The flight from Heathrow to Seoul left at around 8.45 pm which should have meant we could fall asleep naturally and spend some of the flight in slumberland. Well, some of us did, but not me. Tired as I was I remained awake and finished up watching three movies: Oceans Thirteen, the latest Die Hard and, for my choice from the classic movies, The Grapes of Wrath.
I’d slept a bit on the coach coming from Attleborough to Heathrow, so that helped, but I would have been happier to have slept some of the night as well.
When we got to Incheon airport in Seoul, it was 3.35 local time - but about 6.30 am England time, which is what my body was still trying to run on in spite of my efforts to convince it otherwise. So I’d been awake all night.
On the coach into Seoul itself I slept a couple of brief times, and again since we arrived at our hotel. Which means my sleeping clock is completely out of kilter.
We were at Incheon for quite some time in the end, firstly through trying to find somewhere to park our two large suitcases for the two and a half days we’re here, and then trying to find the right bus to catch to get to our hotel - a hotel virtually nobody seemed to know about. When you see the size of Seoul city, it’s probably not surprising.
Finally we caught a 5C bus outside the airport, but as time went on and the bus seemed to be travelling forever, we asked a couple of guys behind us, Koreans who spoke good English, if they could help. One of them finished up ringing up the hotel to check where it was, and wrote the address down in Korean. And then when they suggested a stop to get off at, they helped us get a taxi as well. Meanwhile, three black English-speaking women in front of us on the bus got in on the act as well, and discussed at length the fact that they didn’t know where the hotel was.
However, the taxi driver drove with confidence (and considerable speed) to the hotel, and was enthusiastic about finding it. So were we!
The Korean man at reception, when I wrote that our home address was Dunedin, cried with delight: Dunedin! I stayed there four years ago as an exchange student. If he hadn’t liked us before, he certainly thought we were wonderful after that!
Showing posts with label new zealand. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new zealand. Show all posts
Monday, November 26, 2007
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Countdown
It took a bit of organising to make sure we still had somewhere to stay in
We’re also trying to sell the car, that great little Peugeot that’s served us so well. We’ll be sorry to say goodbye to it, really, because it’s very economical; far more so than our Mitsubishi at home. But trying to take the Peugeot home isn’t within the possible budgets, so it’ll be staying here, hopefully with a new owner very soon.
The only thing I don’t like about it are the bucket seats (typical of most small cars, of course). I get back ache very easily in them, and that, combined with the neck ache I got from the stress of driving on English roads I wasn’t familiar with made life a bit unpleasant for a while. I think I’ve learned how to deal with both, as I’m certainly not getting the problems now. I suspect we’ll find driving on NZ roads a breeze after the English ones.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
The joys of owning a car in England
You’ll no doubt remember that we bought a car for the time we’ve been in However, we had to pay for its annual registration last month - £63.00 – which works out to about the same as we’d pay in NZ. But we also had to get an MOT – the equivalent of the NZ Warrant of Fitness – and this has been a bit of a shock.
I’m not sure what the current cost of getting a WOF in NZ is. (This is a post full of acronyms, isn’t it?). I don’t think it can be more than $40 or so. That would be the equivalent of around £14.85 in British money. Here, however, the cost for the MOT is £50.35 (goodness knows what the 35p is there for – it’s like the sign in the Italian subways, where they would charge you 50 euros and 5 cents if you didn’t have a ticket). That’s about $135NZ. Good grief.
Worse, because there were a couple of things wrong with the car (two of them utterly minor, and one to do with the brake pads) we had to have some work done on it. This cost another £80 – or $215NZ.
And then, because the people who’d tested the car had to do a ‘partial re-test’ they charged us again: another £25.13, making the total for the MOT about $200NZ. How on earth that can be justified is anyone’s guess. (I happened to look up this garage when I was trying to find their phone number the other day, and obviously I’m not the only customer who hasn’t been satisfied with them. Have a look at the comments section.)
So in the last couple of months our great wee car has cost us over £200, which has seriously reduced our bank account. We’re now heading towards almost nothing in it – gulp! – and we’ve still got another week here, as well as staying two days in Korea. It reminds me of a time when I was young man and went to
Monday, November 12, 2007
Third day in London
Third and last day in London and a bit muddly. First we drove up the road until we found a couple of churches: we decided on the Methodist one. At first thought there wasn’t going to be anyone there, but in fact it was quite full - and it was a fairly new building. And talk about welcomed. We hadn’t even got out of the car before an elderly couple who’d parked in front of us came up and greeted us, talked about New Zealand, told us about collecting NZ postal items, and gathered us up. Inside it was the same; people didn’t just say hullo, they actually spoke to you, both before and after the service. It was Remembrance Day and at eleven o’clock the radio was turned on for a few minutes and we listened in to the service (with the Royal family) at the Cenotaph. The rest of the service consisted of various people talking about their war experiences, and especially the many people who hadn’t necessarily served at the front but had been back-up workers in various places: firemen, voluntary constables, nurses and so on. They also had communion which was good, as we haven’t been to many services in England where there’s been a communion (except last week as well!)
We were going to go to the movies after lunch but it took too long to get there so we went right into London central again and pottered around a bit. Celia wanted to get some of the artificial snow from Hamley’s (not Hambley's as I think I wrote previously) - you add water to it and it grows to ten times its original size. The place was still abuzz with people, far more than in most of the other shops along Regent St. (Though when we came back along the street later in the evening, the streets were packed again.)
