Category Archives: families

Nov4

Australia

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Those of you who follow this blog will realise that I have a son, daughter in law and two little grandchildren in Melbourne Australia. Those of you who listen to the Nick Coffer show will know I got back from a visit on October 25th. It was so lovely to spend time with the children and so hard to leave but strangely nice to get home. The flights are just interminable but a good time for getting stuck into a good book. Weather in Melbourne in Spring is much like here in spring but warmer. This little fellow was in the Wildlife Sanctuary in Healesville. We had a great day there.

Off to Wales tomorrow to cook for a landscape photography course for a week. Good fun  and in a lovely part of the UK.

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Dec19

The Antipodes

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Just returned from a great trip half way around the world and back. We started in San Francisco where we attended my niece’s wedding in a lovely redwood forest.

Then we flew to Auckland where we spent a week walking on the Coromandel Peninsula with my brother. This was joyous on many counts: the scenery is just glorious – quite one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, the weather was perfect – warm and sunny but not too hot to walk, and we spent the time with my brother who lives in Turkey and who therefore we don’t see often.img_7598
From Auckland to Melbourne where we were met by No 1 son and our lovely 2 year old granddaughter. We then spent 3 weeks being hands on grandparents to her and her very newly hatched baby brother and we loved it! Grampy did lots of DIY and we both read lots of stories, even changing nappies was ok. Leaving them there and coming home to the dark foggy Uk was a great wrench.

We saw the World Dinghy championships in St Kilda and I saw penguins for the first time ever. That has been an ambition of mine for a long time. _mg_8213

 

Oct28

Australia

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Coming to the end of a fortnight with a gorgeous granddaughter in Melbourne. We started with a birthday party for her first birthday and today we are going to the beach at Neaumaris, along the coast a bit. The beach is wonderful, soft golden sand and blue sea. A far cry from autumn in Hertfordshire . Have managed to read  lot so watch this space for the next lot of book recommendations Fly home om Friday night via China arriving on Saturday afternoon – curious it took from Tuesday night to Thursday morning to get here. Such is the strange feeling of traveling somewhere with 11 hours time difference.

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