After such a sleepy start to the day you can’t really be expected to leave the house much before 2pm and several cups of hot strong tea. It was, I admit, a nice day when I finally left the house and the cycle ride into town was marred only by the constant rattle of my dilapidated bike. This spurred me into action and I made my way straight to Station Cycles to get it fixed. Two weeks is long enough to put up with any such persistent clattering. Such nice people in there – a few moments and a few quid later and the bike has stopped groaning and moaning and was good to go again. Ahh it was so peacefully riding after that.

Met up with Kate and popped into Fitzbillies for a nice cup of hot choc. So great to see the place back in business and given a nice brush up! Read more about the revamp here.

After Fitzbillies you feel almost honour bound to pop to the Fitzwilliam so I did nip in to have a quick gawp at the Lacemaker. Very nice it is to on the third viewing.

As the Church of St Mary the Less was open I stuck my head round the door and then walked out of town past the evensong at Church of St Mary the Great. For some extraordinary reason it started raining unexpectedly on the way home and I was only just in time to save my washing and get myself inside before it pelted it down.

There is nothing as good as the smug feeling of getting out of the rain after a cycle ride home. It’s almost as good as a lie-in.

Saturday dawned bright and rainless and we cycled the few miles into Oxford to join the tourists. Oxford is choc full of museums and sadly I just didn’t have enough time to visit all of them. I spent a very pleasant day in the Ashmolean Museum and got to enjoy two of their free tours. You can go on a general tour of the museum at 11am and then a more in-depth look at one or two pieces at 2.15pm. They have an excellent dining room on the top floor of the museum where I stopped for a cup of tea. You don’t get much of a view but you do get a breath of fresh air! In between tours I popped into the Pitt Rivers museum to see the oddest collection of curiosities – from model houses to animal skeletons and gruesome shrunken heads.

Tim, Jon and I then wandered the streets of Oxford taking in the colleges, the Bodleian Library and the Radcliffe Camera, the Sheldonian Theatre, the rose garden outside the Botanical Gardens and the two great rivers that flow into the city – Cherwell and Thames – complete of course with rowers.

After nipping home for a quick supper and a catch up on the footie results for the boys – we cycled back into Oxford and went to the Eagle and Child. Famous as the place where the Inklings met it was full of people but we managed to get a table and three pints – after all it was Saturday night!

About a month ago a large steel structure appeared. It looked like a silver circle with a cross in it. Then little coloured boxes filled in the circle to make it look like a giant setting sun. It dawned on me that this was the ‘swift tower’ that I’ve heard rumours about. So today being a lovely day for a walk – instead of continuing along Riverside – I finally crossed over the river on the dream of a bridge to have a closer look.

Designed by Andrew Merritt to look like a giant African sun it emits the sound of swifts calling from a solar powered bird scarer that has been modified. I couldn’t actually see any swifts darting in and out but there are certainly swifts in the area. I see them playfully swooping up and down the river whenever I cycle along it. I would have preferred to see a ramshackle picturesque cottage with lots of good old fashioned eves for the swifts to nest under but if modern art can play the same role then I applaud it. However I should have thought the sounds of fake swifts would have been off putting to the birds but I guess only time will tell that. If I were a swift that had flown all the way from Africa then I think I’d probably like a bit of peace and quiet while I did a spot of neat building!

Still it is all pretty exciting. It’s the first swift tower that any council has commissioned so well done Cambridge City Council! You can read more about it on Action For Swifts or in the Cambridge News and the BBC Cambridgeshire.

The tower is certainly an interesting edition to the area which now has a proper path with benches and litter bins. One of which is one of the new solar powered compressors that made their début in Ireland last summer and on Green End Road Park in Cambridge earlier this year. There is also a bin for recycling! Yea! Finally!

