{"id":40,"date":"2025-06-05T16:08:36","date_gmt":"2025-06-05T15:08:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.matthewdavis.co.uk\/?p=40"},"modified":"2025-06-05T16:08:36","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T15:08:36","slug":"may-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.matthewdavis.co.uk\/?p=40","title":{"rendered":"May 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As you know, dear friends, my life is constantly changing as I take on new experiences and dispense with old ones that no longer serve my happiness. Because that’s what life for me is now, and as I observed at a friend’s leaving bash: goodbye tension, hello pension. In May, I met an old friend and we had a day out in Stratford-upon-Avon, somewhere I\u2019d not been to before. Last month we met at Leamington Spa but this, in comparison, was a disappointment. The allotment this year is looking more ordered, and the garden is showing some beautiful colours albeit in a canvas that is a perpetual project – gardens being like life. For reasons not yet clear, a small garden run by volunteers in Epping had a very creepy Dorothy, while Mum and I fought through the M&S hacking backlog by looking for smoked salmon in confusing aisles. My fellow gardening volunteers met at Bradgate Park for a guided tour, which while wasn\u2019t new, a visit to the hidden garden was – tucked behind the outer and Lady Jane Grey\u2019s house\u2019s exterior walls was a secret allotment that I\u2019d never seen before. A Leicester shop window had some rather interesting destruction, and a friend alleged they were bullet holes. More bagpipes spotted but the evidence was in June, so you\u2019ll have to wait. Took Mum to a routine appointment at Moorfields so saw some aspects of London that I hadn\u2019t seen since my first employment of 1985, in the square mile. Lunch at Le Relais de Venise L\u2019Entrecote for a bit of theatre and a very specialist restaurant where the menu is limited to steak and french fries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Leamington Spa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Stratford upon Avon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Stratford upon Avon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Sunrise over the allotments<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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How to cure a hot dog<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Local playground<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Watermead Park<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Me and Bill<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Cake<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Bullet holes?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Smiths,Ongar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Allotment<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Amazing party<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Bank, London<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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As you know, dear friends, my life is constantly changing as I take on new experiences and dispense with old ones that no longer serve my happiness. Because that’s what life for me is now, and as I observed at a friend’s leaving bash: goodbye tension, hello pension. In May, I met an old friend […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthewdavis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthewdavis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthewdavis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthewdavis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthewdavis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthewdavis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthewdavis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions\/81"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthewdavis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/56"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matthewdavis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthewdavis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matthewdavis.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}