Ealing Hospital

This is not our usual type of holiday or travel destination, however ........
Mary returned to New Zealand for two weeks to visit her sister Ann, who is seriously ill. On the return trip, her plane hit clear air turbulence between Auckland and Hong Kong. As she was standing at the time, she fell. The result was a broken fibula and snapped tendon. Rather than have this treated in Hong Kong, she continued on to London. Here, she was transferred to Ealing Hospital. She has had surgery to insert a metal plate and screws to hold the bones together, and her foot is in a cast. She can walk slowly with aid of crutches. We expect that her mobility should improve a lot when the cast is removed in five weeks time.

Venice

Our last trip together for 2008, was to Venice. As with last year, we took advantage of the fact that Mary was already in the area for work. We had found a tiny hotel (3 "suites") in a good (if hard to find) location only about 10 minutes walk from St Mark's Square. We loved the city! The Grand Canal was like the "Oxford Street" of Venice - very busy with lots of water-born traffic. As well as vaporetti (water buses), there were gondolas (of course), water taxis, water ambulances, water police "cars", even water trade vehicles.

St Mark's Square was pretty good too, not unlike the Grand' Place of Brussels - full of restaurants (sometimes expensive) and ornate architecture. We noticed that after a small amount of rain, and a high tide, it was beginning to flood. There were raised walkways for people to walk on without getting their shoes wet. Some buildings were covered in advertising hoardings as a form of (controversial) sponsorship for renovations.The Rialto Bridge was interesting - on the bridge itself and on the streets leading up to it there were countless souvenir stalls - not quite what we had expected.

One place that was high on list of priorities was the island of Murano where the famous Venetian glass is made. Like Venice proper, the streets are mostly canals, with the odd bridge to make crossing them easier! We spent a lot of time looking for a nice souvenir suitable for taking home to NZ. Some pieces were very beautiful, but way too big and heavy and expensive. In the end we found something. We could have spent a fortune.


The food and wine were great too of course. Philip tried old favourites lke lasagna and carbonara just to see how his own versions compared (not too badly as it happened).

Mary is spending2 weeks in NZ visiting family. Then we will spend Christmas in London - the last one with all 3 children in the UK

Corrwall October 2008

We recently spent 9 days in Cornwall. For a week we hired a house near Bude, north Cornwall, along with our daughter Estelle and her husband Aaron, and Aaron's mother and her partner. While in Bude we made several trips. One of them took in Boscastle, a pretty fishing port, made famous by a disastrous flood a few years ago. Being set at the head of a narrow valley, it was easy to imagine how the flood arrived!

Another "must see" site was Tintagel, the legendary birthplace of King Arthur. The whole King Arthur myth seems to have been a carefully constructed legend, elaborated over the years. It is not known if he was ever there, but he might have been ..........









Once again we had to go as far as Mevagissey, where we ate a very nice seafood lunch.












After our week of "family life" with Estelle and our new grandson Owen, Mary and I moved down to Penance for two nights. One of the aims of going there was to see St Michael's Mount, especially as last year we had seen the French equivalent, Mt St Michel. There are about two hours a day when the tide allows you to walk to the Mount. We just made it, although our feet got rather wet! However it was well worth getting damp footwear for.










While we were in the far west of Corwall, we had to see Land's End of course (below right). It hasben rather "tackily" developed theme park style, but the scenery was still stunning. Especially as the weather was very pleasant.










While in the area of land's End, we also went to the Minnack (outdoor) theatre (above left). This was constructed on the cliffs in the 1930s, in a stunning natural setting. They regularly hold plays there, especially Shakespeare. The labour involved must have been enormous.

On our last night we had a takeway dinner (fish of course!), watching the sunset near the sea, with old tin mines in the background.

Our next trip will be to Venice, at the start of November.

Dorset

Last weekend was a rare fine autumn day in southern England. We decided to go down to Dorset for the day. First stop was Hardy's cottage. It was very picturesque from the outside with a typical country garden. Unfortunately we couldn't go inside, as it was unexpectedly closed, much to the annoyance of ourselves and other people!