We couldn’t decide what we wanted to do so in the end we got on a bus and went for a ride. Wound up at the Albert Hall and found that there was a concert on in the evening at 6.30. And there were tickets going at a reasonable price. So we bought some, got back on the bus, went and had something to eat (Celia had a little snooze in the café!) and got the tube and bus back again. (The joys of one day passes.) The concert was wonderful - I’ve written about it in more detail on myother blog.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Snooze level
Another quiet day. Virtually all of interest we’ve done is book ourselves a room in
We’re going up to
Sunday, November 04, 2007
Home to Attleborough
Long day yesterday, all focused on travel. We could have quite happily have got on a plane back to New Zealand, but we still have a month to go in
The plane didn’t go till 16.20 so we had quite a lot of time to fill in. The trouble with travel days is that you tend to do little else except wait around: so we had a coffee and coke in a café around the corner from our apartment, moved up the road and read for a while under a willow, moved further up the road and caught the tram, transferred to the Metro which conveniently took us all the way to the airport, sat around in the airport reading, had more coffee (our own from the famous flask this time), read more, eventually stood in the queue to get on the plane (I stood in the queue – Celia sat and read), sat and read some more, had more coffee, stood in the melee to get on the plane, got on the plane, read on the plane, snoozed on the plane, got off the plane, got on the bus and finally got home. Exciting.
The biggest bonus of the day was that we already had our ticket booked for the National Express and there was no problem getting back with them, and they got us here a quarter of an hour earlier.
The other unusual thing was getting to Stansted and finding that all the passengers, having disembarked from the plane, then got on the airport tram and were shot off to the arrival lounge, which must have been a kilometre or more away. Stansted is huge.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Bit more update
Celia's over in the corner reading another Ian Rankin thriller - he's become our writer of the month while we've been on holiday, even though we had to leave behind one of his novels because of the weight (we'd finished it, of course) along with a Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey) that I brought with me.
Anyway, today we've been on two city bus tours, and seen a good deal of the place, including Fiesole, the kind of 'other' city that exists near Florence. (It's virtually a suburb these days.) Seemingly the two places have a long and entwined history of conquering and being conquered. I didn't realise Florence was the capital of Italy for a relatively brief period in the 19th century, either.
Fiesole is set up on the hill above Florence. The villas there are surrounded by cypress trees, many of them planted by the British when they fell in love with the place in the 19th century. Elizabeth Barrett Browning is buried in one of the city's inner cemetaries, along with other British worthies.
We haven't yet got into any of the galleries - some of them were closed today - but that's on our agenda for tomorrow. I thought we'd found Michaelangelo's David, yesterday, but it turned out to be a copy they have in one of the squares here (along with some dozen other famous statues). It's full-sized, and is still a remarkable piece, but in fact the real thing is inside a major gallery here in Florence. We'll track it down tomorrow.
Michaelangelo is Florence's famous son, of course, but he shares fame in the city with Dante, Goldini and a heap of other well-known names. Did someone mention Da Vinci? Think he's well connected with the place too, if I remember rightly, but my brain's gone a bit numb listening to an endless commentary while on the buses.
Part of our day today involved doing the laundry. Things like that shouldn't happen on holiday, but of course there was no way we could carry enough clothes with us not to have to do the laundry at all. Celia sat in the laundrette chatting to a couple of New Zealanders who were there at the same time.
I've bought what she calls a 'man bag' after my wallet loss. It slings around my shoulder and curiously enough it's a lot easier way to carry far more than I could ever carry in my pockets - and it's still relatively compact. Jokes about the ' man bag' have been rife, but I've got big enough shoulders...
Tonight we dined in the Chinese restaurant across from our hotel. Had four and five course meals between us, sharing a good deal. Ended up with fried ice cream. Yup. Ice cream inside a ball of batter. In-ter-est-ing.
Our hotel room has a balcony with shutters on the outside of the window, french windows inside that (made of aluminium), ordinary french windows inside that again, lace curtains, and shutters on the inside over the glass in the inner french windows. Hope you're thoroughly confused. The only doors that actually shut out of that lot are the outside shutters.
There's an antiquated lift that will only hold the two of us (getting inside it with our backpacks was a mission), but it works well. Needs to, as we're on the fifth floor. Our hotel reception is on the second floor (piano in Italian) and another hotel has the floors between. There's a third hotel on the same side of the building somewhere, plus the two or three in the other half.
Italy is certainly different. The bathroom basin doesn't drain for ages, there are bidets everywhere you look (in the bathrooms, I mean - we had one in our bedroom in Milan), all the wall plugs are funny shapes (Switzerland's were worse, with about six holes to a plug), our room overlooks a balcony below, and right into the windows opposite.
But Florence is a delight. After Milan, it's just lovely. And sunny! Eat your heart out, all you poor freezing Dunedinites!
Anyway, today we've been on two city bus tours, and seen a good deal of the place, including Fiesole, the kind of 'other' city that exists near Florence. (It's virtually a suburb these days.) Seemingly the two places have a long and entwined history of conquering and being conquered. I didn't realise Florence was the capital of Italy for a relatively brief period in the 19th century, either.
Fiesole is set up on the hill above Florence. The villas there are surrounded by cypress trees, many of them planted by the British when they fell in love with the place in the 19th century. Elizabeth Barrett Browning is buried in one of the city's inner cemetaries, along with other British worthies.
We haven't yet got into any of the galleries - some of them were closed today - but that's on our agenda for tomorrow. I thought we'd found Michaelangelo's David, yesterday, but it turned out to be a copy they have in one of the squares here (along with some dozen other famous statues). It's full-sized, and is still a remarkable piece, but in fact the real thing is inside a major gallery here in Florence. We'll track it down tomorrow.
