Back home

A couple of weekends ago we headed over to Wiltshire to the village where Mark grew up.  I have fond memories of that part of the world.  I used to get the bus from the big town I lived in (Trowbridge - nothing more to be said about that place) which sent me down the winding country lanes for an hour to the village of Lavington.  We never went for romantic walks back then -  it was all about huddling on the couch watching hours of MTV2 and That 70s Show - so going back there recently Mark said he would show me the place he spent his summers cycling around.

Ha "that" picture you see in the US wedding blogs - where was my white dress?!

Over the weekend we saw lots of Mark's family, enjoyed a BBQ, met the cutest puppy and had a great Sunday (in another pub that Mark worked in).  Great family times!

22 weeks

In other news I'm selling my camera.  It's too bulky to carry around and drives me mad.  I prefer photography you can do quickly and I'm finding myself in positions where I don't want to get the SLR out as in some situations it's too loud and to get the right picture you really should fiddle around with the buttons and settings which is fine but I don't have time for that I may as well get a smaller camera which will provide the same pictures as I am getting with the SLR.

If anyone knows anyone wanting to get into photography it's a great little (I suppose there are even bigger SLR cameras out there) piece of equipment and I'm throwing in a zoom lens all here.

Around Uplyme

We took a wander around the apartment we were staying in after getting back from River Cottage.  There are some really nice houses there, check out that back garden in the first photo!  A couple of the cookery demonstrations we attended during the day were talking about wild garlic - and it is everywhere around Uplyme.  I suppose I had never had my eyes open to it before so it's probably everywhere.  We grabbed some for that nights dinner (if only every day could be like that!) and it was really nice, not too strong.  Around this walk I also spotted some bluebells.  I don't think I've seen any before so I was quite chuffed.  I'm realising recently that as a youngster I didn't really look around at the world we live in, I'm so naive!

Seabass and wild garlic - was so nice

Old Basing

After wandering around Odiham we got some lunch at a pub near to where we live in Old Basing.  It's one of those places that's been too close to where we live to bother about exploring.  It's often the way isn't it? I used to live near Bath and I can honestly say I've never set foot in the abbey, the pump rooms or a place called Sally Lunns.  I lived in Manchester and never took a trip out of there to explore the Lakes, Liverpool or Yorkshire?!

Anyway, I'm older and wiser now and Old Basing really isn't that much compared with those other places but it's got a historical house there and so we took a look around.

Odiham

Since we're moving a bit further west we thought we would go and explore some more of the east.  On Saturday we took a trip to the very quaint village of Odiham.  I like to go to these places and pretend I'm a local, shop in the deli go for a cream tea that kind of thing but I also like taking photos and so probably stick out like a sore thumb with my camera.