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Merry Christmas one & all.
 Dinner We have had a surprisingly busy day. The usual sort of thing this morning; presents & mulled wine followed by much peeling, chopping, basting and boiling. Lovely lunch featuring home made chestnut stuffing and of course, bread sauce followed by…Christmas pudding, accompanied by flaming brandy or in Neil’s case, a bucket of custard.
Then Neil & I went for a walk down to the river for some much needed exercise. We walked around a mile and saw lots of birds, heron, long tailed tit, cormorant, redwing, fieldfare, blue tit, mallard, barnacle goose, red kite, buzzard, moorhen and a flock of geese that we struggled to id. Neil took a few photos and we pottered back as the sun was going down and it was getting chilly. Back to Neil’s folks where Neil realised he had lost his phone on the walk.
 Was the phone lost here Back out, assisted by Jack and down to the river. Some people were walking towards us and by chance Neil asked them if they had seen a mobile on their travels. They had spotted & retrieved it! They had called a number on it, my sis who had then called Neil’s Mum with their details, so Neil’s mum whipped on her wellies (complete with ice grips) to come in pursuit of us. So all was well, the nice folks did their Christmas good deed andwe all got a bit more fresh air & exercise than planned but did us good. Back now looking forward to an evening of Strictly & whist & maybe a tipple.
I think there might even be some bread sauce left too! Happy days 
 Humberette Sunday was the London to Brighton vintage car run. Helen and I with Helens mum joining us for a list to Hassocks, met up with the crew at Crawley after a wrong turning off the M25 meant we missed the exit to the Redhill Little Chef. We stooda around with Martin at CVrwayley town square until the car arrived then we went to the local pub for a traditional pint. Unfortunatly Rory could only be with us until Crawley, so it was then my responability to keep up with the vehicle and allow passengers to swap over a get a chance to ride in the 1903 Humberette.
At about 10 miles out of Crawley we swapped over to give Justin a ride, and Gerald joined us in the car. Gerald is a hockey chum of Gilbert, and had also played his part in the team of over 70′s who won the title at the world championships in Cape Town earlier this year. He is also the president of the British Naturalist Association. The weather was perfect for the run the sun was shinning and the leaves were golden as we went over the steep hill where some cars need a tow. At the Pikeham junction we did another swap and Mark joined the car for the final drive into Brighton.
We hurried down to the front where I dropped everyone off near the front then dumped the car in the NCP car park round the corner from the Travel Lodge. When I got back to the front somone had kindly managed to bag a cup of muled wine, another traditional drink for the run.
 Pikeham This year we had taken a chance and booked the Travel Lodge for the night, a bargain at £32.50, the rooms were small but the place was clean, and we had a good nights apart from the noise from the storm that had descending upon the country. After freshening up we met up in the bar and I used Google maps to find and Italian restaurant near by, it is a great service because it summarises the reviews from many review websites and presents the result in a really easily read way. I picked out one that had the best reviews and we used the directions feature to take us to the restaurant.
The place looked really nice although it was on the street where there are lots of takeaways and other restaurants, and where in the past we have had a couple of bad meals. From the outside it promised to be good, it looked clean and newly decorated. We all agreed the place looked good so went in. The menu had some great selections. We had between us Misto Mare (deep fried sea food), Olives/Breads and Bruschetta for starters then Spaghetti a la Vongole, pumpkin risotto, pork in a mushroom cream sauce and the sea bass special. Three of us had dessert Tiramisu and fruit salad, followed by coffee and liquers. The bill came to £40 per head and everyone agreed that the meal was really great and that we should check it out next year.
On the way back to the hotel we stopped of at a pub that did great real ale, as well as loads of different types of tequila!
 Prezzo cheese cake Finally got to go to Prezzo in Tring, for a meal with Helen’s family. We all had £10 offer vouchers!
I decided I would have to have a desert after Carla at work said it was so good, but also fancied the calamari starter so I went off the voucher for the starter.
The food was good, I liked my main which was the fusilli pasta with asparagus, mushrooms, and pesto. I have to say that the cheese cake was nice but a bit too sweet for my taste buds.
 Table-of-fungi At the Aylesbury museum today there was a Fungi exhibition organised by the Bucks Fungus Group http://www.bucksfungusgroup.org.uk . Helen and I headed down with John and Sallie. We did not know what to expect, and we were pleasantly surprised, they had a long set of trestle tables, covered in samples of mushrooms, there must have been over 100 types there and they had all been found this morning with a 20 mile radius.
We had a good look round and John found an expert to identify the samples he had bought along. The people from the group were very knowledgeable, very willing to share their knowledge.
There was one that they had under a plastic bell cover, it was the famous Deathcap, apparently one mouthful would be enough to kill you. The poison is not filtered by the bodies organs, so the toxins circulate round the body doing more and more damage. After some time 10 to 16 days you die. One cure is to get a liver transplant, which has it’s own complications!
I bought a decision tree guide that takes you through the process of figuring out what is what.
It was well worth the effort of going to Aylesbury museum.
 Aylesbury-old-town-panorama
 Apparently I can add Flickr images to my posts, here we go.
 Tate Britain has had an exhibition on the summer called Rude Britannia, it has bee getting good reviews, so we had made a note to try to get to see it. I checked the Tate website, turns out this is the last weekend so we booked up for an 11am viewing. We were up early so left the house at 8, and were on the 8:30 train from Berkhamsted, which got us to Tate Britain, via the Victoria line, at 9:30. We hung about until the doors opened at 10!
