Right, where was I? Oh yes...
Thursday we bussed into town for the HighPoint ascent. It was marvellous, as much for the relief from ground level heat as the fabulous view. Five hundred feet above Briz: we could see over to Wales (just, it was hazy). Afterwards Kai played in the park (and Carol photographed him sitting on a pig), picked up another couple of Jacqueline Wilson books for him and Neuromancer for me (though when I'll get time to read it is anyone's guess!) Home for dinner, watched the end of YnM, and then the first three eps of Carol's Ultimate Force DVD - which I really enjoyed. I've never been a fan of Ross Kemp, but he was rather good in this. Going to keep an eye out for the second and third series.
Friday we took Kai and his school-friend Emily to Westonbirt for the Festival of Gardens. It was fantastic - not quite as blisteringly hot as last time.
The gardens were very interesting this year. I'm certain none of the designers actually collaborate, but there seemed to be two distinct themes - walls, and holes in the ground (for want of a better term). Whether they were all a reaction to the world situation I couldn't say, but that was the impression I got... well-tended, peaceful, tasteful gardens within defensive walls (and that includes the ones in the holes in the ground). Little oases shutting out the world. Beautiful, all of them (well, with one exception): it was difficult choosing, but I think my favourite was The Underworld Garden, based on Celtic mythology, with a spiral triskele path to the entrance, made of pieces of stone that were hard on the feet - metaphor for life, perhaps? The entrance looked like an arch as you approached, but was actually two overlapping half arches. The path then led into a shady grove, with big 'statues' (the shapes formed out of wire mesh then filled with more stone pieces) - a serpent, Viking helmet, and Cernunnos mask...
The Loom garden was lovely - a rippling pool about an inch deep to paddle in, in a hollow whose sides were planted in reds and silvers, with sparkling strands of glass squares hanging from the two wooden arches over the garden. And there was another I really liked - I forget the name - that was arched over with tape that hummed in the wind: sand, minimalist metal seagulls and coastal plants, with pale screens which fluttered gently, that recalled the sea.
Arriving back, we tackled my computer... SpyBot, Ad-aware and spyblaster installed and run (found 42 nasties on my hard drive, not active, but lurking, including Xupiter and Coolweb). All clear now, which is very satisfying, but something strange has happened to IE... if I click on a link that opens in a new browser window on our index page, IE crashes and my CPU usage shoots up to 100%. Yet it doesn't happen if I click on the same in the Zone: only from the index page. Nothing I do seems to fix it, and I can't re-install IE because it came preinstalled and I can't uninstall it... For the moment we've switched to Opera for most i-net work. I'm hoping it might be a temporary glitch (Carol suggested that using the various new bits of software has stopped Butch visiting some of his favourite sites and this is his retaliation. That's quite possible...)
Saturday it was off to Clevedon, where Kai clambered and scrambled over the rocks while I sat and made notes about the major Haadri [ping] that happened in the car on the way there (more later on the Haadri blog) and talked kidnapping with Carol...
Today we rested, watched Critters and Critters 2, and Maris the Wondergirl (an old Rumik World anime that we both enjoyed - it's funny!) And Carol took more digital pix, the best of which I'll post here later (the cable connecting the camera to the computer unfortunately got left behind in Winchester). She left for home at 5.30 ([sigh] it's never long enough...) Thank you, GoodTwin - we've had a fabulous holiday!
It's going to take me a few days to get back on track - and now I know where I'm going with Haadri I need to get some work done there (so please don't expect a Zone update right away!) There are a few things I must do tonight though - including answering a few emails...
Labels: Clevedon, holidays
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Joules *Dances with Haddock* Taylor
pontificated this at 6:25 pm
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