some more.  Will keep an eye on how it is going - might have to bail early today to avoid getting snowed in!

Bubbles

 

Bubble, our oldest rabbit, died yesterday.  She was, at our best guess, 9 years old which is pretty good for a rabbit.  We had a feeling that she was nearing the end, but she was active and happily eating on Sunday.  She leaves behind 2 children and 2 grandchildren.  We think we gave her a good life.

 

*****************************

 

I like to cook - I think I have made that clear over the years.  I happily turn my hand to traditional English food, Italian, Chinese, Mexican, barbeque, etc and everyone seems to enjoy.

 

But one thing defies me.

 

Making porridge in the microwave....

 

I suspect that the problem is caused by, um, BUBBLES?

 

Weekend

This weekend was good fun.

 

As I said in my last couple of posts (sort of) I have now joined the 21st century and bought an Android phone.

 

 

Not the very latest model, but it does all sorts of wonderful stuff (including letting me blog and look at Google Maps) and does not cost me more to run than my old phone.  The handset was free too!  One spooky thing is that, having linked it to my blog it now gives me access to every photo I have ever posted to my blogs!  Flicking through them was a strange experience, I can tell you!

 

After setting the new phone to charge, I popped into town to see how thetown Christmas Tree was.  Following the criticism of the first tree, it has now been replaced with this one.

 

Hm.

 

The tree is certainly nicer than the old one, but the lights?  I have more lights in my hallway than this!  And what happened to the stuff that people had added to the old tree?  Looks like some people have made a start again, but I think it was rude of them not to transfer the other stuff from the old tree too.

 

We are now on the countdown to Christmas - decorations are going up next weekend, and presents are now being bought.  Number One Son will be home for Christmas too, so it will be nice to have the family back together again, and our daughter has been working really hard at college and is looking forward to a break too - just hoping they don't give her a pile of stuff to do over the holidays!

 

It is with a touch of sadness that we realise that, due to the kids' ages, the days of huge piles of presents are over - each of the kids only wants a single, relatively snall, yet expensive present.  Maybe we should make the pile bigger with stuff for the dogs? We had a couple of presents for each of them last year, of course, but this year they might need more.   I think we have a plan...

Seems to work! Yippee!

Testing 123

Seeing if i can blog from my new phone.

Fingers crossed!

Papa Rock Chef http://rock-chef.blogspot.com/