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We are going to try and use our National Trust family membership a bit more this year. So yesterday we took the chance to drive to Newark Park, a 450-year old hunting lodge set in beautiful grounds. Terrific weather and a live jazz band made it a special trip.
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Ratch headed home today. We managed to squeeze a lot into the few days she was here - Lacock Abbey, Avebury standing stones, Silbury Hill, West Kennet Long Barrow and a Folk Festival in Chippenham. JiaJia enjoyed cooking some less-spicy Chinese food for her and showing her around the garden. JD enjoyed explaining his typewriter collection and winning at Monopoly, Barricade and Risk! A lovely guest to have visit.
We have my good friend Ratch staying for a few days. Her hobbies include jigsaws and singing in choirs, so we've told her she can't leave until JD's typewriter puzzle is completed! JD and I gave up gave up on it long ago! The other requirement whilst here is to teach JiaJia how to make Ratch's famous lemon drizzle cake. Oh yes, we certainly get our moneysworth out of our guests! 
The Badminton Estate is owned by the Duke and Duchess of Beaufort. On one day of the year, they open their gardens to the public, with proceeds going to charity. We bought our tickets a few months ago and had a lovely visit in the sunshine yesterday. We had a picnic in the grounds and later met up with our friends Krista and Stuart
JiaJIa, JD and I had a lovely day in Oxford yesterday. First stop was the Pitt Rivers Museum [top left] - a treasure trove of "random" objects collected from around the world. Last time I was there was some 40 years ago! Then, after a picnic, we explored the Colleges and their "gleaming spires" - something JiaJia has dreamed about doing since she was at University in China.  Finally, after a bit of retail therapy, we visited my old College. It's looking semi-abandoned these days, and apparently due to be demolished soon. Sad to see, but it brought back many happy memories. On the way home JiaJia asked me if I had learned a lot during my four years there. "Not so much", I admitted, and yet I had the best time whilst there. I made lot of good friends, and it gave me passions and skills which are still very much a part of who I am.
We spent a lovely afternoon and evening at our friend Claire's today. Some of the time was spent putting together some mini-jigsaws - a fun challenge that that was new to JD and JiaJia.
All that, plus a lovely tea and a board game to finish. Thanks Claire!  We've been trying to visit a new place each week since arriving back in the UK. This week it was the turn of Avebury Manor, or at least the gardens around it, since the Manor itself was badly flooded in January this year and remains closed. We started at a small Museum where the curator gave JD an "Odd one Out" worksheet, to help him focus on the contents of the displays.
The extensive and picturesque gardens were hosting over 80 sculptures by local artists, and we had fun spotting them and gasping at their asking prices! The sculpture exhibition was about to finish its six week run, so we just squeezed in. We'll head back again when the Manor finally dries out!  I had a very pleasant tip to Oxford the other day to meet up with a couple of my closest friends from Westminster College, where I trained to be a teacher some 40 years ago. It says something about my priorities at that time that the girls were part of the catering staff, not fellow students!  Ratch [centre] emailed me daily throughout my whole time in China. Rosemary [right] was my bridge partner at College and still plays regularly. We had a great reminisce and caught up on our current semi-retired lives either side of a tasty lunch and a game of "Qwirkle Cubes" (...don't ask!).
A lovely day yesterday as we drove to my Uncle and Aunt's for the day. We haven't seen them on over a decade. We chatted, visited Stourhead (using our newly bought National Trust membership cards for the first time) and ended with a meal at a tasty Indian restaurant. And despite some early morning rain, we enjoyed blue skies throughout our visit.
 We spent a really lovely afternoon yesterday in Stratford Park, Stroud, listening to the Dodington Brass Band, which includes our good friend Stuart on euphonium [right in picture].
Jiajia, JD and I went to Bath last Saturday. We went by bus this time - a chance to see some local villages from the top deck, and a little cheaper than the train. But the journey took five times longer!  On arrival, we climbed up to Alexandra Park viewpoint for a picnic overlooking the picturesque city.
We drove to Avebury today to see the largest prehistoric stone circle in the world, some 4,500 years old. Then we walked to Silbury Hill - the largest man-made pre-historic hill in Europe. Finally, after a pub lunch we headed home. Lovely trip out.
We went on a guided walk of Jubilee Woodland and the Caen Locks today. The woodlands were planted for the Queen's Golden Jubilee with various native trees and plants, of which the guide knew a lot. He pointed out one distant hill was where an important battle in the English Civil War (1650s) took place and then a huge oak tree near us would have already been about 300 years old when that happened!
The flight of 16 locks at Caen is the longest in Britain and we were able to watch canal boats coming up and down it. We also saw a big heron hop from lock to lock alongside one of the boats - looking for disturbed fish to eat! Lovely morning out.