After that, we continued down to the Swannery at Abbotsbury. This we found to be very well laid out, and pleasingly uncommercialised. The swans were the stars of the show of course, and we took many pictures.









As we drove back we paused to buy an ice cream, and enjoy a magnificent view over Chesil beach.



Finally, we pulled off the road to take the photo below (and many others like it!), of the hay bales in the golden light of the late afternoon.

This coming weekend we will be travelling down to Cornwall, and spending 7 nights on a family holiday in Bude, and then 2 nights on our own in Penzance. We hope to visit Mevagissey and other places around there from Bude, and land's End and St Michael's Mount whike we are in Penzance.

Two castles in South Wales

Last weekend, we took a long day trip to visit and revisit two castles. The first was Caerphilly (home of the cheese) castle. This castle has two concentric moats, and was built in 1268 (or at least started then). Right across the road is the information centre, where we bought some of the local, white, crumbly cheese. Parts of the castle have been restored, but other parts are attractively ruined. Strange how ancient ruins seem much more picturesque than modern derelict buildings.

The second castle we saw, and the original reason for our trip, was Castell Coch. This castle is just outside Cardiff, and was built on the site of a 13th century fort. This castle was actually constructed in the 1870s for the owner of Cardiff castle. It apparently was never intended as a permanent residence, and although it has a gigantic dining hail, there was no guest accommodation. It was really just a very rich person's folly. With its turrets, and completely over-the-top decor, it just shows what can be achieved by large amounts of money, unhindered by notions of conventional good taste!

Eurostar to Brussels

At the end of last month, we took the Eurostar to Brussels for a long weekend. We were impressed by how little stress there is in travelling to Europe by train, compared to flying. St Pancras is much more central than Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted or Luton. The security queue is very short, there is no waiting for your baggage at the other end, and of course you arrive at a much more central location too. The train left and arrived on time in both directions.

The Grand Place in Brussels was amazing. Full of "over-the-top" architecture. In the square, and in the side streets there is a wide choice of restaurants, adding to the European ambiance. The shops around cater very much to the tourist trade, selling chocolates, beer and lace especially, as well as the usual postcards etc etc. In the "Ilot Sacre", just behind the square there is a maze of streets that seem to have little other than restaurants of one kind or another, all very keen on getting your custom.

We visited the "Atomium" in the northern suburbs of Brussels. The model of an iron atom is enlarged by a factor of many billions, and was constructed for the Worlds fair of 1958. You can go up into the domes for a good view over the city. The yellow structure you can see in front housed a temporary exhibition looking back on the ideals of the '58 fair, and discussing how realistic they were in retrospect. The structure itself was made up entirely of yellow plastic beer crates. They drink a LOT of beer in Belgium!

Of course we had to see the "Mannekin Pis" statue, which is actually surprisingly small. He has some 700 odd different costumes (you can see those in the Brussels museum), from all over the world, but not from NZ!

Another highlight was the Petit Sablon park, which features a number of statues representing various trades. Philip's favourite was the cartographer Mercator.

Now we are settling down for Mary's very busy summer season.
Our next trip away will not be until September or later, and will be to .........? Current favourite options include Ireland and Venice.

Jersey Channel Islands

This month we spent a few days in Jersey (our birthplace), with Estelle, our eldest daughter. Like last time, we stayed in a guest house in Harve De Pas St Helier, and hired a car. Once again, the weather waa fairly kind to us. We enjoyed cruising around, a seeing a mixture of places we had and had not seen before. The later included the Hamptonne museum of country life, (above),a collection of fine old granite buildings. We also visited the war tunnels, somewhere Mary had seen before, but Philip hadn't. it was a very well organised museum of the German occupation of Jersey in WW2.

We enjoyed again the excellent range of restaurants available. We had a particularly fine seafood meal in Gorey village (left). This time we managed to visit the la Mare vineyard shop (closed when we visited last year) (below), to buy some Jersey "black butter" ( a kind of apple preserve). . This time we packed the black butter in our suitcases so it didn't get confiscated at the airport security check. We also bought the jersey version of Monopoly and a Gurnesey sweater for Philip - as "Jersey" sweaters seemed to be unavailable.