Michaelangelo is Florence's famous son, of course, but he shares fame in the city with Dante, Goldini and a heap of other well-known names. Did someone mention Da Vinci? Think he's well connected with the place too, if I remember rightly, but my brain's gone a bit numb listening to an endless commentary while on the buses.
Part of our day today involved doing the laundry. Things like that shouldn't happen on holiday, but of course there was no way we could carry enough clothes with us not to have to do the laundry at all. Celia sat in the laundrette chatting to a couple of New Zealanders who were there at the same time.
I've bought what she calls a 'man bag' after my wallet loss. It slings around my shoulder and curiously enough it's a lot easier way to carry far more than I could ever carry in my pockets - and it's still relatively compact. Jokes about the ' man bag' have been rife, but I've got big enough shoulders...
Tonight we dined in the Chinese restaurant across from our hotel. Had four and five course meals between us, sharing a good deal. Ended up with fried ice cream. Yup. Ice cream inside a ball of batter. In-ter-est-ing.
Our hotel room has a balcony with shutters on the outside of the window, french windows inside that (made of aluminium), ordinary french windows inside that again, lace curtains, and shutters on the inside over the glass in the inner french windows. Hope you're thoroughly confused. The only doors that actually shut out of that lot are the outside shutters.
There's an antiquated lift that will only hold the two of us (getting inside it with our backpacks was a mission), but it works well. Needs to, as we're on the fifth floor. Our hotel reception is on the second floor (piano in Italian) and another hotel has the floors between. There's a third hotel on the same side of the building somewhere, plus the two or three in the other half.
Italy is certainly different. The bathroom basin doesn't drain for ages, there are bidets everywhere you look (in the bathrooms, I mean - we had one in our bedroom in Milan), all the wall plugs are funny shapes (Switzerland's were worse, with about six holes to a plug), our room overlooks a balcony below, and right into the windows opposite.
But Florence is a delight. After Milan, it's just lovely. And sunny! Eat your heart out, all you poor freezing Dunedinites!
Monday, October 15, 2007
On the Eurostar
14 October 2007
On the Eurostar, going from Bologna to Firenze. We’ve just come from Milan on a train on which we had to pay a reservation charge of eighteen euros. We were told about this when before we got on the train by the guards, and thought perhaps it only applied to first class, so we sat in second class, which was certainly comfortable enough anyway. But the charge applied to second class as well! Worse was to come: the guard on that train told us that we’d need to book on the train to Firenze, so we did - at a cost of thirty euros! This is because it’s the Eurostar apparently. We’re sitting in first class, not even with each other (across the aisle) and it’s not even particularly roomy. Hmm. Not that impressed with the Italian trains. The toilet on the previous one could only be described as grotty: you could see straight down through the toilet onto the tracks beneath! There didn’t seem to be anyway to flush anything (not that that mattered much since it was already dispersed along the line) and the tap wouldn’t work. The two compartments that should have been shut were both hanging open, and I couldn’t find anywhere to put the paper towel. Oh, dear. And we paid an extra eighteen euros for that.
Celia worked out this morning on one of her little machines how much I lost in NZ dollars when I had the wallet stolen. She claimed it was close to $500. Good grief. I’ll have to get a ‘man bag,’ as they’re nicknamed, so that I can keep all the bits close to me. Forgot to say that the pillows in Germany and Switzerland are virtually flat. And square rather than diagonal. Not sure how you’re supposed to use them; Celia folded hers up. Amazingly I’ve been sleeping comfortably on them without doing so. Maybe coming away is making me more flexible after all!
On the Eurostar, going from Bologna to Firenze. We’ve just come from Milan on a train on which we had to pay a reservation charge of eighteen euros. We were told about this when before we got on the train by the guards, and thought perhaps it only applied to first class, so we sat in second class, which was certainly comfortable enough anyway. But the charge applied to second class as well! Worse was to come: the guard on that train told us that we’d need to book on the train to Firenze, so we did - at a cost of thirty euros! This is because it’s the Eurostar apparently. We’re sitting in first class, not even with each other (across the aisle) and it’s not even particularly roomy. Hmm. Not that impressed with the Italian trains. The toilet on the previous one could only be described as grotty: you could see straight down through the toilet onto the tracks beneath! There didn’t seem to be anyway to flush anything (not that that mattered much since it was already dispersed along the line) and the tap wouldn’t work. The two compartments that should have been shut were both hanging open, and I couldn’t find anywhere to put the paper towel. Oh, dear. And we paid an extra eighteen euros for that.
Celia worked out this morning on one of her little machines how much I lost in NZ dollars when I had the wallet stolen. She claimed it was close to $500. Good grief. I’ll have to get a ‘man bag,’ as they’re nicknamed, so that I can keep all the bits close to me. Forgot to say that the pillows in Germany and Switzerland are virtually flat. And square rather than diagonal. Not sure how you’re supposed to use them; Celia folded hers up. Amazingly I’ve been sleeping comfortably on them without doing so. Maybe coming away is making me more flexible after all!
Meanwhile
Meanwhile, the computer’s mobile connect continues to play up, so that we can’t use it to go online. This had become quite an issue, as we hadn’t booked places in Florence or Rome, and we are due to go to the first of those tomorrow. The reason for delaying on this had been that the YHA had advertised a special deal in both cities in hostels, and we were waiting for a response from them. For some reason they’ve been very slack, and still haven’t replied - and we couldn’t get them on the phone either.
