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  • A Visit To Canon’s Ashby & A Picnic.

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    Anny
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    Canon’s Ashby House in very rural Northamptonshire, is one of those half forgotten manor houses that pepper England, and when you find them, you feel as if you’ve been let into a precious secret. I probably shouldn’t even write about Canon’s Ashby in case it gets big headed and loses it’s charm; but I will,…

  • Taxi Anyone?

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    Anny
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    Well I don’t know about you, but one week into the school holidays and I’m pooped. What have I been doing to get so tired? I’ve been running a round the clock taxi service. Being terrible planners – we still don’t know when or where we’re going on holiday – the girls are making up…

  • A Dodford Diversion, or Happy 111th Birthday Nan

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    Anny
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    I had a day out yesterday. It would have been my Nan’s 111th. birthday, so I went to Dodford Church, between Bromsgrove and Kidderminster in Worcestershire, where Nan, her husband, her sister and brother-in-law, her mother and father, my mum and dad and countless other close relatives are all buried or scattered. It might sound…

  • Get ready for bucket and spade time…

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    Anny
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    You know what time of year it is, when every weekend there’s a school fete, a church fete or a village fete, and when you need a rain coat over your t-shirt…yes you’re right, it’s very nearly bucket and spade time, or as you might know it, ‘The Summer Holidays’ I love this time of…

  • Teachers strike the right message.

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    Anny
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    What the teacher is, is more important than what he teaches.  ~Karl Menninger Tomorrow our daughters’ school is closed to the children because a sizeable proportion of the staff are striking. The reaction of most of the mothers I know, is one of disdain or frustration at being left with a whole day’s child care to organise…

  • Le Touquet? Yes Please!

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    Anny
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    We are lucky enough to have a friend who flies his own light aircraft. As a result and because he likes taking people out on jaunts, we’ve had some lovely days out over the last few years, flying to places around the UK. This weekend however, was something of a departure (forgive the expression). Our…

  • These are not just strawberries, these are M&S strawberries…

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    Anny
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    Just back from a superb girlie weekend in Norfolk. We abandoned our long-suffering partners so they could do some father daughter bonding – well it was Fathers’ Day on Sunday wasn’t it – and headed off to stay with our old friend, who now lives in an idyllic farmhouse in the darkest depths of Norfolk. As the…

  • Ringing the Raunds…

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    Anny
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    At the weekend we went on a ringing outing with friends (have I mentioned that I’m a bell-ringer?) – don’t let it put you off, we’re mostly nice people. Anyway, we went off to Northamptonshire and explored a few of that county’s lovely village churches. The last tower in the day, was Raunds. Ever since…

  • What Do You Buy A Man For His Birthday?

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    Anny
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    There’s no way to avoid the horrible truth, in two weeks, it will be the husband’s birthday. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m no killjoy, I love birthdays – even some of my own – it’s not even that I’m bothered by him getting older, in fact I’d have to say he’s doing rather well…

  • Getting down to business

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    Anny
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    I procrastinate – I put things off, I bury my head in the sand – well, not literally you understand, that would be pretty terminal – but I am definitely one of life’s putter offers. I still get a horrid feeling on Sunday afternoons, forty-one years after leaving full-time education, because this is the time in the…

  • Carving out time.

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    Anny
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    Are you like me? Do you start some days with good hopes and expectations of the things you want to do and what you want to achieve, only to find that as the day goes on, ‘things’ happen to get in the way and before you know it, the creative, productive part of your day…

  • Coffee and Cake at Powis Castle

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    Anny
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    Have you ever walked around a ruined castle and wondered what it would have been like if it hadn’t been ruined? Well, for me, Powis Castle, just outside Welshpool in the English/Welsh Marches feels like an ancient castle that survived intact. We stopped off there at the weekend on our way home from Snowdon. Powis Castle sits…