Christchurch

We were all snuggled up in our lovely new blanket that Santa brought us for Christmas, on a warm snuggly bed at The Swan in Stoford.  All ready for a nice day spent snoozing.  So you can imagine that we were a little bit surprised when our GrandHumans started talking about the possibility of heading to Christchurch for a quick look around and perhaps a bite for lunch. Not that we had any objection to going to Christchurch.  We have heard people speak very well of it.  Though we have also heard that there have been earthquakes and ongoing earth tremors which don't sound ideal for a relaxed day's outing.  We also thought that was perhaps just a tiny bit far, given that we all had a dinner engagement in the evening.  But we're up for most things so said we'd go along for the ride.

We were a bit disconcerted to find we were going by car.  Not sure that you can actually get from Wiltshire to New Zealand by car.  And then it turned out that we weren't going to New Zealand!  (Probably just as well for we didn't have our passports with us!!!).  It seems there is another Christchurch, in Dorset, near Bournemouth.

And it's beautiful, even in the fog.  There is an amazing priory, and some beautiful old buildings.  There are many pretty bridges. There was a river, and a quayside, although we couldn't see much of the quay because of the fog. We had a lovely wander around, and met some nice French people who wanted us to take their photo - we got one of the GrandHumans to do that. She's better with the camera than we are. We went shopping and had chocolate and really enjoyed ourselves.

Then we headed off for lunch.

And were easily back in time for our dinner engagement.

But we're quite keen now on the idea of collecting the Christchurch in New Zealand as well.  Who's heading to the antipodes in the near future?

We met lots of furry friends in the pub in which we lunched.
Our Human would have love it

Our winter holiday in Norfolk

Here is our holiday cottage

Holiday Supplies

We had a lovely winter holiday in Norfolk at the beginning of December.  We went to Hoveton near Wroxham with Frannie, The Builder and Lindsey, together with our new friend Rupert Hippo.  We had a bit of snow and a lot of sunshine and even more lots of food and wine and many fun things to do.
There were lots of excitements, like when the canopy of our boat collapsed under the weight of the snow.  Fortunately, we weren't in it at the time!

We had some nice walks in the snow, although the snow never got very deep.  It was very deep indeed when we got back to Tupton. We saw lots of birds and some beautiful country scenes. And now, refreshed and invigorated, we are getting ready for Christmas.  Here are some more of our pictures:

Shall we eat them on our holiday patio?

Maybe it would be better to eat them inside!

The view looks like a Christmas card :-)

Is this our boat?

Fortunately this was our boat

Warming jugs of hot chocolate after our snowy boat ride

Engaged in traditional winter holiday pursuits

It was quite a difficult puzzle - but we did it in the end

Off for a walk

This is where we went, looking for lunch

We've found a lunch venue :-)