A very busy month - we went on a day trip to Bayeaux with our local coach company: Greys Coaches and were blessed with a warm autumnal day in this lovely little French town.

 

The crab apple tree in the garden is doing well and living up to promise of all the blossom we saw in the Spring.

We received visitors and made visits to family and took advantage of a warm evening to picnic with Bobs on Butser Hill.

We stayed in a cottage in the grounds of a wonderful Elizabethan manor house near Bury St Edmunds and enjoyed exploring the town. On our way home we visited Sutton Hoo where very significant finds were made in 1939.

Finally we visited a flower festival at Leeds Castle and were blessed by a wonderfully warm and sunny day.

John continued his walking blog - see Walks in September

 
     
Tea - French style: Joan and Liz
 
Enjoying the warm French sunshine: Terry, Joan and John
 
 
Bayeaux is a lovely little town - about the same population as Petersfield (15,000) but with a magnificent cathedral
     

We had a little adventure getting home: as we entered Portsmouth Harbour we decided that rather than queue to leave the boat on foot we would go down to the car-deck and sit on the coach. After a while we were told by one of the crew that we had to walk off anyway. We left our bags (containing our passports) on the coach and walked off and were bused to passport control.

Here, of course, we had to explain that our passports were on the coach - we would not be allowed to enter the country without them! Fortunately, Jamie, who runs Greys Coaches was with us and he went, with the Head of Passport Control, to the coach to collect our bags. We were then able to produce our passports and were allowed back into the UK - quite a relief!
     
 
You may remember that my little crab apple tree was covered in blossom in April - it went on to produce loads of apples which went into a range of jams and jellies
     
 
Family 1: Graham and Lesley popped in to see us   Family 2: Dorothy fell and broke her arm!
     
More visitors: Liz, Mo, Maggie, David, Bobs and Chris
     
 
A picnic on Butser Hill - Bobs enjoyed it more than she appears to!   In the orchard of the house we stayed in
near Bury St Edmunds
     
 
Liz just told a good horsie joke   Liz enjoys a hot chocolate
     
 
St Edmund's Cathedral   Part of the Elizabethan house where we stayed
     
Another view of this amazing house
     
 
The entrance   The statues at the top of the turrets
     
 
A replica of the helmet found at Sutton Hoo   Magnificent fungi
     
Leeds Castle - a stunning building
     
 
Leeds Castle - a fairy   The rare butter-hare
     
There were many wonderful flower displays
     
 
Whooper Swans - pretty birds!   We didn't expect to see a Kookaburra - but they had a bird flying day, so we did!
 
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