Local

It was the Farmers Market on the Quay today. It is very popular because the produce is local. Well what is local?.. a word we use all the time. By accident I found out last week because we took 2 Hungarian guests to Arlington Court and in the carriage museum it said..local is the distance you can travel in a day on horse back..

Back to the market Dan the fishmonger gave a cooking demonstration on how to fillet sea bass with the help of a volunteer from the audience and a squid too. Which would you choose? The fish was local.. how do you catch it on horseback?

Michael Jackson

I suspect this will become one of the where were you when you heard about it moments.

We were down stairs watching Sky News they said he had been taken to hospital then suddenly they mentioned TMV had posted he was dead. A quick flip to CNN however just said he had been hospitalised so confusion reigned for about 45 mins until the sad news was confirmed.

He and indeed the rest of his family had connections here in N Devon. Even today nobody is really sure whether it was he who turned up at Barnstaple that night.

Barbara saw him later on. She went to a meeting in Exeter and the the station was crowded as he had arrived I think with Yuri Geller to go to a match at Exeter City. The family not I think Michael stayed in Appledore last year although from the Channel 4 programme I don't believe it was a particularly happy time.

Many will have mixed feelings but his death is a great loss to the music world especially as he was coming to London later in the Summer.

A New Speaker

I find the "sour grapes" of the Conservative Party hard to understand. Politicians should have ambition otherwise they should not be in Parliament.

To say as some have, that they will challenge the post after the next election is premature. My guess is Cameron will get in with a slender overall majority, so displacing Mr Bercow which I assume would cause a by election, would not necessarily mean the Tories would win. Mr Bercow may have moved to the left but the Tories have moved to the right especially over Europe.

Being a fan of Europe including our own trips there , to France, Czech Republic, Germany and Poland , makes me despare of their anti Europe attitude. Why leave the centre right group for instance and cuddle up to far right wing MEPs from Eastern Europe who are probably nearer to UKIP and maybe BMP. The tories encouraged the eastern European countries to join the EU so the majority voting for such an organisation is probably the only way forward. UK citizens are discriminated against because the rest of Europe including non EU Norway and Switzerland have signed the Schengen accord meaning they have free movement while we have to buy an expensive passport and as happened in Poland have to queue up for ages to go through an old fashioned passport control at a side door to the airport building.

Yes some EU directives seem unnecessary but rather than leave there should be a review of how the Government and quangos have interpreted them.

A Walk on the Torrs

I took Barbara to play in a concert in Ilfracombe again last evening. I decided , as usual, to go for a walk on the Torrs coast path towards Lee Bay. I like this stretch of coast as straight ahead is Lundy and to the right the coastline of Wales. It was high tide too which added to the atmosphere.

You can't help and think of stuff when sitting down and taking in the view. Several seats on this path which winds up the cliff, are perfect thinking spots and I have memories of it going back to as a child my parents brought me on holiday here on the Atlantic Coast Express to stay with a great friend of my parents who was Pastor of Brookdale Church. That was over 50 years ago but as mentioned below we have just been celebrating our 40th anniversary so time waiteth for nobody. Other memories are of more recent walks when the Ensemble were playing in the Band Stand.

The family all came to be with us on Saturday and joined with other friends and collegues at our party,a Hog Roast, which we held at Abbotsham Village Hall. There was a large leg left over so that will re emerge some time soon.

Everyone has gone home now so its back to normal. I was worried how it would work out but everyone was appreciative which was reassuring.

40 Years On

It doesn't seem possible that it is 40 years on Sunday that Barbara and I were married at Duke St church in Richmond. We are having a party tomorrow for local family and friends

Nearly 40.....

No not my age, I wish it was, but the length of my marriage. Why the picture of Isfahan? Well Iran features a lot in this story and is very much in the news at the moment. This time last week many were confident that the time of Mr Ahmadinejad was coming to an end but the suspicious clamp down at the end of the election foretold what was to happen next. Now foreign media is confined to hotels and Mr Ahmadinejad has gone to Russia confident that his will is indestructible. Only the next few days will tell.

Well back to the 40th it's on Sunday and I was looking around to find what was happening 40 years ago. I used to collect old papers and I found them in the loft yesterday I then iched all night! Some were interesting like the Sunday Correspondent and The Sunday Planet? Does anybody remember them? I had a few less interesting reprints but suddenly one caught my eye.. 1969 first man on the moon ( or was it a shed in Nevada :) ) it was 21 July not June but not far off! Maybe it took them a month to get there.

In my job I sometimes have to prepare a chronology of a client's married life which has fallen on stoney ground so I wondered about mine-

July 1966 -Met at a youth club barbeque. In fact right at the start in Richmond ..fast work

Separated 4 days later when Barbara went to stay with her parents and work in Iran for 12 months.. no emails ( not that there are any at the moment ) but reams of good old air mail letters

July 1967 Met up in Paris

1968.. Can't rememember the date got engaged!

