Typical Bank Holiday……

…… it’s pissing down.  Hasn’t stopped all day, only varied in intensity.  Mind you,  it is desperately needed.  We went out anyway for a drive round – going past Ogston Reservoir, the water levels are very low.  We have had two very dry winters, and there was hardly any rain in February or March.  Hopefully, everything will get a bit of a sprout-on after the wet day.  Can’t remember what garden centre we ended up at, but there were plenty of water features (some intentional, some not) and wee piles of snow.  Some bigger piles of snow up on the high parts too, banked up in the lee of dry stone walls.  Very wet, with lots of low drifting clouds.

10 places……

…… I’ve always wanted to visit.  Maybe I will some day; maybe not.  It doesn’t matter.  But they’re on my wish list.

1: Isfahan, Iran.  For as the proverb says “Isfahan is half of the world.”

2: Antarctica. Because of Apsley Cherry-Garrard:

Exploration is the physical expression of the Intellectual Passion.
And I tell you, if you have the desire for knowledge and the power to
give it physical expression, go out and explore. If you are a brave man
you will do nothing: if you are fearful you may do much, for none but
cowards have need to prove their bravery. Some will tell you that you are
mad, and nearly all will say, “What is the use?” For we are a nation of
shopkeepers, and no shopkeeper will look at research which does not
promise him a financial return within a year. And so you will sledge
nearly alone, but those with whom you sledge will not be shopkeepers:
that is worth a good deal. If you march your Winter Journeys you will
have your reward, so long as all you want is a penguin’s egg.

3: Sana’a, Yemen. For the architecture alone.  And for a jumping-off point to Soqotra, home of the fantastical Dragon’s Blood Tree.

4: Cape Reinga, New Zealand.  Where the spirits of the dead enter the underworld.

5: Galapagos Islands.  For the schooling hammerheads.

6: Sistema Chac Mool, Mexico.  Have a look.  You’ll want to go too.

7: Delphi, Greece.

8: Shetland.

9: Mount Kailash.

10: Tromsø, to see the Northern Lights.

Where do you want to go?

One sentence that summarises each year of your life so far……

……um, gosh:

1974: Born in March, living in Langbank.

1975: Moved to Greenock.

1976: The Joyous One is born.

1977: No idea – who can remember being three?

1978: Big hairy caterpillars on Jura.

1979: Take a dead blue tit in for the nature table: Miss Armstrong was not impressed, but I am glad I am not in Miss Grant’s class because she was a scarey lady.

1980: I think Mum is embarrassed by Brian’s arrival as the baby Moses basket is located in a corner behind one of the living room chairs: I later discover this is probably to stop the dog knocking it over.

1981: No idea – a blank.

1982 : Also a blank.

1983: Blank – did I have a 3-year period of amnesia?!

1984: Kitten-heeled shoes

1985: TV!!!!!!

1986: Finish primary school – head for Greenock Academy.

1987: I get straight A-grades in my report card for everything apart from maths – I’m crap at maths.

1988: Arran, sausage sizzles and sea kayaking.

1989: Lots and lots of studying: seemed so important at the time.

1990: Pompeii, Herculaneum and pizza in Sorrento.

1991: Run amok in the Art Department and do nothing else but painting and classics for the whole academic year.

1992: Move to England.

1993: Went out for stamps, came back with tattoo.

1994: Fail Agricultural Biology, spend birthday on the White Horse at Uffington with Rob.

1995: Get pissed on by Apodemus sylvaticus and Clethrionomys glareolus a lot.

1996: Graduate and spend the summer identifying and surveying butterflies – the difference between small skipper and Essex skippers is the colour of the underside of their antennae.

1997: I win a village pub Christmas Eve fancy dress competition: I am not in fancy dress – this is how I normally dress.

1998: New Zealand & Australia – sea snakes and shark feeds off North Horn.

1999: GHP – I am overwhelmed by trees, polytunnels and an amazing team to work with.

2000: LARP.  That is all.

2001: Trees and seeds, lots of them.

2002: Buckingham Palace – the Queen is very small.

2003: The cows break down the fence and ravage the vegetable garden; one gooseberry and some onions are saved.

2004: Left conservation for mental health advocacy.

2005: Mental health advocacy work is both challenging and occasionally hilarious.

2006: New Zealand and Joy’s wedding.

2007: Egypt, lack of sharks, lots of lionfish and blue-spotted stingrays.

2008: Lots of camping.

2009: New Zealand, road trip, whales, albatrosses, and dolphins of the land.

2010: Hard work.

2011: not finished yet, but doing ok so far.

This week……

…… I have mostly been driving back and forth across the Woodhead Pass to Glossop and Hadfield.  A lovely part of Derbyshire, but a bit of a trek.  Nonetheless, the views from the top of the pass are pretty spectacular, and on Monday I saw the most amazing big fat rainbow.

Our Time in Eden……

Image0013, originally uploaded by Fairy Basslet.

