And Rob, if you don’t like lighthouses, look away now!
Lighthouse 1
At Peace On The Water
Cape Elizabeth Lighthouse, I Believe..
Wreck!
Portland Head Lighthouse - Arguably Maine's Most Famous
More Wrecks...
Ram Island Ledge?
The Yacht, The Light
More Portland Head
Looking Up At The Light
Portland Head's Up
Looking North
A 19th Century Banksy
Don't Do It Mate...
More to follow! Hurrah!
Some pictures from two years ago of the beloved and my trip to Maine. It won’t be all over in one go (groan) but still. This is my blog…
Leaving New Hampshire
That's Very Nice Of You
The Sort Of Chaps You See...
Nice House. Wonder who lives there?
Bet This Is Lively In Winter!
First Of Many Ocean Spray Shots
More Ocean Spray
And More Spray
A Quaint Little Eaterie
Old Orchard Beach
Another Nice Eaterie
Another Seaside Shot
And here is a map of the region we visited…
I have posted some pictures from this before – I think it is a great and touching spectacle – and here are some pics I took in June 2007.
The people gather
Off To Lewes
The Sun Goes Down
The Flag...
Who Stole The Top Half?
My Pilgrimage...
More stuff from my June 2007 visit
Mass State Building
Freedom Trail.....
Weren't On Our Side...
More Horse Related Antics
Freedom is Slavery
Some local monument or something....
I Like His Beer
Lots of Patriots In The Ground
I liked Boston, of course I would. A pity I couldn’t spend more time there.
A selection of pictures from my visit to Heaven – Fenway Park in June 2007
Feel the Tingle...
No Tickets Available
The First Photo Inside
Looking Up To The Boxes
Looking Out to Centre-Field
If you look at the picture above, see if you can pick out a seat in right field which is red (in among all the green). That is the seat where the longest home run was hit (by Ted Williams).
Those Were The Days My Friends
That Evening's Entertainment - We Lost
Who Is This Muppet?
Retired Numbers
The Bull-Pens
The Monster
Pesky Pole...
More pictures somewhere down the line! But here are a couple of video vignettes..
More from Scotland, and a location our border collie particularly loved…
More from the Loch…in due course of course…
The first instalment is from the trip to Scotland in June..
Ruthven Barracks
We'll Be Walking Up That Hill
The Information
Ruthven from a distance...
There will be more pictures uploaded during the day of various travels… A wanderlust!
Bored with the set-up I had, so decided to change….. I hope this isn’t too bad for my limited readership!
Here is the full picture where the header came from… As you will possibly note, the new blog format allows me to publish slightly bigger pictures, so the lighthouses can be even bigger for you, Duke RobinO.
It is a picture of the beach on the southern part of Cozumel. Pretty horrific, eh?
You know I love sunsets. You know I love fridge magnets! What better way to celebrate than to have a picture encapsulating both!
I'm Really Good....
This fridge magnet is one of the flag of Cornwall. Yes, we have a county that has its own flag. Who do they think they are? Anyway, I had to buy a flag in the form of a fridge magnet – no tat too precious – but how to photograph it for the fans of the fridge magnet cognoscenti. On a glorious Thursday night, just a week ago, we found ourselves on a cliff overlooking Kynance Cove as the sun went down…
So the keys prop up the magnet, the grass adds to the majesty, and the sun sets behind. Kernow forever!!!!!
The Sun Goes Down - Lizard Point
Blatant Red Filter Cheat - But Nice...
More From The Bottom of Lizard Point
More From The Top Of The Point
A Lovely Sunset... Sunday 4th October 2009
And now, some pictures of my recent break in Cornwall. Nothing special, just some pictures for your delectation..
Looking down the hill...
The church in Boscastle
Boscastle (lower part)
Lovely Day...
Have Travels, Have Fridge Magnet
From the mists of time, a couple of the most memorable days of my life were spent here…..
Ah Yes… The wildlife….
This was spotted (looking at the map) on the loop of the road at the top (nr Memorial Gate) in January 2005. A truly exhilarating moment. Especially when it looked at us straight through the windscreen…..
Er, Sir Peter – it has been four and a half years, sir….. Any chance of the video footage of this?
All totally at random, but here goes…
While on holiday I managed to watch all 8 parts of Michael Palin’s Pole to Pole. The only thing I would say is that it got a PG certificate but at one point, Mr Palin’s appendage is clearly visible. Excuse me. He also gets his arse out too! I could get all Daily Mail here, but who cares. Actually if you read his diary extracts on line, you get a much better feel for the journey he took. I thoroughly enjoyed it and will look for the others on sale to take up a few more hours of my time.
