GazBlog

Where did the year go?

2010-01-31T05:18:00.005Z

It's now a year since we arrived, and it has flown by. We've had a very busy year and have managed to fit quite a lot in.

We've visited Melbourne twice, Adelaide, Bowral, Port Stephens, the Blue Mountains (three times), the Hunter Valley (twice), Echuca and travelled around Sydney.

I've started running and have run in three events during the year and have also done the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb and canoed down the Murray River.

We've been to the Opera House to see a couple of shows, ventured out to the Enmore in Newtown to watch some comedy and seen the Who at the Acer Arena at Olympic Park.

I've become a fan of Sydney FC - who admittedly aren't the greatest football (soccer) team in the world, but it's fun to watch - and we've been to see a cricket test match at the MCG in Melbourne.

Foodwise, we've really pigged out and have eaten at some great restaurants, including Tetsuya's, Mezzaluna, Doyles at the Beach, Coast and many, too numerous to mention, around Crows Nest and St Leonards.

The apartment in Crows Nest has served us well and the area is great - more restaurants and cafes than you can shake a stick at and extremely convenient for work as it is only a 25 minute walk or a five minute bus ride away. It is also only 15 minutes on the train to the city, or a fairly pleasant walk of about an hour.

It's been a good year, and I'm hoping the next year will be as good, if not better.

Been here a month...

2009-03-01T01:58:00.003Z

Saturday 28/2

Another week has passed of our All Aussie Adventure! The room at the back of the apartment block was certainly a lot quieter than the room at the front and there was quite a nice, but distant, view of Cremorne Point and Sydney Harbour, which was nice when the Queen Mary 2 cruise liner came to visit in the week. She was huge! I was hoping to be able to go and get some photos, but she was only in port until Thursday night.

Last Sunday afternoon we went across the road to the Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace, a restored Art Deco cinema. It is really special inside. The decoration is beautiful in all the screens. The big screen apparently has an organ that plays between selected performances. We saw the Reader, for which Kate Winslett won an Oscar. She deserved it, it was a really good film However, for me, the cinema was the star and I shall be happy to travel out this way to watch a film rather than one of the big multiplexes in the shopping malls.

The rest of the week has been fairly normal. Work has been going okay, although I did have a very frustrating day when everything went wrong. You know the kind of day I mean – we all have them now and then.

Alicea has gone down to Melbourne this weekend to visit her friends and to arrange the transport of the furniture that she has had in storage for the last few years to our flat next week.
So I'm on my own and have to amuse myself for a couple of days.

I joined a gym in the week and went for the first time today. When I got back to Cremorne I discovered that I couldn't get back up to our room as the fire brigade were trying to free seven people that were trapped in one of the lifts. So, I treated myself to a large breakfast of Eggs Benedict with mushrooms and rocket instead of ham at an Italian cafe across the road. It was great and there was loads of it.

After finishing breakfast I went back to the apartment block but couldn't get to our apartment as the firemen were still working on the lifts and the firedoors only opened from the inside so there was no access from the stairs. So, I caught a bus to Sydney and went to Paddy's Market. The market was a fair walk from Wynyard, where the bus stopped, but I had a large breakfast to walk off so I didn't mind.

The market is pretty big selling clothes, toys, electronics, mobile phone accessories and it has a large fresh fruit and veg section. I spent an hour or so wandering up and down the aisles looking at all the wares for sale.

Once I had done, I went across the road to Chinatown where I found a food court with about a dozen small outlets selling all sorts of oriental dishes at very reasonable, no let me rephrase that – very cheap prices. I had a tofu and vegetable Laksa, which was nice but the portion was huge and, having had such a large breakfast, I couldn't finish it. Still at $6 (about £3) I didn't mind too much.

I then walked back to Wynyard and caught a bus back to the apartment where the lift saga had, thankfully, ended and I could now get back to our room.

Another Update

2009-02-22T01:54:00.001Z

Sunday 22/2
Gosh, its been a while since I've updated this. I've now been at work for two weeks and I'm gradually getting used to the Aussie office's way of working. We've also moved from the hotel we were in to a managed apartment block in Cremorne. We've also bought a car, a fridge and a television. Also, Alicea has been to see her Mum.

So, where to start.

I started work on the 9th and was out meeting clients that very day. Talk about hitting the ground running! The guys in the office are friendly and easy to get along with. During the last couple of weeks I've been out so see a couple of different clients and starting next week, I'm going to be fairly booked with work for the next month or two. I also met with the area's functional leader for a coffee at his hotel during a stopover on his trip back from New Zealand to Singapore.

During the week I started work, Alicea hired a car and drove the ten-hour trip to Moama to see her Mum. By all accounts it was a good trip and, thankfully, her Mum has not been affected by the terrible fires that have been burning in Victoria.

We also left the hotel in North Sydney and moved to a managed apartment block in Cremorne, which is a short bus ride away. Despite still living out of suitcases, it is nice to be able to cook and have laundry facilities rather than having to eat out all the time and traipse down the road to a laundrette with bags of dirty clothes. The apartment block is right on Military Road and the room we had was facing the road and very noisy. We managed to negotiate a move to a room at the end of the first week to a room at the back, away from the road. However, we have to move again next Friday.

Last weekend, we took a taxi out to Artarmon and had a look at some cars. We were interested in either a Honda City, a Honda Civic or a Mazda 3. The specifications on each were very similar and we test drove the Mazda and were quite impressed. Early the next week, Alicea went and test drove the Hondas and after deciding that the City was a bit sluggish, we bought a Civic. The price difference between the second hand cars and the new ones wasn't huge so we decided that we would be better off getting a new one and benefiting from the extra warranty etc that we would have. We should be picking it up at the end of this week ready for the move to Crows Nest at the beginning of next week.

This last weekend we went hunting for a fridge and a tv for the new apartment. Just down the road from us in Cremorne is a “seconds” electrical shop, so we popped in there to have a look at what they had. After noting a few prices we then went into the city and caught a bus to Rozelle and checked out Retravision as we had some vouchers for there. Then we caught a bus back to the city and went to Harvey Norman, a large electrical retailer here. From there we caught a train to Chatswood where we had a look around some of the retailers in the large shopping malls there. While we were there we found a fabulous Asian grocers that I think I will be visiting quite often.

Eventually, we caught a bus back to Cremorne and went back to the “seconds” store where we bought a Whirlpool fridge-freezer and, after some conversations about the differences between LCD, Plasma, Full HD and HD we ordered a 32” plasma tv.

In the evening, we walked down to Neutral Bay where we went to an Indian restaurant called Mantra whose complete lack of service and incompetence in bringing what we ordered to the table was made up for with the excellent food

Oz Diary - week 1

2009-02-22T01:50:00.002Z

Monday 2/2
The flight was good, despite being delayed by 2-3 hours. Despite this, Singapore Airlines handled it quite well. I was sent a text early in the morning to say that it had been 'retimed' and when we arrived at the airport we were given food vouchers.

Leaving the family was really hard and very upsetting, as you can probably imagine. It was something that we had all been dreading and the tears flowed quite freely as the bags were being put in the taxi.

I managed to grab a few hours sleep on the flight to Singapore, which is quite unusual for me, I guess that was down to exhaustion, both physically and mentally as things had been pretty full on in the days up to leaving, with packing everything for shipping, selling and giving away our belongings and saying all our goodbyes.

The 747 was pretty comfortable with a good amount of legroom in economy, but the food wasn't that brilliant. It was spinach with everything! I don't mind it as an ingredfient, but big sloppy piles of it? No thanks! And spicy beans in the confined space of an aircraft? That's just asking for trouble! Apart from that it was fine.

Once in Singapore, we only had a couple of hours before our connecting flight to Sydney instead of the 5 that we originally had. We went for a shower, checked some email and then it was time to board the A380.

I'd been looking forward to a flight on one of Airbus's new monsters since they were announced and had booked us seats on the upper deck as I thought it would be a novelty to sit upstairs in a plane (at least in economy). The seats were comfy and well spaced and the entertainment system was great. There were even places to plug your USB stick into so you could do some work on the preloaded offfice software or watch a movie from your iPod on the large widescreen monitor mounted on the seatback.

The food was better on this part of the flight, but I wonder why I always end up with a vegan meal on this part of the journey? I always have to request milk for coffee and miss out on croissants for breakfast. It has happened on all the flights from Singapore to Australia.

We arrived in Sydney on time and caught a taxi to the hotel in North Sydney. We then went for a wander about and looked at the area where we are thinking of finding somewhere to rent, Crow's Nest. It looks great with loads of restaurant to keep Gaztronomy busy and a fabulous wholefood store that had more kinds of tofu than I knew existed! Oh, and it also sells Tiptree jam!

From there we caught a ferry across the bay and went to the Rocks and had lunch. We then popped back to the hotel for a snooze before popping down to a local Thai restaurant and then returned back to the hotel where I spoke to my parents on Skype. The wireless internet connection at the hotel is very weak and the sound was difficult to hear sometimes and the session kept dropping but it was good to see them.

So, that was the first day of our new life Down Under. The important stuff like finding somewhere to live etc starts now...

Tuesday 3/2
So, it's been a couple of days now and we've been in touch with just about every real estate agent we've passed trying to find somewhere to rent. We've been to see a couple of places, one of which was in such a state of untidyness you could hardly see the floor! Once you could see through the mess it was quite a nice place, but just a bit too close to the main highway for our liking.

We've a couple of others to look at over the next day or so, but I guess it is just a matter of calling or visiting the agents every day to try and catch the new properties as soon as they come on the market.

On the plus side, we now have a bank account set up and credit cards ordered. We've enquired about mobile phones and it looks as though we'll both be moving into the 21st century and getting Apple iPhones.

