Well that is 2024 done and dusted - an odd year, not having the beer festival in August (cancelled due to problems with the venue and too short notice to find a replacement in time) took a lot of structure out of the year for us, while also freeing up extra holiday time which is always going to be useful! Lots of the "regular" sort of things still happened of course, and a lot of the start of the year was settling in to the new house. The garden was, as we know from previous posts, a massive focus for us - and having the time freed up from not doing beer festival related stuff was a help on that side of things.
January: The year began with a lot of rain, the discovery that yes, we did have a roof leak, the discovery of a Pied Wagtail roost in a nearby supermarket car park, and a meet up with pals for excellent pizza and equally excellent beer during a wander around the Hackney area.
February: Our first Hidden London tour of the year was to Baker Street - and it was a superb one, SO much history as you might expect, and definitely one of the most interesting we've done in terms of drawing our eye to features we might not have noticed otherwise, and really getting into the bones of the station! We also incorporated a ride on the new bit of Northern Line down to Battersea, and a look at the fantastically refurbished Battersea Power Station too. Later in the month was a weekend spent in Derby meeting pals and exploring more brilliant pubs!
March: A bit of a quiet one according to my phone camera roll. We did some work in the front garden - planting up some pots kindly given to us by a neighbour and also digging over a section of the ground and planting directly in. We had a walk at Tring Reservoirs including a look at the rather fascinating rebuilding of the Wendover Arm of the Grand Union Canal - an astonishing project! Another walk at Aldeburgh including lovely light for viewing the stunning scallop shell sculpture on the beach. The month ended with a massive change to the back garden as the new veg bed was dug out! That turned out to be a far more involved job than we were hoping it would too - with a deep bed of concrete below the slabs, and somewhere approaching a foot depth of rubble below that.
April: The 1st of the month we did indeed feel like April Fools as we spent the day completing the digging out of the veg bed, breaking out more huge chunks of concrete and bagging up rubble ready for numerous trips to the tip through that month! We took a break from that on the 2nd though for a brilliant opportunity - to tour the old London Transport HQ at 55 Broadway. This is somewhere that we'd wanted to visit for AGES having missed out on doing the Hidden London tour of it when it ran through our own stupidity! (It's also one I've already blogged about so if you want to know more, scroll on back!). By the end of the second weekend in April we had made good progress on planting up the new bed - a rhubarb and a redcurrant had found their new homes, and some herbs too. The following weekend was reserved for a trip down to Devon where we had a walk about Totnes and found some fabulous edible planting...also already blogged about! In the other extreme, towards the end of the month we travelled to the other end of the country for a weekend in Dundee for the Campaign for Real Ale AGM & Members weekend, making time for a stop in Edinburgh on the way too. We had a lovely time exploring pubs, managed to spent some time with one of my very best friends, and then had a rather grotty trip back which did at least see us getting a full "delay repay" refund on the tickets!
May: Began with another visit to Hackney with a different pal this time, and more excellent pizza and beer. Airshow season kicked in for me this month too - it felt great to be back camera in hand again, and also to catch up with some pals from that side of things! In the garden the potatoes we'd planted started showing signs of life, and the first fruits started forming on our courgettes too. Then later in the month it was time to pack the car and head north for our annual Hebrides trip - back to gorgeous little Kettle Cottage this year for a rather chilly, windy fortnight. Always a joy regardless of the weather mind you! We stopped on the way up at The Kelpies too which was wildly exciting and every bit as impressive as we could have hoped! The start of the holiday was rather overshadowed for me by the news of the Spitfire crash at Coningsby, and the subsequently confirmed death of Squadron Leader Mark Long - a real tragedy, and one which had a profound effect on the whole air show community.
June: Home to a garden absolutely flourishing, both in terms of flowers and veggies! First proper harvests too - this was the month where the garden really began to earn its keep. Airshow-wise, Sywell held their first (and as it stands, likely to be only) full airshow - two days of wonderful weather, fabulous warbirds and great fun with friends. I ended the month with another visit to Shuttleworth - more warbirds!
July: The big news was of course the General Election, but that day stood out more for me for a bit of time spent with the lovely Strikemaster Display team at North Weald. We made a visit to the London Transport Museum depot at Acton which was a fascinating day - and we'll certainly be booking to go back! A day at Ealing Beer Festival with a group of CAMRA pals was a great day out, and then it was "the biggie" of the airshow season with the Royal International Air tattoo at RAF Fairford. This took a rather different form for me than before with a group of 5 of us sharing a house for the duration - but my goodness me WHAT a fun few days! We have a plan in place to repeat it all again this year too - can't wait! While there I also had an incredible opportunity to sit in on a Red Arrows post display debrief which was amazing - the way they pick the display apart picking up on even the tiniest flaws is just incredible. It was certainly not anything I ever expected and I couldn't be more grateful to the team's PR Manager Andy and Red 1, Bondy for giving me the chance!
August: Lots more homegrown stuff, with perhaps the highlight being cucumbers! Also some foraging - plums to turn into plum sauce (and MrEH also made some jam around this time too) which was delicious! We had a weekend in the North West to catch up with lovely friends and for me to make a visit to the Blackpool Air Show - not a show I can usually do as there is usually a clash with the beer festival! We also made a trip down to MrEH's hometown for the annual Regatta, and I walked out to a local landmark I've wanted to see close up for the last 20+ years - The Daymark!
September: The garden was by now providing most of our vegetable needs which was excellent - we were even at the stage of being able to do some batch cooking of produce to fill the freezer as well. Our second bit of LT Museum adventuring of the year happened too - with a Hidden London tour at Holborn one day followed by a ride on the 1938 tube stock the next. Both excellent and Holborn might have my favourite tiling to date! There was a camping weekend in Ludlow with friends for the food festival too - first time back at one of our favourite campsites in a few years!
October: The highlight of the month was unquestionably the stunning Northern Lights display we saw from our very own back garden all the way down in Essex. Having missed the aurora when it showed well "down south" earlier in the year we were thoroughly pleased to have seen this one! The garden was still feeding us too with the last of the courgettes and tomatoes still appearing and our first potatoes as well!
November: Final major garden harvest in the shape of the remaining tatties being dug and stashed away in the shed, and then it was just a case of generally getting the beds tidied and ready for winter. There is still chard producing a little, although by the time of writing it was mostly beaten by the frost. There was a small local beer festival to attend which was fun! Sadly the month closed off with the news of the death of a very dear friend of ours - although he had been in poor health for a while it was totally unexpected at that point, and left us all very shaken.
December: Christmas month, and of course as always it kicked off with a trip to the wonderful Pigs Ear Beer festival in London. I tried to do "something nice" each day specifically through the month too - anything from wearing a piece of jewellery I might not normally have put on, to a little foody treat or going out somewhere different. Nothing massively "full on" but just a nod to a nice if quite dark and cold, month. Our friend's funeral gave the opportunity to spend time with a lot of other good friends over some beers - which he would absolutely have appreciated.We took time to head up to Suffolk to visit one of our favourite RSPB reserves and have fish & chips in Aldeburgh while we were off work over Christmas, too.
And there you go - our 2024 summed up in a few paragraphs and some photos!
Robyn
No comments:
Post a Comment