Spent the weekend in a lovely wee cottage in the village of Lazonby in the Eden Valley area in Cumbria with Mum.  It was really nice to catch up and chill out.  Saturday we had a lie-in and went out to art galleries, followed by too much wine.  Sunday we went out for a walk; six hours later, we were knackered, had been mildly cared by cows, had got lost(ish) and explored Lacy’s Caves. And we saw a red squirrel.  All in all, it was a really nice weekend with good food and great company

Looking, erm, good……

Rob & Jill, originally uploaded by Fairy Basslet.

Self portrait taken with Rob’s new camera (his new toy)! We had a lovely wander round Derwent Reservoir, lunch in Hope, drove over Featherbed Top, bimbled round Stanton Moor and Nine Ladies Stone circle, and had ice cream to finish. Lovely day. Saw lots of beautiful flowers, encountered flocks of Swaledale sheep and lambs on Stanton Moor and generally enjoyed a day out.

First Class…..

……classy lady that I am (not). Spent the day in London on a training thingy with colleagues. Managed to obtain first class train seats; how the other half live (or travel). Comfy wide spacious seats, free tea, coffee, biccies, newspaper. Vino on the return trip; I guess it’s not acceptable to dish out free booze at 7.30am Anyhoo – it was just fine. But bloody hell, it’s not worth the ginormous mark up on the price of the ticket. Still, twas an experience. Now, if only I can find a way of getting a free and guaranteed upgrade to this sort of service on the next long-haul flight I do, that’d be fantastic!

Limping along……

……in sunny (breezy) Derbyshire.  I have damaged my tibialis posterior tendon in my left foot. Go on. Google it. I had to.  It bloody hurts and I’m hopping or wielding crutches at the moment.   I did spend a week hirpling about on it before being badgered into going to see my GP, who prodded and flexed my foot, asked a million and one questions and then pronounced “tibialis posterior tendinopathy.”  A hurty ankle to you and me.   Irritatingly, I can flex it up and down no problems, but lateral movement (or balancing) is painful.

Never mind.  We went to the Wye Valley for the weekend.  Started in a pub in Oxfordshire where Mark Chilvers was playing a gig.  His first.  We heckled and sang, as  supportive friends do.  We sang all the rude versions of his songs, and some of us even did the actions (thanks Lex).  All in all it was a very good night, except when someone kicked me in the ankle (the bad one).  Sweary words were said.

Then we went and stayed at a bunkhouse just outside Christchurch.  The plan had been to go walking in the Wye Valley and Forest of Dean, but hopalong put a stop to that. We drove round looking at the scenery (through the pissing rain) and had a nice dinner at a pub I can’t recall the name of near Symonds Yat.

We drove home and had a day out to Stanton Moor and Nine Ladies stone circle.  Which is a bit of a trek when you’re only firing on one cylinder. However, the sun shone and it was lovely.

Hopping along on Stanton Moor

The Holiday revisited, part six……

……Tuesday 3rd – Wednesday 4th November

Day 16

Up at 7am (next time, can I do a holiday that doesn’t require me to get up at the crack of dawn regularly?).  Caught the bus into town to get a train to Featherston – a wee town in the Wairarapa, where we got picked up for our wine tour of the Martinborough area.  There were only ten people on the tour (one of whom didn’t drink alcohol) and we were a reasonable mix of ages and nationalities.  First up – coffee in a cafe in Martinborough and then we drove out to the Alana Estate, where several wines were sampled.  Unless you were Bobby, who just necked the first sample without waiting for all the guff about swirling it about and holding it in various parts of your mouth to get the different tastes.  The rest of us were polite and did the swirling and sniffing bit. And the drinking bit.  No spitting here – we were going to drink all of it (no matter how much we didn’t like it).  Next up was Muirlea Rise; a really small boutique vineyard, with a very entertaining owner (Shawn).  He did us the tour, showed us his shiny new bottling doodah (we all went oooh).  He was very proud of his vines and his idiosyncratic approach to making wine, which basically went: it’s different every year – some are good, some are not so good.  If you like it, buy some. If you don’t, that’s ok too.  He was very enthusiastic, and his wine was lovely, so we bought some – a very rich pinot noir; almost port-like.  Lovely.  After two vineyards it was lunchtime, so back to The Village Cafe in Martinborough for a selection of absolutely delicious local and other NZ foods – big fat olives, salmon, peppers, hams, fresh made bread and more wine (and coffee).  Feeling fat and dozy, like dormice, we waddled off to the bus and Te Kairanga vineyard.  Which we were a bit disappointed with.  Bobby was really happy that they were all reds, but on sampling six or seven, I couldn’t find one I liked and neither could Bobby or Rob.  There was tipping of wine and no finishing of samples – blee.  Last but not least was Murdoch James Estate, which was very picturesque and had a big proper cellar with barrels stacked way high.  Their wine was good, although by this time, you could have given me cat’s piss and I’d have drunk it.  Their wine was not cat’s piss – it was very nice.  Then it was back to a wee cafe in Martinborough for coffee and cheeseboard, which was thoroughly enjoyable, and then back to Featherston for the train to Welly.  We all dozed off on the train – sleepy, full of cheese and slightly pissed.  To round off our gourmet day, we ordered pizza from Dominoes and watched Star Trek.  They do takeaway pizza orders online!  How cool!  How easily pleased am I?!  I very much enjoyed the day bimbling round vineyards and tasting stuff and eating nice food, although we started off doing the whole “I taste a hint of passionfruit” and ended up on “that’s crap.  Next!”  So civilised.

