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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Eleanor Blair's LiveJournal:
- Cambridge-London(Kings Cross to Euston)-Manchester
- Cambridge-Ely-Manchester
- Cambridge-Birmingham-Manchester
- Cambridge-Peterborough-York-Manchester
- Cambridge-Ely-Peterborough-Leeds-Manches
ter - Cambridge-Peterborough-Grantham-Wakefiel
d-Huddersfield-Manchester - Cambridge-Nuneaton-Stafford-Manchester
- March 2010: Great Chesterford to Linton
- April 2010: Great Chesterford to Royston
- July 2010: Royston to Baldock
- March 2011: Linton to Stetchworth
- March 2012: Stetchworth to Kentford
- March 2012: Kentford to Thetford
- April 2012: Ivinghoe Beacon to Baldock
- Baked brownies (which were a bit underdone), and a chocolate cake (which was a bit overdone) from Mike's rather fab Green and Blacks cookbook.
- Walked from Ely to Waterbeach on a very windy day at the end of January.
- Spent a weekend away in Stamford where we walked round Burghley Park and along the river Welland and stayed in a lovely hotel.
- Walked two more sections of the Icknield Way, from Stetchworth to Kentford and then from Kentford to Thetford - with the help of some trains.
- Had mum and dad visit for St Patrick's Day and Mother's Day - with a visit to Wimpole Hall and an excellent lunch out at Alimentum.
- Had a bit of excitement with the neighbours blocked drains causing flooding in our garden due to the cruel nature of gravity.
- And generally just hung out - gardening, decluttering, playing computer games and so on.
- Saw an exhibition of handmade books, including ones made by Clare, at Shelford library
- Got a new washing machine
- Saw Justin Currie with Glenys at The Junction
- Whitby Goth Weekend, with David, Clare, Heather and Ian, including steam trains, and craft shopping
- Snowdonia for Mike's 30th: climbed Snowdon, explored around Betws y Coed, rode on the Ffestinog Railway
- Sonisphere festival - camping and metal and rain and friends
- Pat and Geoff's Ruby Wedding Anniversary
- My new niece Isobel was born, and we met her at a party for Dave and Liz before they headed off back to New Zealand
- Reached my target weight - and have mostly stayed there
- Had a new kitchen fitted
- Cath's hen do at York races
- Walked the West Highland Way
- Alistair and Cath's Wedding
- Halloween at John and Heather's new house in Bristol
- My birthday: a family trip to Culloden Tower in Richmond, and a weekend in London seeing We Will Rock You!
- Gained a new niece: Isobel Grace Reader, 7lbs 12 oz, 22:25 on 13th July - Steph and baby both now doing well and glad to be home with Dave and Ollie. Congrats to all the family.
- Had an entertaining night out in Doncaster for a family Ruby Wedding party - involving an Elvis impersonator. Definitely different! Congrats to Pat and Geoff.
- Ordered a new kitchen: and had the surveyor round this morning with some resulting changes to the plan. It should be arriving some time around Mum's birthday in August. Congrats to me and Mike :)
| Wednesday, May 30th, 2012 | |||||||||
| 9:33 pm | A family weekend away
Just back from a fantastic weekend with all the family in Northern Ireland. We were up horribly early on Friday morning, and flew over to Belfast International, before getting a bus into the city for our third breakfast and to meet up with Mum, Dad, Em and John (who'd flown into City and hired a car, which Emily kindly drove us around in all weekend). We couldn't get the keys to our home for the weekend until 4, so we drove up to Larne to visit Grandad. There we were later also joined by Steph, Dave, Oliver and Isobel - who'd come by ferry and had just spent a couple of days in Dublin. After a living-room-picnic lunch we headed down to Ballygally for a paddle on the beach. Then it was time to drive down to Whitehead, and head up through the golf course along a tiny private lane to our new home - a pair of lighthouse keepers cottages at Blackhead Lighthouse. We had a lovely evening in the sunshine, and chinese takeaway for tea. On Saturday we headed off on a long drive cross country - to the Giant's Causeway. I've never seen it with the sky so blue, and the sea even bluer. Absolutely stunning - and a treat for Mike and Dave who'd not been before. After lunch we headed over to Carrick-a-Rede to cross the rope bridge to the island (which we mostly agreed is a lot less scary these days) and enjoy the views some more. Here we spotted kittiwakes and guillemots and razorbills (though it took some peering at the photos later to be sure). Em