The next book being read is by Colin Thubron and is called “Shadow of the Silk Road”. Lord knows why, because I read his book “In Siberia” and although he wasn’t as tiresome as the author of Mirrors of the Unseen (Jason Elliot – and I’ll explain why sometime but it revolves around a charicature American, his moaning about tourists, and then an incident with a camera – clue…you were a tourist too, mate) that book plodded. I am wading through it like I would a lake of treacle. Don’t expect a book review for a month.
A quick restaurant review or two. I went to the East Quay fish restaurant on Saturday in Whitstable. Jolly nice, if a little pricey. In Cornwall I had lunch in the Wellington Hotel in Boscastle, and thought the fish left a lot to be desired, but then again, I was a bit grouchy that day. At the Godolphin Hotel in Marazion, the burger was fine, but the staff need hearing aids (the mother-in-law went meal-less). The Norway Inn, on the main road between Truro and Falmouth did an excellent baguette – but lets face it, that’s tough to cock up. Harvey’s Wharf in Falmouth got good reviews from the beloved and m-i-l but I thought my whitebait was cack, and the crippling soullessness of the place probably accentuated by malaise. The sandwich and smoothie at Polzeach (near Rock) was absolutely magnificent – especially the smoothie. Although expensive, I wanted another. That’s the end of food critic corner.
I listened to the radio when the boss of the refs union suggested the Crimson Snide should be suspended. I sometimes wonder if football can get any more up its own arse, and then something comes along to banish those wonderments. Crimson Snide is a law unto himself, he does what he wants, he knows he is untouchable, and yet you feed it. If he thinks Alan Wiley is bad, then my mate Henry VIII would point him in the direction of Phil Dowd!
Hey ho. Rio Ferdinand made a dozy mistake. Why is anyone surprised? Ashley Cole makes an error trying to do too much. Why is anyone surprised? I swear, football can’t parody itself enough.
On the way home from Whitstable I had Charlton v Oldham on the radio. A League One game on Radio Five Live. It may well have been a bad game, but fuck me blind, if that had been Liverpool v Man Utd, frequently a turgid affair, I’ll bet the moans wouldn’t have formed the basis of the commentary. Have a pop at the lower leagues, twats. No-one cares.
The NFL game in London is two weeks away and my tickets haven’t shown up. Worried. Not yet. Ticketmaster said they had been despatched and we were away all last week, but there is no record of them trying to deliver the things.
I will avoid politics for the time being, except to say that Ben Bradshaw must be having a laugh. In general.
Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace prize. According to those that know about this sort of thing, he was nominated just 10 days or so into office. Hope wins you millions. I must confess I laughed. Still, Al Gore won it a couple of year’s back for a powerpoint presentation so credibility is always going to be a problem.
Nice to see Rio win the Olympics – it really needed to go there. If they can afford it, and the infrastructure is there, then it should go there, and wasn’t it amusing to see Chicago go out first depsite the Messiah making their case. Change I could believe in.
Congratulations to the Eden Project for having helpful stewards and attendants – and not utter utter jobsworths. You still couldn’t pay me to actually go in there, but at least I dropped off and picked up the beloved and m-i-l with help from the high visibility jacket brigade.
I have several beers to consume, but will say at the outset that Skinners Cornish Lager is a most acceptable beverage. I have Sharps, St Austell, Skinners, Keltek, Lizard and Wooden Hand to drink – yes, I am getting more into bitters.
It would be nice to see the Dolphins beat the Jets and pop that awful team’s bubble. It won’t happen though. A shame also that Favre and the Vikings are 5-0. The beloved’s Giants are also 5-0 and look the best of the bunch at the moment.
I know the Yankees are the best team in the MLB, but did they really need to be helped by playing Minnesota less than 24 hours after they clinched their place in the postseason and having had to go 12 innings to do so? Why didn’t they just make it clear and ask them to play with one hand tied behind their back while they were at it?
Think it easy to do without Sky Sports (or ESPN America)? I had a whole week without it and it was very bad. With nothing major on the terrestrial channels, it was a case of Sky News or those god awful channels with home auctions and what not. No wonder I watched the DVDs on the laptop (see internet problems).
Nice to see Terminal 4 has had a polish up. However, you get the feeling that the airline industry is in a really bad way at the moment, and it wasn’t exactly a hive of activity there. Maybe it was a false impression.
Now the Sox are out, at least I can sleep without looking up their score on the mobile. The beloved will be happy about that, I am sure.
WindyBricks drew 1-1 with Willie Carson and Julian Wilson’s Magic Roundabout Town, which according to the cognoscenti was a good result. Some bloke on loan scored for us, and Comes Alive got sent off. I missed a 5-0 win over the team managed by “You’ve got to have the gift, but use it at the right time.” Clearly he didn’t and he couldn’t. Not Thierry got a hat-trick, and all of them were from outside the area, and none of them bust the net. The Plassie Scousers soon got rid of “Liverpool FC is Hard As Hell”.