We finally found a Vodafone shop here in Milan today, and got a definite No from them in terms of help. They’re a different company, and don’t help UK customers. Finalmente! We found an Internet shop where we could use the computer for an hour for one euro. Very cheap! Found that my daughter had managed to cancel both the NZ cards, and had also found the address for sorting out my NZ driver’s licence. Later in the day we found a second Internet place where we surprisingly quickly booked hotels in Florence, Rome and Barcelona. Think they go from the sublime to the ridiculous, but at least they’re booked.
We finally found a Vodafone shop here in Milan today, and got a definite No from them in terms of help. They’re a different company, and don’t help UK customers. Finalmente! We found an Internet shop where we could use the computer for an hour for one euro. Very cheap! Found that my daughter had managed to cancel both the NZ cards, and had also found the address for sorting out my NZ driver’s licence. Later in the day we found a second Internet place where we surprisingly quickly booked hotels in Florence, Rome and Barcelona. Think they go from the sublime to the ridiculous, but at least they’re booked.
Friday, October 05, 2007
A few notes
When we were flying into Germany we could see several wind farms. From the air they looked like crosses in a military cemetery.
I forgot to mention yesterday that Johannes Brahms, the composer, has great links with Hamburg. He’s one of Hamburg’s beloved sons. And alongside the dedication to him in St Michael’s Church is one to Teleman and another to Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach, both of whom were Music Directors there.
Tagging - the art of painting on walls alongside railway lines, must be an international thing: there was mile after mile of tagging between Hamburg and Köln, today.
And tv advertising in Germany is just as silly as it is in England - or NZ.
I forgot to mention yesterday that Johannes Brahms, the composer, has great links with Hamburg. He’s one of Hamburg’s beloved sons. And alongside the dedication to him in St Michael’s Church is one to Teleman and another to Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach, both of whom were Music Directors there.
Tagging - the art of painting on walls alongside railway lines, must be an international thing: there was mile after mile of tagging between Hamburg and Köln, today.
And tv advertising in Germany is just as silly as it is in England - or NZ.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
We DON'T have senior moments
Before we left yesterday we had one of those senior moment crises. My sister-in-law was going to sort out the car registration, which is due while we were away, and she asked if we could leave the certificate of insurance to take.
Insurance? Surely we had insured the car, hadn’t we? We remembered doing a lot of investigating and sorting out before we came and thought we’d done more when we got here and had then gone ahead, but where was the information? Where was the insurance policy? Absolutely no idea.
I checked through my emails, and checked through the laptop files, and checked the online bank statements. Nothing.
And yet we were certain we wouldn’t have forgotten to insure the car after all the fuss we’d been through.
I rang the insurance company and found myself talking to a girl in NZ - at least I think she was in NZ; she had a NZ accent and said there were two New Zealand girls in the office and one English girl….
She found the policy details without any difficulty - so she must have been in NZ; if she’d been in England, such speed of finding the info would have been impossible! - and said she’d send a copy out.
And then, of course, I realised where all the stuff probably was. I knew we’d taken it on the tenting holiday with us, but I’d thought it would have been in the computer bag with all the other papers. Nope. It was in the suitcase we’d carried the bedding in, sitting there waiting for me. Wondering where I‘d been.
Insurance? Surely we had insured the car, hadn’t we? We remembered doing a lot of investigating and sorting out before we came and thought we’d done more when we got here and had then gone ahead, but where was the information? Where was the insurance policy? Absolutely no idea.
I checked through my emails, and checked through the laptop files, and checked the online bank statements. Nothing.
And yet we were certain we wouldn’t have forgotten to insure the car after all the fuss we’d been through.
I rang the insurance company and found myself talking to a girl in NZ - at least I think she was in NZ; she had a NZ accent and said there were two New Zealand girls in the office and one English girl….
She found the policy details without any difficulty - so she must have been in NZ; if she’d been in England, such speed of finding the info would have been impossible! - and said she’d send a copy out.
And then, of course, I realised where all the stuff probably was. I knew we’d taken it on the tenting holiday with us, but I’d thought it would have been in the computer bag with all the other papers. Nope. It was in the suitcase we’d carried the bedding in, sitting there waiting for me. Wondering where I‘d been.
Monday, October 01, 2007
Different links
We went to the local Attleborough Anglican church this morning. Think I’ve mentioned visiting it before, though I can’t find the post at the moment. (It has the grand title of The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, by the way, but I think is called St Mary's, locally.)It’s full of history, as so many Norfolk churches are, and there is evidence everywhere of the many Christians who’ve gone before, from the faded paintings on the reredos to the almost as faded paintings high up on the wall above the altar; from the stones showing where people are buried beneath the stone floor to the extraordinary design of the ‘other’ pulpit (the one that was nicked from another local church, if I remember rightly).
There’s something about worshipping in a place that’s been inhabited by Christian brethren for centuries.
The other good thing about the Norfolk churches is that all seem to be open all the time; further north we found churches were more likely to be closed to the general public. And, while I think about it, there’s the wayMonday, September 24, 2007
Sleeping Policemen
Keep meaning to mention Sleeping Policemen. We just call them something subtle like judder bars at home, but in England this phrase is a reference to those annoying humps in suburban roads which are meant to stop people hooning down the street.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Chester
Overnight it poured, so by this morning the tent was soaked - only on the outside, thank goodness. But that was enough to make it something of a task trying to get it down and shaken off without covering the inside of the car with water. As it was, I donned my swim shorts to go to the loo: it was easier than getting my pyjamas wet.