I've got to pop into the Medicare centre and get that sorted and we still have to sort out some medical insurance. There is still a lot to do, I guess it takes more than just a couple of days to start a life from scratch just as it took a while to try and put it on hold when we left the UK.

Wednesday 4/2
First thing this morning we went to the RTA (Road Traffice Authority) to find out about getting our UK driving licenses converted to NSW ones. We picked up some forms and discussed the type of id that we required. We then went to the Medicare office where I signed up using my passport. Alicea, being a returning resident has to provide a wealth of documents to prove that she is coming back to the country – obviously the Ozzies don't like nationals who leave and then come back. Somewhere between these two offices I lost my “Grumpy” hat and sunglasses.

We then went to look at some more flats, one of which we have submitted an application form for.

This afternoon, I popped into the office to see the people I'll be working with next week. They seem like a nice bunch. While we were there we scanned and emailed all of the documentation for the flat application to the letting agent.

In the evening we caught the bus up to Crow's Nest and had a look at another place. It was okay and we are considering submitting another application for it. We ate at the New Orleans Cafe where Alicea had fish and chips and I had a chilli with corn bread. It was all very nice.

Thursday 5/2
Late last night we realised that we hadn't sent our passport details to the letting agent so we made plans this morning to go to a local print/copy shop to see if they would do it. They did and only charged us $5 for making several document copies, printing some letters and faxing them to the agent.

We then grabbed some breakfast and caught the train from North Sydney to Chatswood where we were planning on doing some shopping. While waiting on the platform my phone rang and it was the agent saying that we had got the flat we applied for yesterday. Result! It's not a huge flat, but it is really nice and well positioned for Crow's Nest which is where we wanted to live.

Once at Chatswood, we made our way to the large shopping mall there and I bought some sandals (I was bullied into it...) a suit and a hat and sunglasses to replace the ones I had lost.

Then we made our way back to North Sydney where Alicea went to sort out her Medicare and Driving License and I went back to the hotel to arrange the deposit for the flat.

In the evening we went to Capitano's, an Italian restaurant in Blue Street where we had pasta. After starting with a chilli and garlic pizza bread, which was excellent – if the pizza's have the same base as the garlic bread, then I can't wait to try one - Alicea had a chilli prawn pasta and I had fettucini con melanzane (aubergine) both of which were really nice, in fact the tomato sauce I had was one of the best I've tasted.

Friday 6/2
Up early this morning to catch a taxi to Neutral Bay to visit Stuart Hollman the Financial Advisor to start the process of through moving our pensions over from he UK to Australia.

We had some breakfast at a little cafe nearby and then went to the real estate agents where we picked up a few details about the flat and checked to make sure that the deposit fax had arrived (it had).

The, after a walk around the shops, we went to see Stuart who told us all about the Australian Superannuation system and any tax impications we face. He's a nice guy and we spent an hour or so while he took all our details so he can put together a proposal which he will send to us in the next week or so.

We then caught a bus to Crow's Nest and had a wander around a couple of furniture shops looking at sofa's for the new flat. Alicea had seen an advert showing a sofa with underseat storage and we were trying to find out where we could one. Eventually we found that the store that made it was out at Chatswood, so after a sandwich, we caught the bus to Chatswood and once there, we bought a sofa corner unit. The design is quite clever and the sofas can be converted from a corner unit into beds or chais-longues (sort of). They won't be delivered until 1st May so we've a while to wait.

While we were looking, the real estate agent called to say that the flat would be available from 3rd March, so we have to organise somewhere to stay until then.

Sunday - Up Black Crag

2008-08-24T22:10:00.002+01:00

Up early again and breakfasted before leaving for a relatively short walk around Tarn Hows and up Black Crag.

The walk was good and, despite the instructions being slightly wayward, we made it to the top where we were rewarded by fantastic views. It was very blustery and it looked as though the weather was going to turn a bit nasty, so we began our descent.

It started a bit slow as Alicea's dicky knee was playing up, but we made it and by the time we got back to the B&B the sun was out, so that shows how good our weather forecasting skills are!

We showered, changed and then drove into Windermere for lunch, which we had at Francine's, the place we stopped for coffee yesterday.

From there we went to Bowness on Windermere where Alicea bought a Paddington Bear that she'd had her eye on. We then went back to the B&B via the ferry.

This evening we went for dinner at the Drunken Duck. The meal was really good, although Alicea said the venison she had for her main course was overcooked. That aside, we both enjoyed the evening and returned to the B&B where we watched the Big Sleep with Robert Mitchum before falling asleep.

Saturday - Two go a-wandering

2008-08-23T21:41:00.001+01:00

We were up fairly early as breakfast is served between 8 and 9am. I slept reasonably well - we had both wound down last night by watching Withnail and I on the DVD player in our room as the TV signal is really week. The B&B has a pretty good selection of films etc to choose from.

Anyway, after breakfast we got all our gear together for a walk, including me changing into the new shorts(!) that I'd bought yesterday. Then we were off, firstly heading into Hawkshead (about a mile away) and then a round trip to Latterbarrow, one of the hills in the area. It was a reasonably steep ascent to the top, but once we were there, the view was magnificent.

We made our way down and after some difficulty finding the right path to continue, we made our way into some woodland. Here, amongst the pine trees, I discovered some Cep mushrooms growing. It would have been wonderful to have been able to pick and use the, but they would have spoiled by the time I'd got them home.

Once back in Hawkshead we had a sandwich and a coffee and then walked back to the B&B stopping again en route for some more refreshment. We calculated that we had walked around 7 and a half miles.

We sat in the lounge while our room was finishing being cleaned, then we showered and got changed and drove to Ambleside for a wander around and to see if we could find somewhere to eat. In the end, we ended up in an Italian restaurant in Windermere.

From there we drove back to Hawkshead via the Windermere ferry and once back at the B&B, we watchedthe Long Good Friday before going to sleep.

Friday - In the Lakes

2008-08-22T20:38:00.000+01:00

We drove up to Manchester last night and stopped in a Travel Lodge just outside Altrincham. It was a long trip as the traffic was really slow so I'm glad we did it then rather than driving the whole way today.

This morning we breakfasted in the Little Chef adjacent to the Travel Lodge and then made our way ever northwards.

We stopped in Windermere to have a coffee and a look around and went to the Beatrix Potter Centre.

We then left, heading for Hawkshead and the B&B we are staying at for the next few days. On the way we stopped at the Drunken Duck Inn where we had a lovely lunch in their restaurant.

When we arrived at the B&B there was noone to greet us and our keys were left in an envelope with directions to our room. And a very nice room it is too with a fabulous view.

After settling in we took a drive down to Hawkshead, which is a very quaint and pretty village, where we wandered around the shops, stopped at a pub for a drink and eventually went to another pub for dinner where I had veggie sausage and mash.

Tomorrow, weather permitting we are going to go for a walk up one of the hills. Fingers crossed!

On the way home

2008-05-05T10:30:00.002+01:00

I'm currently sitting in the departure lounge at Brussels station waiting for the Eurostar.

We got up and breakfasted early(ish) and a taxi took us to the station in Bruges where we were to catch the train to Brussels. The train was on time and the hour long journey passed quite quickly.

Brussels Zuid and Brussels Midi are the same station, which is worth knowing as none of the timetables showed Midi when we were checking the times in Bruges.

We had time in the station to grab a coffee and get a Subway to have for lunch on the train. Then it was through security and passport control to wait for the train to arrive.

On your bike!

2008-05-04T20:36:00.002+01:00

We breakfasted in the hotel before wandering into the city centre where we were going on a bicycle your for the morning.

The city centre was pretty empty which gave us some great photo opportunities of Markt and Burg squares compared to the busy crowds yesterday.

There were about eight or ten of us on the tour, from the UK, US and Australia and we were led by Jos. He was a great tour guide, very knowledgable and very funny.

The tour was great, very relaxed and very entertaining. We ended up at the oldest pub in Bruges for a drink with the group before returning back to where we began. If you're in Bruges then I definitely recommend this tour.

After leaving the group we went for lunch at a small Greek/Turkish restaurant where Alicea had lamb and I had falafal. My falafal was really nice. However, Alicea didn't enjoy her lamb. I also tried one of the local trappist beers, which was 9% alcohol!

In the afternoon we went to the Groeninge Museum where they have a large collection of paintings by Flemish artists. It was quite good and as a bonus, we got a discount by showing our hotel key.

We also sat and listened to a busker playing some clasical music in a nearby park and bought his CD.

For dinner, we went to an Italian restaurant which wasn't bad. Then, we wandered around before returning to the hotel where we sat in the garden and had a drink before retiring.

In Bruges

2008-05-03T20:20:00.002+01:00

We were up early to drive to Ebbsfleet to catch the Eurostar to Brussels. It was on time arriving but arrived in Brussels about 15 mins late. We then found the train that would take us to Bruges. It was packed and we had to stand the whole way (about an hour).

Once in Bruges, we caught a taxi to the hotel where we booked in and dropped our bags off before going off to explore the city.

Bruges is a very pedestrian friendly city and nothing is too far away from anything else. The hotel is on one of the canals and we followed the canal into the city centre. We stopped for a bite to eat at quite a nice café - we had a baguette and a drink each - and then went for a wander around some of the local tourist attractions, starting with St Janshospital, a large building that used to be a hospital in the middle ages.

We then went to Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk, which has one of the few Michelangelo sculptures outside Italy. It also has some excavations showing graves beneath the church. From there we went to the Basilica of the Holy Blood, where they have a phial containing the dried blood of Christ.

We went back to the hotel and up to our room. Its okay, but its certainly not a four star like we're used to, and if its a superior room, I'd hate to see a standard one.

