A Nice Walk

Yesterday, Janet and Phil drove to Banbury to go for a walk along the Oxford Canal.  The walk is ten miles long, but being as how they didn't arrive until 11AM, it downgraded the walk to about 4 or 5 miles.  As Janet writes this, she is reminded when she and our Aunt T went to Europe many, many moons ago.  Janet recalls reading in her little diary that nearly every day started out with them being late for something.

There was quite a fancy shopping mall alongside the canal.

 They really enjoyed the walk and ended up having lunch at The Olde Reine Deer.  While the food was ho-hum, the building was spectacular.

This is a part of the pub they call the Globe Room.  It is used for special functions.  This room was originally used often by Oliver Cromwell.

In the centre, Banbury Cross.

Janet tried in vain to get a photo without vehicles, but only one was the best she could do.

They walked for a while in the other direction on the canal.  There were many bridges that were numbered.  Superman Phil tried his hand at pulling the bridge down...no such luck.  They determined the bridges were built for the convenience of farmers moving from one field to another.  The canals were built in the 1800's for transportation of goods but after many years were no longer used.  They have since been rebuilt.

They spotted some cute British cows that were curious to see them, but backed up when Janet went to pet them.  Do people actually pet cows?  Janet's cow knowledge is slim to non existent.

Moving on to the cooking department, Janet has sunk to new lows!  Pre-made food!  Next step...selling the kitchen range and getting a bunson burner and a membership to M & M Foods!

M & S Indian Food Collection.  They said it was actually pretty good - another bad sign!

These are some cute guys that reside at their cottage.

Monty came in looking for some cookies.  Janet asked the owners for some for the next visit.

Cute, right?  There are some big horses as well.

This church has 12th century origins and is down the road from their cottage.

Mr. and Mrs. Chunky Eat Their Way Across The UK!

After the trauma of London, they decided to buckle down and do some good old fashioned eating!  In the pub they stayed at in Stoke Row; The Cherry Tree Inn,breakfast was included and had they had two dinners there.  The big allure to staying in Stoke was The Crooked Billet.  It is always Janet and Phil's first pit stop after disembarking at Heathrow.  Two lunches:

Sea Bream with Roasted Vegetables

Mussels in a Green Curry Sauce

Risotto fritters

 Silly Janet can't remember what this was except it had polenta on the bottom, pancetta on the top and some stuff in between and was incredible!

In this tiny village of about 100 persons, there was a major car accident on the teeny tiny road outside their pub.

Air ambulance coming for the lady that was driving the overturned car.  Apparently, she wasn't badly injured.

While staying in Stoke, they met the rellys, Joe and Julia.  Janet and Phil try to meet them every year.   Julia is as sweet as can be and Joe has a wicked sense of humour.   They had a great lunch.  Julia is our Grandpa Brian's cousin.

They gave Mr. Baby the cutest gift.  Janet can't wait to show it to him.

They moved onto their one week cottage rental near Bicester, which is somewhat close to Oxford.  The cottage is lovely and they have dogs and horses.

Very close to the cottage, they visitited Stowe Gardens, which were 250 acres, not counting the approximate 750 acres of parkland.  At one point in time, this family was the most wealthy in the UK, but as is many the case of grand mansions, they overspent and lost it all.  The house was not open the day Phil and Janet were there, so they will go back to see inside.  Get this- its now a private school!  Move over GNS and SMU!  It has been a school since 1923, but they were unable to manage the upkeep on their own.  The National Trust has been involved since the mid 1980's.  How much to send your most precious moment to this quality institute of education?  Boarding is approximate $60,000CAD a year.  This excludes the $1800 "acceptance fee" and who can even begin to imagine the host of other fees that are involved?  This compares to $43,500/year at Brentwood Bay.

Sir Richard Branson is an alumni.

Paris, City of Lights; London, City of Nasty Fights!

Guess where they are:

We did our best to look heartbroken, but somehow it came across as "whatever".  Don't forget to come back and get us!

   Professional tour guide and travel book author always advises travellers to leave London until the end of their trip when they aren't so exhausted.  Janet and Phil did NOT seek this advice, resulting in several conversations using the "f" word  To double ensure it was a full 3 days of miserable sight seeing Janet had not slept the night before they left and did not sleep on the plane at all.

They stayed at the Georgian House Hotel, near Victoria Station.  It was an excellent location and the room was nice.

Stairwell from the lobby up to their room.

Cute little lobby area.

One day it rained.  All.  Day.  Long.  They were drenched.  Phil decided this would be a good time to purchase his "bespoke" umbrella from James Smith and Sons, hand making brollys in the same location since  1830.

Janet wanted to purchase some "soda water", so asked our desk clerk where to go.  He said go left, left again and the convenient store is right behind us.  Turns out there was also a fabulous new restaurant there as well - 64 Degrees.  They have another location in Brighton that is being awarded a Michelin Star.  It was tapas kind of food and they said it was delicious.

Knodles with braised cabbage in sauce.  Delicious!

Thank you, Whole Foods!

Next day, it was brighter, so they walked around some shops.  They went to Hamley's, a huge toy store and bought Mr. Baby a super cute Christmas gift.   Hamley's has been around since 1760 and has a Royal Grant.  They have been in their current location since 1881.

 Bonus, they also went to Liberty.  Wow!

No Fabricland look here!

Two bundles that will each make a lap size quilt.  When Janet first started quilting, she vowed she would never buy fabric she didn't have a set plan for.  In addition to this, she has $250 worth of fabric waiting in PDX.  Whoops!

