Claire and Julian visit for the Haddenham Steam Rally
A couple of old friends of mine from my Cubic days visited for the weekend. They arrived on Friday evening quite late after getting lost in and around Hemel Hempstead. Fortunately bellanna and I were cooking fajitas which don't take too much preparation before being served. I hadn't seen Claire and Julian (not LJ users yet, still!) for a couple of years and they hadn't visited here for an even longer period of time.
On Saturday we did very little outside the house except walk to the corner shop for a paper. Inside we watched Spirited Away on DVD - a very nicely animated Japanese film about a girl attempting to return her parents to their normal shape after they're turned into pigs for eating a big pile of food set out for ghosts and spirits. Before we could watch the film I corrected the manual to my DVD in the section about changing the region. Fortunately Eltax's website was correct. I really enjoyed the film, though the trailers for Hayao Miyazaki's other animated films did not inspire me.
Continuing the theme of doing nothing, we then watched X Factor and Tony Robinson's Worst Jobs in History on TV.
While the weather had been bright and sunny all Saturday I had been betting on Sunday being the best day to see the Haddenham Steam Rally after a tip off from my neighbour about the horses being shown. The forecast had been quite variable over the past week, but on Friday they said "Sunny" for the whole weekend. Except on Saturday night it lashed it down with strong winds and heavy rain (nothing like a hurricane I admit, but it kept us awake for longer than we anticipated).
On Sunday morning we awoke to another bright and sunny day, with barely a sign of the rain through the night. We arrived at the show ground for the Haddenham Steam Rally just after 10:30am, and we stayed until about 1:30pm. We saw lots of steam engines, vintage tractors, horses, bygones, crafts, vintage cars and vintage motor bikes.
I took many more photos of the Haddenham Steam Rally and I'll link to bellanna's and Claire's once their galleries are ready.
I did notice while watching the falconry display (wow! they swooped low over us!) how we were sitting in the sun for 45 minutes, but it was not until we returned home that we noticed how pink we were. Fortunately we hadn't caught the sun too bad. It does feel as if I have spent most of the sunny times of this year indoors with very little need for sun protection cream.
It was great to see Claire and Julian again and catchup. Now we just have to persuade one or both of them to join Livejournal so the distance is less of a problem!
On Saturday we did very little outside the house except walk to the corner shop for a paper. Inside we watched Spirited Away on DVD - a very nicely animated Japanese film about a girl attempting to return her parents to their normal shape after they're turned into pigs for eating a big pile of food set out for ghosts and spirits. Before we could watch the film I corrected the manual to my DVD in the section about changing the region. Fortunately Eltax's website was correct. I really enjoyed the film, though the trailers for Hayao Miyazaki's other animated films did not inspire me.
Continuing the theme of doing nothing, we then watched X Factor and Tony Robinson's Worst Jobs in History on TV.
While the weather had been bright and sunny all Saturday I had been betting on Sunday being the best day to see the Haddenham Steam Rally after a tip off from my neighbour about the horses being shown. The forecast had been quite variable over the past week, but on Friday they said "Sunny" for the whole weekend. Except on Saturday night it lashed it down with strong winds and heavy rain (nothing like a hurricane I admit, but it kept us awake for longer than we anticipated).
On Sunday morning we awoke to another bright and sunny day, with barely a sign of the rain through the night. We arrived at the show ground for the Haddenham Steam Rally just after 10:30am, and we stayed until about 1:30pm. We saw lots of steam engines, vintage tractors, horses, bygones, crafts, vintage cars and vintage motor bikes.
I took many more photos of the Haddenham Steam Rally and I'll link to bellanna's and Claire's once their galleries are ready.
I did notice while watching the falconry display (wow! they swooped low over us!) how we were sitting in the sun for 45 minutes, but it was not until we returned home that we noticed how pink we were. Fortunately we hadn't caught the sun too bad. It does feel as if I have spent most of the sunny times of this year indoors with very little need for sun protection cream.
It was great to see Claire and Julian again and catchup. Now we just have to persuade one or both of them to join Livejournal so the distance is less of a problem!