Chakdara We loaded tea in Trincomalee for five days before sailing to Madras. I stayed on board this time because I was not going to be accused of not being aware of our sailing time. Our next leg took us from Madras to Aden, which is across the harbour from Little Aden – at least we […]
Sir Charles James Jessel. 1st Baronet (1860 – 1928) In 1899 the British North Borneo Company decided that the area, opposite Gaya island, on the main island of Borneo, was a good place to create a settlement. The area was developed and it was called Api-api (which means ‘fire’ in English) and later changed to […]
James Brooke (29th April 1803 – 11 June 1868) The picture is from a painting by Sir Francis Grant in 1847 Sarawak, the name brings forth ideas of head hunters and ‘daring do’ from comics that I read in the 1950’s. Little did I know that one day I would sail up the Sarawak River to the town […]
Our third and final promo was with Aer Lingus – the above shows Aer Lingus B 707 at Manchester Airport.We picked New York again, but this time we didn’t fly direct, but via Dublin and Shannon. The memorable thing about this flight for me was at Dublin Airport while we were in transit. I visited […]
There comes a time when all this gender neutral rubbish has to be laughed out of sight. We now have ‘neutral’ Mother’s Day cards, so that a very small minority are not ‘offended’. How about the rest of who might be offended? What happened to the child celebrating their own mother’s special day? In the […]
A friend of mine commented on an old post, (which I posted in 2015), about cooking a Christmas turkey that doesn’t dry out, so I thought I’d post the recipe again, because Christmas is only a few weeks away. Christmas comes but once and year, & this is the only time my wife and I […]
James Brooke (29th April 1803 – 11 June 1868) The picture is from a painting by Sir Francis Grant in 1847 Sarawak, the name brings forth ideas of head hunters and ‘daring do’ from comics that I read in the 1950’s. Little did I know that one day I would sail up the Sarawak River to the town […]
Our third and final promo was with Aer Lingus – the above shows Aer Lingus B 707 at Manchester Airport.We picked New York again, but this time we didn’t fly direct, but via Dublin and Shannon. The memorable thing about this flight for me was at Dublin Airport while we were in transit. I visited […]
It was a beautiful day when we boarded Majestic Princess for a thirteen-night cruise to New Zealand. It had been six years since our previous cruise to New Zealand and thanks to Covid we now hoped to renew our relationship with the land of the long white cloud. ‘Aeoteroa’ or the land of the long […]
Ushuaia on the Tierra del Fuego archipelago, is considered the most southerly city in the world – also known as the end of the world. We arrived in Ushusia at 6.00 pm and immediately went alongside. We were all looking forward to the excursion the next day, which was a trip on the End of […]
In southern Scotland there is an area that used to be called Peebleshire, until 1975 when Scotland abolished counties as local government areas. Robert Barclay of Glasgow, founded an engineering & ship building company in 1818, and and over the years it grew in size. In 1875 he built the first four-masted, iron-hulled fully rigged […]
It is fifty years since Richmal Crompton died at the age of 78 in 1969. Her original idea was to write stories of children for adults, but they ended up becoming favourites of the children instead, and still are today. Over 12 million copies of her books were sold in the UK, at the time […]
In southern Scotland there is an area that used to be called Peebleshire, until 1975 when Scotland abolished counties as local government areas. Robert Barclay of Glasgow, founded an engineering & ship building company in 1818, and and over the years it grew in size. In 1875 he built the first four-masted, iron-hulled fully rigged […]
Ushuaia on the Tierra del Fuego archipelago, is considered the most southerly city in the world – also known as the end of the world. We arrived in Ushusia at 6.00 pm and immediately went alongside. We were all looking forward to the excursion the next day, which was a trip on the End of […]
