CONNIKA

IT'S HAMISH'S BIRTHDAY TODAY

Hello Hamish, it's Nanny here wishing you a very happy birthday all the way from Singapore.  Papa and I have been on holiday here with Auntie Greer, Uncle Anton and your cousins Freya and Liliane.  Auntie Amanda was here too, all the way from Scotland.  Auntie Amanda and Papa have gone home now and I'll be going back to Summerfield tomorrow.  Do you like this photograph of you when you were a baby?  I picked it out from some of the photographs Auntie Greer has here.  I think it's a really cute photograph.

We have had a great time here and when you and your family come, you will too.  Freya and Liliane have a big pool right outside in the garden where you, Angus, Freya and Liliane can have lots of fun in. 

This photo below was taken when Papa went to the very top of Marina Bay Sands Hotel here in Singapore with Uncle Anton.  When you come over, perhaps you and your family will go up to the top too.  When you are up there, you are so high, you can see almost all of Singapore.  You can also see out to sea where all the ships are waiting to come in to the port to unload their cargo.  I was very surprised at the number of ships waiting for their turn to come in.

 

This photograph is on the roof of the building.  As you can see, there is a pool up there.  Can you see the two people in the pool?  They look as though they could fall right over the edge but they can't really.  I think there may be a shelf for them to fall on to if they did decide to climb up on to the edge.  But I think that would be a very silly thing to do.  Don't you?

This is a picture of the hotel where the pool is right on top.  Isn't it an amazing building? 

Well Hamish I am away to have another swim in the pool.  It is very hot here.  Auntie Greer said it is alway hot because it is very near the Equator.  Do you know what the Equator is?  Perhaps you could do a bit of research and find out and also find out why countries near the Equator are hot all the time.

See you soon.   

Love Nanny
 

GOD'S GRANDEUR

 

GOD'S GRANDEUR (Gerald Manley Hopkins)

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed.  Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade;  bleared, smeared with toil;

and wears man's smudge and shares man's smell:  the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

 

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs -

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. 

CHANGING OF THE GUARD

Changing the guard at Windsor Castle.

Ma two wee soldiers! The tops and bottoms are actually pyjamas.

 

RAINY DAY AT CLIVEDEN

Hamish and Angus in the beautiful grounds of Cliveden Manor.

SCHOOL LOG

It was the centenary celebrations of Fulmer Infant School which my grandson Hamish attends in England.  Emma sent copies from the school log which show the degree of suffering experienced by the girls and boys in the early 1900's.  It sounds like a long time ago, but it's when David's and my parents were children.  Poor wee Mabel Dancer!  For more log entries go to Download fulmer_infant_school.eml.