Anyway, we left the campsite by the river Ouse where we’ve been for a couple of days and decided to head for Worcester, once again to try and get to see Crowle (and Mamble). Before we left York we stopped off at a café for some breakfast, as neither of us had managed to have more than some muesli, with all the dampness around. We were sitting there waiting for our order, sorting out the most recent lot of photos we’ve taken, when my son Ben rang! And then we realised we’d forgotten it was his birthday, although that wasn’t why he was ringing. Celia explained to the young lady who was witnessing that we were talking to one of our children in NZ, but she looked as though she had no idea where NZ was and if she did, hadn’t a clue how we could be talking to anyone anywhere else.
After breakfast we headed off for Manchester, as a first port of call, and though we thought we’d put the city centre in, found ourselves outside somewhere in a suburb called Heywood. There was an indoor market there, and so we went in and had some lunch: it wasn’t very busy inside, probably because it was still raining a good deal, and the young feller behind the counter was interested in our being from NZ, wanting to check whether it was as dry as Australia. We assured him it wasn’t. It’s constantly interesting how many people have relatives in either Australia or NZ, or who have a desire to go and visit one or both of the countries. There are still many links between the places, even though the European Union is such a dominant force now in this part of the world. I don’t think most English people really think they’re part of the EU, and they wonder at all the Europeans coming over to find work, especially the Poles.
There was a long slow patch on the motorway heading south, so on a whim we decided to head for Chester, as the road was clear. Chester is near the border of Wales, and at one point, while we’d taken a wrong turn in looking for a campsite, we found ourselves crossing the border - while I was typing an email, as it happened.
We’re camping in Chester - the rain has stopped for the most part, although it was extremely heavy in places on the way - and we’ll see whether we spend any time here tomorrow or not.
Anyway, we left the campsite by the river Ouse where we’ve been for a couple of days and decided to head for Worcester, once again to try and get to see Crowle (and Mamble). Before we left York we stopped off at a café for some breakfast, as neither of us had managed to have more than some muesli, with all the dampness around. We were sitting there waiting for our order, sorting out the most recent lot of photos we’ve taken, when my son Ben rang! And then we realised we’d forgotten it was his birthday, although that wasn’t why he was ringing. Celia explained to the young lady who was witnessing that we were talking to one of our children in NZ, but she looked as though she had no idea where NZ was and if she did, hadn’t a clue how we could be talking to anyone anywhere else.
After breakfast we headed off for Manchester, as a first port of call, and though we thought we’d put the city centre in, found ourselves outside somewhere in a suburb called Heywood. There was an indoor market there, and so we went in and had some lunch: it wasn’t very busy inside, probably because it was still raining a good deal, and the young feller behind the counter was interested in our being from NZ, wanting to check whether it was as dry as Australia. We assured him it wasn’t. It’s constantly interesting how many people have relatives in either Australia or NZ, or who have a desire to go and visit one or both of the countries. There are still many links between the places, even though the European Union is such a dominant force now in this part of the world. I don’t think most English people really think they’re part of the EU, and they wonder at all the Europeans coming over to find work, especially the Poles.
There was a long slow patch on the motorway heading south, so on a whim we decided to head for Chester, as the road was clear. Chester is near the border of Wales, and at one point, while we’d taken a wrong turn in looking for a campsite, we found ourselves crossing the border - while I was typing an email, as it happened.
We’re camping in Chester - the rain has stopped for the most part, although it was extremely heavy in places on the way - and we’ll see whether we spend any time here tomorrow or not.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
York, Day Two
We spent a second night at the camp site near Acaster Malbis last night and a nasty cold night it was too. With rain.
(Before I forget I came across two more peculiar village names today, both within spitting distance of York and of each other: Askham Bryan, and Askham Richard. I kid you not!)
Fortunately the pub is only a few yards down the road, so we stayed there both last night and the night before until about 9.30. It was warmer than inside the tent.
Both of us had a dose of homesickness last night, and debated whether we should change our air tickets and fly home on the next available plane. Hang the expense, we said.
Came to our senses, but it took a bit of time.
This morning we were going to head south again, still trying to get to the elusive other village of Crowle (and Mamble) but two or three cellphone calls to places south didn’t encourage us much (one was actually closed, in spite of being listed as open all year around), and Celia’s tooth was playing up again, and she finally got an appointment for 4.30 this afternoon, so that kind of put the kibosh on going anywhere today.
Plus our nephew rang and said he was coming to York tomorrow, and would we like him to take anything excess back home with him? Would we! It’ll be nice to meet a familiar face: think that’s part of our homesickness. I keep saying to Celia that I want to meet somebody, anybody that I know from home. But we haven’t so far, which I’ve found disappointing. It’s not as though such a thing is an impossibility: last time I was in England, on the second day, I met someone I knew, in London. And when Celia was over here, twenty-plus years ago, with our daughter, there was a similar occurrence, one that was even more amazing. My daughter went out with some of her English relatives, to Milton Keynes, and they met my cousin from New Zealand…
(Before I forget I came across two more peculiar village names today, both within spitting distance of York and of each other: Askham Bryan, and Askham Richard. I kid you not!)
Fortunately the pub is only a few yards down the road, so we stayed there both last night and the night before until about 9.30. It was warmer than inside the tent.
Both of us had a dose of homesickness last night, and debated whether we should change our air tickets and fly home on the next available plane. Hang the expense, we said.
Came to our senses, but it took a bit of time.
This morning we were going to head south again, still trying to get to the elusive other village of Crowle (and Mamble) but two or three cellphone calls to places south didn’t encourage us much (one was actually closed, in spite of being listed as open all year around), and Celia’s tooth was playing up again, and she finally got an appointment for 4.30 this afternoon, so that kind of put the kibosh on going anywhere today.