We didn't manage to go on a day trip to Sark because the weather at the time didn't look great, but we did catch up with various relatives. Perhaps next year we'll return to jersey with our younger daughter! At the end of May, we are off to Brussels, our last trip away before the busy summer season for Mary.

Bath

Last Wednesday we spent half a day in Bath, arriving at lunch time. The last time we were in the city was in December 2001. This time we were in the city because Mary had been given a ticket for a hot air balloon ride for her 60th birthday. Fortunately, we had chosen a perfect spring day, warm and sunny, with very little wind. Ideal in fact for a ride in a hot air balloon! We hadn't realised the time it took to set up the balloon. Quite a procedure, a bit like putting up a very tall tent! After watching the balloon get set up, and seeing Mary fly off, I wandered around this most elegant city, and took photographs, and read my book. The crescents with their Georgian architecture are really beautiful, especially so in the light of a late spring afternoon. The city being much newer than Salisbury, has a quite different "feel". The streets are wider, and it feels much more spacious. Apparently, it is one of the most expensive cities in the UK. Apart from the crescents and houses the main attractions are the Roman baths , the Abbey and the Jane Austen centre, none of which I visited this time. Our next trip wil be on May 1st to Jersey, and this will be followed by a long weekend to Brussels at the end of May.

Marrakesh

Our latest trip (2^nd week in March) was to Marrakesh in Morocco for 5 days. This was our first trip to anywhere on the African content. Marrakesh was certainly different to anything else we have experienced. Our hotel was just a few minutes from the Djemma El-Fna the main square. By day it features food stalls (dried dates and oranges etc), musicians and snake charmers. By night it was much more crowded, the air was thick with the smoke of cooking. All around there were the souqs, a maze of narrow streets and alley ways selling carpets, tajines, tea sets, wooden products etc etc. Directly across from our hotel was the Koutoubia minaret. The “call to prayer” woke us up at 5am every day. We also visited the Jardin Majorelle, a gift to the city from Yves St Laurent. This was a garden unlike any we have seen. An art deco Villa in brilliant cobalt blue, lots of pots in bold primary colours, water features and a bamboo grove. It sounds gaudy, but it worked amazingly well. The only colour for the buildings in Marrakesh seemed to be pink, varying from an almost lipstick hue through a dusty rose colour.

One day we were taken to a Berber market in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains. On sale were foods of all kinds, meat fish, carpets etc. We were glad to have a guide! We also visited our guide’s family home in a village nearby, a mud brick two storied house. We were treated to mint tea, and bread, honey and olive oil.

Another day trip involved travelling to the coastal city of Essaouira. In parts this seemed almost European, with a café lined main square, and a long white-sand beach. But the back streets were very “Moroccan”. The sea food was excellent.

We came back to Salisbury laden with a tajine, a Berber plate, a stone camel, and a Berber bedspread (a wedding gist for Philip’s niece). After the 27 C of Morocco, the 7 C of London came as a bit of a shock!

Rochester and Canterbury, Kent

We spent a family Christmas in Rochester. Rather than try to squeeze into our of our flats, we hired a 4 bedroom place for a week. we were joined by our 3 children and their partners and in-laws. Rochester has a small town feel, and its main claim to fame is a connection with Charles Dickens. The narrow High Street is notable for a complete lack of the usual UK chain stores. There is also a ruined castle, which we didn't have time to go around.



Canterbury has more of a big town feel ; it even has some "park and ride" stations. The city centre is completely dominated by the massive cathedral.

All around Kent we noticed the "oasts" hop roasting kilns, although many seemed to have been converted into nice looking houses.

Our travel plans for 2008 involve somewhere warm early in the year (maybe Morocco), Jersey in May or September, and maybe Italy or Greece later in the year, after the summer rush is over for Mary. As well we will see as much in south west England as time and weekends afford. Meanwhikle we need to settle in to our new address in salisbury.