Along Riverside itself to add to the the cycle bridge and the bollards that were put in a few years ago to prevent cars shooting along the length of the road, there is the new walkway that will hopefully prioritise pedestrians and cyclists over cars and make the walk from Midsummer Common to Stourbridge Common just that bit nicer. To encourage cars off the road Streetcar are planning to put a car on Riverside. The already have one in the Vie Development. It looks like the whole area will soon be a haven for the environmentally conscious Cambridge cyclists. What fun!

We then moved on to the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica in the Barberini Palace which had some nice stuff including three Caravaggios, two El Grecos and a portrait by Raphael. The sun was beautifully hot so after admiring the ceiling fresco of the last huge room I escaped to soak up some sun by the fountain.

On the way to the fourth museum we spotted the Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Venezia so we popped in there to have a look. It’s a nice little museum and had a special Caravaggio exhibition on at the moment that we didn’t have time to go in and see.

Last by by no means least we went to the Museo Nazionale Romano di Palazzo Altemps. The collection is housed in a lovely Renaissance Palace which has an atmospheric courtyard with a fountain and statues dotted about. They are digging up the left of the courtyard to reveal Medieval remains of buildings that once stood on the spot. The collection itself is remarkably odd – it’s mostly ancient statues that have been fixed up or had the wrong heads stuck on the wrong body. It was a gentle end to a busy day and we stood on the balcony underneath some lovely fescos and breathed in the scent of orange blossom.

Of course a day in Rome wouldn’t be complete with a visit to a church or two and as we’d done four museums it seemed only fair to visit four churches. Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri is a converted Roman baths and the designs for it were done by Michelangelo. Sadly only his plan for the vaulted ceilings were used. Chiesa di San Luigi dei francesi houses three Caravaggios in St Matthew’s Chapel but we had to fight through the crowds to see them. Basilica di Sant’Agostino in Campo Marzio has the Madonna of the Pilgrims by Caravaggio which is really splendid and a Rapheal fresco on one of the pillar. Chiesa di Sant’Agnese in Agone is a hugh Baroque construction and was designed by Borromini. It overlooks the Piazza Navona and a fountain designed by rival architect Bernini. The Plazza at seven was full of artists, street musicians and entertainers. Tourists sit out on tiny tables with glasses of wine and drink in the atmosphere. Handsome policemen in blue uniforms stand about but it doesn’t stop the men selling their somewhat suspicious handbags and sunglasses from the pavement to anyone who has a few Euros burning a hole in their pocket.

The Pantheon has survived in a marvellous stroke of luck and is the only Roman temple standing in an approximate entirety and inside is the most beautiful marble temple which a ceiling which around 2000 years old looks just like something from an Art Deco dream. The apex of the ceiling is an open circle that lets in both the Gods and the rain. Tiny holes on the marble floor let the rain water drain away. For about 1500 years it’s been used as a church which has both saved it but also defiled it with crucifixes and statues. Raphael’s tomb is inside as well as crowds of tourists.

The Italian churches are quite extraordinary. Most have amazing paintings covering the walls and life like statutes painted and gazing down on you. The Italians kneel and cross themselves when approaching the alter, the statues or even entering the church. Grown men kneel and pray. The confession boxes have occupants and appear to be sound proofed.

The Trevi Fountain is a Baroque feast for the eyes. Evidently cleaned and well maintained the statues sparkle white and the water an aqua blue.

The streets are thronged with people and the roads with scooters and cars. I stood and watched a traffic policeman conducting the traffic outside the Vittorio Emanuele monument. In a frenzy of movement the vehicles in front of him whizzed past his tiny podium until the white gloved hand fluttered up and invited the vehicles from the left to come instead. The signals were interpreted somewhat loosely by both scooters and cars and in the midst of all this a zebra crossing that had cool calm Italians walking through the waves of traffic. Most remarkably I didn’t see a single accident for the whole ten minutes I was there.

Italy seems very relaxed after England. People walk slowly and seem to always be in groups chatting especially if they are in any official capacity wearing a uniform!

