baby robins IN OUR GARDEN!!!

Husb has always been a fanatical bird lover, ever since the"I spy" books when we were mere youngsters.Sometimes I think he`s got shares in the mealworms company, we have so many packets..in addition to all the sacks of "supa hi quality" bird food, so you can imagine his(our) delight when we watched mum and dad Robinson build a nest in our garden(in Kay`s little nesting house) and raise their 4 little chicks, Rob, Robyn, Robbie and Roberta. They were hungry little things, mum and dad flew tirelessly in and out of the nest all day... we knew when their"nest fleeing" day was imminent because they were so big they practically fell out of the nest.

The Rowans

Margaret, Nic and I had a lovely couple of hours in Malpas at Alan and Paul`s garden. The vast array of colours were amazing and testiment to hours of hard labour in the garden. Last year wasn`t a total washout but large areas of the garden were severely flooded which resulted in a very limited view even though the BBC camera crew were there, so we were really looking forward to the opening this year. It looked fantastic, these few photos dont do it justice at all... just imagine these colours times a hundred,the hanging baskets, beds and borders were spectacular. Well done chaps! (and the carrot cake.... heaven... very dark, not very sweet, light as a feather and melt in your mouth gorgeous)

Chris leaves for his "trip of a lifetime"!

Well we packed and unpacked and packed the rucksack several times and it was still nowhere nearly full, (I think sonny has plans of buying various hats, teeshirts, souvenirs etc when he`s away) but it still weighed a ton... anyway after weeks of planning and a last minute dash to the surgery for malaria pills, Chris finally got on his way and is now in Kent with Guy and Mark ready to head off to the airport on Wednesday.

Good luck Chris... have a fantastic time! Click here to follow his adventures in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia and Peru.

keep on truckin`

One of the "problems"("problems"??ahh that sounds awful) of having an artistic daughter is the amount of arty stuff they have to bring home from uni. My beloved Mr Denton....A fairly roomy Fiat Stilo... hadn`t got a hope of getting a dozen canvasses inside, so Mike has gone to Oxford in a real beast of a van. It`s so big he also went armed with some huge foam blocks to save the paintings rolling around on the journey home.If you look on nic`s blog you will see it was well worth the effort. The Merc Sprinter was half way through its "make-over"... quite trendy I think.

A dress?? sandals??

I just need to make a note of the fact that I`m wearing a dress and new sandals but Im not even going anywhere! Basically I want to make sure these super comfy (cool and airy and NON SWEATY) sandals are well and truly worn in before I go marching round Scandinavia in them next month(Wutwoo!)... So Ive done ten minutes gardening in them and have picked some home grown raspberries. Meanwhile Chris has had an opportunity to play with his rather nice new camera.. very slim, very smart and very usable.. and now ready for a trip round South America(even bigger WUTWOO)

happy brilliant wonderful hollindales

Hey Ho.. 3rd blog of the day, just getting the hang of the "add an image" button!

It`s a good excuse to congratulate my offspring on their academic success which incidentally was the whole point of the evening in Liverpool with Counting Crows.Although Husb was still overdue a birthday present (since January)(!) I also wanted to treat my newly graduated twins on their degrees....Nic with a truly excellent 2.1 in Art(see her blog for photos of her canvasses) and Chris who is now a Master of Maths with a brilliant First from St Anne`s College, Oxford. Not to be left out, Emma got a Distinction for her Art Foundation course at Mid Cheshire College. We definitely deserved a treat!! (Counting Crows were amazing, I want to see them again)

Counting Crows in action

Here`s the tee shirt!

I don`t usually DO black but hey...it`s a great tee shirt!

Counting Crows!!

After months of anticipation and excitement and the playing(over and over and over) of their new album SATURDAY NIGHTS AND SUNDAY MORNINGS the day finally came.. Counting Crows performing at the Liverpool Echo Arena as part of the "Summer Pops" series of concerts. Absolutely brilliant!! But TOO SHORT! It was all over too soon! To be fair lead singer Adam Duritz was leaping about energetically (and very randomly.. did he know where he was going?!!) for almost an hour and a half, but so many of our favourite songs were omitted.. presumably due to time restrictions(it took us an hour to get out of the carpark afterwards)

Counting Crows were formed in 1991 and have been touring for 15 years, loads of energy and fabulous vocals, Adam can still belt out a great tune, he has an amazing voice. The crowd were dancing in the aisles to Mrs Jones("I dont think so... He`s looking at ME").It was fab. But all around us(fantastic seats, right by the stage!) people were calling for their favourite tunes.. Mrs Potter! Shrek!(that was me!)... I wish they could have come on stage earlier and sang another half a dozen songs. That said it was brill.. and Ive got the tee shirt!

