SKI-er or Sk-ater. We know how to enjoy ourselves

margaretclare

Our main holiday this year is going to be the Brittany coast, that part of it which faces the Channel and is called the Pink Granite Coast.

I went there just a few weeks before DH came into my life. It was the kind of place that I thought 'I wish I didn't have to see this alone'. I like being able to say 'Oh look at that...'

DH has just done the online booking, 7 nights at a small hotel plus an overnight ferry crossing Portsmouth - St Malo. The first week of September is ideal for us to get away - the weather is good, the children are back at school, people are back to work and we're lucky - we don't have to get back for work!

pollypenny

Hi, everyone - we' ve been very quite on this thread lately! Is everyone away?

Just come back from TaiChi - it seems like most of the class are going away in June. Joys of holidaying in school time! The tickets and bumf for Crete have just arrived so I'm raring to go!

donny-gal

The problem Polly is we are busy ski-ing. Just had 4 nights at Scarborough and now at Scampton Hall near Malton for 5 nights in the tourer. Short & sweet as sent from a Blackberry. DG

seven-day-weekend

Preparing to SKI in the England and Wales from next Tuesday.......

margaretclare

We went to DH's cousin's grandson's bar mitzvah on Saturday. I had very little idea of what to expect, but the people there could not have been nicer, very welcoming and friendly and willing to explain what was going on. It was a reform synagogue so men and women not separated, women not wearing hats or veils, in fact, pretty informal - much like our church congregation!! I had been told it was a 'posh do' but really, it wasn't.

I managed to read the prayer book back-to-front - all of it was in Hebrew, English and transliterated Hebrew, so it was possible to follow it quite easily. What I didn't realise was that it would go on so loooooong - it got hotter and hotter with all the people in there and DH was getting quite uncomfortable. He finds it difficult to sit for long, but equally he can't bob up and down, it takes him time. So we didn't stay for the refreshments afterwards and we got out at 12.30, start was 10.30 am. It's more or less in 2 parts and when I thought we were coming to the end, there was another service to follow!!!

Actually we went down the road and had a traditional pub meal at the first old pub we came to, the 'Cat and Fiddle' on Watling Street. I can recommend it. I had home-made pie and mashed potato, DH had home-made burger.

We sat in the garden at the weekend watching the planes fly over from the Air Show. Now I'm helping with the leafleting for the elections, English Democrats Party. 2 of my friends are standing for the County Council in Rayleigh and leafleting is a mammoth task.

pollypenny

Everyone having a good time, then!

Have you packed SDW? DG expert on the blackberry, you had at least two good days for sun! THe Barmitzvah must have been very interesting. I'd love to go to one, MC.

Pol x

seven-day-weekend

pollypenny wrote: »

Everyone having a good time, then!

Have you packed SDW? DG expert on the blackberry, you had at least two good days for sun! THe Barmitzvah must have been very interesting. I'd love to go to one, MC.

Pol x

Packed????

We are having a house exchange holiday in Wales for three weeks of our UK stay; they are coming here. Therefore my husband has decided our house is falling down and is busy plastering, linseed-oiling all the woodwork, ditto all the slate, rewiring, painting and the like.

Bearing in mind when I say 'woodwork' we have over 100 exposed beams, eighteen wooden doors and seven wooden windows with wooden shutters. :eek:

We have spent all our time cleaning up!

Packed? That's a luxury that is yet to come. :rotfl::rotfl:

pollypenny

Hmmm! sounds familiar! I've wondered about a house exchange, as we live in a pretty nice part of North Wales, handy for Chester and Liverpool too. But I'd be decorating and cleaning like a fool! :eek:

On second thoughts .........:rolleyes:

margaretclare

The bar mitzvah ceremony we went to was very interesting indeed. I'd never been to one before, in fact I know very little about their religion - mostly what I've gleaned comes from a series of novels by Maisie Mosco. DH couldn't tell me much - he left it all behind him and in any case, the last bar mitzvah he went to was probably half a century ago.

It can be different depending on the type of synagogue. Along Watling Street in Radlett, Herts, there are no less than three synagogues. In some, men and women don't sit together (the presence of women distracts men from their prayers!!) and women sit upstairs. Apart from the little hats the men can borrow if they haven't one of their own, there isn't a dress code about women wearing hats etc. Just like our church!

Apparently in the Reform type of synagogue they are more welcoming, want to invite people in whether members of their faith or not. I'm told that others can be more 'exclusive'. I don't think I'd like to be told I had to sit separately, in fact DH probably wouldn't even go if he thought it was going to be like that.

Our minister from church came round last evening, brought her little dog - a rescued dog, very nervous, and DH is one of the very few males that he'll go near. Anyway, what she and DH discussed a while ago was that he would stand up in church and tell about the 'near-death experience' that he had back in October while he was in Critical Care, fighting for his life with septicaemia. There's a baptism this Sunday, it's Pentecost and she thought this would be a good time for him to do it. He wanted to tell everyone of his experience and this is going to be the most appropriate occasion. I said to him the other day 'somewhere along the way you found Christ' and he said 'Well, he found me, that's what really happened'.

One of the reasons we didn't hang around was that bro-in-law was there and there is no love lost. DH said he couldn't stand having to make polite conversation, he didn't have the strength for it. I would have quite liked to talk to bro - he's the bloke who says he's a 'committed secular Jew' and has also said he doesn't believe in God. So who was he praying to, when he was joining in the Hebrew prayers??? Answers on a postcard please!!

pollypenny

MC, I can understand where your B-I-L is coming from. I'd call myself a spiritual atheist and I will go along with saying The Lord's Prayer; the concepts of forgiveness and gratitude are worth remembering, eh.