Dear friends,
Apologies to those who do not like Christmas letters but here is our news from 2012.
2012 has seen a reasonable balance between work and holidaying and given continuing good health we don’t really see the need to change things dramatically.
There were some real sadnesses in 2012 particularly in August when we lost Ray’s aunt Sadie who had been an important part of his life for all of his life. In her last few years Sadie had suffered from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s and sadly was not the lively person who we had known so well. Just a few days after Sadie our friend Alex Brown passed away in Newcastle. We have known Alex & Lydia for a long time and they visited us in Rustington for several years now and much enjoyed the south coast. His last months were tough but he was so well looked after by the Marie Curie Hospice.
By contrast there was also real joy as both Hilton & Anne and John & Sarah became grandparents. Welcome to this world to Grace (for Ali & Jo), Annabelle (Richard & Jane) and Natalia (David & Laina)
So here are a few of the things we have been up to during 2012
Unusually for us we decided to have a UK holiday in January and were rewarded with a glorious week of sunny but cold weather in the Cotswolds where we stayed in a delightful property call The Nest which is part of HPB’s site at Buckland Court just south of Broadway.
The apartment was very cosy and warm and we had a great week walking every day and fitting in a performance of Love’s Labour’s Lost at Stratford. One day we met up with John & Sarah’s son David and his wife Laina, enjoying a beautiful walk and an excellent pub lunch. Just a lovely week.
We managed a skiing trip to Saalbach in Austria in February and Ray had his first experience with the Ski MoJo a device intended to help support those with dodgy knees – a success and he will be using it again next year. The snow was quite reasonable but sadly sunny skies were rare and for those of you who ski regularly you will know that does spoil the visibility and makes it slightly harder work.
Again we made use of an HPB property at Viehhofen which is about 4 Km from Saalbach and 7 Km from Zell am See. For those of you who don’t know the area, we highly recommend it both in winter and summer.
For the last few years we have travelled to an Eastern European country in April and this year we visited Wroclaw and Krakow in Poland. We flew by RyanAir to Wroclaw which had been recommended by a Polish travel specialist (actually a waitress in Rosemary’s local “Eat” coffee shop in High Holborn!!). Wroclaw is a small city but the centre is charming with a lovely main square, including as appears typical in Poland, a building in the middle of the square which divides it in two.
We had two nights in the most enormous hotel suite in Wroclaw for £90 total and on the third day we caught the polish railway to Krakow, a four hour journey across a fairly uninteresting landscape with several industrial towns en route. However, it was an interesting journey and Krakow did not disappoint. It is unsurprisingly more of a tourist attraction than Wroclaw. The main square is apparently the largest in Europe and it is certainly very impressive.
Typically, it too includes a large building which divides it. The square is full of restaurants serving international food and although it was not particularly warm, life is clearly lived outside a lot more than in the UK.
The Wawel castle area as featured in the photo below was magnificent.
We visited Auschwitz - Birkenau and were glad we did, but it was truly horrific - an extraordinary example of man's inhumanity to man.
Next year we had planned a trip to St Petersburg and Moscow but we have promised our Greek friends that we will visit Athens, so Russia must wait until 2014.
In May we had two weeks in Italy, one in Tuscany near Sienna at the HPB Stigliano property which is as lovely as ever.
The second week we were staying in a Trullo near Alberobello in Puglia. It was a good holiday although Ray had an infection and the weather was very mixed. We flew to Pisa, picked up a hire car and after a week in Tuscany drove to the deep south through a day long torrential downpour to Puglia in the heel of Italy.
We enjoyed the HPB Trullo and had a couple of very enjoyable meals at a local Puglian restaurant where everything is cooked in front of you, even down to the sauces for pasta.
In June and July we had a week each in the Yorkshire Dales and then in Norfolk, coinciding in the latter case with the start of the Olympics which were a huge success and we both very much enjoyed. In Yorkshire, Rosemary had an enjoyable day visiting Harlow Carr and Newby Hall with local friend and fellow garden enthusiast, Sarah Storey and we both met up with John and Sarah on another occasion for a walk (in the rain!!) and a warming lunch near Bolton Castle.
We tried to get over to Barrow in Furness on one occasion to meet Rosemary’s niece only to find we were waterlogged (and indeed marooned for a while) and had to turn back from Kendal and so sadly we missed Harriet on that occasion. We did make it over in that direction later in the week and fitted in a visit to Gresgarth Hall, of which more later. On the Saturday of our visit we joined John and Sarah again for a charity folk concert starring John and some other local folk artists. There were some interesting acts and it was all in a good cause.
