Herefordshire Week 209: Tuesday 26 December 2023 – Monday 01 January 2024

Boxing Day in WTM. Relaxing in WIV. Relaxing at 40A. Colds. A lot of reading.

Hello 2024. Hello snowdrops.

Snowdrops
Snowdrops

My weeknotes week kicked off with Boxing Day. We spent the morning with J&J doing a few odd jobs then drove over to Wivenhoe. Huge relief as the car pulled out of the drive free from any broken suspension related clunks and clanks.

A relaxing few days back in WIV spent strolling around the village / town, snoozing, and a surprising amount of successful reading of books rather than screens: Curtis Sittenfeld’s page turner Romantic Comedy and Benjamin Myers’ lovely The Perfect Golden Circle. The River Colne proved relatively sheltered from Storm Gerritt’s high winds on Wednesday and Thursday.

Wivenhoe Wander
Wivenhoe Wander

We dined on Christmas dinner leftovers (Phil), Co-op food bargains and Indian takeaway from Saffron with the Moorgate M&S cheese-related treats saved until my cold had fully cleared and my taste returned.

Boxing Day Bakery Bargains
Boxing Day Bakery Bargains

Tom came over on Thursday evening and we treated ourselves to a pint in the pub before dinner.

Beers at The Black Buoy
Beers at The Black Buoy

Drove back to Forty Acres on Friday. Easy drive, despite slow traffic on the M42 plus heavy rain there and on the M5. Stopped at Rugby Moto for a Pret lunch, loo and a leg stretch, and again in Ross for a Morrisons shop, including a pack of raspberry jam doughnuts to go with our “we’re home” cup of tea. It took just over 6 hours, including those two stops. So, say, 5 hours without them. Not Bad.

Settled on the sofa and read Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These in one go. RG’s recommendation, and quite the right time of the year to read it. I’m struggling to come up with how best to describe it. “Wonderful” doesn’t sit right; “great” is too banal.

Gs&Ts with Christmas cashews in the lounge, then cheese, biscuits and bits for tea watching the final few episodes of Only Murders in the Building.

Slow start to Saturday. Watched a fox (the fox?) jog across Kiln Field. Pottered around the grounds and picked up some of the wind blown twigs and small branches, and rebaited the rat trap. Phil made a couple of loaves then we strolled down to Hill Farm sheep, stopping for a nice chat with CG en route.

Rain arrived on Saturday afternoon and settled in for the rest of the weekend.  We booked a week in hopefully sunny Walton on the Naze, staying in a Beam bespoke 1 bedroom caravan back in our old stomping ground, Naze Marine Caravan Park. Read on the sofa until it was time to drive into Hereford via Dunelm (textile take back = big tick) and Lidl (no post Christmas bargains = boo) then on to dad and Jean’s for dinner – a lovely evening. Phil stayed at home with what turned out to be a worse version of The Cold I’d had over Christmas.

Sunday – NYE – saw Phil spend the day in bed as The Cold did its worst. I spent the day reading, finishing All The Light We Cannot See, and then watching telly programmes Phil didn’t want to see. So it was a very quiet New Year here at Forty Acres.

Phil was on the mend by Monday morning, and the skies were blue, so we headed out to walk the Bacton Square, which we haven’t done for a long time. Back home, fry up for lunch and an afternoon of reading and weeknotes.

Bacton Square scenes: Caspar
Bacton Square scenes: Caspar

The first snowdrops are out, in the usual sheltered spot. Daffodils are up – but not out – in their usual spots along the old garden railway line. Green shoots crunch underfoot beneath the bird feeders.

Phil replenished the bird feeders Friday evening and by Saturday morning the various tits, sparrows, dunnocks, chaffinches, nuthatch, red woodpecker and robin were back. And the rat.

Over the course of the rest of the week we saw blackbirds, a jay and a cock pheasant. Plus pigeons and magpies around and about.


TV: Top Boy (Series 3 if you watched the BBC original; season 1 for Netflix), Doctor Who (“2023” season 1 – aka Disney money – HELLO Ncuti Gatwa!!!!), Only Murders in the Building (finished season 1), Murder Is Easy, Men Up, Top of the Pops: 2023 Review of the Year, Reservation Dogs.

Podcasts (and BBC Sounds streams): Gone Mediaeval, Eras: Kylie Minogue, A History of Rock in 500 Songs (just right for the long drive back from Essex), History Extra.


Photos: Herefordshire week 209 on Flickr.

Phil: f/e 2023-12-31.

Herefordshire Week 208: Tuesday 19 – Monday 25 December 2023

Countdown to Christmas, over to Essex, speedy side trip to London, a fab Christmas Dinner from Phil, and a Christmas cold (but not COVID).

