Open Writing

I have remembered that in May 2002 we stayed in the Bay of Rosas (as reported last time) in Catalonia on the Costa Brava. We were taken on trips to other places along that coast. One was to Girona, a lovely old town on the river Origar, to see the cathedral and to Figueres where we went round the Dali museum and to Cadaques on the sea, where there was a statue to Dali on the harbour front.

Another picturesque old harbour was at Colliore. An area which was truly an artist’s paradise, and reputed to have had Winston Churchill as a one-time visitor, who also painted the pretty view down to the harbour.

We went on to spend our second week in Barcelona, staying in a splendid hotel at the rear of the city. One day we took the bus into Barcelona and up into the hills where we went round the Juan Miro Gallery.

In July we went with the U3A to Hampshire to visit the Sandham WW1 Memorial Chapel decorated with wall paintings by Stanley Spencer.

Later in the year we went away to Thoresby Hall, in Nottinghamshire, on the edge of Sherwood Forest, with grounds improved by Capability Brown and Humphrey Repton. Thoresby had a vast and lofty hall decorated with stag’s heads, a tapestry over a huge fireplace and a suit of armour at the foot of the grand staircase. Music was played on a grand piano in the hall every evening before dinner.

While there we went over to look round the marvellous stone carvings in Southwell Minster, which had started as a Saxon manor, given over to the Archbishop of York in 1300’s, and the church now there began to be built in 1308.

On the way to Thoresby we had stayed overnight at the Three Swans in Market Harborough, where we had once previously stayed for a few pre-Christmas days with the U3A, and I remembered the freezing foggy day when we had gone out to have a look at the Foxton locks on the Grand Union Canal system. The main party had gone along the road, but as we were way behind the rest as usual we took the sign-posted Nature Trail route, as looking over the bridge the towpath looked deserted. So we took the rougher, lovelier way and avoided the traffic.

But.....pretty soon I was sliding slowly down the mud on the steep grassy bank and Les grabbed me to pull me upright again. I had muddy knees, but there was no other sign of my mishap when we rejoined the others.

It was a really cold day with a bitter wind, and after walking down to the dark and closed Tea Room and the locked pub on the canal basin where only the ducks waited for scraps from the narrowboats moored there, we were glad to get back to the car park and drove back to the Three Swans hotel where a splendidly long lunch waited.

And I remembered that in the evening we went along the High Street to the Parish church in the Town and joined in the Chris-Cringle service where the congregation were given oranges stuck with fairy candles which were lit and held during the singing of carols. All the children then went up to the altar to receive a Christmas blessing. It was a lovely occasion.

On the last evening we were entertained by some of the other U3A members, and one lady dressed up to recite the old-time ‘She Was Poor But She Was Honest’ ending with the verse:-

“ It’s the same the whole world over, It’s the poor as gets the blame; It’s the rich what gets the pleasure, Ain’t it all a bloomin’ shame.”

During 2003 I continued to be checked regularly for an over-active thyroid in a clinic at Northwick Park hospital, and I was still taking Betahistine pills and Cinnarizine to control the giddiness of my Meniere’s condition.

On March 27th 2003 my daughter Cathy and her partner Graham Nash went to Sri Lanka and were married on the beach and afterwards had a ride on an elephant.

In April Les and I holidayed in Madeira, where there was the Annual Flower festival and carnival, with floats literally covered in blooms. The streets along the front near the quayside where the tourist liners came in, had beautiful patterns all done in flowers, covering the central strip of the pavements.
In October 2003 we holidayed in Majorca, staying at Hotel Delphines in Santa Ponsa opposite a park on a wide sandy bay, which our room overlooked. During our stay we went to Palma, and to Vall da Mossa where Chopin had lived with George Sands in a mansion high above the sea, and to an evening’s dinner and entertainment at Soller, where they were roasting piglets and chickens on rows of spits outside as we arrived in the dark. Here we saw coloured and musical fountains playing in the gardens. The show was very colourful with beautifully dressed dancers, and acrobats.

On other days out we went to Lluc monastery and gardens and to see the folk dancers at La Grayia village.

One coach ride took us through steep hillsides on a twisting road that looked like a snake from high up: it brought us to another seaside resort at Sa Calobra Bay. Here we indulged in glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice followed up by ice creams.