I did mention in my previous post that this one about the Melton Mowbray forties weekend would contain somewhat fewer photographs than my last post but nonetheless for that the quality will still be maintained.
Angella and Steve relaxing in the shade.
With friends, Shirley and some of her girls.
Mary the wonderful vintage vocalist who performs under the name of Lady Kingsnorth, very amusing and well worth seeing if you get the chance.
Angella with Chelsea Pensioner Roy Palmer. I have posted before that this 86 year old man is doing a wing walk at Sywell Aerodrome on 4th July to raise money for the Chelsea Hospital, as I said previously he should have his head examined to which he agreed. You are not too late to donate to this very worthwhile cause by following this link http://www.justgiving.com/page/roy-palmer-3
As usual we are always too busy enjoying the event to remember to take photos but this was a little taster of a very friendly event and one we shall be back to next year.
I recently made two quick trips to Edinburgh, the first to view a Bentley Arnage R to replace my previous one which was written off two weeks earlier, the first of which was to view the car and then return home and the second to return to complete the purchase and to drive home.
Three of these journeys were made by the excellent services provided by Easy Jet aeroplane, not I hasten to add in an effort to enrage the more woke members of society who may think I should have walked or gone by horse and cart but because it was a damn sight cheaper and quicker than taking the train.
This may be quite a long post as I have a lot of gaps to fill in, starting with my early life and being adopted at the age of one year old and my disappointment to find I wasn’t the long lost son of the Marquis of Bath and was next in line to inherit the county of Berkshire, although I have to admit I had realised it might have been quite a long shot in all fairness. Some years ago I had become curious about my heritage and set about through diligent research to find I was not the son of a single mother but one who had a father too, although neither had married at this point in time, which would explain my adoption as attitudes to single unmarried mothers was completely different in 1951. As I said, I was not expecting to find a fathers name on my birth certificate, nor was I expecting for them to marry and have more children, but they did, which means I have altogether two sisters, three brothers and a half sister. Before I found all this out I was married to a girl whose parents were Irish who had asked if I was Irish due to my liking for the Guinness and the music and the craic, so with my birth mother from Dumfries and my birth father from Ferns County Wexford in Ireland it all began to make sense. I quite like the idea I could have dual nationality as I am Joseph Wells the 3rd and Michael Nolan the 2nd, although I don’t need a fake passport in another name as I have no intention to sneak into East Berlin like Harry Palmer nor do I wish to assassinate the French President in the style of the Day of the Jackal. Sadly, the other skill which I had inherited from my parents was the ability to chain smoke 100 full strength Marlboro cigarettes a day, which seemed to be a habit all the other offspring had acquired too. I have kept in touch with my sister who now lives in Fort William so had arranged to meet her during our time in Scotland.
In my next post I shall continue my life story with the chapter, Joe Wells The Wilderness Years!
Unusually, I have taken quite a lot of photos so the thought occurred to me to make this a photomontage but I don’t have the computer skills to do such a thing so you will be presented with the usual list of photos of our visit to the Royal Yacht Britannia and various shots of Edinburgh, except slightly longer than usual.
I quite like this photo of my sister and I as it makes me look six feet tall, whereas in actuality my sister is very short.
You start the tour of the Royal Yacht on the bridge and here I am sitting on the Admirals chair where I was thinking, ‘it can’t be that hard to drive this thing!’
You have to admit, that’s quite a nice bell.
The rum ration barrel, sadly ceased in July 1970.
The Queens bedroom which was surprisingly small.
Prince Phillips bedroom, somewhat more masculine than the Queens.
The only double bed anywhere on the ship which was specially requested by Prince Charles for himself and Lady Diana, you can draw your own conclusions of the significance of that.
I believe this was the officers mess.
One of the many clocks on board stopped at one minute past three, the last time the Queen was piped ashore.
The state banqueting dinning room, it must take quite some time for the port to reach this end of the table if it starts at the other end.
Rather a fabulous outfit for Riviera Swing I thought, once the property of Prince Philip.
Very English country house, very relaxing, I’d be at home there.
A Rolls-Royce which was kept on board to be used on arrival.
The rather stunningly clean engine room, judging by this the whole ship must have been awash with asbestos which was probably the reason a refit was too expensive.
We went sightseeing in Edinburgh where I bought a fabulous jacket once owned by a member of the famous 617 Dambuster Squadron but more of that later. This image is some sort of museum for Harry Potter, of which I know nothing so that concludes my comment on the place!
I’m fairly certain this is the backside of Edinburgh Castle but we didn’t have time to go up and have a look.
A monument to Polish troops from WW2 but I forget the significance of the bear but as you can tell it’s supposed to be good luck to rub his nose, which I of course did.
The monument in town to Greyfriars Bobby the famous dog who guarded his masters grave for fourteen years after he passed away. Once again the lucky rub.
When Bobby finally died the people of the town gave him his own grave too. That’s quite some story.
As you can see from my slightly unkempt hair it is quite windy in Edinburgh.
That concludes my travelogue of the city of Edinburgh, when I have some more time I will get around to our weekend at the Melton Mowbray forties weekend which will contain considerably fewer photographs.
We went to Kelham Hall in April and due to circumstances beyond my control I am finally uploading some photos which were taken when we were there by the rather splendid Anna Marriage from Marriage Photography.
I have to say Angella came out particularly well, however as my agent used to say to me, ‘you have a very good character face’ which sounds good but actually means quirky and although not handsome it did earn me a fairly decent living for some many years, so I can’t complain.
Here are a selection of some of them.
Angella looking pensive
In this one I seem to be heavily back lit as if anointed by some heavenly glow, one has to wonder was I being called for some higher purpose?