Christmas at Battersea Power Station
Christmas at Battersea Power Station

Woke up late again on Tuesday, and a bit down in the dumps / listless. Gloomy inside and out. Did weeknotes and prepped the blogpost titles for 2024, 2025 and 2026 (I still love spreadsheets), watched a squirrel carrying a windfall apple across the front lawn (needed a lot of stopping, dropping,  rebiting and resuming), did a bit of packing and wrapping for Essex and enrolled onto a couple of short courses at Herefordshire, Ludlow and North Shropshire College, got the log stove going and did more pre-handover LRB reading.

It’s a cliche, but doing some exercise brought back my oomph on Wednesday morning. We delivered the local Christmas cards early afternoon and when we got back I decided there was time before teatime to make mince pies.

Making mince pies
Making mince pies

Very tasty they were too! Last VWW of the year then tea and telly in the evening. En route I topped up the screen wash and the antifreeze / coolant in the car ahead of Friday’s drive to Essex.

Thursday was a windy day. The morning featured the last class at the gym for 2023, checking the tyre pressures on the Panda, applying WD40 to the irritating squeaky clutch (in vain), hair wash and clothes wash, cleaning the clogged filter coffee machine (fingers crossed). Packed and prepped in the afternoon then we walked down the lane for Christmas wine, crisps and catch up with TJL.

Up early on Friday – still gusty outdoors – for the drive to Essex. The motorway route got us there in about 4 1/2 hours, with a break at Rugby Moto services and a worrying, rhythmic clunk under the car as we crawled towards the Braintree roundabout …. gulp.

Late lunch at J&J’s, hello to Pippa the cat, the train to LST and tube down to Battersea Power Station to rendezvous with H for the David Hockey light projection, Christmas lights and cocktails and Dinner at Dishoom. No sore heads 🙂

David Hockney Christmas animation at Battersea Power Station
David Hockney Christmas animation at Battersea Power Station

Sleepless night Friday / Saturday worrying about the car. Chatted with P and decided to park the potential problem until after Christmas. Tube and train to Wivenhoe via Moorgate M&S for post-Christmas treats.

Lovely and sunny in Wivenhoe. I stocked up on overnight supplies from Co-op and treated myself to a Mincemeat Roll from the Norwegian Bakery stall on my way back for Christmas Eve Breakfast.

Lazy afternoon instead of the walk I felt I ought to be doing. Nice catch ups with Tom and dad. Then got the telly going and settled on the sofa upstairs: polished off Vigil season 2 (obvious whodunnit once I thought about it), followed by Imagine… Russell T Davies: The Doctor and Me (lovely).

Sundown in Wivenhoe
Sundown in Wivenhoe

Did a precautionary COVID test on Sunday morning, which came back negative, so I was OK to catch the train back to Witham (£9.20 for 20 mins). P met me at the station and we strolled into town for a coffee then back to base along the River Walk nipping into Morrisons to finish. Should have been wearing our Christmas Jumpers, or PJs, or Onesies….

My Christmas Cold got the better of me for the rest of the day, which I spent snoozing on / in bed while Phil did Christmas Dinner prep downstairs with periodic checkins and food and drink delivery to the invalid upstairs.

Monday. Christmas Day. Lovely to hear the church bells ring out at 9am. Leisurely breakfast in the lounge, present opening, family phone calls and emails. Christmas Dinner, a little after 1 o’clock, was a triumph over kitchen adversity on Phil’s part: turkey crown, pigs in blankets, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, roast carrots, sprouts, stuffing, bread sauce and cranberry sauce.

Ghosts Christmas special and grande finale for evening telly. I, for one, got a bit tearing saying farewell to the gang.


Three sheep materialised in Kiln Field. We three sheep of orient are?


TV: Fleishman is in Trouble, (finished off), Only Murders In The Building (alright but not amazing), Vigil (wrapped up series 2), Imagine … Russell T Davies: The Doctor and Me.

Podcasts: The History of England, The Memory Palace, The Rest is Entertainment, A History of Rock in 500 Songs (Phil’s choice on the drive over – Good one!), Hooked on Freddie, In Our Time , History Extra, Being Roman with Mary Beard, The Reunion (Band Aid 1984), The Wombles the the Rescue, Gone Mediaeval (chanced upon on a Cnut Quest) <— a lot of these were sleepless nights worrying about the car, and while resting to try to get rid of my cold quicker.


Photos: Herefordshire week 208 on Flickr, once I’ve tagged them 🙂

Phil: Fortnight-Notes to come…. Voilà! f/e 2023-12-31.

Herefordshire Week 205: Tuesday 28 November 2023 – Monday 04 December 2023

Week 205.

