Catch up again! Running so hard to catch up with myself really doesn't work!

I am obviously back from the states, since July 9th.. Mr Racoon above on neighbors fence, he had been scratching on the roof!! 

And below photographs are from Floral Park, I love this area, not too far from my aunt's, it's got a small town feeling, like everyone would know each others faces.. and feels like a good community..

Have you ever seen such awesome french toast! Wonderful!

Now, flight back was okay, but hardly any sleep, man to my right was more in my seat than he should have been and his constant moving around drove me crazy! 

I got collected okay at the airport, had got through security and baggage reclaim fairly quickly.. although not as quick as JFK on my way in.. that was impressive, one scan of the eyes and through! That was it! Well, for a returning resident of course! 

I had a few days in Bushey before heading back up north!

But first.. before we do, younger sons family day at work was great fun.. I'd never been before! 

And here I am, holding a small tarantula and a large cockroach!

May not look like a small tarantula to you, but I was holding a much larger one before this one, the latter had had its venom removed, but not the larger first one!

We had been inside and a company who do talks, shows, with animals from all over world, gave a half hour talk.. I can't remember all the animals now, snakes, meerkat, a cute flying animal, looked like a chipmunk! Lizards, a stoat weasel type of animal.. and finally a large tarantula with venom! No one raised their arm but me, I just thought, why not! I'm afraid of spiders, I don't like them though either! And he didn't stay on my hands for long, it was a hot day.. 

My granddaughter who had been on the front row with her auntie raised her arm for absolutely everything else, and was standing up front holding them all!

Except the tarantula!

Okay! So, coach back home from Golders Green, nice easy ride.. all good! Driver also had another job which is more to do with health and digestion.. So we got talking about that, and I think the chronic gastritis I was diagnosed with, was probably more a case of antibiotics over dose than problems caused by food..

Because over the last year I have begun eating fruit again, salads and other raw foods.. for two years I had avoided them, as much as possible, as I had been told not to eat anything uncooked, and no high fat foods etc etc.. As these things would make my stomach worse.. So maybe, just maybe, I've cleared that up myself?

Also, I had to prep for yet another colonoscopy, to check on the colorectal surgery I had last November... 

Heads-up here! Warning! I was told I wouldn't have the medication that would keep me awake, not really with it.. because they were only going half way around, as far as my scar tissue only.. It hurt, it really, really, really hurt! There was gas and air, but it did nothing and hurt to much for me to focus on even trying to use it!! 

The evening before, and in the morning of the procedure, as I drinking the pre colonoscopy drink, makes me feel sick thinking of it now.. I declared to the universe I would not ever be doing this again, never, noway, no how, not ever again! 

Well, apparently I am, because I am now classed as high risk for its return.  I do not get the two yearly poop test kit, but in three years a full colonoscopy, again, and that damn drink.. and yes, next time the anesthetic!

I have to forget the three years, and not think about it. Ha! 

Mm what else! Oh that rash I got in May, my last day.. when the doctor ordered me in immediately and told me I had raised red blood cells soy body was fighting something.. who knows what! 

Well, I have had it again, Saturday morning, there it was! I was not going to urgency, so Monday onto the NHS app, they told me to go to the pharmacy (*_&*) I knew it was a waste of time, but of course went, for him to say of course, nothing he could do for a symmetrical rash! Especially when the doctor told me to let him know immediately if it came back! 

Still waiting for the doctor to contact me, rash now gone, as of today!

M.

Bravery is being the only one who knows you're afraid.

Franklin P. Jones - 1774-1848 - Engineer - Publisher

Phew! Nearly caught up now I have actually spoken into my phone for all of these blogs since I began about my Liverpool trip, 

My telephone refuses to listen to any other language but Spanish, so beneath it just keeps on saying escuchando, for listening. I am speaking English by the way! Smiling.. 

Sometimes it even thinks I'm speaking German! 

Probably because of the Duolingo I do!

These few photographs are from the Billy Joel exhibition upstairs above the Everybody Loves Raymond exhibition which is travelling around the country, so we were lucky to catch it! 

Over the weekend we went to the Bayside Clam Bar & Grill... One of my favorite places...

I realized when we were there this time why... It's home to me, it is like back home, the atmosphere, the music, it's upbeat.. it's back home on a weekend, from there I feel I could drive home back to my little house in Alhaurín.. 

