iguana | August 2014

I did so much in August it deserves two entries, but given that I'm almost two months behind with updates, one will do!

Calvinball, floating lanterns, and Camber Sands

Avebury

While still at Emily's mum's for a long weekend, we visited Pewsey Downs for a walk. It was raining intermittently so on a couple of occasions we ended up running back to the car having only got out a few minutes ago. We walked amongst cows, and saw a windswept tree.

I ran up a hill and then back down it again, and beat everyone else.

Afterwards we went to Avebury to see the stones there. I also bought a really nice recycled fibres picnic blanket from the National Trust shop there.

Calvinball

Emily also suggested we play Calvinball in the good weather we had that weekend. We found a bunch of sports equipment including a badminton racket, a polo mallet, and a tennis ball, and soon invented some rules regarding hitting the tennis ball over a line in order to steal a thing from the tree so that we could run back and attempt to something something something.

I've no idea who won but I suspect it was ~~Calvin~~Emily. It was good fun!

Swimming Cake

For Pete's birthday, as he is a keen swimmer, Emily made a swimming-pool-themed cake. We each created a fondant icing version of ourselves for the top:

My artistic skills let me down a little:

Fence

We finished the fence! Dad came over and helped us, which was much appreciated since it was a lot harder work than we expected it to be. The previous fenceposts, which had rotted and snapped, were still firmly embedded in the soil with a heck of a lot of concrete. After we'd dug each one out, sometimes using the colossal drill/chisel we had bought for drilling the concrete kitchen under-floor, we had to dig further down to remove a whole lot of discarded brick and rubble, presumably from when the houses were originally built, in order to get enough clean soil for the long met-posts.

After we had finished, we got a thank-you card from our next door neighbours to thank us for the new fence, which we thought was a lovely gesture.

Floating Lanterns

The 9th August was Nagasaki Day and so we went to the annual anniversary fire-lantern ceremony in Battersea Park that evening.

While some speakers were talking a set of prepared lanterns were being lit on the pagoda near the riverside. Each one was decorated by hand; we guessed perhaps by different children in a school.

Once the commemorative ceremony had finished, the audience were invited to take a lantern each to the waterfront. I took one - a green lantern with a drawing of a rocketship on one side - and joined a solemn parade of people to the edge of the park, where some ladders had been set up to take them down to the low-tide Thames.

Emily ended up on the beach and I was on the ladder helping to pass the lanterns along a relay to the shore. After all the lanterns were down, there was time for a quick couple of photos before climbing back up the ladder and dispersing.

Visit ALL the Met Line

Emily was offered a job in Rickmansworth and so we spent a weekend visiting every station on the Metropolitan line, and the National Rail stations, between Rickmansworth and Aylesbury. Wendover was particularly picturesque (with house prices to match) and we had a nice walk up the hillside there before moving along.

Ultimately though we decided that the Met line stations were mostly rather soulless commuter towns that somehow managed to command double the house prices of the area we're living in at the moment.

Pergola

With the good weather continuing we enjoyed a relaxed picnic at the Hamstead Heath pergola, where we rolled down the hillside and just about stopped before ending up in a flower bed.

Beans

Lots of beans!

I've grown broad beans before in my last house's front garden and was always pleased with the yield I got from them. This year we planted six runner bean plants around a teepee of bamboo, since Emily's mum had donated us some seedlings (beanlings?). They've just kept on growing and producing beans for well over a month now (they're still going as I write this) and we've had at least a dozen meals from them. Amazing!

Camber Sands

Last but not least, we went to Camber Sands, a beach on the south Kent coast, on one fine weekend day. Getting there was fun, with a couple of trains and a bus, but it was worth it as the sun was out and the sea was warm(ish).

We ate a picnic and then went for a paddle, which turned into a full swim and a kiss chase. After drying off, we walked along the length of the beach, got a pair of 99 ice creams, and enjoyed views of rain passing by in clusters from the shoreline.