I think this may be my version of looking lovingly into Angella’s eyes, either that or I’m laughing at one of my own jokes, which is entirely possible.
I’m not sure why Angella is clinging to my jacket in this photo, it’s not like I’m going anywhere.
This is a rather good one of our friends Jan and Steve and that pretty much sums up our visit to Kelham Hall, good fun meeting friends, shopping and a quick dance with Alan and Julie.
Same note to self as usual; must try to remember to take some photos of our own when we go out!
Some of you may have read my previous post about our rescue cockapoo Barnie who within the first week of his arrival had bitten every one of us, however we are not the sort of people who give up that easily and today we may have passed another milestone. I certainly hope so!
He was five years old when he arrived and we noticed straight away that he preferred women to men and he was quite nervous and was a resource guarder which meant he would guard the chair in the kitchen and would reluctantly share it with the women but woe betide any man foolish enough to sit with him.
However, today he came in as I was at my desk and I gave him a little fuss when he placed his front paws on my legs and the attempted to get on the chair with me, somewhat surprised I reached down and helped him up and there he sat as happy as Larry.
I quickly called Angella in to take a photo, just in case this was a fluke, but I’m hopeful it is another step in the right direction. Well done Barnie.
I was on Facebook earlier and someone had posted a map of the UK shipping forecast areas, my favourites of which are North Utsire and South Utsire which caused me to think, there are two things on the wireless that are quintessentially British and somehow strangely comforting that all is well with the world no matter how bad things may seem, one is the shipping forecast and the other is Desert Island discs, neither of which should ever change their theme tunes.
I met this sprightly 86 year old Chelsea Pensioner at the Melton Mowbray forties weekend recently where he was appearing in an effort to raise money for the Royal Hospital Chelsea by doing a wing walk at Sywell Aerodrome on 4th July.
Having spoken to him for some time he seemed most astute and in command of his faculties when he mentioned why he was there and his forthcoming wing walk, whereupon I declared that he must need his head examined and rather him than me!
I did promise I would put his details on my page but I was a little busy recently, however you still have plenty of time to donate so please go to his fundraising page and support him.
At the end of March we went to Liverpool in my rather splendid Bentley Arnage which was just mellowing into a beautiful modern day classic car, having spent £24,000 on her in the last four years, she was in perfect condition.
We went to a celebration Art Deco Ball at what was once the Art Deco terminal building for Liverpool airport, which was a most appropriate venue and a fine time was had by all.
Unfortunately, our weekend was somewhat marred when on our homeward journey, this fellow who was driving a Ford Transit van suddenly pulled from the middle lane and stopped right in front of us for no reason.
It seems Ford Transit vans are quite substantially built nowadays, unless he was carrying three or four tons of concrete in the rear! Sadly, my rather lovely Arnage didn’t come off too well from this altercation with the inevitable result that the insurance company wrote it off.
At first I thought we had been involved in a crash for cash accident, where they pull out and stop causing a crash and then some time later claim for considerable whiplash injuries, but no, his explanation was that he had turned off the cruise control and the vehicle just stopped which I have to say sounded most implausible.
Some of you may have wondered why I titled this post ‘two cities’ when there was only mention of one, well fast forward to the week after we had arrived home and my search for another car was looking promising which entailed a flight to the other city of Edinburgh and to cut a long story short I purchased a newer Bentley Arnage R, hence the ‘two Bentley’s’ in the title. I’m hoping for many miles of trouble free motoring in this one.
I took our rather lovely rescue dog Barnie out for a walk today as usual and was verbally accosted excitedly by a man on a bicycle, rather along the lines of a murder mystery case of mistaken identity.
As we were waiting to cross the road to the heath a man rode by on his bicycle and we crossed behind him and once on the heath the dog likes an initial sprint of excitement so off we went, whilst in the background I could hear someone calling for use to stop.
On turning round I was surprised to see the chap on his bicycle riding towards us at some speed and coming to an abrupt halt a few feet away which caused the dog to bark and the man to utter the words, ‘oh, don’t.’
It was then that I realised my dog walking regalia included a T shirt selected at random from the top of the pile which was given to me by our daughter for a Christmas present as a joke and one which I had altered with the aid of a felt tipped pen to display a message more suited to my more petrolhead leanings.
I have to say I felt a little sorry for the man on the bicycle as he obviously thought he was about to meet a kindred spirit, however I have learned my lesson and shall never wear the T shirt in public again, for God forbid numerous residents of Hatfield Heath should make the same error of mistaken identity or I would be drummed out of the Bentley Drivers Club.
The following is part of a discussion from Facebook on the subject of self checkout tills in supermarkets, as you can see the first comment related to the difficulty of the self checkout machine to recognise the coupons and my suggestion in italics as to how to solve the problem.
Following my suggestion as to how to solve the problem, another participant interjected with the comment, ‘how do you know,’ which I can only assume related to my suggestion to use the till where they get things right. I may be getting the wrong end of the stick but I just had to ask, why would anyone question how I knew the manned till was a better option, one would have thought it was self explanatory.
Facebook conversation.
My issue is that the self check never gets the coupons right, and prices often don’t match the sale prices on the aisle. So I have to call an employee over anyway, which is a waste of my time and very frustrating.
You could always use the till where they get these things right!
How do you know.
At my advancing age I have had occasion to visit a supermarket on quite a number of times, generally with my wife and during these visits we take our coupons with us, the validity of which we have checked prior to our arrival at the checkout till where the assistant also checks them and enters them on our bill. The coupons are therefore checked twice before leaving the supermarket and should we wish to be particularly pedantic we can check our till receipt once again when we arrive home. This is just one of the advantages of using the manned checkout tills which some of us find most useful.
The Diary of a Country Bumpkin 