Sociable sunny days.

I went off to Edgware to the library and bank, and Mas went off and collected lots of shopping. Walking down Station Road I noticed that The Brothers restaurant has closed down again. We spent many hours in the Brothers when the original brothers owned this restaurant, years ago, drinking very good coffee or their excellent house wine and eating huge baked potatoes.

We were invited round to Poppy and Ben's for coffee, so we went about 4.30 in the afternoon and spent a long time talking, playing with Lila and drinking coffee and eating an apple crumble straight out of the oven. We reluctantly dragged ourselves away, and home, across the road.

Today we set off to St. Albans and got our groceries; this young King Charles Spaniel was attracting a lot of attention; especially from the children.



















Once we had our shopping we drove off to Tania and Robert's for lunch. Tania had made a delicious meal with very tender lamb, and a light dessert.

Tania wanted to show us the area in which she had been working, taking care of people around Great Gaddesdon in Hertfordshire. We drove first to Ivinghoe Beacon which is a prominent landmark in the Chiltern Hills, and site of an iron age fort, and as the name suggests has been used as a beacon.














While we were in the area we noticed an apple tree covered in apples and decided to gather some to make apple pies. We found the best method was to shake the apples out of the tree. We gathered them up, with a lot of banter from Robert, quickly and went back to the car. During this time Mas had been chatting to a group of people, and when we came back he was not there, and Tania immediately thought they had taken him away; he was looking at a huge white carving of a lion cut out of the side of one of the hills, and gliders drifting silently around another hill.

We drove around Ashridge, through the woods, and saw a deer walking through the trees. We also saw Asridge College which specialises in senior management courses now, but has a seven hundred year history and was rebuilt in the Gothic style by James Wyatt in the early 1800s. http://www.http//home.btconnect.com/peter-grainger/rhs/ashridgecollege.html

We drove through Great Gaddesdon, admiring some of the Tudor architecture, and also Little Gaddesdon; it felt really refreshing to see so much of the beautiful countryside with rolling hill. Eventually we returned to Tania and Robert's place for tea and ginger cake, and she gave me some of the herbs from her garden.

We drove home through golden evening sunshine, and had a warm welcome from Salty when we got back.