Shortly after we went out for something to eat - Bruges isn't a great place for veggies - and we ended up at a café having omellette and chips.

After that we returned to the hotel for the night.

Home At Last

2008-03-30T17:42:00.002+01:00

We made our way back to LAX airport, only to find that the flight was delayed again, this time by two hours. We finally took off three hours late and arrived at Heathrow around midday.

American Airlines

2008-03-29T20:01:00.002Z

So, it appears that my previous blog entry was a bit premature.

Thanks to American Airlines, we have had an extra day in LAX airport, not the most exciting airport in the world to be stranded in.

So, what happened for us to spend this extra time in LA then?

After we were all seated, the plane taxied out of the terminal and then turned around and went back. Apparently there was a problem with the landing gear being out of alignment.

Four hours later we were finally "deplaned" and given some food vouchers. This was after various announcements promising various take off times and during which we were offered a single glass of water - Alicea had to go and get some water for an elderly passenger and found the cabin staff sitting at the back reading magazines. At one point they switched the aircon off too and still no more drinks were offered!

We got off the plane about midnight and the only place open was Burger King. While we were in the queue they announced that the flight had been cancelled and rescheduled for 3pm today.

There was much confusion as the announcement was made above another one so you couldn't hear it properly. The staff were little help either. Eventually by discussions with other passengers we managed to get a hotel voucher and our luggage. We waited ages for a hotel shuttle and eventually decided to get a taxi. The hotel was basic but fairly comfy. However, American Airlines hadn't let them know that anyone was turning up so check in took ages as the guy behind the desk had to contact his boss to find out what to do.

We caught the hotel shuttle this morning back to the airport only to discover on arrival that the flight is already delayed by two hours.

At the moment, American Airlines aren't my favourite airline. They are disorganised and innefficient and the staff we have dealt with have been rude. It remains to be seen what time we will get home...

On our way home...

2008-03-29T01:07:00.002Z

It's our last day in the USA. We asked the concierge for an idea of what to do today, as neither of us fancied another day of queueing in the hot sun - our original plan was to go to Universal Studios - and he suggested Dana Point about 45 mins to the south of LA.

We drove there and booked ourselves on a whale watching cruise. It was pretty good. In the two hours we were at sea we saw hundreds of flologina an three grey whales. The dolphins were really good. They came really close to the boat. The whales were further out but were still quite majestic as they crested through the water.

After the cruise was over, we had something to eat before driving the hour and a half or so trip to the airport, where we dropped off the rental car and caught the bus to the airport terminal.

So, that's where we are now, waiting for our gate to open to board the plane to take us home.

Disneyland

2008-03-28T05:56:00.002Z

We were up early this morning and drove to Disneyland to be there when it opened at 8am.

We did pretty well getting on the rides we wanted and managed to do Pirates, Haunted Mansion, Tower of Terror, Jungle Cruise, Indiana Jones, Star Tours, Splash Mountain, Space Mountain and others. The sun was hot and we got sunburned waiting for Space Mountain.

It took us three goes go get on Big Thunder Mountain as it kept braking down. When we did finally make it to the end of the queue, it broke down again on the ride after us!

It was a great last day of our holiday and we finished it by having a really nice meal in Catal in Downtown Disney and then watching the fireworks.

Disney Bound

2008-03-27T00:42:00.002Z

After breakfast in the hotel, we wandered around Santa Barbara for a few hours before grabbing a Subway for lunch and picking up the car for the drive to LA.

The journey along 101 was uneventful although busy and we eventually arrived at our hotel which is a few miles from Disneyland.

After checking in and dumping our cases, we drove to the Disney parks and. Spent the afternoon in Downtown Disney, looking around the shops.

We bought our park tickets for tomorrow, but thinking about it, we would probably have been better to get a two day pass and spent the evening there as well.

We ate at a Mexican restaurant in DD (more huge portions - we left about half of it!) and then returned to the hotel, ready for our early start tomorrow.

Highway 1

2008-03-25T23:43:00.003Z

We left Cambria and headed to San Luis Opisbo, about thirty miles south on Highway 1 where we were going to have breakfast before heading on to Solvang and Santa Barbara.

We found a nice little Mexican themed restaurant where I had Huevas Rancheros (beans, poached eggs and salsa) and Alicea had eggs and bacon. The Huevas Rancheros was quite nice, and not too spicy, which was good for brekky.

We left SLO and made our way to Solvang where we parked up and had a wander around. Initially, we were planning to stay here for the night, but decided that we would have some lunch here (including some aebleskivers - a local speciality which are a sort of cross between a pancake and a doughnut) and then make our way to Santa Barbara.

We arrived in Santa Barbara and booked into the same hotel we stayed in last time we were here and then walked down to the quay, where we stopped for some afternoon refreshment. We then wandered around the shops for a bit, and I then left Alicea to do some shoe-shopping while I borrowed a laptop from the hotel so I could check my email and write this blog entry.

We also booked a hotel for the last two nights of the holiday in Anaheim, so we can go to Disneyland and Universal Studios.

Shortly, we'll be popping out for dinner.

Return to Robin's

2008-03-25T15:43:00.002Z

We went to a restaurant called Katy's Place for breakfast after reading about it last night. It does about a dozen, if not more, different types of eggs benedict and I chose one with mushrooms. It came with three poached eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes and middubs all covered in hollandaise sauce accompanied by home fries. It was really nice and we figured that it would keep us going all day.

We then wandered around Carmel for a couple of hours before leaving for the drive to Cambria, our next stop. The drive down highway 1 was great, although in a couple of places, the sea mist made it difficult to see anything.

We stopped a couple of times, for coffee, petrol and to look at the elephant seals that were sunning themselves on the beach.

We arrived in Cambria mid afternoon and booked into a motel. The room is nice, it has a balcony and a fireplace. We dumped our stuff and walked around the shops. Cambria is quite nice with quite a few antique shops as well as the usual galleries and jewellery shops that most of the towns here have.

We went to Robin's to eat. We went there last time we were here and we were hoping that it would be as good. It was! We ended up chatting to the family on the table next to us who were going to Hearst Castle tomorrow. Their two children were chatting to Alicea about her old dogs and were pretty well behaved.

Once we had finished the meal, we left and walked back to the motel.

Highway One

2008-03-24T03:54:00.003Z

We got up and had a continental breakfast and then drove from Yountville back to San Francisco, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. We then took the scenic route through Presidio to the ocean and then joined Highway 1.

We then drove to Santa Cruz and took a stroll along the boardwalk. As we left the car park, there was a big bump on the back of the car. We pulled up and spoke to the guy behind who had hit us. Luckily there was no damage, but his girlfriend who was driving was pretty upset.

From there we drove to Carmel and booked into a motel and then walked into the town. We found a place to have lunch (huge sandwiches!) and did some shopping.

Carmel is a very quaint little town which reminds me a lot of the town in the Truman Show.

We popped back to the motel and phoned Robins in Cambria to book a table for dinner tomorrow night.

Shortly after we took a walk down to the beach to watch the sunset. There were loads of people there and the sunset was very pretty. From there we wandered back into the town and went to an Italian restaurant. We only had a starter and a salad each as we were both still full from lunch.

After that, we went back to the motel.

Perfect Anniversary

2008-03-23T15:02:00.003Z

We woke early and packed our cases. We had breakfast delivered to the room and once that was finished we checked out.

Alicea was chatting to the doorman and discovered he was from Carmel one of our destinations and he gave us some places to stay and eat while we were there. He also told us of some good wineries in Napa.

We left our cases in reception and walked to the car rental place just up the road. Initially, they gave us a hatchback, which was no good as it had no cover over the boot. While they found is a new car, I went back to the hotel to get the cases and Alicea turned up shortly after in a Ford Taurus.

We made our way out of the city and towards Napa. The traffic wasn't too bad and we arrived in Yountville about 10am.

After booking into the hotel, we had a coffee and walked into the town. There is a food and drink festival here today, and they were just setting up.

We then made our way to the French Laundry restaurant for lunch. Wow! What a meal. The nine (plus various amuses, sorbets and petit fours) course menu was unbelievable and the service was perfect. At the end we got to look around the kitchen and we were given a huge Easter egg and other choccies and biccies.

We then went back to the hotel, where our room was now ready and got changed, before wandering down to the town to partake in the food and drink festival.

We had a tour around the French Laundry vegetable garden and tried various wines. We also won the raffle, which we donated to the staff at the French Laundry as we had such a great time there and we wouldn't be around to be able to claim the prize.

We then went back to the hotel.

Shopping

2008-03-22T02:40:00.002Z

We went to Lori's Diner again for breakfast and then walked to the Ferry Terminal Building where there are lots of organic food shops. We stopped for a coffee there and then went to Bloomingdales where we wandered around the shops until lunchtime, Alicea trying to get me enthusiastic about buying a new coat, to no avail.

After that, we split up and I went back to the hotel, while Alicea wanted to do some more shopping.

Once Alicea got back we then made our way to Broadway and Columbus which is SF's "Little Italy". Alicea picked a restaurant and we had a nice salad. However, the main courses weren't that good. From there we walked back to the hotel, via more shops...

Haight Ashbury

2008-03-21T03:13:00.003Z

We had breakfast at Lori's Diner, a great place we discovered last time we were here. It's a real "50's" theme place and the food is great too.

I went and bought a couple of pairs of jeans from the Levi's shop. Amazingly, I've dropped two sizes since last time I was here! I also picked up a copy of the Greens cookbook, which contains recipes from the restaurant we went to last night.

Then we wandered down to Market and caught the bus to Haight where we walked around the shops and grabbed some lunch. We then headed into Golden Gate Park, but came out as the people hanging around in there didn't appear to be that pleasant.

