Six Pack

As June comes to an end its time to do some catching up. After a bit if golf with the Virgin Airways golf society at Wallasey, I was able to focus once more on the trip ahead to Striding Edge and Helvellyn.

As a side, however, the Virgin golf team are called the Swingers, an interesting name choice and one which Sir Richard must have the odd chuckle about. If they knew what went on in the sand dunes near the Wallasey course, they would see even more irony in the name.

I digress, so in early June we set off to Camp Dick II, again hosted in Bampton by Seamus and Kate. They was a fair old gathering, although a few less than the assemble at Camp Dick, the original. Yep, this blog has been going over ten years...phew.
Dicks lads all have WaGs in tow now, and people had again travelled from near and far. The main topic of conversation though was the weather!!

We stayed at a B & B in the village, the host of which was the official Winter weather man and climbed Helvellyn every day to do a weather report. It was pretty clear on the Saturday morning then that there was no way that walk was going to happen. It was a huge disappointment as we had been training quite extensively for it. Safety has to come first though, so a brisk few mile hike to Shap Abbey was considered the alternative. It was good fun and built up an appetite for pie and peas, ploughmans lunch and large pots of stew. It was all washed down with three barrels of local craft beer and we all slept well on the back of it!!

 

The next exciting weekend was that just past, which started off with An Old England XI v Oxton CC in a T20 game. Mark Ramprakash was the big name but Devon Malcolm, Dominic Cork and Simon Jones were also in the team.

 

That evening the London branch of the family arrived for Ava's first holy communion the next morning. Lions rugby had to be sacrificed as we were on duty in the church for 09:45. It was then all back to Emma's house for bouncy castle, mega blow up slide, bbq and more beer. I am not sure how London Pride got on the menu but who was I to complain.

 

It also gave us a rare photo opportunity as we had one with the ankle biters en masse!

 

 

 

July starts off with cousin Mike and his wife Val coming up North for Chester races. It will be my fourth day at the course and I have yet to win any money. Lets hope the weather and the luck changes on Saturday.

Pretty Flamingo

So Valentine's Day has come and gone, and hopefully I got away with it again.

SWMBO and I visited Babylon, a  Sir Richard Branson owned restaurant in the Roof Gardens in Kensington. I have not visited the Roof Gardens for many years, the last time being a work Christmas party hosted by our marketing organisation. I went with Steve McMillan, an old mucker of mine from our time together at IBM. Steve now lives over the pond, and co-incidentally its his birthday today, so have a good one matey!

The roof gardens were built on top of  the Derry and Toms department store which  was opened in Kensington in 1933. The gardens were laid out between 1936 and 1938 by Ralph Hancock, a landscape architect  They cost £25,000 to create and visitors were charged 1 shilling to enter. Money raised was donated to local hospitals and £120,000 was raised during the next 30 years.

The building housed the department store Derry and Toms until 1973, and then Biba until 1975, they have been listed as a Grade II site by the English Heritage since  1978.
The Roof Gardens have been rented from their owners by Sir Richard Branson since 1981 and as well as the restaurant, there is a nightclub on the garden level which is  divided into three themed area's.

• a Spanish garden, in a Moorish style based upon the Alhambra in Spain, with fountains, vine-covered walkways and Chusan palms;
• a  Tudor style garden, characterised by its archways, secret corners and hanging  wisteria. Roses, lilies and lavender contribute the rich summer scent to the garden;
• an English woodland garden, with over 100 species of trees, a stream, and a  garden pond that is the home to pintail ducks and four  flamingos called Bill, Ben, Splosh and Pecks. There are over 30 different species of trees in the woodland garden, including trees from the original planting over sixty years ago, despite having only a metre of soil in which to grow. Although they are on a rooftop, the trees were made the subject of tree preservation orders in 1976.

Unfortunately the Flamingos were tucked up in bed for the night when we went, and only the terrace shown in the photo was open. London was being battered by high winds and I think a flying lady was the last thing Virgin and Sir Richard wanted that night.

Still its a wonderful hidden gem, which cannot be seen from the road, and it is available to the public to visit whenever there is no private function booked. I commend it to you all if you are in the area.