View north of the site
Map and photo taken from https://worldcam.eu/webcams/europe/france/8705-la-motte-du-caire-gliding-club
Showing posts with label Richard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Richard. Show all posts
Saturday, August 23, 2025
Sunday, June 16, 2019
Father's day and a father's day
The Sunday in June that is Father's day is also near to dead husband's birthday.
Here's a photo I took of him very soon after we met. It's on the cliffs near Hastings somewhere. One weekend he would come visit me and another weekend I'd go up to his, and we'd go gliding, usually staying in a tent somewhere, even in November. When he came to Hastings we would go out walking, meet my work colleagues, and even get to the occasional party, though parties were more frequent once we lived in Hampshire.
The photo is a bit of a mess because we had it so long and without a frame for it, and our cats, Hobbledy and Pixie, had a chew and a scratch at it.
Years later, his brother returned me a copy I'd given him in the late 1970s, a pristine clean copy, but I never made a scan of that because this is the one I had on the family web site for years, since the earlier 2000s. I published it with a link under it to a private wiki I had created of his life, school, university, hobbies. but I never developed that wiki much and the family web site has gone now so here he is again. If you want to know about him, then google for Oxford University quadraphonics.
In 2014, my father was still around for Father's Day despite his recent heart attack. D.G. I still had one of my favourite men.
Here's a photo I took of him very soon after we met. It's on the cliffs near Hastings somewhere. One weekend he would come visit me and another weekend I'd go up to his, and we'd go gliding, usually staying in a tent somewhere, even in November. When he came to Hastings we would go out walking, meet my work colleagues, and even get to the occasional party, though parties were more frequent once we lived in Hampshire.
The photo is a bit of a mess because we had it so long and without a frame for it, and our cats, Hobbledy and Pixie, had a chew and a scratch at it.Years later, his brother returned me a copy I'd given him in the late 1970s, a pristine clean copy, but I never made a scan of that because this is the one I had on the family web site for years, since the earlier 2000s. I published it with a link under it to a private wiki I had created of his life, school, university, hobbies. but I never developed that wiki much and the family web site has gone now so here he is again. If you want to know about him, then google for Oxford University quadraphonics.
Thursday, August 17, 2017
Belonging to sports clubs
"Tell us about sports clubs you have belonged to", asked a Toastmaster.
Now I belong to a tae kwon do club, where I kick people, or rather I get kicked, cos the idea is that it's a defensive martial art, and I should be able to block kicks and punches. I like the club, not only because of it being a fun way to get and keep fit, but also cos I learn new things, things I find hard to do and so I achieve when I do them. And on top of that, it's a mixture of people training, old and young. I'm probably the oldest in the club, but I train with 16 year-olds and even with six-year-olds. That can be fun.
Decades ago, I joined a gliding club. As a young single woman, I immediately realised this was a good idea for the amount of talent on the field, literally on the gliding field. Many healthy young men with enough energy, intelligence and money were out on that gliding field. You have to have a job and some money to afford to fly. So there weren't many women competing for attention but plenty of men: tall men and short men, men in the services and men at the local university. Some were highly educated, but one, learning I was teaching English as a Foreign Language to non-native English speakers, said, "Oh great! I'm trying to get my English 'O' level." That was not a good pick-up line for me. One young man was tall and blond and beautiful and intelligent - he hardly noticed me. Another somewhat plump chap with straggly whiskers would come on the field in wearing green operating theatre pyjamas being a trainee doctor. The summer of 1976 was incredibly hot so the pyjamas were understandable because they were so comfortable. I discarded him because of his desert's disease (wandering palms). My language students and I had to beg lifts out to the airfield, and one day a curly haired young man with thick rimmed 1960 style glasses and a geeky jumper picked us up in a big white Volvo estate. Not trusting his driving I sat in the back but leaned over to remark on all the fancy dials on his car's dashboard. That drew his attention to me. When we'd finished gliding, that evening, several of us went out for a meal together, foreign students, green pyjamas, blond beauty, geeky glasses and I. Then we went back to someone else's for a drink. But finally, geeky glasses and I finished the evening together for coffee.
Fellow toastmasters, I married him.
Now I belong to a tae kwon do club, where I kick people, or rather I get kicked, cos the idea is that it's a defensive martial art, and I should be able to block kicks and punches. I like the club, not only because of it being a fun way to get and keep fit, but also cos I learn new things, things I find hard to do and so I achieve when I do them. And on top of that, it's a mixture of people training, old and young. I'm probably the oldest in the club, but I train with 16 year-olds and even with six-year-olds. That can be fun.
Decades ago, I joined a gliding club. As a young single woman, I immediately realised this was a good idea for the amount of talent on the field, literally on the gliding field. Many healthy young men with enough energy, intelligence and money were out on that gliding field. You have to have a job and some money to afford to fly. So there weren't many women competing for attention but plenty of men: tall men and short men, men in the services and men at the local university. Some were highly educated, but one, learning I was teaching English as a Foreign Language to non-native English speakers, said, "Oh great! I'm trying to get my English 'O' level." That was not a good pick-up line for me. One young man was tall and blond and beautiful and intelligent - he hardly noticed me. Another somewhat plump chap with straggly whiskers would come on the field in wearing green operating theatre pyjamas being a trainee doctor. The summer of 1976 was incredibly hot so the pyjamas were understandable because they were so comfortable. I discarded him because of his desert's disease (wandering palms). My language students and I had to beg lifts out to the airfield, and one day a curly haired young man with thick rimmed 1960 style glasses and a geeky jumper picked us up in a big white Volvo estate. Not trusting his driving I sat in the back but leaned over to remark on all the fancy dials on his car's dashboard. That drew his attention to me. When we'd finished gliding, that evening, several of us went out for a meal together, foreign students, green pyjamas, blond beauty, geeky glasses and I. Then we went back to someone else's for a drink. But finally, geeky glasses and I finished the evening together for coffee.Fellow toastmasters, I married him.
Tuesday, August 23, 2016
Mourning
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| RIC |
Twenty years ago, on holiday we woke to a beautiful morning like this at La Motte du Caire. Those are the mountains where later that day, he died.
Yesterday, his brother rang me to tell me their mother has died. His brother is the last of that family - lonely.
Mourning this morning.
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| La Motte du Caire airfield today |
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