Although by the beach here are deer and wild Turkeys! Not the wild boar of the Costa del Sol! 

Monday morning we headed upstate to visit with cousins.. another beautiful day with family..

Few hours at home with cousins, then we met up with more at an Italian restaurant.. Good food, and so much! Phew!! 

It took two hours to get there, we passed by my favorite uncles place .. my only uncle! Many many happy times spent there over the years...

Also passed by Mount Vernon where I got my first tattoo at Bih Jo's tattoo empire ... And Mount Disco, where mom the boys and I stayed for a few nights.. And here is me in the driver's seat!! 

And an hour back to my aunt's.. very good day ... I am grateful as always to everybody who does so much when I visit... So so much... 

I guess I have found the chip on my shoulder.. Do we all have one? Something we carry that's been a 'thing' all our lives? 

Well folks! Found mine! It's the why was I taken away from my family, why couldn't I have grown up nearer them, knowing them from being a kid... It's the lost years... 

We can't get them back, but it is why I keep coming back here,.back home.. Can't make up for time missed... But by all there is I hope I can always make it back here, my homeland, my birth land.. my family.. 

I guess it will get more difficult one day ... That'll be a sad day .. but I know I'll not know it's been the last visit... Because we never do...

And of course, I wouldn't have missed how my life has been either .. I am very very lucky, with my beautiful family and my wonderful best forever friends I could never ask for more.. they're the best.

Added here today, as of posting.. I actually thought this had been posted.. I have been bad again! Severely lacking in Blogger standards! 

M.

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.

Joseph Campbell - 1904-1987 - Philosopher

Okay and so after returning from Liverpool, I had a couple of days before heading south down to London, and staying with friends until my trip on Monday to New York.

I was dropped off luckily for me thankfully for me, at Heathrow Airport very bright and very early on Monday morning June 22nd. 

This year, luckily also the flight took off on time, more or less. I was in a lucky dip seat I say smiling as I would not pay for a seat, it makes no sense flying alone to pick a seat, although I do prefer being by the window so I can lean and sleep! 

The flight passed by great, sat next to a guy who works at the German patents office, sounds such an inte in Job! All the ideas people can have! The weird and wonderful! We landed early, I had arranged to be collected by cab, somebody that we all use here and I have used before, I messaged to say I'd landed, collected my baggage, and was coming out and he told me which collection Zone to go to and it worked out absolutely perfectly. 

I got to my aunt's and all good absolutely wonderful, I always feel at home here, she is like my mom and dad rolled into one.. I don't know if that makes any sense at all, she is the closest person I have to my dad, well apart from my brother! 

My wonderful cousins are doing what they've always done when I am here, and I am so very thankful for them. 

The shopping center above and the two car park photographs, are from a shopping mall very similar to Bicester Village, and even mentions Bicester village, so I guess they are linked by whoever owns them. 

But I have never seen such an empty place, ever! Those cars were the only cars in the whole car park, and the shopping center as you can see, there can only have been maybe at a push 30 people, maybe 40? 

I had no intention of purchasing anything, but was as always drawn into the Levi store, I tried on a dress I liked in two sizes but neither fitted? Which seemed a little strange! 

So went to another Levi store the other day and bought the one that should have fitted, and does? It does seem strange that the sizes were not the same? That's not good Levi!!

Above just some yams! 

The two photographs above if you look very carefully show a raccoon on the neighbors roof, I thought to start with there was a cat and then I watched and realized no it's a raccoon! 

I think he may be trying to dig his way in! 

And then look below look where we went!!  Look look look! It is the Everybody Loves Raymond show set!! 

We went out onto Long Island and this was an exhibition, absolutely fantastic the green chair was maybe one of the only things that was not original, but the sofa is and everything else everything else! We sat on the sofa we sat on the chairs we walked around! There were lots of TV TV channels amongst the exhibition, the very famous toaster that Marie had had somebody engrave so that Raymond and his wife couldn't take it back! 

Obviously I have used AI below because Marie and Frank were not there!
 

Upstairs was a Billy Joel exhibit too! Music all around, another great music exhibition, two in two weeks!

M.

I would rather be able to appreciate things I cannot have than to have things I am not able to appreciate.

Elbert Hubbard - 1856-1915 - Writer - Publisher – Artist

Liverpool Trip Part 2

So Sunday morning prior to meeting J. I got the train to Formby, and I walked, or is it stalked! My great-grandparents house again, I walk to the end of the street and had a wonderful cup of coffee and one of the best almond croissants I think I've ever had in my entire life, and that is saying something! 