Of course the minute we drove into Rome we heard the hooting and beeping starting but generally the traffic isn’t as bad as I feared. It’s pretty hard to cross some roads if you’re a pedestrian and there isn’t actually a red light to stop the cars but apart from that it’s not awful. Our bus dropped us off at Stazione Termini which is right in the centre and from there we walked – me dragging my suitcase over the cobbles and kerbs to our apartment on
Via Ciancaleoni – which is tucked away in an old part of the city up some steps in an impossibly Italian ally filled with flower pots and scooters and looking like something straight out of a film. The apartment is lovely – we found it on Trip Advisor and I’d really recommend it. It’s clean, convenient, the host is lovely and it’s a renovated building with parts that date back to Roman times.

It seems we’d been travelling all day and we were pretty shattered but managed to find our local supermarket and stocked up on Italian looking things and came back to our lovely apartment and cooked a meal very similar to the one we’d have cooked in England but somehow it tasted so much better!

Barnsdale Hall Hotel is as always a very pleasant place to spend time and I never tire of the view of Rutland Water. After spending so long in a city you forget just how wonderful it is to be in the countryside with a view!

Christmas seems a dim and distant memory now but it was all very nice if somewhat cold. The tree has now disappeared from my house and the ornaments crammed into boxes which I will now proceed to move from cupboard to cupboard for the next eleven months trying to find the perfect home for them. Luckily the cupboards are still full of Christmas cake so that alone has helped get me through January. Now comes the build up for Valentine’s Day and I am attempting to find a venue for my ‘Not Valentine’s Day Valentine’s Party’ for everyone who is looking forward to the half price chocolates! As if that happens anymore! Bring back real sales and discounted chocolates I say!

On Saturday we drove to Attingham Park to have a look at the C18th Regency house that is undergoing a massive renovation project. We had the opportunity of looking round gratis as it open to the public as part of the annual Hertiage Open Days fun.

We then moseyed on down to Ludlow with Jon to go to the famous food festival. It was pretty crowded but there were enough alcohol tasters to get most of us through the day. The festival is held in the grounds of the ruined castle and for those brave enough you can climb up the tower and survey Shropshire and all the marquees! Ludlow is seeped in history and has over 500 listed buildings in the town so it’s a delight to walk around. We went down to look at the The Feathers Hotel parts of which date back to 1619 and just outside the castle is a magnificent medieval merchant’s town palace with wooden winding stairs and low ceilings that we got to peek in as it was in use as a space for a variety of stalls and shops selling arts and crafts. It’s currently up for sale so if anyone has the money they should consider helping to preserve it. We walked through Broad Gate – the only surviving C13th town gate of the once fortified city and down to the river. I spent the whole time wishing I’d remembered to bring my camera. We stopped for coffee in Bakers Of Tower Street and supped it on their lovely roof terrace.

On Sunday I toured Shrewsbury with the family and took in the castle with Laura’s tower at the top – a tower built by one of the castle’s occupants for his daughter. I was shown many little medieval courtyards and side streets as well as the old school that Darwin went to which is now a used a library. I passed the drop stone that Darwin pondered over and visited the Unitarian Church he went to with his mother. I went to look at the gravestone inscribed with the words Ebenezer Scrooge – used in the film of a Christmas Carol – before admiring the round church. I then walked through The Dingle – a sunken flower garden in Quarry Park and then down through the rest of the park to see the statue of Hercules restored in 2004. We just happened to catch the British Driving Society’s procession of 20 horse drawn carriages through the park which was great fun – the carriages had come all the way from Attingham Park and were to go back there although some of the tiny little ponies looked like they’d never make it.

The thing that struck me about both Ludlow and Shrewsbury was how proud the towns were of their old buildings and how well things had been preserved. It’s truly a haven for all those who love looking at old buildings crooked and leaning all wooden beaned and wattle and daubed out over the streets.

While I was taking in beautiful old Shrewsbury; Jon, Tim and Mum took turns to canoe up the Severn in Jon’s inflatable canoe which ensured they were all soaking wet in time for dinner.