At Frensham Great Pond

We finally arrived at our destination - Frensham Great Pond. It is a large pond and takes 45 minutes to walk all the way around. It dates back to the 13th Century when it was owned by the Bishop of Winchester. The pond is now owned by the National Trust but  is free to everyone. The banks of the pond are sandy and offers a natural inland beach for visitors to enjoy.

By the time that we got there - having stopped at various points during the journey - the sun was getting quite low in the sky.

Our Daughter loves collecting bits and pieces on her travels.

Some more bits were collected.

Before they were dipped into the pond - what is it about children and water!

Our Daughter enjoying herself.

The swan stood (the water was shallow) and posed for this photo!

It was a lovely day out - despite the grotty old man, who I still can't believe was so horrid but there you go that's life!

On our way home we stopped to look at some cows in a field. This one looks as if it's wearing a short wig!

As does this one!

A bit further on and we saw that a hot air balloon had come down in a field. Every one seemed to be O.K. though.

Today Our Daughter had a friend round for tea after school. It has been a lovely sunny day and I've had to work! You can't have everything in life though can you. Most people are just grateful to have a job these days so I can't complain and by working it means I've got money to spend on a few treats - I've just booked to go and see "War Horse" by Michael Morpurgo at Drury Lane, London next month as the Other Half's birthday treat and we'll again be staying over - hip, hip hooray - I love London!

Until next time.

June.

The Day We Met "The C.O.M."

Well, we continued on our journey commenting what a small world it was and what a nice lady E's grandma was and how lovely the dogs were (see earlier post) when out of the corner of my eye I espied something which looked rather odd - this funny little car. There was no way of knowing how it had got there as there was no apparent driveway. It looked as if it had been plonked there by a big crane. I asked the Other Half to pull up so that I could take a photo of it and he duly stopped a short distance away and I walked up to  where I had seen the car.

As I was taking the photo - I was stood at the edge of the road when a car stopped and a cantankerous old man (C.O.M.) came out and approached me at a very quick pace from his Saab. He immediately walked into my space - literally less than 10 inches from my face and shouted at the top of his voice "What are you doing? You can't take photos of private property?" I tried to explain to him that I was interested in amateur photography but he wouldn't stop. He then tried to grab hold of my camera and when I said "Oh, no you don't" he told me that I had to delete it "Now - Immediately". By this stage I was getting scared and didn't know quite what to say. I thought that he was going to attack me - he was very angry. He was also tall about 5'11 or taller and I'm only 5'4".

I thought well I'm in a bit of a pickle here - I can't turn my back on him as God knows what he might do so I started to walk slowly backwards towards the car. The Other Half had luckily seen that this man was trouble and moved the car slowly towards me. He then got out and asked the man what his problem was. The man just carried on berating me but then turned to look at the Other Half and I saw my opportunity to get away and jumped into the car as did the Other Half. We left pretty hastily I can tell you!

The strange thing was from the man's aggressive chatter I don't think the car had anything to do with him!

I was pretty shaken when I got into the car - my heart was beating very fast.

He was definitely the vilest old man that I have come across - pompous, aggressive and arrogant. We christened him "The Cantankerous Old Man" or C.O.M. for short!

After the scare we pootled along trying to make light of the situation as Our Daughter had witnessed what had gone on. She kept saying "I thought he was going to hit you mum."

We found this beautiful horse in a field. We stopped the car and the horse as soon as he saw me and Our Daughter came trotting towards us and kept pushing my arm with his nose as he wanted me to carry on stroking him. It is often the way that animals behave better than humans!

A short distance away we came across this pony and he treated us to a sight of him rolling in the mud with his legs in the air!

The weather was kind - just a hint of a breeze and the scenery was beautiful.

We admired the view.

We got back in the car and headed towards Frensham. We stopped at St. Mary's Church. It was very peaceful - even though it's in a village setting. You could hear the geese from a nearby river. Suddenly life was good again - the monster in the Saab was almost forgotten about!

The inside of the Church was cool and tranquil. A place to contemplate and to decide that luckily there aren't many C.O.M.'s in the World!

There were many glorious stained glass windows - in rich colours of red, blue and gold.