I got the train back and was back in Liverpool and for some reason decided then to Google our Nelson shipping company once more, and maybe the way in which I asked Google the question it came up with the dock from which the Nelson company shipped from!

And it actually is the Nelson Dock! So I walked to it, and in retrospect I could have got off the train much earlier on my return Journey because the walk took nearly an hour and I was retracing those steps that I had taken on that train! 

Needless to say it was a very long walk and once there I took a couple of photographs, and nearby some people were working on some land just clearing it, and tidying it up. 

There was some Portacabins there on the site, and inside was a lot of information about the docks going back to the very start of the Liverpool dockyards. 

The many people that left their countries far and wide, and all the merchandise that came and went from the docks. 

I was going to get a taxi back to the city center, but chose instead to just walk and take my time. 

Then I met J. And we walk down to the Albert dock and we had a drink aboard a boat called the Daffodil, it was a beautiful sunny warm day and we sat there on the top deck, glasses of blush wine in our hands, and reminisced about our days back home, in Spain. 

After we left the docks we went to a restaurant to have dinner, and then I walked J. A little way back towards the bus station and then I turned around and went home to the hotel room. 

Monday morning before leaving for my return journey to Nottingham, I went into the British music experience in the Cunard building by the docks. 

I would have gone in there before, but, my granddaughter was going to be in there! 

I had booked my hotel room and to meet my friends, back in January or February. And when my granddaughter said she was going to be in Liverpool about 3 weeks before I was going there, I couldn't believe the coincidence! Absolutely incredible! Of all the days and weekends in the year, she was going to be there that Monday morning before I left in the afternoon. 

Even the fact that I chose to arrive Saturday and to leave monday, instead of staying Friday and Saturday and leaving sunday, which would have been a more usual weekend away. 

I had walked around the music exhibition which was amazing and definitely worth a return trip, or three, there had been no school parties in as I had entered a 10:00 a.m. when it had opened, so I thought I would go and have a cup of coffee, exiting through the shop, the only way out as per the norm, out into reception I went and there she was! 

We chatted a little bit and I also spoke to two of her teachers, one of which I had seen many times before. 

You can't make life up can you?! Although I suppose if we could some of our lives would be very different. 

M.

Sometimes the right path is not the easiest one.

Pocahontas
 

Liverpool Weekend part 1

13th through to 15th of June, and absolutely no excuse for my lack of Blogging, procrastination some I guess...

Feet not touching the ground a lot maybe? 

So! June 13th train to Liverpool Lime Street!

Off the train and straight to Costa for coffee and something to eat! Well needed, train journey was okay, except a hiccup where something was supposedly on the track and we were told we had to get off.. we did, only to be told we didn't have to now! So my last 3/4 of an hour was spent standing up on an overpacked train, I haven't moved out of my seat and gone on to the platform could not get back to my seat. 

I had been to Liverpool once before, to the city center but only briefly back about 30 years ago, helping someone collect something which I can't even remember now what! 

After my coffee and lunch I went to find the hotel so I would know where to return to at 3:00, I now had about an hour and a half to wait, so I walked down to the Albert dock I had a wander around, and saw a small boat was about to leave for and half an hour sail around the docks, I paid and boarded, no actually I boarded then paid after I'd ordered my hot chocolate with marshmallows! 

I had sat down at a table for six, where a couple was sat already opposite me just leaving one table for six in case a big family came along. 

We chatted here and there along around the journey, it was the first time the girl had ever been on a boat of any kind whatsoever! 

After the boat trip I walked to the hotel and got there at 3:01 perfect timing, entered got my room key card and went up to my room. 

Was I really lovely room it was dual aspect out onto two streets, Fenwick Street in front which was where the hotel was and the road on the side which went straight down to the docks, and forgetting the actual name no it's Brunswick Street, and also known as the A41!

Which oddly is the road throughout my lifetime of being in England I had always been very close to, not emotionally! But as in lived on lived by or worked on or worked by all of my life in England up until now. 

These are various buildings in Liverpool I'm sorry I have not listed their names there was the Cunard building which is where the British music entertainment show is. 

And above this beautiful building near the railway station. 

Above is the Nelson dock, which is where our family shipped from back in the late 1800s. 