drove us back via the Coast Road, including the bit up the Tor Head road which is pretty spectacular - rarely has 30 mph seemed so fast. Grandad joined us again for dinner, and to stay overnight. Sunday we had a quiet(ish) day - with a trip to Browns Bay in the morning where I was daft enough to brave the water for a swim (fun, but very cold). They dropped me and Mike in Whitehead on the way back to the shops, and we had a lovely walk along the bay and back up the cliff path to the lighthouse. Over the course of the afternoon we were joined by lots more of the family: both my dad's brothers and their wives (Alan, Sharon, Loudon and Averil), two of their children (Kim and David), one son-in-law (Oliver) and three grandchildren (Caolan, Oisin and Gemma). It was great to see everyone and just hang around in the garden in the sunshine - where I burnt my feet. Loudon, Averil and David stayed for dinner and we just about managed to squeeze 12 adults round the dining table! Mike and John went for an explore right round the cliff path and found the caves below the lighthouse. Everyone made a valiant effort and between us we polished off one of the six boxes of chocolates I won from the Chocolate Tasting Club last week. And on Monday there was just time for Mike to take me to see the caves before we waved Steph and Dave off to get the ferry. We packed everything back into the car and headed into Belfast for a Guinness and a sandwich in the Crown Liquor Saloon - possibly the only pub owned by the National Trust. And we finished off the weekend with a visit to the Titanic Museum on the Belfast Docks - which was great. It's a spectacular building, and they do a really good job of telling the story not just of a famous ship which sank but of the company and town which made her. Highlights of the photos are on Flickr: Ireland 2012, and the rest are gradually uploading to Facebook (Here we go: Facebook album). | ||||||||
| Friday, May 11th, 2012 | |||||||||
| 5:21 pm | How can I get to Manchester, let me count the ways As discussed on Facebook and irc already. Criteria: Cambridge to Manchester by train, arrive around 18:00 on Thursday 7th June. It turns out to be harder than you'd think. Via London is around 3.5 hours, and pretty simple, but very expensive at peak times (over £360!). Ely or Birmingham are the most straightforward, but take 4.5 hours. The other routes are all somewhere in between, but *how* many changes? And somehow I can't bring myself to go via York. I think I'm *probably* going to go for the London route, and just aim to arrive an hour earlier so as to avoid the peak fare, but it took quite a lot of looking to make sure! | ||||||||
| Monday, April 9th, 2012 | |||||||||
| 9:59 pm | The Icknield Way In March 2010 Mike and I went on a walk (as we often do) and picked a route from the local OS map from Great Chesterford to Linton - allowing us to get a train there, then visit Linton Zoo and get a bus home. We noticed on the walk that the route was waymarked as the Icknield Way, and decided to find out more. We bought ourselves a guide to the route from The Icknield Way Association's webpages, and over the last couple of years we've gradually been doing more sections, a day at a time, with the help of buses and trains - doing some sections West to East for convenience of transport. Finally this weekend we took a train to Cheddington in Buckinghamshire, and spent 3 days finishing it off. It may not have National Trail status, but it's still a great walk, and in places it's utterly lovely. I've finally put together our maps and photos on one site, so here they are: It's been a fantastic three days finishing it off - the only trouble now is working out where to walk next! | ||||||||
| Sunday, April 1st, 2012 | |||||||||
| 1:08 pm | January to March - how does it go so fast? So I don't seem to post here very often, do I? Generally Facebook gets the day-to-day comments and photos, and I post our walks on Everytrail. I do still read LJ though, and it's only fair to contribute a bit too! Anyway, so far this year we've: Next weekend for Easter we're planning another 3 day stretch to finish off the other end of the Icknield Way between Ivinghoe Beacon and Baldock. With some live music at our hotel on Saturday night, which should be fun. We're also looking forward to a weekend away for Mike's birthday (as yet unspecified) and a long weekend in Northern Ireland with all the family in late May. And the next recipe will be cheesecake - but not until after Easter. | ||||||||
| Saturday, March 3rd, 2012 | |||||||||
