CATCHING UP

 Andy, Sarah - how are you?

I am just trying my hand at creating pdf's on my mobile phone (again). I find it difficult to get the formatting OK. Touching base, is that an Americanism? Lin & I do puzzles jointly every day. They are of US origin from newspaper/encyclopedias and you may know them - Tightrope;- Connections;- Revealed. Because they have those US origins we struggle sometimes. Two nations separated by a common language.

The 4 great grandchildren we took delivery of in 2023 are all developing. They have been visiting in the last couple of months and are a handful. 

Willow

Robert

Tommy

Ada

Travelling still remains a big part of our life, we are exhausting ourselves while we can. We've done some same old and some new travelling so far this year. Started with same old cruising, this time with P&O to visit Lin's German relatives in Hamburg. Didn't really go to plan. We were supposed to have 2 days in Hamburg, but on arrival the captain announced there was a port workers strike and we had only 1 day there. Quite a kerfuffle for both us & the family who were expecting us in the late afternoon. It didn't finish there, we have planned a nice Bruges visit on the Belgian railway. Nope, the train drivers were on strike.

Searching for poffertjes in Rotterdam

Next up was a Danube river cruise, we didn't notice any blue, but the highlight for us was the opera in the Viennese palace. We had never been to the opera, & it was quite an eye opener for us. I guess it would help if you understood the stories being portrayed.

Vienna

Munich, Soviet Coke

Now for something completely different (was that Monty Python?) We had never been on a coach trip...so off we went, 4 days on an historical tour of the D-Day beaches, 2 historians on the coach, picked us up from our home town, across on the channel ferries, P&O again, stayed in Caen and visited all the allied beaches and battlefields up until the break out towards Paris. So many stories. Normandy is a beautiful area.

Being an engineer, the machines are of interest, the above have different roles, the Sherman, tank destroyer, armoured car, AVRE bunker buster, German Tiger & the only tank that could regularly defeat the Tiger,  the Sherman Firefly - a Frankenstein development that replaced the standard gun with a British Quick Firing 17 pounder gun.

The exhaustion continued, golfing trip, fishing trip, family holiday to Turkey, atomic weapons research establishment, a road trip around the west country that took in the Roman centre of Britain, a town full of scarecrows and a Concorde supersonic airliner equipped with parachutes and a rope ladder.

Cirencester - map of Roman roads

Scarecrow town Lynmouth

Concorde rope ladder

Atomic weapon development Orfordness

Finally we have been on a steam train weekend at Eastbourne, a Victorian seaside town not far from London and  charity hare walk in Ipswich.

We really need a rest! Are we going to get it? Apparently not, we are child minding the great grand children for the next 2 weeks - crazy golf, VR games, beach & swimming looms. Happy days.

Love Linda & Wally