Enough random musings. I will return.
I am writing this on holiday in Cornwall. The location, set back from Falmouth and Penryn in a converted barn is beautiful, the accommodation on the face of it is very nice and more than adequate for our needs. It is dog friendly, it is cosy, has a nice kitchen… but…
It is 25 past 8 at night as I write this, but it won’t be published until I get home to London. At the moment we have a noise that sounds like the Queen Mary is coming into port as the heating comes on. This particular ocean liner has a blast that lasts around five minutes. I’d talk to the owner, but I have the distinct impression that they don’t really want to be bothered by us. After all we found the TV had not been tuned in, and in fact the leads had been disconnected between the digital box and the TV on our arrival. Not wishing to mess around with their equipment, the wife and mother-in-law went to see the owner who seemed to give them short shrift. In the end the mother-in-law got a picture, I sorted out the retuning. Not impressed.
We were also promised a welcome pack on arrival including a bottle of wine et al. Nothing. The hot water in the shower is not exactly consistent, and we froze on our first night as the heating clearly wasn’t on and is set centrally by the owner. The clear message in the welcome pack is under no circumstances should we change it ourselves. It ended up with the purchase of extra duvets!!!
Finally we are a sad breed and we do like our creature comforts and one of the key factors in booking a place to stay is to have the internet. This place clearly indicates it has wi-fi internet. For the first couple of days we did. While it was a little temperamental it did work most of the time. Now it doesn’t. It shows no sign of doing so. Now we are in a dilemma – should we tell the owner who doesn’t seem to give a flying one, or should we just leave it? At the moment we tend towards the latter.
It is such a shame because the place itself is lovely, Cornwall is great and we are having a decent time. I know the male side of the ownership said that his wife has fractured her ankle so he has all the work to do, and we are sympathetic, but at the same time, he’s made no attempt to ask how we are, how things are going or even to see if there is anything we need. The one time we did approach him, he appeared not to want to be bothered. For that reason we can’t recommend the Barn in Mabe to anyone. While we loved Crubenbeg up in Scotland and would return there in a heartbeat, we just did not feel the same about this place. Going through the motions…..
UPDATE – It just got more bizarre. No heating at all for the last two nights (I wrote this on Tuesday) and checkout this morning was utterly bizarre. We were due to check out by 10am. Having got up slightly early and been ahead of schedule we had loaded up the car by just past 8:30 and if we got to go then, we’d be able to get to the M25 before the Friday rush. We emptied our possessions, checked one more time, and they must have heard us loading the car. Still no sign of the owners, and so the beloved knocked on the front door. Both cars were parked outside the house, but no-one answered!!! They make such a big play over inventory etc. in their lease agreement, but they could not be arsed to see us off, or take their door key! Honestly, we never did a thing to offend them, annoy them or tarnish their lovely property.
But that was the wierdest holiday property owning duo I have come across. We loved the barn, the owners were decidedly odd. As I said earlier, the wife in the partnership did have a fractured ankle. We never saw her, or heard her! There were rarely lights on in the main property. Just the wierdest thing I’ve seen on holiday for quite a while.
Not quite a map, but given I’ve just read the book on Robert Millar, and am currently engrossed in the Bradley Wiggins book, why not?
Ah, the memories….
There has always been something in me that has stopped me reading a Bill Bryson book. I mean, hasn’t nearly every regular reader read one? I’ve been told Down Under is brilliant but I thought – no, I won’t. Then I went through a phase of hunting around charity shops for bargain books. The main factor needed to be (a) interest in the subject matter and (b) although secondhand, preferably not in tatters. I have picked up most of Bryson’s books via this route but only just got around to reading one. I chose this first as I would love to see some of the scenery he mentions, I love Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and the bits of Maine I saw and we’ve seen the Delaware Water Gap. I am not a hiker, and will never profess to be one, but I like reading travelogues, even if many are garbage.
This one wasn’t. I love the raconteur style of Bryson, and his bit about facing up to bears had me laughing out loud on the DLR – no mean feat for a morning curmudgeon like myself. The book fades a bit towards the end as the author and his pal’s commitment to the cause wanes, but the book was a cracking commuting read and I can wholeheartedly recommend it. It has made me want to visit the Great Smoky Mounties, Centralia, and even more, to drive up Mount Washington (in someone else’s car). It makes me yearn even more for Vermont, which is just the nicest spot I have seen in the States, and to visit New England again.
I will be awarding it 4/5 on Facebook when I get around to it!!!
On to another amazing instalment of “Just why did you buy that tat?” and this one is one of my own personal purchases so I can blame no-one else.