We caught the bus back to Market and headed into Bloomingdales where Alicea bought a ring.

From there we walked through to Chinatown and went to the Empress of China, a restaurant we went to last time we were here.

From there we went back to Union Square and did some more shopping before heading back to the hotel.

Flowers in our Hair

2008-03-20T04:24:00.002Z

We were up early this morning to get a taxi to the airport. Once there we had something to eat and then wandered around the shops.

I really enjoyed New York and liked it a lot more than I thought I would.

The plane left for San Francisco pretty much on time. It was a six hour flight but seemed longer.

Once we arrived we caught a taxi to the hotel. The hotel looks good and is only a block or two from Union Square.

When we got to the room I called the French Laundry to confirm our booking for Saturday and then called Greens, a veggie restaurant, to make a reservation for the evening.

We then went shopping in Union Square (or at least Alicea did - I found a Subway as I was famished) and then we made our way to Greens. We went to the wrong pier to start with and had to get a trolleybus to nearer the restaurant.

The meal was really good, and the setting was lovely as the restaurant looks out over the harbour towards the Golden Gate Bridge.

When we had finished the meal we caught the bus back and then walked the last little bit back to the hotel.

Sooper Dooper

2008-03-19T02:35:00.001Z

We caught the subway to Greenwich Village for breakfast and had porridge followed by eggs over-easy, home fries and toast.

Unfortunately the Village doesn't open until around 11am and we wanted to visit the Museum of Natural History, so we caught the subway to Times Square and then to the museum.

The museum is enormous and we spent several hours wandering around the various rooms of stuffed animals, artifacts and models. We also visited the planetarium. Then we made our way back to Times Square for something to eat. We went to an Italian restaurant which was nice, although Alicea left saying that she had eaten too much.

After a short wander around some shops we made our way to 42nd St to the theatre where we had tickets to see Young Frankenstein. It was great and we both thoroughly enjoyed it.

Once it was over we caught the subway back to the hotel where we booked a taxi to take us to the airport tomorrow before retiring to bed.

Happy St Paddy

2008-03-17T21:57:00.003Z

Today is St Patrick's Day, and our plan was to walk to Central Park to view the parade from there.

We set off up Broadway, heading towards Times Square. It was pretty crowded, but quite a fun walk. Alicea was pretty impressed that when we got to Times Square, the top ad on the huge video screen billboard was for the Prudential!

We found somewhere for breakfast where I had an omellette and Alicea had scrambled eggs and we then walked through Central Park, emerging to look at the Dakota building, where John Lennon was shot.

We then walked up to the Museum of Natural History, ostensibly to use their toilets and to buy some camera batteries, but we decided that we would try and fit in a visit tomorrow.

We then walked back through the Park, taking in Strawberry Fields, an area dedicated to John Lennon, to 5th Avenue where the parade was due to go past. It was really cold, so we popped into a café in the Park for a drink and then returned to the parade route.

The parade itself was really impressive, with loads of pipe bands, soldiers, marines, police, firemen and local schools represented. Two hours later they were still going past!

Alicea was getting really cold so we decided to get some lunch. We went back to Grand Central Station to a restaurant situated un one of the balconies. From there, we went back to Times Square and booked a ticket for a Broadway show for tomorrow night.

Then we went to Macy's which is vast! I sat around while Alicea went clothes shopping.

From there it was back to the hotel to drop everything off and Alicea then went to get her nails done.

Once she gets back we'll decide what we are going to do for dinner.

Lady of Liberty

2008-03-16T23:52:00.003Z

We slept okay, but woke early. My phone beeped with a message from my Mum & Dad asking if we were okay as they'd heard there was somekind of accident in New York. We hadn't heard anything so we switched the TV on to see reports of a crane collapsing on the East Side somewhere. I gave M&D a quick call to reassure them we were fine and we left the hotel to head for the nearest subway station.

Eventually, with the help of the woman in the ticket office we managed to buy a couple of tickets from the machine and got on a subway train heading the wrong way... We got off at the next stop and caught one going the right way, towards Battery park, where we were going to catch the ferry to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

Once we were there, we joined a queue, went through security checks and finally boarded the ferry.

We alighted at Liberty Island and joined the queue to go up the plinth on the Statue of Liberty. After more security checks we walked through quite an interesting museum and then climbed up the plinth.

At the top, you get some interesting views up inside the statue so that you can see the metal structure and the stairs that you used to be able to climb to the crown.

From there we had something to eat and then caught the ferry to Ellis Island.

Ellis Island used to be the immigration processing place and now is a museum dedicated to all the immigrants. We had an audio tour which was really good and quite emotional at times as the immigrants themselves told their stories.

From there we caught the ferry back to NY and then walked up to the South Street Seaport, a collection of shops and cafés on one of the piers. From there we walked to Chinatown and Little Italy looking for somewhere to eat.

Eventually we found a veggie restaurant in Chinatown called the House of Vegetarian. We had a selection of dishes, which were huge! We didn't eat more than about half of each dish, but they were quite nice, especially one called braised broccoli in brown sauce..

From there, we walked back to the hotel, through SoHo, Bolita, NoHo, and Gramercy stopping at a bar on the way where Alicea had what she said was the best g&t she had ever had!

From there, we walked back to our hotel.

So good they named it twice...

2008-03-16T00:15:00.004Z

So, here we are in the Big Apple. We were up very early this morning to get to the airport to catch the 830 flight. It was all pretty uneventful, the flight was good and we arrived pretty much on schedule.

The queues at US immigration were huge and it took us about an hour to get through. Then we caught a yellow cab to the hotel.

We got a free upgrade to a better room at the hotel, which was good. The room is nice, not huge, but comfortable. Once we had dropped our stuff off we went for a walk.

Firstly we went to Grand Central Station, which is magnificent. The shops in there are pretty good too and there is a great food market.

From there we went to the Empire State Building and took the lift to the 86th floor and then up to the 102nd floor. The view was magnificent and we spent a little while up there hoping that the sun would set and we would see the city lit up. Unfortunately, the sun resolutely stayed in the sky so we made our way back to street level and headed back to the hotel as we were both really tired.

On the way we stopped at a taco restaurant for something to eat and drink before returning back to the hotel.

On the way home

2008-01-01T17:21:00.001Z

We all breakfasted at the hotel, packed and checked out. We went to wait for the airport bus outside the Radisson hotel, just down the road. We then discovered that the New Years Day timetable didn't start until the afternoon. We went into the hotel and they ordered a taxi for us. In the end, the taxi cost the same as the bus would've done.

Once at the airport, we checked in using the auto check-in and fingerprint technology and sat in a café until our flight was called.

The flight was pretty smooth and once we had landed, we collected our bags and Alicea and I said goodbye to the rest of the group as they were off to Oslo before flying back tomorrow afternoon, whereas we were going to a hotel near the airport to make it easier to catch the plane tomorrow morning.

We caught the bus to the hotel and ate at the restaurant there before retiring for the night.

New Years Eve

2008-01-01T09:30:00.001Z

We woke and met the others for beakfast and then went to explore the town of Tromso.

It's got quite a nice selection of shops and slices bought herself a coat in the sales.

We went back to the place we went yesterday to eat, and I had the veggie burger again. Then we returned to the hotel for a snooze before meeting with the others.

We met briefly with Steve who said that they'd booked a table in the hotel restaurant for 7pm.

We met up about half an hour earlier for a drink and then went to the restaurant. The restaurant was doing a buffet but we were also allowed to order from the menu and the chef did a mushroom pasta for us veggies, which was really nice.

At the end of the meal someone said that the Northern Lights had appeared so we went outside to look. They were really bright and swept through the sky, across the town and put over the harbour. After taking a few pictures we went back to one of the rooms for some drinks. Shortly after, Anna phoned to say that they were on the hotel roof and the lights were going "crazy".

We went up to the roof, where the hottub was, and it was very slippy. The lights were really good and occasionally rippled in the sky.

Eventually we left the hotel to head up the mountain where we were going to celebrate the New Year.

We walked to the cable car and went up to the mountain top. Surprisingly, there were no facilities up there other than a hut, that is normally a café. From there we could watch the fireworks going off in the town, which was quite amazing. At midnight, the fireworks on the mountain started. It was a really good display, and all the while the green band of the Northern Lights shone behind.

Once the fireworks had finished, Alicea, Caroline and myself joined the long queue for the cable car down the mountain. We walked back to the hotel, got a drink in the bar and waited until the others arrived, about half an hour later, before retiring for the night.

Fire in the Sky

2007-12-31T13:16:00.001Z

We were up early to breakfast and pack the van to be ready to catch the 9.10am ferry towards Narvik on our way to Tromso.

We made the ferry with time to spare (we were one of only two cars on it) and as it was just starting to get light we took the opportunity to pop out on deck and take some photos across the fjord.

Soon we were on our way again. We expected the journey to take about five or six hours overall as the roads wound themselves around the edges of the fjords.

We stopped in a few places to take photos, one where we tried to catch the moon as it sank behind the mountains and we caught a lovely sunset later on.

Most of Norway is shut on a Sunday so it was difficult to find anywhere to eat, other than snacks from petrol stations although we did find a hotel who let us serve ourselves from their breakfast coffee machine. At one toilet stop, the side door of the minibus wouldn't open for some reason, so Alicea had to climb over the seats and bags to get out of the back door (the door started working again as soon as we drove off!) and at another Mark stepped out of the minibus only to disappear from view as he immediately slipped over on the ice.

The rest of the journey was uneventful with Mark and Rob sharing the driving as the rest of us dozed or stared at the sky noticing how the clouds that had been present for all the week so far had disappeared and that we could now see the stars. The outside temperature, at one point dropped to -11C. Fingers crossed for tonight!

