Journeys

Tomorrow afternoon we drive to Stansted and then fly to Stuttgart, or maybe we get stopped at the airport for trying to smuggle paintings out of the country.  We have an email from the museum and there should be a letter in the post specifying why we are taking Japanese paintings to Germany but it has not arrived yet. Yes you can tell I'm nervous my dear daughter worried me further last night with tales of taxes, not carrying liquid and not taking any jewellery.  Apart from the 6 boxes we are also taking back the old boxes and the canvas bag they came in! Clothes are few and far between in the suitcases.  Everything else has been laid on, the lecture at the Town Hall, a tour of the town, and then visiting the museums in Stuttgart to see a Celtic exhibition there.
Yesterday was my birthday, so we went out for dinner at the Fox and Raven, we had been going to go to an Italian restaurant in town but decided to walk down to the pub, it has a nice atmosphere, the old farmhouse still haunts the rooms, food is just about passable, yesterday was pie day, so I had a vegetarian cheese and potato one, the pastry had a certain well cooked hardness to it, LS's fishcakes also had a good long time in the deep fat frying, still we enjoyed the meal...
Lillie sang 'happy birthday' to me over the phone, or at least her version,and I had a thoroughly happy birthday, LS dancing attendance all day.
We should be back on Tuesday, hopefully before the cold weather sets in, and snow makes travelling around impossible, at least the snow will lock up the water in the ground, though the mayor in Whitby says that freezing and thawing of the rocks could make them more unstable and further slides.