This great upside down house in the city center, I didn't go in next time I will my ticket for the music exhibition is open all year so I will be back! 

If you remember I had two friends meeting me in Liverpool for this weekend, both of which couldn't make the trip for my friend coming from Spain, and my friend here in Liverpool was working, so I did get to see her on sunday, J. Was so good to see her I waited up by the bus stop where she was getting off the bus, I knew the number, and as soon as I saw her I started leaping about I could banshee, and so was she inside the bus!

M.

At 65 everything goes downhil

So why does everything feel like uphill!

©MarianBonelli

Northchurch, Berkhamstead

 

Todays Blog is a bit purloined from Google, Cheers! 

I started watching a series on Prime, Sean Bean in The Frankenstein Chronicles.. and without giving spoilers I am presuming, hoping? Most people will have read the book, seen a movie or at the very least learnt about the story line at some point.. As although Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was a work of fiction... some aspects were far nearer the truth than we would wish! 

So! Googled 'body snatchers Northchurch' and amongst the information was this!

The Sparrows Herne Turnpike: The main road running through Northchurch (now the A41) was a primary coaching route directly into London.

Who knew!! Who?? I had lived pr worked, prior to moving to Spain, either on the A41 or very close to it, and never in my days did I ever learn of it's previous name..here and there of course, it is London Road, Tring Road ... Etc etc.. 

But, the length and breath of it, from Bushy Heath to Aylesbury!

Carry on reading.. this has got a bit mixed up with my intervention!

The most significant connection Northchurch has to the fear of grave robbing centers around its most famous historical resident: Peter the Wild Boy. Found feral in Germany in 1725, Peter was brought to England under the care of the Royal Court and spent his final decades living at Broadway Farm in Northchurch.When Peter died in 1785, the local community was highly aware of his national fame. Because medical anatomists and private collectors in London placed an incredibly high premium on "unusual" or distinct bodies for biological study, Peter's corpse was considered a prime target for resurrectionists.

While the graves were heavily guarded, Northchurch experienced other major historical crimes during the same era. Notably, in 1801, the notorious highwayman James Snooks (known as "Robber Snooks") robbed a mail boy near Bourne End in the parish of Northchurch. He became the last highwayman to be executed in England, and like the body-snatching trade, his exploits contributed heavily to the region's historical reputation for dark, late-night criminal activities.

The "Sparrows Hill" Turnpike, officially known as the Sparrows Herne Turnpike, was an 18th-century toll road connecting Bushey Heath to Aylesbury in England. Established in 1762, the 22-mile route now broadly corresponds to the modern-day A4251 and A41.

History & Development: The Sparrows Herne Turnpike Trust was established by an Act of Parliament in 1762 to collect tolls and fund the upkeep of the highway.Route: The route ran through Watford, King's Langley, Boxmoor, Hemel Hempstead, and Tring before reaching Aylesbury.

End of Operation: Tolls were ultimately abolished, and the Trust was dissolved in 1873.

Surviving Landmark Several original cast-iron turnpike milestones and markers still exist today. For example, the ⁠Historic England Sparrows Herne Trust Marker in Tring and the ⁠Berkhamsted Turnpike Marker are officially protected heritage sites.

My photographs, New Road in Northchurch at the top, followed by a view from above, of the Grand Union Canal beneath..

Then another view of the same Canal further along walking the tow path towards Dudswell.

Then St Mary's school, where it had been quite a family tradition to attend, my sons, myself, my mom from nine to fifteen, she was sailed over from America after her father died.. had he lived she was to attend the masonic school form girls in New York.. My grandmother and all her siblings etc etc etc!!

Next photograph is Ashlyns, my senior school and my son's.. and finally a view of Berkhamstead Castle..

Historically, the castle was home to a variety of prominent figures:1100s: Extensively rebuilt and expanded by Thomas Becket.1330s: Served as a favored home for Edward, the Black Prince, who frequently lived and hunted there

1400s: The castle passed to Cecily Neville, grandmother of two kings (Edward IV and Richard III), who ran a grand and orderly household there

The last royal resident to live in ⁠Berkhamsted Castle was Cecily Neville, Duchess of York, who occupied the castle until her death in 1495. Following her passing, the castle was abandoned as a royal residence and subsequently fell into ruin.

And that is the history lesson over with today!

M.

Over every mountain there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley.

Theodore Roethke - 1908-1963 - Author