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Tuesday 23 March 2010

A day out in Durham with Lady B

My good friend Lady B celebrated her birthday yesterday, so I thought it would be quite nice to take her to Durham for a day out and a nice lunch. As we walked into the market square we noticed a colourful procession walking down the steps next to the entrance to the Indoor Market.






Being the blogger that I aspire to be out came my camera. At the time I had no idea what or who I was photographing!




Quite a memorable day for both Lady B and the Commanding Officer of HMS Bulwark. HMS Bulwark's crew were awarded the Freedom of the City.

The crew of HMS Bulwark can now march through the streets with swords drawn and bayonets fixed. The honour was conferred at yesterday’s meeting of the City of Durham Charter Trustees. Councillor Jeff Lodge was also made an Honoury Freeman of the City in the same ceremony.

Congratulations to all!


More photo's of Boston


As I said in my previous post, my family and I flew over to Boston to celebrate Mr C's 60th birthday at the end of January. We had a fabulous time taking in as many sights as we could. I thought I would share a few with you. The above picture I took of Faneuil Hall and it was a really sunny but cold day. We ate lunch in Quincey's Market where there is a choice of many different foods from Italian, Chinese, Japanese, American Fast Food, Sea Food, Chowder, Ice cream etc etc etc. The place is really busy as the food is really good and excellent value for money.
More sight seeing to walk off our lunches and we walked across the common. The buildings in Boston are magnificent.




Then we walked through the park on our way back to the hotel.
There is such a lot of history in Boston. We would love to return to visit the places we didn't have time to see. Hopefully next time we could visit in the summer months!

Sunday 14 March 2010

Mothers Day Lunch and updates on travel

Sorry for the break in my posts but this year has been really busy work wise, interspersed with travel for pleasure too!


I have just returned home from my son's house where he cooked me a traditional roast beef lunch for Mothers Day. I am so lucky!

In January I worked in Peterborough for a week but forgot to take my camera so no pictoral records to post. It was dark when I left my hotel and dark when I returned so any photos would be drab anyway.

At the end of January my other half Mr C reached the ripe old age of 60. As a treat I decided to take him to Boston Massachusetts, a place we both love. I arranged the flight and hotel over the Christmas break without his knowledge. I also thought it would be really nice to add to the surprise so I booked for both my son and daughter to travel out there ahead of us. They flew out at lunch time Friday 29th January and me and Mr C flew out at 3pm. He had no clue where we were going and the check in staff at our local airport were wonderful keeping the surprise secret too. We arrived at Heathrow with a couple of hours to kill before boarding our flight to Boston. The booking agent at BA had upgraded us to First Class as an extra treat to add to Mr C's surprise to off we went to the lounge for a tipple or two. Our flight came up on the board and we proceeded to the gate. He still had no clue! We got through the gate still keeping our destination secret and then on to the extra security check. The guy asked to examine Mr C's bag and gave the destination away by saying "I hope you have some warm clothes in there sir its minus 12 in Boston".


His face lit up, he couldn't understand how I had managed to keep the destination a secret for so long. Then it all went horribly wrong. The flight was cancelled due to the plane having been hit by lighting. We were booked into a hotel near the airport and transferred onto another operators flight the next day. I frantically text my son and daughter who by this time were out eating dinner having a ball!


The hotel we stayed in at the airport was really nice and they provided us with a complimentary dinner and breakfast the next day. We travelled back to the airport and checked our bags in again this time hopefully we would start our journey to Boston. As we were travelling on another airline our complimentary first class cabin was no longer available but who cares we were on our way.

We arrived in Boston around 6 in the evening and headed straight for a cab to the hotel.

It was minus 12 and the snow had been falling all day it looked fabulous.

We checked in and went up to our room which was actually a two bedroomed suite. The hotel knew that it was Mr C's 60th Birthday, How kind of them!

Well we got to our room and started to unpack when there was a knock on the door and the voice said "room service". I hid in the bathroom so Mr C would have to open the door and there they were our son and daughter "Surprise Dad"! He was speechless with a tear in his eye. Worth all the planning.


His birthday was the next day and he wanted to go the Hard Rock for lunch so we decided to walk from our hotel through Boston Common. Very picturesque.


The staff gathered round our table and sang Happy Birthday to him which made him very embarrassed but hey your only 60 once!

The next few days were a mixture of sight seeing and shopping and we had a truly wonderful time that I hope we will remember for a long time to come.
On our return home my next work related travel was to Colchester in Essex. Very pretty but once again I left my camera at home so sorry no pictures of the Colchester country side. Home for one day and off I travelled to Dover for a weeks work. The weather was horrendous. Torrential rain and snow too! Sorry but too busy for photos that week too, maybe next time, where ever that might be.
Thanks for dropping by!
Mrs C