We arrived in Tromso and mark took the minibus back to Hertz while the rest of us went up to our rooms. Shortly after we met up to wander into the town looking for somewhere to eat. We popped into a pub that served lots of different beers but although Mark was quite taken with it, the rest of us decided to find somewhere with a bit more of a choice. We then discovered a pub/café on the corner or the main street that had what looked like quite a nice menu. It was called the Meieriet café and storpub and we ordered a range of food from vegetable stir frys thru chicken burgers to veggie burgers.

Around now, Alicea mentioned seeing a notice for a trip out to see the Northern Lights. With the street lights in Tromso, it would be difficult to see them, so this trip took you out of town to where it was darker.

While we waited for the food to be delivered, Caroline went to a hotel across the road to see if she could find any details. She reappeared to tell us that the trip left in 45 minutes and cost about £45. We decided that this would probably be our best chance of seeing the Lights and checked to make sure our food would arrive in time. It did, and it was really tasty too.

We then made our way to where the coach would pick is up. Rob and Steve quickly went back to the hotel to pick up warm clothes and their cameras and then we boarded the coach and were off, keeping our fingers crossed that the Lights would appear.

The journey took about thirty minutes during which we travelled through a tunnel complex that included a couple of junctions with roundabouts!

Eventually we arrived at the wilderness centre outside the town to be greeted by baying huskies (this is where they run the sled rides from - we had tried to book, but they werebly running them as they hadn't had enough snow).

We were then shown into one of the Sammi huts that had a raging fire in it and given coffee. Then we were given warm one piece suits and boots and we went and sat outside to stare at the sky. It was really cold, but the suits kept us warm.

The night was beautiful, the sky was clear, the odd shooting star streaked across the sky and we were all keeping our fingers crossed beneath our thick gloves that the Northern Lights would appear.

Then a dim grey band began to appear across the sky, gradually getting brighter. At first I thought it was some kind of reflection of the lights from the town in the distance. But no, this was the beginning of the Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights!

The band got brighter and took on a very light greenish hue. Sometimes it appeared as though it was hanging sheets, other times like grey/green clouds. I fiddled with my camera to try and get some photos of the phenomenom. Eventually, I got some really nice ones. The Lights went on for about an hour, occasionally changing shape and getting brighter and dimmer throughout.

Eventually it was time to return, so we handed back the warm clothes, all of us delighted that everything that we had planned for the holiday - the whales, snorkelling and the Northern Lights had all been successful.

Up Close & Personal

2007-12-29T20:40:00.000Z

We had another boat trip today, put on the smaller boat called the Zodiac. The highlight was to be the chance to snorkel with the whales if the conditions were right.

Last night there had been a few reservations about whether to go on the trip from a few people and Steve and Caroline had decided not to go after the really choppy conditions yesterday. On the way back to the room however, a conversation with one of the receptionists had changed her mind. Steve decided that he would rather have a "duvet day".

We met for breakfast and then made our way to be shoehorned into our drysuits. Getting your head in was the worst bit as the rubber seal around the neck was really tight.

That done, we were taken to the docks and boarded the boat, which was an open dingy type vessel that could carry about twenty.

The first thing we saw was a sea eagle that swooped down from about 250m to gather a fish that had been thrown from the boat. It was magnificent, so majestic and graceful. I could have gone home happy then. But no, our job was to find killer whales, and to jump in the water with them!

Next, we saw a grey seal - a rarity for these parts, apparently.

Then, shortly after, Rolf, the boat's captain announced that Orca were ahead and masks and snorkels were handed out.

The boat came closer to the pod, consisting of several adults and one or two younger ones and the call came to get into the water.

It wasn't as cold as I expected and I saw a flash of white below me for a second which may or may not have been a whale. We were helped back on the boat and there were tales of mixed success.

The boat followed the whales and once close enough, in we went again.

I saw nothing, and got out to be told that one had been right behind me!

Off we went again until we came upon more. This was certainly more successful than yesterday and we were so close to the whales that you got a real feel for their elegance and grace as they swam through the water.

The shout went up again to go into the water.

This time I had the fortune of being able to see three Orca as they swam past me and disappeared into the gloomy distance. I was elated! They were so graceful as they glided past me. Fantastic!

This pattern continued and at one point we were surrounded by whales. One surfaced near the boat and those in the water at that time said that as it dived beneath the boat it turned over on its back.

One time I was in the water I had a whale swimming beneath me for what seemed like ages. Unfortunately someone close to me knocked my snorkel out, forcing me to surface.

Interspersed with the whales, we got to see more sea eagles dive towards the water, picking off fish. All in all, the whole morning was superb.

The drysuits did their job and were incredibly bouyant, so much so that it was sometimes difficult to manouvre. They were also surprisingly warm and I was much warmer than I was yesterday.

Finally, it all had to end and the boat sped back to the dock. Once there a group of us decided that one further dip was required and we leapt from the dock into the water! This time, it was cold but very refreshing. Then it was back to the centre to be pulled out of the suits and to have a cup of coffee.

We then had a rest before meeting up for a chat and a drink, then a further rest before meeting up for dinner and viewing todays video before retiring for the evening.

Thar She Blows!

2007-12-28T20:37:00.001Z

Woke early to breakfast at 7.30am to be ready for our day out on the boat to search for Orcas (Killer Whales)

After breakfast we had a short lecture on the wildlife of the area and the Orca themselves. They come to this area to feed on the herring that swim into the fjords this time of the year. However, over the last couple of years, not so many of the herring have been coming into the fjord, preferring to stay outside, so not so many of the Orca are around in the local vicinity.

After the lecture we boarded a coach to the quayside and then the boat and headed out into the fjord. Each of us clothed with several layers topped with waterproofs.

It was very windy and cold and once we were out into the fjord the boat rocked around quite a lot. I stayed outside in an effort to stave off seasickness, which partly worked. During the really choppy bits I felt quite queasy.

Around lunchtime we were told that one of the other boats had spotted a pod of whales and we headed in that direction. Suddenly there they were, swimming quite fast a few hundred feet from the boat. The boat followed for a while until they disappeared into the distance. Then the boat headed for home arriving back as it got dark - about 2pm!

Once back at the centre we rested for a couple of hours before meeting up to have some food and play cards for a couple of hours.

After that we watched the video footage taken from the various boats during the day's excursions before retiring for the night.

Tomorrow we're going out on the smaller boat that can get closer to the whales. The wind is forecast to be less than today, so hopefully it won't be so choppy.

North into Darkness

2007-12-28T14:34:00.001Z

We breakfasted at the hotel and then gathered in the foyer to make our way back to the train station so we could catch the train to the airport.

Once at the airport we checked in - Mark and Alicea had their fingerprints taken to use as boarding cards, the rest of us had "old fashioned" paper ones, not sure why - and we made our way through security to the gate, where the fingers worked and most of the paper didn't in the automatic barriers there.

The flight was pretty much on time and we were soon on our way to Evenes airport, inside the arctic circle.

It was about 3pm and still light when we left Oslo. From the window of the plane you could see a dark band on the horizon that got bigger as we flew closer to it. By the time we landed at around 3.45pm it was as dark as night!

We picked up our bags and then had a 45 minute wait for the car to arrive. Mark had booked a nine seater minibus that fitted us and our luggage perfectly.

Soon we were on our way to the Tourist Centre at Tysfjord where we were staying for the next few days.

As none of us had eaten anything since breakfast we stopped at a restaurant only to find it just closing. At 5.15pm!

We had a ferry to catch at 8pm about an hour's drive away so a decision was taken to drive to the nearest town (about 20 mins away) to find an eatery there. This we did and found pizza place and we made it to the ferry in perfect time.

The ferry journey was about an hour during which we played cards as the ferry rocked back and forth as it carried us across the fjord.

Once on the other side it was a five minute drive to the tourist centre.

The centre is really nice (I'm not sure about the proliferation of stuffed animals around the place) and the room is warm and comfy. The bathroom has underfloor heating, which is great.

After booking in and dropping everything in our rooms we all met in the bar for a drink. We then decided to retire to Steve's room to crack open the duty free. On the way, due to a collision between Rob and myself near the huge stuffed polar bear next to the entrance, I managed to drop my glass which smashed into a thousand pieces. After it was cleared up we met in Steve's room where we played cards (Anna is the current sh@thead) and drank until retiring for bed.

Heading North

2007-12-27T09:24:00.001Z

We stayed at the Stansted Radisson hotel on Christmas night and popped into Colchester on Boxing Day morning hoping to pick up a few bargains. However, not too many shops were open so we ended up going to Freeport in Braintree instead where we picked up a couple of bits.

Then it was back to the airport to drop the car off and meet the others.

Steve was already there and the others, Rob, Caroline, Mark and Anna turned up a little while after.

We queued for about an hour to check in and by the time we got through security, it was time to board which meant a very quick race through Duty Free to get some booze before heading to the gate.

When we got there we still had to wait for a bit, and eventually we boarded.

The flight was good and, although we took off late, we landed pretty much on time.

Once in the airport in Oslo we looked around for something to eat but everywhere was shut so we caught the train from the airport into Oslo and walked to the hotel.

After booking in, some of us popped to a local garage (the only place open) to get some snacks before retiring to bed.
Regards

Gary Nicklin

Global Professional Services

Please excuse the brevity of this message, it was sent from a BlackBerry.

Demuths, Bath

2007-10-29T18:12:00.000Z

2 North Parade Passage, off Abbey Green,

Bath BA1 1NX

http://www.demuths.co.uk/

Demuths in Bath has a really good reputation among vegetarians however, a recent visit by a friend of mine was quite scathing so I decided to see for myself. The place itself is on two floors and I was shown to a table downstairs. I was the only one there for quite a while, during which time I skimmed through some sample copies of the restaurant's cookbooks that they have for sale, and they looked pretty good, with some nice recipes.

