It was in July that we decided to have another week down in Shropshire. In the aftermath of the beer festival, we visited The Small Breeds Farm Park & Owl Centre, situated in Kington, Herefordshire. It contains a large collection of captive owls from all over the world - many that I'd never before seen in the flesh (well, the feathers). The second half of the gallery was taken some months later, in October, by Em's family. We'd returned to Bishop’s Castle for a weekend of remembrance to honour Barbara Knight: Some years after her death they’d finally managed to erect a headstone, so to celebrate we had a weekend of Entertaining Activities, doing what she used to enjoy doing (hosting piano singalongs, watching the motor racing) and eating the foods they always used to eat whenever they visited her. I didn't have a clue what was going on half the time, but somehow that made it more fun.
Our annual visit to the Welsh coast. Includes a good number of photos by Mrs Knight, to whom I am grateful for allowing me to use them. One of the advantages of camping at the top of the hill is the opportunity it presents for aquatic games, as witnessed by Matt's chair-sliding event. Well, it's good for calorie-burning after all the ice cream.
In September 2007 we once more headed out to Germany - this time with my parents, who'd never been. During the visit we got to Rothenburg, Ochsenfurt (covered in scaffolding), the Residenz with its beautiful, several-acre gardens and Bamberg, where we encountered a film crew. (although to this day I have no idea what they were shooting). The wine flowed and we ate so many cakes that I went up three waist sizes in the space of a week. Many thanks to my father for letting me use some of his in this collection.
While we didn't want to baptise any of our children, we did want to make a public promise that we'd bring them up in the church, so in November we held a gathering to mark the occasion for Thomas. Most of Saturday 3rd was spent running around cleaning the house, planting bulbs, watching fireworks and preparing vast quantities of food, and it's these activities that are documented along with shots from the day itself. I didn't pick up the camera all weekend, so my thanks to the various members of the Knight clan who took everything you'll see here.
Four random expotitions: a long weekend in a very windy Hastings, followed by a beautiful Easter Monday at Beale Park, just outside Pangbourne. In September the Knights (well, some of them) gathered in Didcot for The Last Night of the Proms. And in October we visited Didcot Railway Centre on the first of what would become a great many occasions. The day we joined was one of their thrice yearly Thomas days, and lo, the sight of engines with faces caused much rejoicing...
Christmas was the usual mixture of church parties, mulled wine and tearing about trying to see everyone, along with a broken oven on the morning of the 25th. At the close of 2007 we went down to Shropshire to see in the New Year with a murder mystery party. Such occasions are fun provided that you consume enough alcohol to lose your inhibitions about staying in character between dialogue sessions. Emily made for a beautiful, alluring waitress, but I was a dreadful butler.