Day 17

On our own in Wellington.  Clare and Bobby entrusted us (well, Rob) with setting their house alarm and locking up before we caught the bus into town to go to Te Papa.  We had a bit of a lie in, so didn’t get into town until about 11am.  We planned to sort of look at other bits of town, but ended up spending most of the day in Te Papa.  I do like this museum – Brian and I spent some time wandering round it in 2006 and enjoyed it then too.  Pleasingly for Rob, they had the colossal squid on display in a big tank (a bit like some important dead person lying in state).  It was big, I’ll give it that.  The short movie clip of how they caught it and got it back to the museum was interesting.  I went online and build my very own virtual colossal squid.  Mine is called Bob and he’s wandering the deep oceans.  Occasionally I log in and see how he’s doing.  We were impressed by the skeleton of a blue whale hanging above us in one of the display areas.  I like the geology area too, with lots of information about volcanoes and earthquakes.  We also went to look at the big shock absorbers in the basement of the museum – this is not as exciting as it sounds, but from an engineering and geology point of view it was informative.

In the evening we took Bobby and Clare out for dinner to the Ban Mai Thai Cafe and had some tasty thai food.  Clare suggested we go to Strawberry Fair Cafe for pudding; I’m glad I’d kind of said bugger the diet for the holiday, cos we had puddings that were absolutely huge and very very nice.  Big fat pavlova with cream and passionfruit and a spun sugar creation sitting on the top – the blokes just thought it looked like a tit on a plate (it was sort of boob-shaped).  But it was yummy.  Again, an early-ish night as we were catching the 7.20am train from town.  Bobby offered to drive us there – bless him.  Just as well he works at the train station – it just meant he got to work a bit earlier than usual.

The Holiday revisited, part five……

……Sunday 1st – Monday 2nd November

Day 14

Up early without brekkie, checked out and drove to Picton, which took about 30mins through hilly wooded countryside.  Dropped the car off and trundled off to find some food.  Passed a dive shop which Rob couldn’t resist.  I could, given that it was 9am on a Sunday and I was starving and desperate for coffee.  He popped in to discover that dive equipment which is reasonably priced in the UK is astronomically priced in NZ – I think that my Suunto Gecko computer was almost double the price. OMG.  We found a lovely cafe on the waterfront bit and settled down for lots of coffee and good food.  Picton was lovely – I don’t know what I was expecting, but it was a really lovely wee town with a reasonable selection of local shops, a busy looking wharf and marina area, and a really nice park right on the shore.  There was a tiny electric train track with a little station – train rides for 20 cents.  And you could hire little model sailboats for 20c and float them across the pond like you did when you were a kid.  After breakfast, we wandered round for a bit killing time before the ferry.  We came across the Edwin Fox – apparently the 9^th oldest sailing ship in the world.  The bumph said it was an ex-convict transporter which plied various trade routes before ending up in NZ. It was in a big open sided shed with pigeons flying to and fro, so how much longer it’ll be preserved without being coated in pigeon shite, I’ve no idea. 

We caught the 13.10 sailing on the Arahura to Wellington, which takes about 3 hours, and sails out through the channels of Queen Charlotte Sound.  The scenery was fairly spectacular, but it was bloody freezing on the outside decks, and I have to say, there’s not that many places to get a decent view from the inside.  There was a forward facing deck with comfy looking airline-style seats, but they were all taken by old people dozing and not actually looking at the view.  The buggers.  The crossing of the Cook Strait was fairly uneventful and we go into Wellington on time to be met by our mate Bobby.

Bobby and Clare emigrated to NZ several years ago, and I last met up with him when I was in Welly after Joy’s wedding. It was really good to see him and also to meet Clare, who I’d heard lots about (from Bobby) but never met.  They very kindly put up with us for several nights, and Bobby had booked the Monday and Tuesday off work to spend some time catching up.  We headed to their house to eat chilli, drink wine and catch up on gossip.

Day 15

A lie-in!! It was bliss. We lazed over breakfast and headed into the centre of Wellington to have a mooch round and book a wine tour – yes, the three of us had decided that spending a whole day sampling alcohol and eating nice food was the way to go.  We went via the Weta Cave in Miramar and had a bit of a geekfest, poring over the construction of chainmail and weapons from LOTR.  The short film about the development of Weta was really interesting, and the props and models from his films were very interesting.  Even better than that is that getting in is free! How cool.  We drove into town and had lunch, then booked the wine tour and went for a wander round.  Rob had never been to Welly before, and thought that out of all the places we visited, Welly felt like a “real” city to him.  Shopping for stir-fry ingredients, and then home to drink wine, natter and cook dinner, which everyone enjoyed.  Bobby persuaded us to watch Role Models, and I surprised myself by really enjoying it. For all you non-LRPers out there – get the movie and chuckle.  Relatively early night, cos we needed to catch an early bus to the train station to get to Featherston on the other side of the Rimutakas.