On Saturday 6 June we took my mother out to lunch in Portsmouth to celebrate a milestone birthday. My brother and his wife were there with one of my nieces, and my wife and I drove down with our son and his wife and our daughter. We sat in a cool spacious room in a lovely pub overlooking the busy harbour entrance and had a leisurely meal (fish and chips for me, with a refreshing Sauvignon Blanc). The sun shone brilliantly and it resembled Flaming June in all respects apart from the presence of a very chilly breeze. We al had a great time and repaired to Mum's house for tea and cake and a family photograph – on the walk from the pub some of us climbed the steps on to the old wall overlooking the harbour and gazed out towards Gosport and the Isle of Wight. In this shot you can see in the distance the tower in Gosport used for submarine escape training – it is filled with water and the trainee submariners rise up this claustrophobic column to break the surface in the tank right at the top.
Sunday 7 June was my wife's birthday and she, our daughter and I took the day at a gentle pace. It was warmer than the previous day and we went for a cycle ride along the Thames towpath between the centre of Twickenham and Richmond Lock (seen here), where we stopped for an in ice cream before taking to the back streets for the journey back home. The lock (which also includes a weir and a double footbridge) was built in between 1891 and 1894 to designs by an engineer named Storey and is listed Grade II. Just above the bridge can be seen one of the many jet airliners that fly into Heathrow each day—a form of transport undreamed of in the last decade of the 19th century (which was also the first decade of my grandparents' lives).
No comments:
Post a Comment