The menu I was presented with wasn't overly inspiring, there were roughly half a dozen choices on both starters and mains menus, and also an appetisers menu with a similar amount of options. I forewent the appetisers and chose the Beetroot and Potato Patties from the starters and an Ethiopean Platter from the mains menu.

The starters menu was quite varied, however the mains contained a curry and the Ethiopian Platter (essentially another curry) a risotto, and a nut roast. As curries, risottos and nut roasts are quite often the "vegetarian choice" on a standard restaurant menu, I didn't think they showed the culinary possibilities that vegetarian food can attain no matter how good they might be.

The Beetroot Patties were three in number and were quite nicely presented spread with pea puree and accomanied by a raita and a few salad leaves. They were nicely spiced and the pea puree was good, but there was little or no beetroot flavour, which was a little disappointing. If the sweet beetroot flavour had been there, this would've been a splendid little dish. However, as it was the only real clue to the presence of the beetroot was the colour of the patties.

The Ethiopean Platter consisted of two different dhals (yellow split pea and red lentil and bean), spiced spinach and potato, and bean and carrot curry served on an pancake, Each of the individual ingredients were fine in themselves, but nothing special. However, the pancake was tasteless and, when eaten in combination with any of the other parts of the dish, somehow had the power to render them equally tasteless which was a touch weird.

For dessert I had Red Wine Poached Pears served with Blackberries and a Honey Labne. Again the presentation was very well done and it tasted really nice. The dish was sprinkled with honeycomb and it complemented the pears really well.

The service was quick and efficient, but not particularly personal. The prices seem to me to be quite high - £6 for a starter and £14 for a main course is a bit steep for this kind of fayre. My three course meal with a coke and a water came to over £35, which is very high.

Would I go back? Probably not. The food was okay, but nothing special, and it was expensive. It is nice to be able to be given a menu in a restaurant where I can eat everything on it, however I'd much rather have a smaller choice of really imaginative and tasty food than a dozen "so-so" items.

I have had some fabulous meals in vegetarian restaurants, Terre a Terre and Il Margutta in Rome, for example, but the majority of the best meals I've had have been in restaurants where the non-veggie meals have been top quality too, like Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons or The Lanesborough.

I guess, in the end, it all comes down to the skill and imagination (and attitude) of the chefs no matter what kind of restaurant they are in.

Last day in Italy

2007-10-14T19:42:00.001+01:00

We woke early and finished packing before going down to meet the taxi to the airport.

The airport is very close to Pisa and within ten minutes, we had arrived. We had a coffee and a croissant while waiting for the check in desk for Alicea's flight to open. Once she had checked in and joined the queue for departures we said our goodbyes, and I caught the bus back to the hotel. On the way, I bought a ticket for the Leaning Tower and the surrounding buildings.

I went up the tower (more steps!) and popped back to the hotel to check out before looking around the baptistry and cathedral.

I then went to find somewhere for lunch stopping on the way to watch as artist creating a picture using spray can paints. It was fascinating.

I then came across a huge market that spanned several streets selling everything from furniture to soap to records to pottery.

After an hour walking around that, I went to a restaurant in one of the piazzas near the Leaning Tower for lunch. The food was fine but the service was awful, I'm not sure whether it was because I was on my own - I wasn't even given any bread! So, I left no tip.

From there I went to look around the cemetery building that is part of the Leaning Tower complex. I'm sure that in its heyday it was fab, but as a museum, it lacks a certain something. It could be that virtislly none of the exhibits are labelled and those that are have label that read "square sarcophogus, 4th Century" or similar, and that's the extent of the information you get!

From there, I wandered back to the hotel to get my bags, picking up an ice cream on the way and caught the bus to the airport.

The plane was about 15 mins late taking off, but landed on time.

Goodbye Cinque Terre

2007-10-13T20:41:00.001+01:00

Today we return to Pisa ready for the return to the UK (for me) and the USA (for Alicea). But before we left we took one more trip to Monterosso where we say on the beach for a couple of hours and the went for lunch at the place where Alicea enjoyed her salmon and dill the other night.

Unfortunately, that particular dish was unavailable so she had smoked salmon which wasn't as nice. We both then had a pesto dish before returning back to the hotel to await our lift, with our bags, to the station.

The train was fairly on time and we arrived in Pisa around 7.20pm. With the help of one of the locals we caught a bus to the Campo dei Miracoli and then walked to the hotel.

Once we had dropped our stuff off we went to one of the restaurants near the Leaning Tower (having learnt our lesson last week). We ended up sitting next to an Australian couple who were quite loud and stereotypical (at least to begin with) and Alicea spoke very quietly so that they didn't realise she was Australian too and begin talking to her!

Once we had finished eating, we returned to the hotel and booked a taxi to take Alicea to the airport tomorrow morning.

An aborted swim...

2007-10-12T20:45:00.001+01:00

We arrived at Bonasollo station to catch the train to Monterosso and then onto Riomaggiore.

I'm not sure why there is a ticket office at Bonosolla station as it is never open, even when it is supposed to be! In fact someone has scribbled "if we feel like it" above the opening times. So, we had to buy a bottle of water from the bar next to the station to get enough change for the only one of the three ticket machines that was working.

Once in Monterosso, we bought a Cinque Terre day pass and our ticket for Pisa tomorrow and also rang the dive people to book ourselves in.

Then we caught the next train to Riomaggiore.

Once there we walked to Manorola along the Via Dell Amore and had our piccy taken on the kissing seat... What romantic fools we are!

We then had lunch in Manorola before walking back to Riomaggiore to go for the dive.

We were all kitted up and followed the guy who was leading us out into the harbour. Once I began to go under the water my mask began to fill with water - my moustache was stopping the mask from getting an airtight seal - and try as I might I couldn't stop it. In the end I have it up as a bad job and left Alicea with the instructor while I went and got changed.

She was gone for about forty five minutes and said that she was a little disappointed as what she saw was pretty much what you could see snorkeling.

Once she had got changed we caught the train to Vernazza where we had dinner at Gianni Franzi's before ruturning to the hotel.

A walk in the dark

2007-10-12T07:39:00.001+01:00

Last night we went into Monterosso for dinner at one of the restaurants on the front. We say out on the balcony overlooking the sea which was lovely.

After that we caught the train back to Bonassola and walked back to the hotel up a long line of steps. Luckily we had bought a torch earlier as some of the way was quite dark.

Today, we are hoping to go diving, which should be good and finishing our day with a meal in Vernazza. That's the plan anyway.

More walking

2007-10-11T14:19:00.001+01:00

Last night's dinner was okay, but not up to the standard of the food that we've been eating lately.

Once the dinner was over, we retired to bed. There were no church bells this time, but the bed creaked so much, that every time one of us moved, it woke the other one up!

This morning we walked to Levanto, the next town for lunch (about 5km) and then walked back again, taking a slightly different route. Levanto was really quiet compared to the other places we visited, I guess that not being one of the CT villages really takes its toll.

Our knees are aching again and Alicea bought a couple of sticks to help when walking over the hilly bits. The one that she got me for my birthday has been great and has really helped during the tougher stretches of the walks.

It's quite a walk from the hotel here in Bonasolla to the station, and there are no taxis, so if we want to go anywhere else to eat its quite a trek. We've tried ringing a few other hotels in the Cinque Terre villages, but they're all fully booked, so it looks like we are stuck here for the next couple of days.

A new hotel

2007-10-10T16:16:00.001+01:00

Last night when we got back to the hotel after dinner we started to pack, ready for today's change of hotels.

I went to get all my bits out of the room safe but it wouldn't open. Luckily, this morning the one of the people that run the hotel came along and opened it for me.

After leaving our bags to be transported to the hotel in Bonassola where we are staying for the rest of the holiday, we said our goodbyes and took a boat to Porto Venere, a town at the lower end of the Cinque Terre peninsula and had a wander around for a few hours.

It's another pretty town with stepped streets and a large harbour. Overlooking the town is a 12th century church.

After lunch we caught the boat back to Monterosso and then boarded a train for the two stops to Bonassola. After asking several people where the hotel was, including a workman who beckoned us over to talk to his English speaking employer we finally arrived, only to be told that they would have given us a lift from the station if we had rung!

The hotel is on a hill overlooking the town, the view is beautiful, but its not very convenient for getting anywhere.

Our bags had arrived okay, and we were booked in for dinner. Unfortunately the set menu wasn't really to our taste so we've ended up with a pasta dish and a salad.

The room itself is okay, but small. It sounds like we were bumped out of a better room (with a balcony) by some guests that arrived earlier. It's not as nice as the hotel in Monterosso which was really nice and the service was superb!

Still, it might be one of those places that grows on you...

Return to Riomaggiore

2007-10-09T16:42:00.000+01:00

This morning we caught the train down to Riomaggiore so we could have a look at the village. We'd started our walk from here yesterday but hadn't walked up from the station to the village.

It's quite a pretty little place with a single road leading down to the station and marina. However, there isn't an awful lot to see, so we caught the train back to Monterosso and were back for lunch.

The afternoon was spent checking the boat times for our trip tomorrow to Portovenere and sitting in a café on the seafront.

An unexpected journey

2007-10-09T09:22:00.000+01:00

We decided to go to Vernazza for the evening to eat, so met up at the station to catch the train.

The train came in on time, so we boarded and then were somewhat bemused as the train passed all the local stations without stopping.

