Back on Tuesday, dear reader...
Showing posts with label Essex. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Essex. Show all posts
Sunday, 9 April 2023
Saturday, 13 August 2022
You just leave it all up to me; I'll show you what it's all about
[click to embiggen]
Built by the first Earl of Suffolk, Lord Treasurer to James I, the Jacobean-style Audley End House is one of the most magnificent of its type in England.
And this fabulous location, dear reader, is where we will be this Sunday - for an open-air concert by the legend that is Sir Tom Jones, Tom Jones!
The excitement is building...
"Normal" service will resume on Monday (or Tuesday, depending how late we get back)...
Thursday, 7 April 2022
While you were away...
Halstead Antiques Centre [click any pic to embiggen]
We had a splendid time staying with "our nieces" Baby Steve and Houseboy Alex in Braintree over the past few days - they did us proud!
We travelled up to Essex with them the day after our faboo Film Club/"New Year's Eve" party - at which we all got the heebie-jeebies for Cruella...
...and managed to "fill our boots" with a haul from the garden centres in the locality - a new blue Phlox, and another twelve new Fuchsia varieties (plus a couple of duplicates of ones we already had) to add to our collection (from our favourite specialist growers B & HM Baker at Bourne Brook Nursery) - and spent a day browsing through various antiques/junk shop emporia [I came away with an original film programme from the premiere of the film Cabaret in London in 1972, complete with ticket stub - for the grand sum of £2!].
But what did we miss while we were away?
Of course, the biggest (and saddest) news was the death of the lovely "national treasure" June Brown, a classical actress with the Royal Shakespeare Company who played Hedda Gabler and Lady Macbeth on stage, was an unforgettable "Nanny Slagg" in Gormenghast, and even played a nipple-tassel-twirling strippper in a sketch on the Lily Savage Show, but will forever be remembered as the fantabulosa "Dot Cotton" in Eastenders:
During our time away, the world also bade a sad farewell to Punk icon "Jordan", and to the 50s "Teen Idol" Bobby Rydell. Aside from the centenary of the saintly Miss Doris Day, other significant birthdays while we were away included the centenary of film composer Elmer Bernstein, what would have been the 90th of the lovely Anthony Perkins, the 80th(s) of film director Peter Greenaway, The Hollies founder and lead singer Allan Clarke and "Goodbye Girl" Marsha Mason (and also the birthdays of our Patron Saints Bette Davis, Abba icon Agnetha Fältskog and camp Disco legend Patrick Hernandez).
The news headlines were still aghast at the horrifying scenes from Ukraine, and other news included endless speculation about "Dishy" Rishi Sunak (our Chancellor)'s wife and her business deals in Russia; a mass walk-out of LGBT groups from a government conference on equality over the ongoing row about banning conversion therapy (the new Bill will criminalise it on the basis of sexuality, but not gender dysphoria); bedlam at airports as EasyJet blamed COVID-related staff shortages for flight cancellations and Manchester Airport's CEO resigned; the teeny-tiny republic of San Marino elected the world's first out-gay head of state; and, meanwhile in Montana, an owl poked its beak into a live traffic monitoring camera...
Unsurprisingly, our musical accompaniment during our stay was mainly a diet of Kylie, Steps, Erasure, Pet Shop Boys, 80s synth-pop and 90s dance choons - such as this one!
Highly appropriate, given the mixed bag of sunshine, hail, high winds and torrential rain we've had in turn, over just a few days...
Saturday, 4 May 2019
Oh, oh, trouble, trouble, trouble
Enjoying a couple of days away in sunny Braintree Manor [I wish; it's bloody freezing weather, tbh], mainly shopping for plants and stuff.
"Normal" service may be resumed on my return at some stage on Monday...
Meanwhile, a little (Postmodern) jukebox music:
Miss Swift just cannot compete.
Monday, 7 May 2018
From Braintree to Benalmadena, and every disco I get in
Blossoms at RHS Hyde Hall
Whew! What a scorcher!
It has been (officially) the hottest May Day Bank Holiday in recorded history - the thermometers reached 28C (82F) today - and (as you, dear reader, may have noticed) I have been away. When people ask in the office tomorrow why I have such a tan; have I been on holiday? I shall answer yes! To Braintree...
The boys - Baby Steve and Houseboy Alex - were very good hosts; driving me across the highways and byways of Essex, to plant nurseries, antiques centres and to the Royal Horticultural Society's excellent gardens at Hyde Hall near Chelmsford.
Needless to say, I left (on the bus from nearby Stansted Airport) today weighed down with plants to fill our new garden - including sixteen new fuchsias from our fave specialist grower B & HM Baker, to add to the four we recently purchased from The Gardening Club. We're on our way to recreating our collection, peeps - fingers crossed the bloody gall mite doesn't get to this new locale...
I have not, of course, forgotten that it is (regardless of bank holidays) still a Tacky Music Monday! The boys and I (obviously) also spent a lot of time sat in their large and rambling garden, enjoying the sunshine - and playing loads of camp music. Like this one...
A block-buster of a collaboration, it not only features the divine Alaska of house favourites Fangoria, but also Baccara(!!), La Prohibida, La Terremoto de Alcorcón, and myriad other Spanish popstrels such as Marta Sánchez, Chenoa, Ruth Lorenzo, Nancys Rubias, Soraya Arnelas, Rosa López, Vicky Larraz, Boris Izaguirre, Javiera Mena, Innocence, and Alberto Jiménez (Miss Cafeína). ¡Muy bien!
That's just the thing to not only round off a lovely long weekend, but also to remind us that is is less than two weeks before we will be back in Spain... for our twentieth anniversary!
Have a good week, one and all...
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