|
|
Friday 1st April 2011
Ludlow, arrive
   We left ourselves several hours to get to this holiday house thing, about 2 miles south of Ludlow. It was only about 3 hours from home but, what the hell? We could only check in at 16:00 anyway. As it turned out, there were diversions in Ludlow itself (some kind of broken bridge) so we got there pretty much at (or soon after) 16:00. Not a huge amount happened throughout the rest of the day, I don't think (or can't remember).
|
|
|
|
Saturday 2nd April 2011
Ludlow, Day 2
     |      | |
Today was a very lazy day, which was perfect given the surroundings. The children played outside, I tried my hand at golf, but then after a few near misses (and hitting a few trees), I decided to replace the golf balls with pine cones. Much safer. Later on that day, we went for a walk in some woods nearby.
|
|
|
|
Sunday 3rd April 2011
Ludlow, Day 3
 
Today was our last day (except for Mouse and Simon, who had next week off work) and we thought we ought to venture into Ludlow itself. We were gonna wander around the castle, but kind of got there a bit too late. Ah well . . . not to worry.
|
Craziness on the motorways
|
So you gotta picture the scene . . . we've been driving (okay, I've been driving) on the M6 for the past, erm . . . two hours or so. Prior to that, we had about an hour and a half on other A-roads and motorways. I'm kinda tired and don't really feel like driving but, hey, it's gotta be done. And, whilst not that badly hungover, we were all drinking last night and also the night before. Hell, it was my birthday yesterday. But, anyway, conscious of the driving thing required today I didn't go crazy with the drink but, like I say . . . I was just tired and when I get tired, (when anyone gets tired?!) I get a bit twitchy. So anyway . . . we're driving (did I mention that?). It's dark but there's no rain or anything. Sky's clear and all that. About 5 minutes south of Forton services (it would have been 21:45) there's that long section of the M6 where there's no lights . . . it's one of the longest, oldest sections of motorway in this country, about 26 miles (?!) between junctions. But hey . . . we're almost home (7/8 miles) and I know this stretch of the M6 very well, so I tend to speed along between 70 and 80 mph. Up ahead, perhaps a quarter of a mile, if that, I'm aware of headlights kind of spinning around in a circle, as if a car is spinning around in the road. I'm in the middle lane, overtaking someone (there's not much traffic; it's fairly quiet) and perhaps on seeing these headlights spinning round I kind of slow down . . . I'm not sure. Then up ahead I spot a car in the right-hand lane, stationary, and at some kind of crazy angle - at about 80 degrees counter-clockwise to the direction of travel. I think I completely freaked at this point but, conscious of the other vehicles around me, just slowed down get kept driving, going over the broken glass and stuff but not really paying the crashed vehicle much heed. The whole thing must have only lasted 10 seconds (or less) and M**** had no idea what was going on. But given what happened to my parents and my level of tiredness, it really freaked me out. We were the second (possibly third) vehicle to pass the scene of the crash. M**** tried to ring the police immediately afterwards but her mobile phone battery had gone. I rang them back when home, just in case they had a record of M****'s attempted phone call (the incident had been reported several times). Craziness.
|
|
|
|
Monday 4th April 2011
Craziness and sleep
|
. . . but then I couldn't sleep last night, probably because I was thinking about that stupid accident on the motorway. I don't know why I bothered. There were no fatalities and probably it was just a case of the driver falling asleep at the wheel and kind of losing control. He/she probably pulled in to the hard shoulder and called for the AA / RAC. What freaks me out is that I must have been completely lacking in concentration and would have hit the car had I been in the right-hand lane. Why didn't I brake and put the hazard warning lights on? Perhaps pull in myself and check that all was okay? Ah well . . . it was all fine in the end. No harm. |
|
|
|
Saturday 9th April 2011
. . . yielding the relativistic Breit–Wigner distribution for the probability density function
      |       |        | |
We've been here before. Exactly where 'here' is, I'm not entirely sure, but it's about slap bang in the middle of here. Well, that's where we parked anyway. We had a little play in the stream (well, the boys did) and then R****** discovered this little natural den underneath a tree, and then we went for a walk across the road . . . up the hill . . . and didn't meet a single soul.
|
|
|
|
Sunday 10th April 2011
This reaction does not involve the whole cobalt-60 nucleus
      |       | |
After a brief walk around Bolton-le-Sands (or wherever), we went to Helen and Stu's. We played a bit of football, played a bit of bumblepuppy and then had a barbecue. Some of these pictures A****** took.
|
|
|
|
Friday 22nd April 2011
Easter Egg Hunt (part 1)
  
Today we went to somewhere around about Warton Cragg for a picnic and Easter Egg hunt, as organised and orchestrated by Pop and Cathie. And, as a favour to Steph, I've even presented one of these pictures with an extra large thumbnail, as it contains A****** and R****** and is my favourite from today.
|    
Pop had planted many flowers in our garden (in pots and in borders around the front lawn) to brighten the place up and A****** and R****** (or was it just R******?!) had taken responsibility for ensuring the plants were cared for and watered. So one of these pictures shows A****** doing exactly that.
|
|
|
|
Monday 25th April 2011
Grizedale, not via Bogle Crag. It's actually Blind Lane.
|
|
|
Saturday 30th April 2011
Leighton Hall and around . .
|
|
|
