GETTING UNDER WAY.

Today is the official start of the Tall Ships event and the weather hasn’t really come to the party. Showers are forecast to dampen the fun – but hopefully just a little. It's warm though - about 19C so the showers aren't any bother.

The past few days have gone fast. Pat & I visited the cemetery on Tuesday. The plot where Dave’s family ashes have been spread is in relatively good condition considering it was completely flooded over the winter months. We’ll be sorting out things from him next week. The walk there was lovely. We always get the impression that all of Englad is terraced houses, no parks, no gardens, but it's not like that at all. The photos below were taken on the way to the cemetary - we walked through this park. It's one of many here. The street photo is just to show what the newer (developed after the fifties) are like.

Wednesday was a busy day. It’s summer school holidays here. After dropping off Pat’s 7 year old granddaughter Bronte at Gym club, we took the bus over to a nearby town - Stockton. They have a market along the main street and we spent a couple of hours looking for bargains. New Zealand markets don’t compare. The photo I showed yesterday also didn’t do justice to the flower displays so this is just one box –

Large displays like this aren’t only in Stockton. There are similar boxes on some of the large roundabouts and streets of Hartlepool as well. It will be interesting to see if they’re also in other towns. It’s strange calling these areas ‘towns’. Both actually have a larger population than Palmerston North. The only difference between a town and a city here is that a city has a cathedral.

We returned to Hartlepool to pick up Bronte and then attended an 80th birthday party celebration for Jean’s (Dave’s recently deceased sister) husband Eddie. From there we all headed down to Seaton Carew village where we watched the opening of the Tall Ships celebration – the lighting of a beacon for the incoming ships. This took place at 9pm (just as it was getting dark) and they filled in the time with singers and Morris Dancers with incendiary torches. There was a really strong smell of petrol in the air making the actual lighting of the flame more exciting.

Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed the evening. There were freight ships going in and out in the background to add to the entertainment. Young Bronte was engrossed with what was going on around her. She even handled the fact that we were to walk back along the sea wall to Hartlepool – some 6 miles – to avoid waiting approx. 1 hour for a bus. It was a really lovely evening with the view of the lights along the coast making it even better.

On Thursday, as well as getting Bronte to & from gym, Pat was looking after her other granddaughter, Rimini for the day. She’s a lively 4 year old who spent the day keeping us both on our toes. We walked over to the Marina area to check out the preparations for the ship arrivals. The race has been affected by low winds delaying most arrivals. One of the large ships was in and a couple smaller ones. The only problem was they were still getting things ready for the start of the festivities today, so we couldn’t get near the large one. Plenty of time though, most of these are due in later today, so we’re heading over to see the fun from here.

Well, that’s all for this edition folks - no more for a few days as the library isn’t open on the weekend. I hope everyone is keeping healthy, warm and dry. Take care……