| 11:41 am | |||||||||
| Monday, January 2nd, 2012 | |||||||||
| 6:19 pm | Happy New Year Here's a quick (and incomplete) review of what Mike and I have been up to in 2011: And last but not least we spent Christmas in Lydney, where we enjoyed long walks with Evan and Gina, Just Dance and Zumba on the wii, plus we visited Chepstow Castle and had drinks/dinner with Phil, Rae and Adam. Then we headed up for New Year in Mirfield. Chinese for dinner with mum, dad and grandad on the 30th, a fantastic party on NYE for dad's 60th birthday with performances from Em Sargant and Serious Sam Barrett, plus a buffet and cake and fizz and dancing and an excellent quiz. Then open house at mum and dad's on New Year's Day itself (his actual birthday). Loads of lovely family and friends. This year we don't have many plans yet, other than a family visit to Ireland in May, but I'm sure there'll be lots of other lovely things going on too, and plenty to look back on this time next year! There are definitely friends we haven't seen in far too long, but hopefully we'll catch up soon. | ||||||||
| Saturday, December 10th, 2011 | |||||||||
| 12:32 pm | Guitar Hero games bundle for sale
See: photos, for more details. Gone. | ||||||||
| Friday, December 9th, 2011 | |||||||||
| 7:51 pm | Stuff and (Christmassy) things We had a lovely weekend away for my birthday, staying in Culloden Tower in Richmond - an 18th century folly converted into a holiday cottage by the Landmark Trust. Mum and Dad treated us to the weekend's stay, and very kindly let Mike and I have the double bedroom on the top floor: I don't think the 66 steps between it and the bathroom had anything to do with it. It was a fantastic place to stay, with stunning views from the rooftop across to Richmond Castle and down to the river. And to top it off Steph, Dave, Oliver and Isobel came to visit us on the Saturday, and we had a proper birthday tea, and then they stayed over nearby so we all visited the Castle together the next day before Em and John came over for lunch on Sunday. Couldn't ask for a nicer time. At some point I *will* upload the photos. Since it's now (some time) after my birthday it's permitted to start thinking about Christmas - so Mike and I have had the day off today to go and do our Christmas shopping. The plan was to hit the shops after a late breakfast, and then have a proper afternoon tea, and after much research we were planning to head to the Doubletree hotel. They don't do afternoon tea until after 3 though, and at 1:45 were were done with the shopping already, and decided we couldn't wait that long, so in the end we went to Patisserie Valerie - who don't do an afternoon tea, but do have a great club sandwich (for Mike), a rather tasty croque madame (for me) and a double chocolate gateaux and a mixed berry tart (shared). We'll just have to have our afternoon tea another time! Barring one parcel which is supposedly "out for delivery" right now, and one which is due to arrive tomorrow I think that's the shopping pretty much done though - hurray! Definitely looking forward to Christmas with Mike's family, and then New Year with mine celebrating my dad's 60th - it's going to be fun. | ||||||||
| Saturday, October 22nd, 2011 | |||||||||
| 5:52 pm | Of weddings and bikes Last weekend we went up to Harrogate for my cousin Alistair's wedding. They chose a lovely venue - Rudding Park Hotel - and we spoiled ourselves by staying the night before as well. We had a nice potter round Harrogate itself on Friday afternoon: a walk in the valley gardens and a visit to the pump room museum where we admired the old bikes amongst other things and tried the waters (which tasted like an over-salted egg mayonnaise sandwich!). We considered afternoon tea at Betty's but declined in favour of cocktails, before heading to the hotel. Our room turned out to have not only its own terrace but a sauna in the bathroom! We didn't try the sauna but did have a lovely bubble bath and coffee on the terrace in our dressing gowns, and a fantastic dinner in the hotel restaurant. The next day was lovely: we had time for lunch with mum, dad, Steph, Dave, Oliver and Isobel (who slept throughout) before everyone else started to arrive. The wedding was short (civil ones always are) but sweet - I loved their vows and both Cath and Alistair looked very happy indeed. It was lovely to see all the girls from the hen night again two - three of them looking very swish as bridesmaids. And they couldn't have asked for nicer weather - the sun shone and no-one needed