Foxton Locks

On Monday Luke and I went with some friends to Foxton Locks - ten locks on the Grand Union Canal, all in a row, making a kind of staircase. It takes forever (well, about an hour) for each boat to get through all the locks, not least because it's a one way system and there's only one passing bay! It's pretty much impossible to photograph, but you can have a look at their website to get a better idea: http://www.foxtonlocks.com/

Hartwell House

Last weekend was the tenth anniversary of when Mike and I met, so to celebrate we went away for one whole day together...without Luke! We saved all our birthday money (and then some) and went to Hartwell House, a historic hotel now owned by the National Trust but still run as a luxury hotel. It's only 45 minutes from where we live but it feels like another world...

Our room was amazing. We got upgraded as part of the deal for National Trust members. The room we had is called the 'Tapestry Room', for obvious reasons (look at the picture). It had enormous mullioned windows overlooking the main entrance to the house. And then on the other side of the room, what looks like a window in the second picture is actually a trompe de l'oeil painting. Apparently there was an original window there when the house was first built, when it was only one room wide. The painting depicts how the view would have appeared at that time.

The best part of the house, architecturally speaking, was the staircase. It is all carved with figures each a couple of feet high. And each individual balustrade is a different carved figure too.

It's all terribly civilized. You go down for dinner and sit in the lounge (or the library, or the morning room, all with lovely furniture, ornate carvings, oil paintings etc etc), and while you're having your pre-dinner drinks they bring you the dinner menu and you can choose what you want. You get (very politely) taken through to the dining room later. We decided to be really decadent and have the tasting menu for dinner - all six courses of it! Actually we thought there were more like nine courses, especially if you counted the nibbles at the start and the sweetmeats that came with the coffee at the end, but they paced it well and the courses were all very small so we didn't end up feeling too full. Here's the menu:

• asparagus with hollandaise sauce
• beef carpaccio with horseradish icecream - I was deeply sceptical of this but actually it was brilliant, smooth and tangy and a great complement to the beef
• scallops with bacon
• rhubarb sorbet with champagne - the sorbet was put in one of those old-fashioned cone-shaped champagne glasses and the champagned poured around it: superb
• duck confit
• pan fried goats cheese terrine with shallots, rhubarb and rocket salad - I was pretty sure I wouldn't like this, especially as I normally don't like goats cheese, but even this was great
• a selection (basically just a couple of bites) of four different deserts, a pannacotta and something peach flavoured neither of which we liked much, a hot chocolate pudding that was good, and a pistachio and vanilla icecream in marzipan which sounds bizarre but was fabulous

The next morning we took advantage of the opportunity to laze around and read the newspaper, without having a small boy demanding breakfast and someone to play with him at 7.30! Eventually we did have breakfast (also brilliant) and then went for a walk around the lake in the grounds before leaving. There were quite a few birds on the lake including this family of coots and four herons.

Now we'll just have to spend the next decade saving up so we can do it all over again!

Before going home (trying to squeeze every last minute out of our babysitting time) we went for a walk around the village of Ickford. The weather was utterly gorgeous - poor old Mum and Dad had wintry temperatures the whole time they were here and then four days later we get 25 degrees! The walk was nice - we saw foals and cygnets and fields of buttercups, and then followed it up with lunch at the local pub.

Waddesdon

Mum and Dad came back to see us for another week in May before heading back to New Zealand. This time we took them to Waddesdon Manor, which is a very grand house once owned by the Rothschilds.

We'd been a number of times before, but this time was special because there was a convention of Morgan car owners meeting in the grounds.

They are particularly beautiful sports cars...

...with some slightly bizarre exceptions like this three-wheeler.

Some of us like Waddesdon mainly for its excellent playground.

Bluebells

Early May is bluebell season. This year we went with some friends up to Coton Manor, which is about an hour north of where we live. It has a very pretty house (which you can't go into as it's still a private home) with a nice garden...

...and an absolutely stunning bluebell wood. The pictures don't really do it justice - it's just a sea of vivid colour.

Our intrepid reporter covered the story...

Later we went for a walk in our local woods, which also had nice bluebells...

...and the world's most confusing circular walk signpost:

Gran and Grandad

Luke's Gran and Grandad from New Zealand came to visit us in April for a week. It was the first time they'd been to Bow Brickhill so we showed them all the local sights - the school, the playground and the woods. We did a few touristy things - Bletchley Park (home of the World War 2 codebreakers), Stoke Bruerne (canal boats) and the Woburn Safari Park. The photo is of Gran and Grandad with Luke and Penguie, Luke's favourite toy.

Nightingales

In early May my friend Alison and I went to Fingringhoe nature reserve in Essex to hear the nightingales sing. They only sing for a few weeks each year, while they are establishing territories in the spring. I recorded a minute of birdsong on my phone - the quality's not great, but it gives you a pretty good idea of what they sound like. I was about ten metres away from the bird when I recorded this one. They're pretty hard to see, being small and brown and fond of hiding in the middle of dense bushes, (so the picture on this movie is not, sadly, mine), but very very loud!

There are two birds in this second recording, plus the occasional BANG from the crop scarers in the fields nearby!