We alighted at Le Spezia and jumped on a train that was heading in the opposite direction. This one stopped in Vernazza so we got off, finishing a half hour journey that should have taken five minutes.

We headed for the main piazza which was next to the harbour and to a restaurant that was recommended in one of our guide books. It was pretty good and served a very nice ravioli in walnut sauce. After the meal we sat on the harbour for a while before catching the train back, this time without any problems.

Facts

2007-10-08T16:56:00.000+01:00

I forgot to mention, the walk from Riomaggiore to Monterosso is rougly 15km and it took us about six hours.

Cinque Terre Walk

2007-10-08T16:45:00.000+01:00

The Cinque Terre consists of five villages along the Ligurian coastline in northwest Italy.

One of the attractions is that you can walk between them. So, that was today's quest.

We met Steve at Monterosso station at 9.30am and caught the train to Riomaggiore the southen most of the CT villages where our walk was to begin.

The first part of the walk, to Manarola, is along a man made coastal path and is an easy stroll, lulling you into a false sense of security.

For the next section, to Corniglia, our guide book gave us the choice of a route through the hills or an easier coastal route. Still suffering a few aches from yesterday's trek we decided on the coastal route, which was okay, however it ended with a climb of 382 steps!

After some refreshment we struckout for Vernazza where we planned to have lunch. The path was very narrow in places and there were many, many steps. Eventually, we reached the village and found the restaurant that had been recommended to me for its tomato sauce. It was very nice.

Once we had rested we began the final part of the walk, to Monterosso. Boy was it hard. The start of it was mostly steps going up, all very uneven, and extremely narrow cliff edge paths with no handrails. The descent into Monterosso was down what seemed to be thousands of uneven steps and by now my knees and hips were theatening to go on strike. Eventually we arrived back in Monterosso.

The walk was very hard, but the views were spectacular.

Once back in our 'home' village we then went for a much needed and much dreamed about (during the walk) dip in the sea, which was great.

We're planning to take the train back to one of the villages tonight for dinner, as it's Steve's last day tomorrow.

A long walk...

2007-10-08T07:05:00.000+01:00

I slept fitfully mostly due to the local church clock striking every half hour.

We made sure we had a largish breakfast before leaving for the first of our walks.

The walk was 10km long and went through the hills and forests that surround Monterosso. It was very pretty with some amazing views but very hard as some of the climbs were very steep and very long. We also had to change the route slightly after being chased by two dogs! By the time we both arrived back, about four hours later, our legs really ached. And we've an even longer one tomorrow...

The First of the Cinque Terre

2007-10-07T14:10:00.000+01:00

We left the hotel and its surly breakfast staff around 9am and caught a bus to the train station, using my pidgeon Italian to get directions to the bus stop.

We had about an hour to wait for the train, however it was travelling straight through to Monterosso without us having to change. The trip was straightforeward except that we had forgotten to stamp our tickets and got fined €5. Barely a day in Italy and already we're criminals!

Once we arrived we made our way to the Hotel Marina. The hotel is really nice, in the old town and a stones throw from everything.

After dropping our bags we wandered around the town looking for somewhere to eat. It's pretty crowded and although our first choice was full we found another place a few doors up that looked nice. I had some really nice peccorino with honey and walnuta followed by troffie pasta with pesto (Liguria is where pesto was invented) and Alicea had a seafood platter that looked as though it had been tipped out of a fisherman's net.

From there we wandered around the town a little more before retiring to the hotel for a siesta. We've a busy few days coming up so we thought we'd get a rest while we could.

Steve SMS'd us to tell us held arrived and to arrange to meet up for dinner.

Around 7pm we met up with Steve and went for a drink. While we were there a huge thunderstorm hit the town and the rain poured down. We then went to a restaurant where we "mushroomed out" by ordering just about every mushroom course on the menu! The waitress brought out a large basket of fresh porcini to show us what we would be having!

Once we had finished, we retired to our respective hotels, Alicea and I to prepare for our walk tomorrow, Steve to prepare for his "duvet day"!

Regards,

Gary Nicklin

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To Pisa

2007-10-06T11:02:00.000+01:00

The flight was uneventful apart from the food service being postponed due to someone fainting a few rows behind us. Once the poor lady had been revived everything was back to normal and the flight arrived in Pisa pretty much on time.

We joined a queue for a taxi and eventually we got one to take us to the hotel. The Grand Hotel Duomo is a stone's throw from the Leaning Tower so, after dumping our bags we went for a walk.

The complex where the tower stands is very impressive and when I'm back here next weekend, I'll take the opportunity to go around it properly.

From there we took a wander around looking for somewhere to eat. We found a couple of places, then went to a bar to wait for the restaurants to open.

We picked a restaurant that was in the backstreets away from the touristy places figuring that it may have more authentic and regional food to those catering for the masses. However, as there was no menu outside we weren't sure what it would be like.

I told the waitress that I was vegetarian and we ordered our food. We started with crostini which were drenched with a very strong olive oil. Alicea then had a
Prawn risotto and I ended up with what appeared to be pieces of pancake covered, once again, in the same olive oil. To follow that we then had a sformati, which I was keen to try as I have made it on a couple of courses, which turned out to be a sort of cheese souffle and nothing like the dish I was expecting. Still, at least the wine was nice.

From there we went back to the hotel.

Last Supper

2007-06-02T11:02:00.001+01:00

We all met up early evening to go to ***** for some wine tasting. We had a tour around the cellars before trying the olive oil and the wine that the estate produces. We tried the San Geovase and the Cabernet Sauvignon. Both were nice but I preferred the SG.

The lady conducting the tasting was very interesting. She told us of the process that they have to go through to be allowed to call their wines 'Chianti'.

After buying a couple of bottles and some oil we left to go to the ****** where we were to eat.

The restaurant has an amazing view across the valley. We ordered a selection of antipasti followed by a different main course for everyone. That way everyone got to try a selection of all the dishes. It was all very nice, but the place was busy, so the service was slightly on the slow side. But that didn't spoil the evening, we all had a good time and said our goodbyes to Shilpa at the end of it.

I then returned to my appartment, wishing Linda well as she was leaving early in the morning.

It's been a great week, I've seen some wonderful places, met some really nice people and cooked and eaten some great food.
Regards,

Gary Nicklin

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The final lesson

2007-06-01T14:35:00.001+01:00

This morning was the last of our cookery lessons. Manuela showed us how to make risotto, cheesecake, a lovely rice salad and a Tuscan dessert made with chestnut flour, raisins, pine nuts and rosemary.

Once we had eaten, some of us visited Poggio Antico, a biodynamic farm, where I bought some pasta and cheeses.

Then it was back to the villa to await this evening's wine tasting and farewell meal.
Regards,

Gary Nicklin

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An evening in Siena

2007-05-31T22:20:00.001+01:00

We all met up around 4pm and followed Shilps to Siena.

We then had a guided tour of the Duomo and the streets of the city by a guide who was very enthusiastic and very interesting. Once the guided tour was over Shilpa left us to our own devices and, true to form we headed to a bar and then to a very nice restaurant that was on the 'recommended' that Shilpa had provided. We each ordered soaraxtr meals from the menu and got to Tate each others, which was nice. A couple of the dishes were similar to ones that we have made during the week and the consensus was that ours were better.

After eating we braved the drive home and after a shaky start trying to find the expressway we made it back to the apartments.

Regards,

Gary Nicklin

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Six go walking

2007-05-31T12:51:00.001+01:00

This morning we all went for a walk into the Tuscan countryside and finished off with a picnic.

The weather was gorgeous, sunny but not too hot and we were accompanied by the neighbours two dogs, Bianco and Spotty.

The walk took us through vineyards and olive groves and we ended up at a church where we met Riccardo who had bought a couple of baskets full of food and wine. We then went to a shady spot under a cedar tree that overlooked the valley to eat.

Once we'd finished eating Shilpa gave a couple of us a lift back to the appartment while the others elected to retrace their steps and make their own way home.
Regards,

Gary Nicklin

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An evening out

2007-05-30T22:03:00.000+01:00

This evening we all went out to La Spinosa, an organic farm and vineyard where we were to your the winery and then have a meal in their restaurant.

I had elected to drive and wed made our way around narrow hairpins as we climbed to the top of the hill surrounding the valley where the farm was.

On the way we stopped at a pottery where we were shown around by the owner, despite the fact that we arrived afte it had shut, and we stopped again at a chapel and again to marvel at the view across the valley.

We eventually arrived at the farm and were shown around the winery - there were some gorgeous little kittens there - and we then went onto the restaurant where we had a very nice meal starting with pear and pecorino with honey, followed by gnocci with pesto and tomato. Then we had vegetable flan with courgette souffle and finished with a fine cheesecake.

Regards,

Gary Nicklin

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Stirring custard the wrong way...

2007-05-30T16:15:00.001+01:00

This morning we met Manuela who, along with Shilpa, took us through making our lunch today. We made a fabulous tomato and bread soup and a couple of sformati which are a sort of souffle like flan.

For dessert we made a custard tart which was a bit runny. This we blamed on Jane's stirring it in more than one direction when she was told not to.

It was all very tasty and the weather is lovely today, so we were able to eat it, once again, on the terrace.
Regards,

Gary Nicklin

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An unexpected departure

2007-05-29T21:46:00.001+01:00

This evening we all went to Lindsay, Jane and Jamie's for an evening meal consisting of some salads made from stuff we'd bought at the shops earlier. I made an endive, pear and gorgonzola salad and there was also a nicoise type salad and some antipasto along with some nice foccaccia bread.

We had a very nice evening, however at the end Mark and Jan said that they would be leaving us tomorrow and going back to Manchester. They wouldn't elaborate any further, and it was all a bit sudden and strange.
Regards,

Gary Nicklin

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Florence by Battleaxe!

