Borrowed Janet's car and went down to Dorset to visit an old friend from Balmain, Richard Norman, who was the Treasurer of the Balmain Association and Balmain Theater Group early in the 70's. Richard lives in a small run of four terraces in the countryside at Sturminster Newton. The houses were built two at a time by the farmer about 200 years ago. His back garden is quite deep and is highly developed with mainly English plants and he lives there with his two bor...

We took a two day break to Liverpool, Wednesday & Thursday, wondered why the accomodation was more expensive and very hard to find on Thursday and why the trains were close to booked out, well it was the Grand National weekend!!Arrived at the grand Lime Street Liverpool Station midday, outside is an appalling bad electronic billboard with motion picture ads and still posters stating "Liverpool the European City of Culture 2008"!!! Walking down from ...

Back in London and an opportunity to catch up with old friends. We went to see Richard(Harry) Lake and his wife Dee at their home at Bagshot. I have not seen Richard since College 44 years ago and he still looks the same maybe a little heavier. We were taken to a local pub for lunch which was very good ( pub rally quaint with head height about 5ft 6in! We had a drive around the area, past Ascot, Edward & Sophie's house, an Arab's house worth 80 million pounds...

We had 2 lovely days with friends, Judith and Roger at Thorpe Bay, next to Southend on Sea. We drove along the coast to Leigh-by-the-Sea, where Judith had spent her early life. We tasted some of the local delicacies - cockles and whelks! The cockles were OK but the whelkes... Mal liked them! We also walked around Southend, looked at the pier, the 18th century housing above the gardens and had a look at the Garrison development, a really good re-use of a huge are...

Saturday morning we set out towards Norwich by car with Janet at the helm. First stop was Colchester a busy small fairly ordinary city, one of the first areas occupied by the Romans and we vsited the Castle. Next on to Constable Country ie Dedham and Flatford, many sites where Constable painted, particularly the series on the river and tow path. National Trust own much of the sites, all good except a very poorly designed tea room on the River Stour. We had a B&am...