Page 24

Gill is having a two week holiday from me visiting Jake, Gemma and the grandchildren in the USA. As she was flying from Manchester it was a good excuse to have a night away and guess what - visit another National Trust house. This one, Dunham Massey, is a few minutes drive away from the airport and even better it has a really nice B&B on the estate where we spent the night.

Dunham Massey is much like all the National Trust houses we have visited recently, I am sure the kitchens are exactly the same. I expect they were more modern when the house was lived in but after it was given to the National Trust in 1976 the "experts" decided it should be put back to 1880 just like all the other NT houses.

We were surprised at the number of cars in the car park when we arrived (many hundreds) but we soon discovered the big attraction is not the house but the gardens. Even to a philistine like me whose only gardening tool is a cement mixer they were impressive. If you live close by then joining the National Trust so you can visit the gardens every week to let you dog poop on someone else's lawn would make a lot of sense.

So what am I going to do whilst Gill is away? I was planning to go to London next weekend to watch Barnet in the play off finals at Wembley, I have not been to the new Wembley so was looking forward to it. All that Barnet had to do was beat Solihull Moors last Saturday at home, so what happens - they lost 0-4! I do have two scans booked this week then another round of chemo but as I have to collect Gill from Heathrow in a fortnights time I will have a few days down south to make the journey worthwhile. All will be revealed in the next exciting blog entry.