I had a traumatic day - I had to go to John Lewis, which I hate.
I hate the fact that it's cheaper and easier to drive miles along two motorways to High Wycombe than to go to the Kingston branch.
I don't like the shop and above all I can't stand the middle class 'ladies who lunch' there.
Anyway we had to go - I'd promised Robyn that I'd take her so that she could spend wedding present vouchers, which we were given, with great kindness.
I had to listen to half an hours worth of revolutionary songs before I left, to cope with it all.
It was all the nightmare I expected it to be!
Anyway, we eventually emerged....into an unexpected afternoon of bright sunshine and it seemed a shame to waste it.
We drove on, under the shadow of Bledlow Ridge where the Chiltern Hills come to an abrupt end at the flatlands of Oxfordshire.
Above us the Red Kites flew lazy circles over the fields.
We stopped at Chinnor and after looking around the charity shop we had coffee and cakes at The Village Community Centre and talked until they threw us out.
Then we drove back, driving directly into the setting sun as we skirted Bledlow Ridge above us.
Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home:helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com
I still can't upload pictures onto my computer - or download windows updates. It seems like Windows has declared war on me because I managed to download different software as an experiment.
Anyway, Robyn downloaded these pictures from last Wednesday and then emailed them to me so that I could use them.
We had another trip to the edge of The Chiltern Hills, stopping of at the little town of Wendover;
But we were headed for Coombe Hill - I guess a lifetime of being forced to live at the bottom of The Thames Valley has left me wanting to find the high ground.
We sat eating our sandwiches and disturbing everyone else by laughing a lot.
Robyn misheard me and thought there was a monument to a 'Bowl of Warts'.....I spent a while thinking out loud about the planning application meeting to discuss the project. Actually there is a monument to the many dead of The Boer War; an unjust and imperialist war.
More frighteningly, if you Google 'Bowl of Warts' you do actually get a result.
Spooky.
There are magnificent views - we ate lunch sitting in the shade of a tree, looking out over Ayelsbury and the plain beyond before we moved on;
There are some great views - I think this is 'Pulpit Hill' but I could be wrong;
Out beyond was Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire;
On the way up we passed a farm shop;
And as we sat at the top of Coombe Hill we watched plumes of dust as farmers harvested their wheat on a hot, sunny day;
Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com
We went out for the afternoon - to where The Chiltern Hills meet the outskirts of London.
We stopped off at a couple of places and I climbed my first flight of stairs since I broke my back. In a charity shop, of course!
This is historic Amersham, a rich old town. The building you can just make out in the middle of the high street is the old 'Corn Exchange' and Town hall. It was built on stilts to make it difficult for the rats to get at the corn.
At the side of The Old Corn exchange you can see the old town pump where the 'plumbing' is unfortunately made of lead;
You can't make it out but the lettering on the lead dates this at 1785!
The town is even older - there's a plaque commemorating 'The Domesday Book' which was a Norman inventory of the wealth of the country, completed in 1086;
And I'm always a sucker for some old cobblestones;
Remember when Robyn and me went down to The Thames at Staines a couple of weeks ago?
We were sitting there watching the Mayflies dancing in the spring sunshine.
This is a shop display of some fishermen's flies and they have made the right choice; Mayflies.
They look fairly realistic to me, at least some of them do;
This is the Kings Arms with genuine timber frames from medieval times. I think it's more a restaurant and a hotel than a coaching inn these days;
It's one of the wealthiest parts of the country, so the old shops are now all expensive boutiques.
We had planned to go to Denham but I got lost and then I meant to go to Chesham but got too tired so eventually we went home.
Who knows, we may make it back again!
Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com