Plus our nephew rang and said he was coming to York tomorrow, and would we like him to take anything excess back home with him? Would we! It’ll be nice to meet a familiar face: think that’s part of our homesickness. I keep saying to Celia that I want to meet somebody, anybody that I know from home. But we haven’t so far, which I’ve found disappointing. It’s not as though such a thing is an impossibility: last time I was in England, on the second day, I met someone I knew, in London. And when Celia was over here, twenty-plus years ago, with our daughter, there was a similar occurrence, one that was even more amazing. My daughter went out with some of her English relatives, to Milton Keynes, and they met my cousin from New Zealand…
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Not to Crowle yet
We set out this morning to go to Crowle. We are fated not to go to Crowle as yet.
Both of us woke up early - around six - and we finished up getting up not much later. It takes virtually three hours to get ourselves sorted out in the morning when we’re tenting. Three different locations in two tents in four days. Certainly the new tent allowed us to stand upright - a great joy for homo erectus - and after we’d had tea, we sat inside and read - or blogged, as in my case.
The site was quieter than the one the night before, but there was still an ongoing motor cavalcade hum going on in our left ears.
Anyway, we began heading towards Crowle, and found that the Sat Nav seemed to be taking us in a rather long way round route, which required us to go towards Birmingham, virtually, before we went south again. The day wasn’t that exciting in terms of the weather, and we read on one of the electronic road signs that there was some blockage with long queues on the road we were about to take, and I was feeling too tired to cope with dragging through snail-pace traffic - and I think Celia was too.
In the end, since we were heading towards Lichfield (where we were booked in for tonight and tomorrow in a hotel) anyway, we decided to have a day that didn’t consist of driving. Instead we went straight onto Lichfield, found a parking building, and wandered around the town.
The weather gradually improved, and we checked out the usual places: charity shops, secondhand bookshops, and so on, and visited the Samuel Johnson museum. Had a pub lunch, and headed on towards the Cathedral. (Which had its spire toppled by the Roundheads).
The Cathedral entrance is just extraordinary: dozens of statues of saints and kings, many of them lifesize, fitted into the face of the building. And there are dozens more inside. At first the place struck me as being overly militaristic in its trappings, with a lot of memorials dedicated to people who died in various wars, but it improved as we went on. And we discovered that Bishop Selwyn has his resting place there. He has a great deal to do with New Zealand, so that was a bonus. As was meeting a New Zealander at the door - he was welcoming people as they came in. Both Celia and I felt we knew him, once he started talking about himself a bit, but he didn’t seem to know us. I knew his mother, however: she’s the Anglican minister in Stewart Island.
(It’s been a strange thing that we haven’t met anyone we know from New Zealand since we’ve been here: usually NZeders are thick on the ground.)
The stained-glass window around the main altar is dazzling, full of wonderful colours. Much of it was rescued from a convent on the Continent, bought for £200 and sold to the cathedral for the same amount. The glass was then restored into its new location.
Finally we found our hotel where I’m blogging and Celia’s snoozing. She was tired.
Both of us woke up early - around six - and we finished up getting up not much later. It takes virtually three hours to get ourselves sorted out in the morning when we’re tenting. Three different locations in two tents in four days. Certainly the new tent allowed us to stand upright - a great joy for homo erectus - and after we’d had tea, we sat inside and read - or blogged, as in my case.
The site was quieter than the one the night before, but there was still an ongoing motor cavalcade hum going on in our left ears.
Anyway, we began heading towards Crowle, and found that the Sat Nav seemed to be taking us in a rather long way round route, which required us to go towards Birmingham, virtually, before we went south again. The day wasn’t that exciting in terms of the weather, and we read on one of the electronic road signs that there was some blockage with long queues on the road we were about to take, and I was feeling too tired to cope with dragging through snail-pace traffic - and I think Celia was too.
In the end, since we were heading towards Lichfield (where we were booked in for tonight and tomorrow in a hotel) anyway, we decided to have a day that didn’t consist of driving. Instead we went straight onto Lichfield, found a parking building, and wandered around the town.
The weather gradually improved, and we checked out the usual places: charity shops, secondhand bookshops, and so on, and visited the Samuel Johnson museum. Had a pub lunch, and headed on towards the Cathedral. (Which had its spire toppled by the Roundheads).The Cathedral entrance is just extraordinary: dozens of statues of saints and kings, many of them lifesize, fitted into the face of the building. And there are dozens more inside. At first the place struck me as being overly militaristic in its trappings, with a lot of memorials dedicated to people who died in various wars, but it improved as we went on. And we discovered that Bishop Selwyn has his resting place there. He has a great deal to do with New Zealand, so that was a bonus. As was meeting a New Zealander at the door - he was welcoming people as they came in. Both Celia and I felt we knew him, once he started talking about himself a bit, but he didn’t seem to know us. I knew his mother, however: she’s the Anglican minister in Stewart Island.
(It’s been a strange thing that we haven’t met anyone we know from New Zealand since we’ve been here: usually NZeders are thick on the ground.)
The stained-glass window around the main altar is dazzling, full of wonderful colours. Much of it was rescued from a convent on the Continent, bought for £200 and sold to the cathedral for the same amount. The glass was then restored into its new location.
Finally we found our hotel where I’m blogging and Celia’s snoozing. She was tired.