All being well, I’m back from Nepal and had a brilliant trek to Kangchenjunga & over Lumba Sumba with Val Pitkethly Mingmi.

December, eh….

05 Dec 2023: Update: Yep, I’m home, after a week that took me from the sunny hills above Kathmandu to the damp, grey skies of Herefordshire. But I’m home!!!

Settling in....
Settling in….

Tuesday and Wednesday I was still in Kathmandu. A relaxing morning at the Chharari Retreat on Tuesday then back to the Marshyangdi and Thamel. Treated Mingmi and Tenzee to a falafel wrap lunch, then shopped. Met Annick for dinner at the New Orleans, Mandala Street. Tiredness catching up with us all.

Wednesday was our last full day in Nepal and was earmarked for three things: indulging in the Hotel Marshyangdi buffet breakfast (the fresh fruit in particular), shopping and dinner with M&T’s family. We managed two out of three. The last didn’t happen, and put a big damper on the whole trip.

Thursday was the long flight back to the UK. An early start thanks to Qatar bringing our KTM-DOH flight forward by 2 hours, and a corresponding longer layover in Doha’s Hamad International Airport – home of the $9 coffee and $25 curling cornered sandwich…..

Perishing cold in London. Thankfully the Gresham Hotel was only a short, cold, walk from Paddington train station and was warm and snug. M&S “bits” for “supper” (not a term I usually use), eyelids held open with metaphorical matchsticks. Then sleep.

We’d got up at 4.30am Nepal time and were in bed 10.30pm UK time = a 23 hour 45 minute day = Knackered and a headache.


I slept better than expected and only really woke up around 7am on Friday morning. Breakfast in the basement – very efficient and ruthlessly clean, these ladies could teach Tumlingtar’s squalid Hotel Makalu a thing or two! – took me back to the one and only visit to London I had as a child – I can still picture the poppy wallpaper and recall my amazement at a Dining Room being deep in the depths, and with no windows.

Trundled back to PAD for our respective GWR trains home, mine on the overcrowded 09.52 through the frosty fields to Herefordshire.

Last leg ..... almost
Last leg ….. almost

Phil met me at Hereford station and we headed home for a late lunch of homemade fresh bread, a cheese board, hummus and carrots. All my meal dreams come true.

And in the evening, pizza!

Friday Night Pizza!
Friday Night Pizza!

Saturday and Sunday featured lots of unpacking and washing and computer admin. Caught up with T & L for a couple of hours on a wet Sunday afternoon. Saturday started cold and frost and stayed cold and frosty all day.

Frosty morning, Forty Acres
Frosty morning, Forty Acres

Monday was mostly admin, including doing my tax return – woo hoo – and Christmas present wrangling.


Lots of sparrows back on the bird feeders. Lots of squirrels in the garden. Lots of finally fallen leaves. And a leaf mulch bin, courtesy of my lovely husband!

Leaf mulching
Phil’s photo – Leaf mulching

TV: Beckham (guilty pleasure, but it is a pleasure!), The Bear (season 1 – not sure it’s my thing), Grand Designs (Series 23, Episode 9: South Herefordshire), Andor.

Podcasts: Anglo-Saxon England

Audiobook: Mrs England – Stacey Halls


Photos: Herefordshire week 205 on Flickr.

Phil: w/e 2023-12-03.

Kanchenjunga Base Camp and the Lumba Sumba Pass: We’re (almost) back!

Hello from Kathmandu!

We got back yesterday from our 25 day trek in the far east of Nepal – well away from the earthquake. Starting walking from Sekathum we went north to Kanchenjunga Base Camp (north side) then backtracked a bit before heading west over two passes – the Nango La and Lumba Sumba.

The Lumba Sumba is technically 3 passes, all over 5000m, and we had stunning views of Kanchenjunga, Jannu (and more) in one direction and Makalu and Baruntse (and more) in the other.

Lumba Sumba, first pass. Looking east towards Kanchenjunga.
Lumba Sumba, first pass. Looking east towards Kanchenjunga.
Makalu from Lumba Sumba's third pass
Makalu from Lumba Sumba’s third pass

Amazingly lucky with the weather – blue skies pretty much every day, with the odd afternoon of cloud on a couple of days.

We are now indulging in two days relaxing at the Chharari Retreat high in the hills above Kathmandu, before a couple of days back in the thick of things in Thamel then flying back to the UK on Thursday and catching the train home to Herefordshire on Friday.

Room 107, Chharari Retreat
Room 107, Chharari Retreat

I’m getting a “Trekkers Massage” later today, we had fresh fruit for breakfast and they have fresh roast and ground coffee in the rooms and organic shampoo and body lotion in the en suite (The En Suite!) – luxury!!