The last day was better, but Phil didn't give Janet the full bill of goods for their activities and she wore the wrong shoes.  They walked and walked and walked some more as Phil was determined to find the spot along the Thames from the movie "Love Actually" where Sam tells his step dad Daniel that he has fallen in love.  This nearly drove Janet to distraction!  Her feet are killing her and Phil has seen the movie about once while Janet has watched it every Christmas without fail!

Add to Janet's to do list:  shove the iPhone with the Good Pub app on up Phil's buttcrack! Why bother with the directions on the app if you don't believe them?

Phil posing on this painful walk.  Janet was too miserable to participate.

They walked past Buckingham Palace.

Two of Janet's quilts get to travel as well.  She is very slow hand sewing on the binding, so brought them with here to work on in the evening.  Here they are at The Cherry Tree Inn at Stoke Row, a small distance from Henley on Thames.

Janet promises to send more updates.  She is claiming lame wi-fi service where ever they have been so far.  Personally, I think it's way better when we doggies are in charge.

Take care, Janet.  Love ya!  Pashy and Noodles!

Pashy Goes On A Trip!

We got our drain fixed in only one day, so Janet was happy.  This is our problem solver!

The bill wasn't too bad in the end.  Cheap compared to what the new sidewalk is going to cost.!

I don't know why, but Noodles just loves to roll.  Usually she rolls on the grass, but two days she rolled in some dirt and Janet was very cross with her.

See Janet's finger on the left hand side!  Sheesh!  She says the only thing worse than photographing doggies is doggies and Mr. Baby together!

At this point in time, I have toys in every room in the house.  Several toys in every room of the house!  I'm smart enough to find the toy basket and select them.  I don't put them away as I think it's important to give Janet little jobs that boost her self esteem!  She seems to relish in it as does it often!

This one - garbage!  One of the little jobs I especially like to do for Janet is chew up balls into a million little pieces.  She so enjoys first sweeping the bits up and then onto the vacuum.  I love Janet and I think it's important that she is proud of her little skills and keeps them honed.

Noodles is sawing logs on the deck (FYI, Noodles saws logs about 95% of the day and 100% of the night!)  Janet draped her new baby size quilt over Noodles while she was hand sewing on the binding.

This fabric is called We Love Puppies.  Janet thinks it really cute and she has decided baby size quilts are where it's at - quick and easy!  How about a couple of doggie quilts for us, sister?

Then, guess what!  Big time activity!  Suitcases, coolers, doggie water bowls and all manner of things being packed up.  We are on a road trip!  It was pretty fun at first.  I don't like to jump into the back of cars, so I put my front paws on the back and expect someone to lift me in.  That's what I did the first time.  Second time, Phil had to lift my front paws and back paws on and after the third stop, I flat out refused to get in the car and slammed on the breaks!  That was a two man jobbie to get me in.

But, we arrived in Camp USA and Mike and Bronwyn were super excited to see us.  Nice.

Pashyminders on the move!  Noodles is lying down.

They stopped at Applebees Neighborhood Grill in Sequim for lunch as Janet was too hungry to go any further.  Check out this modern technology...you can order drinks and food from your table.  You can't pay for them......yet!

We could hear Bronwyn asking Janet to bring back a special London Starbucks cup - guess this means we are staying for a couple of weeks.  It will be fun!

We Are Sad Because Summer Is Over

Janet says summer is her very favourite season of all.  Patio lunches, walks to the beach and enjoying the morning sun while reading the newspaper.

This is how we know for sure that summer is donezo:

Doggies are allowed back on the beach.  Well, some doggies that is.  Apparently Janet doesn't like to vacuum sand off the floor so we never get to go.  I'm going to ask her if we can go on the beach on a day when she is cleaning.  All the doggies look like they are having so much fun!

Phil picked up two of Janet's quilts from Arlene, Longarm Quilt Lady and she loves them!  Now it's time to go solo in the squaring up department, which Janet has never  done on her own.  With the exception of one quilt, Karen assisted did the work.  It went so swimmingly that she's worried it's not correct.

Gulp!

Aren't they pretty?  Janet is pretty proud of herself!

Phil also brought home some Silver Rill Corn that Janet husked, blanched and froze for use in the winter.  She scraped the kernals off the cob and 20 corn yielded 9 bags.  Time to go back for more!

In the back, on the right hand side is one of six glasses that Phil stole was gifted from a pub when he went to the 1972 Munich Olympics.  Much to Janet's chagrin, he dragged them back from Lethbridge.  It's not that she minds the glasses - she just wants to get rid of all the treasures crap we have in our house!  In fact, she says she is renting a large bin to clean out the basement.

After Phil returned home from his super vacation, he whipped up a big batch of doggie food.  Janet doesn't like making the big blocks, so she used 2 pound chubs while Phil was away.

Hello, JackAss.  Could you put the TV remote down and get our dinner going?

Lately, Noodles has been coming for our morning walks, which means we don't go very far.  If Noodles stays home, Janet and I will go for an hour long walk.  If Noodles comes with us, it takes nearly an hour but as far as we get is the park at Willows Beach.

This is a bad photo (how many times do I bark out this phrase?), but in fairness to Janet, it never went back into the air.  It was kind of a kite, but kind of not.  I was super curious about and did my best to drag Janet over there, but turns out she is stronger than she looks.

I found a couple of good sticks and did my best to show Noodles my special "Stick Chewing Position", but she wasn't interested.

Oh oh!  The cookie jar is empty, but we are going to do our best to remove the crumbs on the bottom.

Go, Noodles, Go!

Janet went back to the ear specialist today and at this point in time it looks like she might be on the road to recovery.  She hopes!  Problem is MRSA - resistant bacteria that can't be cured by many antibiotics.  New pills coming up!  And, look at Noodles.  Our vet prescribed human Meloxicam which is fraction of the liquid pet jobbie.  It even comes with a pill cutter!