The exhibition was worth the effort, it is all about comic art through the ages, from the first hints of caricatures in political engravings and oil paintings by Hogarth, through the 80′s Spitting Image and Scarfe, right up to today. Helen particularly enjoyed a Heath Robinson cartoon from the war about camouflage in the streets of the city. In the main hall there were two shells of fighter jets, one extremely polished, lying on its back and another drab grey hanging by it’s tail from the roof. Everyone wanted their picture of these objects in an unusual setting. We had a quick look at some of the other paintings then decided to get the boat to Tate Modern.
 Over the road we found the jetty and spent our time watching the Thames for a quarter of an hour. We saw the London duck tour boat/road vehicles, and some canoeists, making their way down the river. The boat was a bit disappointing as you could not go out on deck to take photo’s, but the seats were a welcome rest. We passed the Festival Hall which reminded me of the Press Photographer of the Year exhibition (ppye), so I did a quick google and found out it was currently on. We now had a plan, walk along the Southbank, grab some lunch, check out ppye, get the bus to Foyles, and then head back home via Euston. At Tate Modern we saw a sign for RSPB Peregrine watch, we haven’t ticked that bird this year so we took a small detour and scoped both a female and male bird sat on the ledge of the Tate buildings chimney. We then wandered on down to the National Theatre for the photos.
The ppye is an annual event (it’s in the title!) and is well worth a visit, it is always free and the photos are both stunning and thought provoking. The year Haiti featured a lot. I thing I have only missed one year, if that, in the past 10-12 years, and it is often sheer fluke that I manage to be in London when it is on.
We had to take a detour to get up onto the bridge to get the bus, and chanced upon a food fayre, shame we had already had lunch, some of the street food looked delicious. The bus from the bridge took us to Tottenham Court Rd, it was like gravity was pulling me there, but today I gave the technology mecca a miss. We headed over to Foyles for a browse through the books, and perhaps a purchase. I bought a PHP book, The Remains of the Day, and the new Collins complete bird guide, as a thank you to Abida and Connie for their help with the wedding.
We got a taxi from Foyles, because we could not be bothered to find a bus stop that would take us to Euston, it was not the first time we have done that, £6 well spent. I am now on the 15:04 typing this blog entry. All in all a relaxed day wandering around, London with some culture and some purchases to boot.
Loverly!
I have been meaning to do a post about this for some time. Helen and I did a Minsmere guided tour and the guide told us a bout a feature of reeds I have never noticed before. If you put your thumb and forefinger either side and the base of a leaf and then let the leaf slide through your finger you will notice about one third of the way up that there is a bump or ridge across the leaf. All leaves have it.
The guide told us that it is colloquially known as “the devils pinch”, which I think is a great name, somehow fitting and very colloquial. Ever since then I just can’t help running my fingers only the leaf as described above, to feel for the feature. It is just compulsive and impulsive.
I have done some googling on the subject but cannot find any reference to reeds. Some of the things I found are:
- There is a canyon some where in Austalia, on the Wolgan River, in Katoomba with the name. Apparently a bad accident with a team of horses pulling logs happened then in the 1870′s
- A few references to marks on the body similar to liver spots.
- References to a feature in a cave, perhaps where it gets really narrow, again a good name for such a place.
So now we have a reference in the reed’s Devils Pinch. I wonder how long it will take to start appearing in Google searches.
 
 Mark Webber cap I have been accused of letting my blog become boring, i quote “too many film reviews and not enough walks”. To try to put things back on track here is a post that you might find interesting.
Today was the annual Horticultural Society Fete in Aston Clinton, it is one of the bigger events on the calendar.
We turned up at 2:30pm and paid the £1 pound entrance fee, which entitled us to a program and I believe the chance to win a prize in a draw. The usual charity stalls were present, surprisingly for a land locked county, and about a far away from the sea you can get in England there was a stall for the Aylesbury branch of the RNLI! We worked our way round buying up all the raffle ticks on offer, and I bought some Victoria Plum jam, for the winter stores. Then it started to rain.
 Bunch of coconuts We popped into the produce exhibition in the old school building and checked out the the displays of long runner beans and themed flower displays. Some people go to a lot of effort for the show.
Back at the stalls we came to the main raffle desk and I noticed that Mark Webber (Formula 1 driver) had donated a prize for the raffle, a basketball cap with his logo on it which he had personally signed, how generous I thought.
Then it was off round the kids and craft exhibits where such delights and a garden on a plate or painted stones are pitted against each other for cash prizes. The garden on a plate would win the Eric Sharp cup.
On to the skill based stands where you could win prizes for putting and throwing balls at coconuts. I scored 225 on the putting golf balls though slots in a plank, which put me 2nd equal with “Mark” and the chance of winning a prize if the person who came first and “Mark” was not around to collect the prize at the end of the after noon.
Then on to the coconut shy I reluctantly agreed to have a go, 5 balls for £1, and managed to knock 2 nuts off of their holders. Not sure what I am going to do with them, as they are high in saturated fats I avoid them. Perhaps the birds will like them?
 5555 its a magic number On my way to B&Q I noticed that my odometer in the golf was about to go to 5555 luckily when I parked up it was still showing.
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