At the end of July we headed for Norfolk stopping off for a wonderful Indian meal courtesy of Robin and Tara at Letchworth and then spending a night on the way at the Swan Hotel in Lavenham where we met up with a cousin of Rosemary’s, Anita. Rosemary had been one of Anita’s bridesmaids many years ago and Anita and her husband Ron now live in Lavenham. None of us had seen each other for quite a while and we enjoyed hearing about all the family history from Anita who is spending a lot of time researching the Hurrell family and other related families. Apparently, the Hurrell’s came from both sides of the Suffolk/Essex border – Rosemary was unaware that she may be an Essex girl!. I’m not sure she has recovered from the thought!
The week was spent in an apartment overlooking a golf course, although we did not do any more than hitting a basket of 50 balls each. We visited Norwich to see the university (UEA) and the house where Ray lived during his year there doing an MSc; we also visited Blickling Hall, Holkham Hall and had a very quick trip to the Sandringham Garden Fair before we realised it was a mistake and headed for the relative quiet of the North Coast.
Evenings were often spent watching the Olympics, although we were in Sussex on those two memorable Saturday evenings. In September we had about 10 days in Alsace and the valley of the Doubs/Goumois area returning via Beaune and Honfleur. We took the Mazda and were able to drive with the top down for the vast majority of the time.
The first few days were really hot ~ 29C and whilst it cooled down considerable after that we enjoyed plenty of sunshine. In Goumois which is in the valley of the Doubs and right on the Swiss border, we stayed at the Hotel Taillard where we first stayed ~ 30 years ago. It has hardly changed.
In Beaune we had a “sliding doors” moment when having decided on one of two possible ways we could walk into the centre of town from our hotel, on the route we opted for, we met Cindy Leslie, a friend for some 30 years, who was travelling with her husband Andrew and a party of friends on a wine tasting trip.
We loved Alsace. We had not been for many years; the villages are beautiful, pristine but surprisingly busy. The drive over the Vosges mountains following the Route des Cretes and then back along the valley through all of the wine villages was memorable.
We also had a lovely drive in wonderful weather through the hills around Burgundy and many of the famous villages. In Meursault and Puligny-Montrachet the “vendange” had just started and there was much excitement and frantic activity.
As all fellow gardeners will know, the weather was not good for annuals, including vegetables and fruit and so it proved at Skinners Cottage. Despite that lots of plants did well and Rosemary continued with the planting of a new border around the fenced potager,
The highlight from a gardening perspective was a visit to Skinners Cottage by the Society of Amberley Garden Enthusiasts (SAGE), of which we are members despite not living in Amberley. They came in their numbers early in September and were very gracious about Rosemary’s efforts and loved the natural beauty of the setting and views. We served wine, pork pies and sausages and Ray’s home made focaccia and it was a really lovely evening.
We also visited a number of interesting gardens on our trips, the best by far being Gresgarth Hall just outside Lancaster which is the home of Lady Arabella Lennox-Boyd, a renowned garden designer. The house is very interesting. From the front it looks like a Scottish castle although the wild boar statue is strictly Italian. From the side (picture below) it has a very different, Mediterranean look. In any event the gardens are lovely combining structure and the modern naturalistic planting and both the house and garden benefit from lovely natural surroundings.
We also visited East Ruston Vicarage, which we thought was a bit messy and Coton Manor which was very nice but the weather was so dull that we certainly did not see it at its best.
On 15th December we head off for a long 6 ½ week trip. It is partly a reprise of our trip of two years ago although we will be taking in some of the South Island of New Zealand which we missed last time. We will be meeting up with the Dixons for a Christmas Day barbeque in Wanaka. We are stopping on the way at Bora Bora, one of the French Polynesian Islands and will also visit Tasmania whilst in Australia. We are also spending a few days in Hong Kong on our way home. We recognise that we are very privileged to be embarking on such a trip
Work - ah yes, we had forgotten about that! Rosemary is still working full time, but does not need an office, so works from home three days a week and when away manages to use email and Skype to keep on top of things. Ray is still involved in a non executive capacity with three companies and is undertaking some projects which interest him. He has in his spare time also become a very good baker although these skills have yet to be tested by Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood!
Have a great Christmas and we hope that 2013 will be good for all of you.
Ray & Rosemary
ray.jackson1948@gmail.com rjackson@wedlakebell.com
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