Chester Mystery Plays

Chester Mystery Plays date back to the 1300s and are now performed once every 5 years, so when my friend told me he would be performing in them this year I made a big effort to go and see them. It meant starting my spinning class slightly earlier than usual and then running up to the Cathedral the minute I`d finished, but it was well worth the effort. The weather wasnt ideal..not a lovely mild July evening but a cold, damp and miserable one. However, staged in the Cathedral grounds with great enthusiasm from all involved, it was a colourful and thoroughly enjoyable evening`s entertainment. Matthew in particular did some magnificent grieving at the side when most people`s attention would have been on Jesus on the cross.

Once every five years suddenly seems a very long time between productions... it looked really good fun and a great way for the people of the Chester community to get together. I saw so many familiar faces in both the Plays and the audience. The weather didnt encourage people to go and sit in the open air though, one of the opening nights had to be cancelled and two days after we saw it the performance was rained off after an hour.

Ive lived in Chester for over 30 years and I have to admit its the first time I have been.... it was a great feelgood show.. well done to all involved.

emergency raita!

I thought I`d better make a note of my successful culinary experiment!!

I was just about to dish up the curry last night so started to make some raita when I realised we were out of natural yoghurt(I obviously didnt get very far... basically I opened the fridge!) so I blended some philly with some milk(sounds yuk but trust me it did sort of blend) and then added some sugar and mint sauce and hey presto... some raita...VERY CREAMY!!!!!!

you cant beat a kitchen cupboard "knock-up" can you...

my day with Em, Chris and Soooze

Well I have now recovered from my epic day in Oxford. The purpose of the trip being to empty Chris`s house (ok... slight exaggeration... chris`s room) into my fiat Stilo... after 4 years of uni one certainly accumulates some stuff.

But as Chris was leaving St Annes college and Oxford for good we wanted to have a last look around the city. It was Open Day for the colleges so we were able to have a shuffty round about 7 of them with a walk through The Parks etc en route.

Lady Margaret Hall had grotty coloured bricks so that didnt get off to a very good start!

Keble was very nice and fairly central and we liked the bricks so we gave that college a big tick.

St John`s was also a big hit... lovely buildings if you ignored the "Beehive" residential block... I`m sure they were lovely rooms inside!

New College... WOW! Fabulous grounds, you walk through the arch way to lovely big lawns and make your way to The Mound which was intriguing until we actually walked UP it!!!

Yes Soooze I think it DID squeak back at us when we clapped at it... the people at the top vehemently denied any participation in any squeaking anyway!
But New provided no catering facilities for first years so when your mutson and farti come to stay theres no kitchen for a cuppa tea(BE WARNED EM your mutson likes her tea) I suspect a fair bit of kettle smuggling and George Foreman schneaking goes on in New college!

Magdalen...We all fell in love with this college, its magnificent cloisters and lovely chapel and it`s own deer park....I expect a lot of candidates apply here.

Christ Church is the richest college due to all the tourists(are they all Harry Potter fans??!!)We tried to work out which seat in the fantastic dining room Hermione sat in when they filmed the films. You couldn`t help looking up to see if an owl was delivering the Daily Prophet...

It was a brilliant morning, warm and sunny too. Pity that didnt last for the journey home, not only was the car full to busting, it absolutely hammered it down on the motorway, so not only could I not see out of the windows... I was being sprayed by all the lorries. No wonder my arms ached the next morning.

And just for the record.. all Chris`s stuff is now all over the landing(tho to be fair he HAS started sorting it out which must be a record cos he hasnt been home a week yet!) Strangely enough he must have brought a pet mouse home with him because the items in the fridge have been very slowly and schneakily disappearing...........