Yorkeys Knob George Lawson was from Yorkshire in the UK but by 1886 he was a well-known as a beche-de-mer (sea cucumbers, but aka sea slug) fisherman. During the off-fishing season he farmed a plot of land on a area known as the Knob where he raised pumpkins, sweet potatoes and paddy melons, which the […]
Tomorrow (Monday) we board our cruise ship the ‘Pacific Jewel’, older than the other cruise ships in which we’ve sailed, so it’ll be an education. She might be ‘old’ (launched 1989), but she does look more like a ship than a block of flats. Maureen & I sail, with our daughter, son in law and three grandchildren, for a family […]
For whom the bell tolls – it tolled for me on this holiday – In 1961 I was invited once again to accompany my friendly schoolmaster for another trip to Europe, but this time it would be southern Spain, staying in a hotel rather than YHA. We’d moved up market. I was also asked if a […]
Fjords, drama & cold This blog will be mainly pictures, with a limited amount of description. After leaving Puerto Chacabuco it was Chilean fjords all the way. I’ve tried to capture the grandeur of the scenery. The mist added, rather than distracted from the scenery. Flat calm and loneliness . . . While cruising through […]
Lunch on our second day, was at our own expense, but the guide made sure that the restaurant that we visited was able to cope with 12 of us dropping in for a meal. I asked the guide for a traditional Russian light lunch, not borscht or beef stroganoff. She’d chosen a restaurant that offered […]
Our next port of call was Tauranga – the above is of the sunrise as was we entered Tauranga harbour, which is a beautiful place to visit. Entering the harbour. Maureen & I were fortunate because our daughter in law’s parents live in Tauranga and had offered to be our guides for the day, and to […]
I consider myself to be very fortunate to be living in Australia and in particular in a leafy suburb which is a forty minute train ride from the city of Sydney. For the past twenty odd years, I have walked every morning in my suburb around 6.00 To 6.30 am and I never get tired […]
The last night of the cruise – don’t know how many balloons they go through in a year, because there is a big ‘bash’ at the end of every cruise. We’d left Akita and headed north east through the night and the following day, which was a sea day. During the night of the sea […]
How to turn a pollywog in to a shellback. On the 5th April we crossed the Equator on the way to Bangkok. Many passengers had not crossed the ‘line’ before, so according to tradition they are Pollwogs. A ceremony was required to satisfy King Neptune and turn them in to Shellbacks. Fortunately I had crossed the […]
Recently flew from Helsinki to Bangkok with Finnair, so of course they offered reindeer as a choice of meat for the evening meal. It was very lean meat with a nice texture, which went very well with the red wine. I had to try it because I like to try ‘new’ meat having eaten kangaroo […]
On our arrival in Lisbon I phoned the ‘greeter’ to let her know that we had arrived and that we were queuing for a taxi. As we reached the front of the queue I indicated that we required a large vehicle to accommodate four people and all our luggage. The vehicle assigned to us resulted in […]
Acropolis by Leo von Klenze 1846 It was a short voyage from Istanbul to Piraeus, which is the port for Athens. Once again I took advantage of the student tours and walked around the Parthenon overlooking Athens. I took this photograph of Athens in 2015, the Parthenon was behind me. Visiting the Parthenon was nowhere […]
On receiving the contract, I read it quickly and then read it again more slowly and then one more time, after which I decided that I needed help to make the correct decision. I bounced the idea off members of Goodreads , which is a book readers web site, and I was very pleasantly surprised to […]
The first commercial wet dock in the world was opened in Liverpool in 1715. It was known originally by the engineer’s name Thomas Steer’s Dock, but later, as other docks were built it became known as the Old Dock. This Old Dock was infilled in 1826. When Liverpool One was being created they found the Old […]