jackets despite it being mid-October. (I had a fantastic new dress too, which I found in Debenhams the week before - I rarely spend anywhere near that much on a frock but I knew it was worth it as soon as I tried it on!) There was the usual wedding breakfast and speeches and cake cutting and dancing - but there were also pirate hats and small children hiding behind curtains - a fab time was had by all. I took Monday off work to catch up on housework and painting and to take my bike to the bike shop - I'd noticed a crack in the rim of the rear wheel earlier that week and had been riding it somewhat gingerly since then! They couldn't look at it right away but rang me back the next day to say if anything the front wheel was even worse, and I also needed a new set of cogs at the back and a new chain, plus a few odds and ends I was already expecting, and I'd be looking at at least £200-£230 to get it back on the road, if not more. So instead I decided it was time to invest in a new bike instead - the previous Ridgeback had done me a happy 5 years and over 8000 miles so I don't think it owed me much! (See when I bought it) After picking it out and giving them time to set it up and move all my accessories over from the old bike I picked her up yesterday and rode her home after work. I'm going to have to take her out for a proper spin tomorrow but she's looking good, and I'm very happy so far. I even spent half an hour cleaning the shed out this morning in order to get the even old spare bike I've been riding this week tucked back away at the back and make some room for her. Anyway, this wouldn't be a post of mine without some photos, so here's the wedding:
And here's the bikes:
In both cases click through for more. | ||||||||
| Sunday, October 9th, 2011 | |||||||||
| 5:42 pm | West Highland Way So, for our summer holiday this year we waited until late September, and set off for Scotland to walk the West Highland Way, 95 miles or so from Milngavie on the outskirts of Glasgow to Fort William. Here's the notes I took while we were away, along with running mileage total from the GPS and links to the photos which are over on Facebook (NB each photo links through to a gallery for each day, which should be publicly readable, even though they're on Facebook). Day 0 - Shelford to Milngavie ( Read more... ) Day 1 - Milngavie to Drymen (12.8 miles) ( Read more... )
Day 2 - Drymen to Rowardennan (26.7 miles) ( Read more... )
Day 3 - Rowardennan to Inverarnan (39.3 miles) ( Read more... )
Day 4 - Inverarnan to Tyndrum (50.8 miles) ( Read more... )
Day 5 - Tyndrum to Inveroran (59.9 miles) ( Read more... )
Day 6 - Inveroran to Kingshouse (69.2 miles) ( Read more... )
Day 7 - Kingshouse to Kinlochleven (78.7 miles) ( Read more... )
Day 9 - Kinlochleven to Fort William (93.6 miles) ( Read more... )
Fort William, the train home, and our route We did indeed decide that the weather wasn't good enough for tired legs to tackle Ben Nevis, and stayed in and watched the rugby on Saturday, before going for a potter around town. We had a wander along the loch side, a look at the fought, a nice cuppa and cake instead of lunch, a bit of shopping (a jumper and a lovely book of photos of the West Highland Way) and a quiet afternoon reading and writing postcards. Sunday morning we had time for more rugby before the train home too, which was full of more lovely views at first, and then nice and comfy on the long leg between Glasgow and Euston in first class. We even spoiled ourselves with a taxi ride the last leg home from Royston rather than a substitute bus.
And last but not least by a combination of hand drawing and GPS logs here's a map of our route: | ||||||||
| Saturday, September 3rd, 2011 | |||||||||
| 7:22 pm | Busy times Mike and I have been busy for the last few weeks, mostly in getting a new kitchen installed. It's now all finished and we *love* it.
Click through for before and during photos and more of the finished result Now it's all done though we can relax and prepare for our holiday later in September: walking the West Highland Way. So today we made the most of the lovely weather and went out for a walk, which at 16.6 miles turned out a bit further than we'd originally intended. We had a lovely time though. Walk to Barrington at EveryTrail Current Mood: knackered :) | ||||||||
| Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011 | |||||||||
| 9:57 am | A seasonal poll
Poll #1766673
Soft fruit and dialect
What do you call the fruit pictured above? What do you call the plant on which the fruit grows?