Prayer flags, Ghuna deurali
Prayer flags, Ghuna deurali

So, the trek…..

We flew to Bhadrapur, jeeped through tea plantations to Taplejung (1 day, tarmac) and then on to Sekathum (1/2 day, dirt track). From there, a gradual ascent (with plenty of descents en route) through mostly tiny villages to Lhonak at 4700m. A cold and frosty place but a very warm welcome.

Lounging Ladies at Lhonak
Lounging Ladies at Lhonak

From there we did KBC there and back in a (long, cold but clear) day, then returned to the relative metropolis of Ghunsa (3500m) via Kambachen (4100m).

At Kanchenjunga North Base Camp
At Kanchenjunga North Base Camp

You can get fresh ground coffee and good solid chocolate cake in Ghunsa….

Coffee and cake, Ghunsa
Coffee and cake, Ghunsa

Then we headed west, off the beaten track and over the Nango La and a few days later, the three passes of the Lumba Sumba. There were then a further 5 days trekking out to Num, each day involving A Lot of Up and Down.

At the Nango La
At the Nango La

The contrast between the KBC section and the rest of the trek was striking. On the KBC we met lots of trekkers (Hello, Snickers-fuelled Andorrans!) and stayed in tea houses. Once we turned off that trail an hour south of Ghunsa and started trekking west we were mainly camping or staying in relatively basic “hotels” / homestays, until we got to the end of the trek in Num. The exception was Olangchugola where we stayed in a tea house along with a fair few trekkers (Hello, Belgians!). They’d only had about 50 people trek to / through the village this whole year, and later, in Honggon, we heard that we were only the 3rd group of trekkers to cross over the Lumba Sumba this year.

Olangchungola tea house
Olangchungola tea house

The vegetation was very different to either side of the Lumba Sumba. On the KBC side, we were walking through forests of glorious golden autumn larches, bronze barked birches, glossy green and gold rhododendrons and deep green juniper. On the Arun khola side we had lots of bamboo, tall trees and, as we descended, lots of very lush growth of all sorted of trees, shrubs and plants. Cardamom covered the lower slopes for the first couple of days and the last couple too. Butterflies galore.

Cardamom
Cardamom

The trails were clear – lots of stone steps and slopes where the trail is still the main route between mountain villages and yak pastures. But they really hugged the hillside in places and some of the drop offs were sheer and went a long way down, particularly once we were following the upper sections of the Arun river. So, not recommended if you get vertigo….

There is also a lot of ascent and descent, pretty much every day, rather than the steady ascents / descents of routes further west. Tiring towards the end, when we were trekking down to the river and back up high again at least once a day. And the final day, from Ghadidanda to Num came with a 300m descent to the construction site of one of the hydro power stations being constructed on the Arun, followed by a hot and sweaty couple of hours going straight up the 500m to Num. We earned a beer that day.

End of trek photo with Mingmi (and beers) at Num.
End of trek photo with Mingmi (and beers) at Num.

Lots of bridges – some metal suspension, others new built wooden replacements for ones that get washed away…

Rock and wood bridge, Lhonak
Rock and wood bridge, Lhonak
Suspension bridge over the Ghunsa khola
Suspension bridge over the Ghunsa khola

….. and lots of landslides – the most I’ve encountered on a trek, and the most challenging too, particularly high above the Yangma Khola between the Nango La and Olangchugola village.

The two passes were easy. With no snow to complicate things, it really was just a matter of walking and a lot of up, then a lot of down.

Although we only had 7 nights camping, they were memorable with multitudes of stars, the Milky Way, fingernail moons and bright shining Venus. And yaks… which are not very familiar with guy ropes it turns out.

Yak Jamboree No 1 campsite. Frosty morning.
Yak Jamboree No 1 campsite. Frosty morning.

Our return flight was from Tumlingtar, where we stayed in the most squalid hotel ever. Avoid Hotel Makalu if you’re ever there, although I’m not sure anywhere else is much better. It’s very much an airport village. The jeep journey from Num is a bumpy 4+ hours, until you reach the tarmac at Khandbari.

A big, big thank you to our main guide, the wonderfully calm and competent Mingmi Sherpa, and her brother Tenzee and Mingmi, our local Taplejung guide who completed our trio of guides. Dali and his kitchen team fed us feasts full of flavour while we were camping, and our porters where all lovely, and very good at getting a camp fire going…..

Campfire
Campfire

Thanks – and credit – to Steffi for the photos! Mine are still on the old school camera SD cards….

And big, big thanks to Val for the inspiration, planning and coordination. We missed you!