Five years is much too long to not see your parents in person, so it was a long overdue, but really lovely, weekend today with my Mum and Dad. They showed so much interest in JD and had long chats with JiaJia. It was lovely to see them bond with my little family. And I felt very much at home, too. We won't leave it longer than a few months in future!   We took the train for a ten minute journey to Bath today primarily to pick up a biometric Residency Card for JiaJia. Whilst there, we browsed the charity shops and had a picnic lunch by the river. JiaJia later spotted a Chinese grocery on our walk back to the station, and indulged herself in various spices and sauces! We returned to find our plumber had visited and fixed our boiler (for now at least - apparently it's an intermittent fault) which means we can have a hot shower instead of a bath of kettle-heated water!
I first met LaiLai when I was a VSO volunteer 25 years ago - she worked in the Beijing Office for a year. We last met 15 years ago when she invited me to help on a Red Cross trip to assess the needs of a remote village near Kunming (LaiLai was working for the Red Cross by then). We've kept in touch now and again through the years but it was still a bit of a surprise to get a message from her saying that her family were on holiday travels from their home in South Korea, and would be passing through Kunming on Boxing Day if we were free to meet....  So we shared a nice meal together a couple of days ago, chatting about old times! Her husband is from Devon and was also a VSO volunteer during my time with the charity (though we couldn't recall each other!). JD quickly broke down their kids' shyness and took them downstairs in the restaurant to barbecue "smelly tofu" together!
I took a little solo trip to the Yunnan Provincial Museum last week. It relocated to an imposing purpose-built site about ten years ago; unfortunately some distance from the city centre. But I planned my underground and bus routes to get there, and set off.  The metro was great, but the connecting bus let me down. After waiting 40 minutes for my bus I eventually gave up and took a taxi. I chose a different bus route back but, when that one still failed to show after an hour, I decided to take a longer route on another bus instead. The best laid plans...
We spent today driving to, and climbing up, QiPan Mountain in the west of Kunming, with a Chinese family we know well. It was a winding drive and a foresty walk - an hour each. "QiPan" translates as "chess board" for reason which aren't immediately obvious - maybe the many statues placed on a flat area of land?  We got back yesterday from an overnight stay in a village on the outskirts of Kunming. On arrival we headed for the fossils up a nearby hill, somewhere we'd been once before with friends.  Jiajia quickly found a small, but complete trilobite. I later found a large but incomplete one. After a few hours, JD was starting to get frustrated by his lack of luck when he suddenly stumbled across this beautiful, blue-stained trilobite. That cheered him up for the rest of the day! We headed back down to the village with a dozen fossils in various states of completeness. We'd found a traditional, old house online which offered a homestay bedroom. It was very pretty and the hosts couldn't do enough for us. Unfortunately, there were a lot of biting mosquitoes during the night, despite our precautions, which led to little sleep.
The next morning, we went to the weekly market, but it was a bit disappointing - just half a dozen Yi minority women with fruit and vegetables fresh from their fields. Afterwards we found a carpentry workshop which offered craft lessons to children. So JD spent 4 hours making a wooden knife and sheath, with the help or his patient teacher. He loved it and was very proud of his work.  We drove back to Kunming later in the afternoon. We stopped at a car wash as Jiajia has a lot of vouchers for free valets. While they were cleaning the car, we headed for a nearby Pizza Hut as - you guessed it - Jiajia has a lot of vouchers for free pizzas. The benefits of being a VIP customer at the Bank of China!
It was a fun little trip and we think we might go back again someday to explore a little more, in and around the village. Meanwhile, JD has to prepare for his imminent return to school.
We went to a mountainside picnic area where the kids could run around and play. Lunch was a DIY barbecue - you bring your own food and then pay for charcoal and the barbecue grill to cook it on. Fun.
 The flat upstairs started their redecoration and remodeling yesterday and, pretty soon, the constant hammering of the masonry drills drove me out of the house. I headed for a reservoir I'd heard about, a half hour e-bike drive away. It didn't disappoint. A haven of fresh air and greenery just outside the city. And I was surprised to see a dozen folk swimming there too, so it looks like somewhere I might take JD to sometime.   We spent the last couple of days on a final holiday trip before JD returns to school next week. We had been invited to join four other families at a spa resort nestled in the mountains of LuQuan. It's a winding 2½ hour drive there and back, but the views are spectacular. The spa hotel was surprising nice and the various pools were clean and ranged from warm to piping hot. There was also a kid's water play area and an outdoor swimming pool. And with a good restaurant/snack bar, new friends, dry weather and amazing surrounding scenery - what more could you ask for?  |
 AuthorPaul Hider started this blog to share his rather odd life living in China for over 20 years. Since returning to the UK in 2024, the blog now records his more "normal" lifestyle! Past blog entries
May 2025
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