View Answers
Where are you from? If you answer "Something else" do feel free to expand in the comments. | ||||||||
| Monday, August 1st, 2011 | |||||||||
| 2:24 pm | Weight loss, and maintenance It's a long time since I've posted anything here about weight loss. And even longer since I'd updated my webpages about it. In fact they were last updated in 2006 and I'd long since removed the link to the weight loss pages from my front page. Last week however I finally reached a nominally healthy BMI of 24.8, and hence declared myself to have reached my target at Slimming World. So now I'm no longer planning to post anything about weight loss at all, but may make the occasional post about maintaining my weight. If you'd like to see the graph of my weight over time, see a couple of before and after photos and read a bit more about it I've now updated my webpages, and you can find the relevant page here: At some point I need to go back to the GP and get them to do all the health checks again, to make sure that the weight loss has my blood sugar and cholesterol under control now that I'm not longer taking medication. | ||||||||
| Wednesday, July 20th, 2011 | |||||||||
| 11:05 pm | Interesting Times Since Sonisphere I have: | ||||||||
| 11:01 pm | Sonisphere 2011 Here's my notes taken at Sonisphere: ( Thursday ) ( Friday ) ( Saturday ) ( Sunday ) To finish off here are the bands I saw but didn't mention in the notes above: ( bands ) And on Monday morning we packed up, said our farewells to those who were awake, and decided we'd rather walk to the station than wait for a coach. Maybe 3.5 or 4 miles in total with big packs in about an hour, letting us get a train home just after 9. Tired, sun-browned and slightly muddy in places but very happy. | ||||||||
| Wednesday, April 27th, 2011 | |||||||||
| 2:22 pm | Gratuitous icon post As well as my new icon taken on Snowdon I have another, from a photo taken by | ||||||||
| 2:21 pm | Happy Birthday Mike :) Mike turned 30 last week, and decided that what he wanted to do to celebrate was to go climb a mountain. So he booked us a few days staying in Betws y Coed and we headed off on Wednesday. After many trains on the way there we checked into the Royal Oak hotel, I changed into a summer frock, and we spent the evening gently pottering around the village and a little way along the river. Summer frocks are not ideal for climbing stiles :) On Thursday morning we breakfasted nice and early, collected our packed lunches and headed off for the Sherpa Bus to Pen y Pass, arriving just after 9am. It was a gorgeous morning, and the Pyg Track was incredibly busy at first, so it seemed almost like queueing to climb. It gradually thinned out though as we got a bit higher. Although it wasn't our planned route it turned out to be a great way to climb: with some slightly steep scrambling in places but nothing difficult, and some lovely views down over the lakes by the Miners' Path. Reaching the pass with the view over the other side was spectacular although hazy. Then there was just a short push to the top where I sang happy birthday :) By then there was a little cloud cover too, and it was cool enough for us to need our fleeces as we sat and ate our lunch. We headed back down along the Snowdon Ranger path to start with, before taking a left across some slightly boggy moorland and over the impressive slate tips to find our way to Rhyd Ddu for a swift drink in the pub and a bus back to Pen y Pass, just in time to catch the other bus back to Betws y Coed. Despite a long day we still went out for a little walk after dinner :)
Friday was another gorgeous day, and instead of taking it easy we headed out again and took the path up along the River Llugwy to Swallow Falls. This was a lovely route, partly by the river itself where we stopped and paddled our feet in the sunshine, and partly through the woods on the steep valley sides. The waterfall itself was pretty impressive, and our photos just didn't do it justice. Walking back we struck away from the river into the woodland, and found ourselves on a bit of ancient Roman road, which was rather fun. We had a bit of trouble with the last bit of route back into the village: coming up across the end of people's gardens, but eventually found our way home. It tipped it down rather spectacularly in the evening, which was fun to watch, and we had fish and chips for tea sitting in a bus shelter.
Saturday dawned cloudy, and with tired legs we decided to do something other than walking :) Instead we caught a train to Blaenau Ffestiniog and treated ourselves to a ride on the Ffestiniog Railway. This is a narrow-guage heritage railway running with steam trains and restored carriages, over the hills and out to Porthmadog harbour. Where we stopped for long enough to grab some sandwiches before hopping on the same train back again, and then another normal train home, finishing off our day with a 10 minute ride on the miniature railway in Betws y Coed. It was definitely a fun day out and made a nice change. Dr Who on the telly followed by a lovely dinner in the hotel restaurant finished the day nicely.
And Sunday was our trip home, with the clearest day yet and a lovely sunny bus ride back to Llandudno Junction (since there were no trains) and straightforward journey home. A lovely holiday in a lovely part of the world. | ||||||||
| Tuesday, April 12th, 2011 | |||||||||
| 10:11 pm | Sponsored slim I'm now nearly 6 weeks into a 12 week sponsored slim with Slimming World. Our class is raising money for the Scotsdales teenage cancer care trust, and so far in total I've lost a whopping 0.5 lbs. Obviously I hope to improve on that in the remaining 7 weigh ins, but I'm not very overweight any more and it's all got a bit slow and random of late. If anyone would actually like to sponsor me to do this thing I am doing anyway then drop me a line and we'll work something out. But really don't feel like you ought to! Current Mood: mildly embarrassed | ||||||||
| Saturday, April 9th, 2011 | |||||||||
| 7:41 pm | |||||||||
| Tuesday, March 29th, 2011 | |||||||||
| 11:09 pm | |||||||||
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