21 June 1969 Married in Richmond. Barbara by now was working for BOAC so got cheap air fares. So it was off to Canada and America for our honeymoon. It didn't stop us running out of money and taking a night bus ..yuk.. to save on hotel costs

July 1969 returned to our flat in Chichester Court Ewell. You didn't just rent it but got a share in the whole block. This came in handy because 3 years later.. Michaela Strachan went to a nursery at the end of the street.

July 1972 we moved to Barnstaple although I worked in Bideford. We immediately got involved in the church. We were expected, someone had said we were going. It was holiday club time and nearly 100 children turned up! It kept Barbara busy.

September 1972 we gave up our flat in Ewell but got a refund cheque which covered our deposit on our house in Bideford

I had taken Barbara away from her work and she was unemployed until

October 1972 when she got work at Pickfords Travel ..so cheap holidays were restored! We continued to go to the Barnstaple church which is still on going today

February 1975 Stephen was born and

October 1977 Helen arrived.

January 1988 we moved to our present home on the other side of town.

We have had an eventful life returning to Iran 3 times. 2 during our early marriage which included a trip to Israel . It was good then there were no barriers and we explored on our own just like we did a few weeks ago when we went to Poland. Our most recent trip to Iran was in 2004 when the picture was taken.

As a family we have been on numerous camping trips ( still ongoing) including Berlin in 1990.

This is not all of it by any means but hopefully with God's grace we will have well, maybe not another 40 years but let's see.

A Time To Reflect

We were able to go on a camping trip at the end of the Bank Holiday weekend and went to one of my favourite spots, Westermill in the heart of Exmoor where you can pitch your tent right next to the tumbing stream which is the young River Exe.

The weather was perfect and we walked over the farm which forms my favourite part of Exmoor and gazed into the blue sky and saw passing jet aircraft, 2 crossing quite close.

The pond behind the river gave great refections as did the lily pond at Knightshayes which we visited.

This made me think of all that has been happening here in recent days. Three Sundays ago our minister asked the congregation to tell him about an event in the week that had given great joy. I didn't say it, but thought, reaching page 9 in the Daily paper. The country has been obsessed with MP's expenses yes some were plainly wrong, but others have had I believe, a raw deal. MP's salaries were kept low for political expediency and an expenses scheme invented to compensate. Douglas Hogg who I expect will take his title when he retires as an MP ( I remember him as a junior barrister ) was ridiculed about his moat. I cannot see the difference between this though and clearing wisteria of the house wall. It it had been the gutters I don't suppose anything would have been said. Because however an issue of this has been made now the path has been set for a landslide of fringe single issue parties in the elections tomorrow.

That leads me to those elections and in particular the European one. I'm not sure how many votes we have, but as a quite enthusiastic Europe person I am disappointed at the negative attitude of the Conservatives. It is wrong in my mind to forsake the middle ground grouping and join the finge which presumably includes UKIP . This country had ratified the Lisbon treaty so I cannot see how that can be undone. President Obama is I beleive concerned that if the Conservatives take office they will pursue an isolationist foreign policy. I'm not sure what I will do tomorrow but I may tell afterwards.

I will try and post a series of relections from the weekend below.

Scrappage!!

One of the more useful things this Government has done in recent weeks is to introduce the car scrappage scheme. A lot has been said about this over recent weeks, about on higher priced cars the discount has been available anyway but for bottom end new cars it's an amazing saving.

For many years we have had "Dad's" Metro but it's getting old 1991 leaks and has rust across the roof. Barbara wanted a car with enough space for a push chair. The Aygo / Peugeot 107 was doubtful so it's going to be  another Skoda! A Fabia 1 . Skoda are offering £2500 off so the on the road price will be under £6000.

There is huge demand not only for this but also the Aygo models meaning  a 10 week waiting list and the dealer thinks the £300,000 budget the government had given this will be used up long before next March. The metro by the way is only worth £50 so it's a good deal.

I expect there will be rejoicing in the Czech Republic who are going to benefit for the Government's generosity!

Scary Tor

Barbara has a County walking qualification and is leading a school group on a Dartmoor trek on Wednesday. She was however, required to do a rekky first so Saturday afternoon was spent in the sunshine and hail showers trying to figure out the route.

All was well until we got near the spot where it was intended to break for lunch but where was Scary Tor. The only tor we saw was in the wrong direction but we went that way anyway but looking back I saw a pimple of rocks ..that must be Scary Tor! Later a path off to the left was ill defined so another hour wasted.

We had parked at Okehampton station but I sudenly rememberd they close the gates! 6pm I thought. We hurried on over a clearer defined section by the river and got back at 5.29 only to see that the gates closed at 5.30 1 minute to spare!!