Monday, September 03, 2007
Gadding about
I don’t think I’ve travelled so much in a car since I was with the Opera Quartet in New Zealand back in the 60s. Because everything you want to go to is somewhere else, as it were, and by somewhere else I mean not within walkable distance or hop in the car distance, we seem to spend a lot of time driving. Trips that in NZ would have been considered major are here just part of the day. Driving to Norwich regularly is a good twenty-five-minute trip, or driving to Birmingham yesterday was like driving from Dunedin to Timaru, except that we had to drive on three lane highways regularly at speeds of up to 120 kph. You kind of get used to it, but it isn’t my idea of fun. Fortunately we’ve bought lots of audio books at various op shops and have been listening to them to pass the time on the long hauls. I’ve even driven to Norwich and back twice by myself. Now for someone who wasn’t keen on driving in England at all when we came, that’s pretty good going.
I spent much of yesterday (Saturday) at the PodCamp in Birmingham. I’ll be writing about it in due course on another blog or two, but suffice to say for the moment it was a stimulating and unusual experience. Celia went wandering in Birmingham itself, wore herself out, joined me at the PodCamp and listened in on a conversation between a dozen or more highly articulate podcasters, and then we drove home via Coventry Cathedral. (Which was terrific, but very focused on the sombre.) Then we had to sort out stuff for coming to Luxembourg, and this morning I was up just after six, because we had to leave fairly early to get to Stansted Airport for our flight. My brother-in-law drove us to the airport, we had to wait around for something like two and a half hours, often in queues, get onto a cramped plane, fly for an hour, meet up with Stephen C, whom I haven’t seen for around 35 years, and be driven by him from Frankfurt Hahn airport to his home in Luxembourg. And then of course it was catch-up time for Stephen and his wife, and Celia and me. Celia has retired exhausted to bed at an hour almost unheard of for her (8.30 English time, 9.30 Luxembourg time) and I’m sitting in a half-darkened room trying to get down some notes about what’s been happening.
I spent much of yesterday (Saturday) at the PodCamp in Birmingham. I’ll be writing about it in due course on another blog or two, but suffice to say for the moment it was a stimulating and unusual experience. Celia went wandering in Birmingham itself, wore herself out, joined me at the PodCamp and listened in on a conversation between a dozen or more highly articulate podcasters, and then we drove home via Coventry Cathedral. (Which was terrific, but very focused on the sombre.) Then we had to sort out stuff for coming to Luxembourg, and this morning I was up just after six, because we had to leave fairly early to get to Stansted Airport for our flight. My brother-in-law drove us to the airport, we had to wait around for something like two and a half hours, often in queues, get onto a cramped plane, fly for an hour, meet up with Stephen C, whom I haven’t seen for around 35 years, and be driven by him from Frankfurt Hahn airport to his home in Luxembourg. And then of course it was catch-up time for Stephen and his wife, and Celia and me. Celia has retired exhausted to bed at an hour almost unheard of for her (8.30 English time, 9.30 Luxembourg time) and I’m sitting in a half-darkened room trying to get down some notes about what’s been happening.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Checking out prices online
Just having some fun playing with the HotelReservations.com site. I began by looking at Hotel Reservations on their own. You can put in a place name and the site will skip off and find you a choice of hotels (and other facilities) within seconds. Even though USA was on the page, I put Auckland in, and it was quite happy to find Auckland, NZ. Some of the room prices were a bit out of my reach, but that’s okay - at this point I don’t actually want to stay in Auckland, even though my daughter has moved there recently, and taken her man and their two children (our grandchildren) with her.
But we have considered going on the Continent for two or three weeks, say in October, so I put Florence in as a search. I hadn’t realised there were five places called Florence in the USA, one in Alabama, one in Arizona, one in Kentucky, one in Oregon, and one in SC. It’ll come to me in a minute which state that is! Ah, South Carolina?
In spite of the wealth of US Florences, the first Florence to come up was Italy‘s, which is where I was intending to look. So that was a plus. Clever site.
The site does vacation rentals as well as hotels (and flights, cars, package deals), so I checked out NZ for that, too. Up came Auckland, Queenstown, Wellington, Christchurch. Pretty good, though again things are on the pricey side. Maybe this site doesn’t look at more economic possibilities?
Thought I might as well have a look at the flights option, as this is something we’ve been checking out quite a bit online. And it’s usually not easy. However, apart from checking which of the several London airports I wanted to fly from, it found a possible flight very quickly. Though at US$10,683.40, it might be a bit beyond our budget! I went back to check that I hadn’t put business class in the options, but the only option was economy/coach. Obviously there might be a cheaper flight available: £5,339.80 or NZ$14,621.95 for one return flight to a place that’s not that far away from here, seems just a bit over the top.
However, one interesting thing that did turn up in the flight options, was this: people 62 years old and over can obviously go for a better price. Finally my age gives me some benefits! (Actually, if I want to travel by bus from Norwich to a large number of destinations, I can go free, because of my age.)
But we have considered going on the Continent for two or three weeks, say in October, so I put Florence in as a search. I hadn’t realised there were five places called Florence in the USA, one in Alabama, one in Arizona, one in Kentucky, one in Oregon, and one in SC. It’ll come to me in a minute which state that is! Ah, South Carolina?
In spite of the wealth of US Florences, the first Florence to come up was Italy‘s, which is where I was intending to look. So that was a plus. Clever site.
The site does vacation rentals as well as hotels (and flights, cars, package deals), so I checked out NZ for that, too. Up came Auckland, Queenstown, Wellington, Christchurch. Pretty good, though again things are on the pricey side. Maybe this site doesn’t look at more economic possibilities?