I jokingly wished that the man with the sword would have been there to frighten the C.O.M. away.

A final look at the Churches interior before we made off to our final destination.

So it was "Goodbye" to St. Mary's Church and "Hello" to Frensham Great Pond.

More on that in a later post.

Until next time - If you see a C.O.M. in a Saab as they say on Crimewatch - Don't have nightmares!

June.

On Our Way to Frensham

We've had a busy weekend here. We got up early on Saturday morning as there was a lot of housework to do. My parents as you know had been down a couple of weeks ago and normally by now I would have washed and ironed duvet covers, pillows, etc ... As last weekend we spent a day helping Our Daughter practise for her ESB exam on Thursday of this week we had neglected some of the household chores!

Saturday morning saw us stripping off our bed, the spare bed and a single bed.

It's time for eiderdowns to be put away and to replace them with lovely vintage comfy quilts.

The photo above shows our bedroom. We live in a relatively new house - 15 years old but would love to live in an old house, especially Georgian or Victorian.

Our cat "Ruby" very quickly spotted the vintage blue comfy quilt in the spare room. She had a trip to the vets this week for her booster vaccination and the vet whilst giving her a yearly check up discovered that she has a heart murmur. A few blogs ago I mentioned that she suffers from fits so here's something else that she has - She's the loveliest little thing too - Purrs like a tractor and is constanly trying to give you sandpaper kisses - She seems to have a thing about hands and wrists and is forever trying to lick them which makes giving her a cuddle hard work!

I've just noticed as well that she's wearing the collar of a cat of ours who sadly died after being hit by a car called "Ollie" as she has somehow managed to loose her own, yet again! This seems to be a regular thing. None of our other cats seem to loose theirs. Although she's only four this must be her eighth or ninth collar. For the time being the name on her tag is "Ollie!" "Ollie" was a real character - he was so greedy. Ruby has always preferred to eat dry food and he would prefer wet food. They were the greatest of pals and used to do everything together. When there was food about "Ollie" would literally sit on the dry food bowl whilst eating the wet food and then when he had finished with the wet food he would start on the dry food!

He would leave poor Ruby a tiny amount as if to say "Well, I could have eaten it all but I thought of you and left you the last few bits!"

The Other Half bought me these lovely double daffodils. On Saturday afternoon hubby's mum came over. The weather was lovely. We sat in the garden enjoying a cup of tea and a chat. Our Daughter and Grandma then took the dog for a walk whilst I finished tidying up.

Grandma was here to babysit for the evening as we were going out with friends of ours for a meal in a local restaurant.

On Sunday morning we woke up early but lazed about reading the papers - all a bit bleak as we now seem to be involved in a situation with Libya with 112 cruise missiles having been fired. It's all a bit depressing really.

After lunch we decided that we did not want to stay indoors and thought that we would head out to Frensham Pond - a local beauty spot.

On the way we saw this lovely pusscat lazing on the wall in the sun and I asked the Other Half to pull over so that I could take a photo. When the cat saw me it ran into a barn and kept poking its head round the door as if it wanted to say "Hello" but didn't want to risk it. What a beautiful cat don't you think?

Look how clean the cat is - like a snow fluff ball.

As we were taking in the scenic route by using the back roads to get to Frensham we saw this cow munching away!

The roadsides were swathed in daffodils.

The grass looked a lush green colour - Spring is certainly here!

As we made our way along we saw a pick up in a field with some dogs in it. We stopped and spoke to the lady whose dogs they were and I asked would she mind if I took a photo of the dogs. Would you believe it the lady was the grandmother of a girl in Our Daughter's year and who had been to Our Daughter's Birthday Party! We discovered this when Our Daughter asked the lady the dogs names and when she said their names Our Daughter said "She must be E's grandma as her ESB talk was about her grandma's dogs and they have the same name!" The lady was E's grandma. What a small world!

I love to see working farm dogs. These ones were relaxing in the back of the pick up.

Aren't they lovely?

There we have it - part of our weekend. On a later posting I will show you some more of the Hampshire / Surrey countryside, the Church of St. Mary in Frensham and photos from our final destination which was Frensham Pond.

I hope that you all have a good week.

Until next time.

June.