In 2004, on a cold December afternoon, I left Blighty for the Cape, with Good Hope in my heart. Having seen an ostrich, woken up a neighbourhood just by ringing a doorbell, put a Fez on, had big beer, and watched England lose as my lower leg turned to a rasher of bacon, our good fortune that the end of the test came with the removal of the tablecloth from the top of the southern city’s most famous monument meant we could get our arses up there and see for ourselves. You could see where Mandela was held from the top. His freedom would have been in jeopardy if he’d seen the souvenir shop at Table Mountain. First some nice pics.
Looking up - with the hint of the tablecloth..
Looking Down From The Top...
Isn’t it just amazing.
I then thought it would be a great idea to purchase this. Sir Peter was appalled…
For those of you too stunned for words, it is a bottle, neatly modelled on the arm of the Ikea Garden Furniture I assembled (note, it is still standing) containing genuine, so they say, rocks from the slopes of Table Mountain. There are no obvious signs of “Made in China” to disabuse us of this notion, but the very idea that people are scooping up mounds of gravel to insert into appalling bottles is so utterly preposterous for me not to believe that the grey detritus in there isn’t from the slopes of a slag heap just outside Shenzen.
However, this truly monstrous souvenir has now adorned two fridges in the house, and is a lock as the front door resident (top left corner). Cape Town has so much to offer, and all I bought was this – not a t-shirt, not a clock, not a key ring. A bottle. With gravel in.
Oh dear!
Did I ever say how much I loved Jakatta’s album…. Dave Lee produced more under different guises (most notably Joey Negro) but I never got into it as much as this album. Easily in my top ten, I am trying hard to think of one I played to death more, and the above song got more than one airing. All around Australia it was on my portable CD player (no Ipods then (or at least affordable ones, kiddywinks – what would you have done?)) at most opportunities.
I will also remember that Sasha’s “airdrawndagger” got several airings too…and that for a horrible couple of hours I thought that my GU009 Sasha in San Fran CD would be stuck in the CD player at Dreamcatcher because of a power failure.
Interested in Port Douglas… here is Dreamcatcher’s website… Very, very highly recommended.
A week or so earlier, in Brisbane, on our first day in Australia, we experienced how the country went for the Melbourne Cup. It is a national instituion and watching it on the TV in the middle of Brisbane’s main shopping street will also be one of my main memories. Especially as Queenie Grimble, dotty auntie to Sir Peter, predicted the winner and won the beknighted one a pretty penny…
The horse I backed – erm, finished 16th – see link here for Mick Kinane naffing it up.
2002 was just amazing… the memories are still so clear… and all triggered by one song on the 8:42 from Mottingham to Lewisham.
The Blackwall Tunnel and the prospect of its ever lengthening queues and seemingly ever more preposterous precepts on which to base decisions of closure got the desired (by the stasi authorities) effect from me. I have decided to give public transport a go for a week. Oh, it isn’t horrific, but consider my normal car journey is 45-50 minutes, while today’s commute took 1 hour and 15 minutes, and you can see the dilemma. I am not sure yet whether sharing my commute with psychotic Audi, Merc and Beamer drivers is worse than that bus with the schoolkids. I give it a week…
But this post is not to moan about commuting, rather to relay one of those moments. I suppose for time in memoriam (hope that is right, Stan) people have always associated songs with moments. I had just taken my seat on the 8:42 from Mottingham, with the Ipod on playing assorted dance tracks from the shuffle from my 6000 songs which I’ve not been able to change for, ooooh, about 2 years ago now. Then on came this song…
At this point, I drifted away. There are songs you associate with moments, as I said, and together with Beautiful Stranger, Jakatta’s One Fine Day will remind me of the Cook Highway, Port Douglas, Far North Queensland, and an Astra convertible….
Map of FNQ
A mere map can’t do the drive from Cairns up to Port Douglas (and indeed from PD up to Cape Trib) justice. On the left, as you drive north, you have the rain forest, verdant and evocative. To the right is the Coral Sea, turquoise as if on a postcard, shimmering in the sun (and teeming with bleeding box jellyfish should you fancy a dip – paradise comes at a cost). Port Douglas is just beautiful, except for the northerners embarrassing my nation, and a huge memory – alongside the drive to Cape Trib, the Kuranda Skyrail, the steam train up to Cape Trib, and a hugely uninspiring day on the Great Barrier Reef (up there with the greatest days of my life), and you have the picture. It was THAT good that Sydney (where we went next) had no chance to compete. How can you compete with watching the sun come up over the Coral Sea, while sitting under a palm tree and then dipping your feet in the sea (not too much – box jellyfish again) before returning to your great apartment (Dreamcatcher – just seemed to epitomise the moment)…..
So when the song came on, I put down the book, closed my eyes and let myself drift away with, wait for it, a smile on my face. Top down on the car, Sir Peter doing the driving, the Coral Sea, and a brilliant tune from an amazing album. It might seem a bit “gay”, but Jesus, I’ve been a lucky sod to have done it.
One Fine Day.