Thought I might as well have a look at the flights option, as this is something we’ve been checking out quite a bit online. And it’s usually not easy. However, apart from checking which of the several London airports I wanted to fly from, it found a possible flight very quickly. Though at US$10,683.40, it might be a bit beyond our budget! I went back to check that I hadn’t put business class in the options, but the only option was economy/coach. Obviously there might be a cheaper flight available: £5,339.80 or NZ$14,621.95 for one return flight to a place that’s not that far away from here, seems just a bit over the top.
However, one interesting thing that did turn up in the flight options, was this: people 62 years old and over can obviously go for a better price. Finally my age gives me some benefits! (Actually, if I want to travel by bus from Norwich to a large number of destinations, I can go free, because of my age.)
Friday, August 10, 2007
Going abroad - or not
We haven’t made much progress on doing any planning for going on the Continent as yet. I suspect in part we’ve been a bit put off by trying to figure out whether it’s cheaper to fly to a place and back again, or to go somewhere and try and fly from there to a second destination. Doing it online ought to be the way to go but it never seems quite as easy as we’d like. And it was a disappointing, I think, to find that even Ryanair, which was so cheap in terms of the flight proceeded to add a pile of extra charges on once we’d actually booked. They don’t always do that, but you have to catch their super-duper-specials before you can get out of the extra costs.
We don’t want to take the car on the Continent: for one thing neither of us fancies driving on the wrong side of the road, and we’d have to hike the insurance up even further.
Anyway, we are going to Luxembourg early in September, to see a man who was only 12 or 13 when we left London in 1974. I was a kind of big brother (as they call it in NZ) to him for a while, and we used to get on very well. Hopefully after an absence of thirty-plus years we still will!
We’ve thought of going to Switzerland, because there’s a young fellow who used to be at our church in Dunedin now living there with his wife, and we’d like to go back to Rome, because we have such good memories of it. We were thinking about Venice too, but my niece has rather put us off the place: she felt it was overpriced, crowded, and that they tended to rip off the visitors. Florence is another possibility, and of course the Continent is so full of choices it’s hard to know where to start.
We haven’t even considered places further afield like Bahrain or Dubai, and I’ve just come across Egypt package holidays - I don’t know that either of us are keen on the heat or the type of atmosphere in those places. I think I stopped off in Bahrain briefly when I first came to England; my memory of it is that the airport had a toilet I couldn’t figure out how to use and oppressive muggy heat. I was happy to get back on the plane!
The company that does the package holidays, however, does have a lot of info on Continental holidays, so it's probably time Celia and I sat down and tried to work something out.
We don’t want to take the car on the Continent: for one thing neither of us fancies driving on the wrong side of the road, and we’d have to hike the insurance up even further.
Anyway, we are going to Luxembourg early in September, to see a man who was only 12 or 13 when we left London in 1974. I was a kind of big brother (as they call it in NZ) to him for a while, and we used to get on very well. Hopefully after an absence of thirty-plus years we still will!
We’ve thought of going to Switzerland, because there’s a young fellow who used to be at our church in Dunedin now living there with his wife, and we’d like to go back to Rome, because we have such good memories of it. We were thinking about Venice too, but my niece has rather put us off the place: she felt it was overpriced, crowded, and that they tended to rip off the visitors. Florence is another possibility, and of course the Continent is so full of choices it’s hard to know where to start.
We haven’t even considered places further afield like Bahrain or Dubai, and I’ve just come across Egypt package holidays - I don’t know that either of us are keen on the heat or the type of atmosphere in those places. I think I stopped off in Bahrain briefly when I first came to England; my memory of it is that the airport had a toilet I couldn’t figure out how to use and oppressive muggy heat. I was happy to get back on the plane!
The company that does the package holidays, however, does have a lot of info on Continental holidays, so it's probably time Celia and I sat down and tried to work something out.
Monday, August 06, 2007
Going back in time 2
Yesterday we spent a good deal of the afternoon at a wedding reception with a difference. Firstly, the actual wedding had taken place back in July - we’d babysat the house for the couple while they went on their honeymoon. Secondly, there were six wedding cakes. The bride had asked certain people to make a cake specially for the reception, and so each cake was quite different, and at least two of them were more like children’s birthday cakes. One of these had a little car and trailer on it, and the other was a large teddy-bear shaped cake with scrumptious soft icing.
And then the reception took place at a pub in what I would call the middle of nowhere. It turned out to be about a mile away from the main village of Whepstead, and had no other buildings anywhere near. It’s a lovely old building, in good condition, large enough for a few guests, but really what we would call in NZ: out in the wop wops.
Still, the day was hot (the English can no longer complain that they’re not getting a summer - today is too hot to go outside); the bride left some water pistols for the children to play with after lunch, and it was two adults (my wife and a lady vicar) who started the ball rolling. At different times in the day some people got completely soaked. In fact, the vicar poured a glass of water down her brother’s back late in the afternoon, something he took with surprising equanimity. I suppose he thought retaliating on a woman wasn’t the done thing, let alone a female vicar. More fool him.
And then the reception took place at a pub in what I would call the middle of nowhere. It turned out to be about a mile away from the main village of Whepstead, and had no other buildings anywhere near. It’s a lovely old building, in good condition, large enough for a few guests, but really what we would call in NZ: out in the wop wops.
Still, the day was hot (the English can no longer complain that they’re not getting a summer - today is too hot to go outside); the bride left some water pistols for the children to play with after lunch, and it was two adults (my wife and a lady vicar) who started the ball rolling. At different times in the day some people got completely soaked. In fact, the vicar poured a glass of water down her brother’s back late in the afternoon, something he took with surprising equanimity. I suppose he thought retaliating on a woman wasn’t the done thing, let alone a female vicar. More fool him.
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