2007-05-29T16:05:00.001+01:00

We all met up at around 8.15 to drive to Certaldo station to then catch the train to Florence.

We met a New Zealand couple on the train, the husband of which turned out to be the second cousin of the boss of one of the girls in the group!

Once we reached Florence we went to meet our tour guide who turned out to be a real old fashioned matron kind of woman - imagine the two fat ladies rolled into one...

She was quite a character, forever telling us to keep up, speaking very loudly in a posh voice while telling other groups to be quiet and moaning at us for visiting the Uffitzi gallery on a Tuesday, as it was its busiest day! However, she did know her stuff and some of the tour was very interesting even if a little politically incorrect.

One of the girls managed to 'escape' halfway through the tour, but the rest of us soldiered on. Eventually the guide left and rather than see the rest of the gallery we headed straight for a restaurant where I had a ribbolata (Tuscan vegetable soup) and pasta with porcini for lunch. This was followed by a fabulous gelato before heading back to the train station via Avis car rental so I could be added as a driver to the hire car.
Regards,

Gary Nicklin

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Stormy San Gimingnano

2007-05-28T21:36:00.001+01:00

We drove to San Gimingnano all the while looking at the ever darkening sky. Several times it rained on route but had stopped by the time we parked the car. However by the time we had walked up to the main piazza of the town, it had begun to rain.

We wandered around a few shops but soon decided that the awful weather wasn't for us and went back to the car. During the journey back we decided to eat in and stopped at the local supermarket to by some ingredients. I volunteered to make melanzana parmigiana for everyone. On discovering that we couldn't get the oven to work, Jamie went to find the landlord, who offered is his oven.

So, we made the dish and took it over to his place and returned to drink and chat while the dish cooked.

About forty minutes later, Jamie and my self armed with a brolly web downstairs to make the trip to retrieve the dish only to discover Tomas coming up the stairs with the cooked parmigiana saving us from getting soaked.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the food and after an enjoyable evening, during a break in the storm I made my way back to my apartment.
Regards,

Gary Nicklin

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Tuscan Lunch

2007-05-28T14:42:00.001+01:00

The sky this morning looked ominous, but luckily the rain held off until we had made it to Shilpa's ready for today's cookery session.

Today we made a selection of crostini with different toppings - roasted pepper and goats cheese, melanzana and mint and tomato with olive oil and basil. We also did cannelini beans with tomato sauce, panzanella salad, chard and peccorino flan and panna cotta. Unfortunately the panna cotta did not set properly but it tasted wonderful, as did everything else.

This evening we are off to San Gimingnano for some sightseeing and a meal. Luckily, for the moment at least, the rain has stopped.
Regards,

Gary Nicklin

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Pasta

2007-05-27T21:56:00.001+01:00

Today was the first of our lessons and was taken jointly by Shilpa and a friend of hers called Kiera who runs a restaurant in Barcelona.

We made tagliatelle with two sauces, one with fresh tomatoes and basil and one with courgettes and goats cheese. Both were good, but I especially enjoyed the courgette one. We also made a really good orange and fennel salad and a tiramisu. Once again we sat and ate on the patio overlooking the valley accompanied by nice organic wine, good conversation and the odd firefly or two.
Regards,

Gary Nicklin

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So much for the Beeb

2007-05-27T15:14:00.001+01:00

The BBC weather forecast promised that it would be sunny all this week, but it just goes to show that even Auntie can get it wrong.

The morning started fine and I breakfasted on melon followed by bread and honey before leaving to meet the others. On the way there were ominous rumbles of thunder in the distance. By the time we were ready to leave for our destination - an organic farm called La Ginestra - the sky was beginning to darken.

However, the rain held off for the duration of our tour of the farm. One of La Ginestra's main products is honey and we had a tour of their production sheds, and had a chance to taste the raw (as it were) honey before it was removed from the cones and filtered. It was acacia honey and had a very delicate flavour.

La Ginestra also rears pigs and we got to see them rooting around their enclosures - some in fields, others in woodland. The pigs are related to the wild boar and there were a few piglets running around which one of the owner's dogs was paying rather too much interest in and had to be held back.

The farm also produces spelt, chickpeas and olive oil amongst other things.

From there we went to the restaurant that is run by the farm, and on the way the weather turned. Hailstones battered the car and you could barely hear yourself talk!

We arrived in the restaurant under brolly cover and went to enjoy some wine and nibbles before the meal.

The meal started with bruchetta that had the sweetest tomatoes (I don't usually eat tomatoes) and was then followed by a potato and herb cannelloni. The cannelloni was really light.

We then had roasted vegetables and salad that was then followed by fennel in a saffron sauce (yum). Finally we had a chocolate cake and cream.

After finishing the meal, I bought some honey and olive oil to bring home and we all went back to base to prepare for this afternoon's pasta making.

On the way we decided to take the dirt track back to the apartments and very quickly got stuck as the car started sliding sideways through the mud and off the track. We all got out and pushed and, with the help of some passing Belgians, we finally got the car back on the road and made our way back to base, with enough time for a short rest before the pasta making starts.
Regards,

Gary Nicklin

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I'm here!

2007-05-26T22:34:00.001+01:00

The flight from Paris to Florence was pretty much on time and my case was one of the first to come out, which makes a change.

Customs was non-existant and I was out of the airport fairly quickly. I had a look around for the Avis car hire place and waited in line with about half a dozen people so that I could try and add my name to the drivers list of the one that had been hired by one of the other people on the course. I noticed that the bus that I had to catch to the railway station was waiting so I decided to get onto that. After a very bumpy ride through Florence I arrived at the train station, bought my ticket and found the train that stopped at Certalfo, where I was to be picked up and taken to the place where the course is taking place.

After about 10 minutes some of the others turned up in the car to pick me up and we then popped to the local supermarket to pick up some stuff for brekky. We then went back to the place that I am staying which is an apartment attached to a house run by a woman called Paula. The apartment is very naiv and quite rustic but is clean and comfortable.

After settling in, I met with the others on the course and we wandered down to La Selva where Shilpa and Riccardo live and the course is to be run. The other people on the course are really nice and we had a nice evening eating and drinking. I even got the chance to put a pizza into the wood fired oven using one of those big metal 'spatula' things. We feasted on foccaccia, pizza, roasted veg, beans and potatoes and finished off with fruit salad, all of which was lovely. Then we walked back to our various apartments marvellung at the fireflies as they lit up the hedges and nearby fields.
Regards,

Gary Nicklin

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Bonjour

2007-05-26T11:48:00.000+01:00

I'm now at Charles De Gaulle airport waiting for my connection to Florence.

I'm very tired as neither of us slept that well last night due mainly to a load of people that spent the whole night chatting in the corridor and knocking on each others doors.

Alicea dropped me at a very busy Heathrow airport and I grabbed some brekky before checking in. The flight to Paris was good and took less time than my brekky took to get from Wetherspoons kitchen to my table!

More news when I get to Italy.
Regards,

Gary Nicklin

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Never Again...

2007-05-25T20:49:00.001+01:00

Everyone always says that about moving don't they? So why should we be any different?

Anyway, the day started okay with the removal men turning up on time although we then realised that we'd packed the kettle, cups etc so had no way to offer any refreshments on this, particularly hot, day. So, a trip to the local caffe nero was in order to get a selection of drinks.

Around 10.00 we heard that the sale had completed. The removal men left at about 11.00 to take our stuff into storage until next week when we move in. We handed the keys to the new owner who had just arrived and left to take the final stuff to the tip.

On the way I had a phonecall to say that the new owners had been in touch to ask where the washing machine, dishwasher etc were. This was news to us as we hadn't been told that they wanted any of it and we'd disposed of everything!

So we ended up at our solicitors trying to sort out what had happened. There had obviously been a break down in communications somewhere on the line. Through various phonecalls, we agreed to supply the items we still have and the money that our buyers had paid the solicitors would be returned, although the solicitors would pay the balance so we would not be out of pocket due to an incident that was not our fault.

From the solicitors we then went to Bexleyheath to sort out the mortgage on the flat we've bought. This, aside from a few computer glitches, went okay and we then went to drop my car off at a work collegue's for him to look after it while I'm away.

Dinner at Carliccio's (of course) and then to a hotel near the airport ready for my flight tomorrow.

Phew, what a day...
Regards,

Gary Nicklin

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South Africa 2006 – Weekend

2006-09-11T07:52:00.000+01:00

The firm I’m working for moved us to a hotel that is closer to the city and quite near the V&A Waterfront. Not as close as I’d hoped, so it’s unlikely that we’ll be walking there – we did try it on Friday evening, but gave up after we got fed up of being constantly harangued by beggars. It’s not as though they just ask you once – they follow you for a hundred yards down the road. We’d walked the best part of a mile when we decided that we would rather not do this and returned back to the hotel, on the way being accosted by a young boy whose performance should win him an Oscar.

So, I returned to my room and ordered room service, getting the maps of the area out to try and work out how to drive to the Waterfront.

I then discovered, hidden in a drawer, the list of the services that the hotel provides and one of them is a shuttle to the Waterfront. It costs R30 return (less than £3) so we decided to use that today (Saturday).

So, off we went after breakfast and booked up to go out on a boat Whale-Watching and we put our name down to do a “Combat Mission” in a Huey helicopter, which had been recommended to us as a “must-do.”

The Huey needed a minimum of six people to fly so they said they would call us when they had another four people booked.

After wandering around the Waterfront for a while, we went to an Italian restaurant for lunch and then joined the boat for the Whale-watching trip. It wasn’t long before we came across a couple of Southern Right Whales close into the shore. It was great to see these huge creatures in the wild. The boat kept a good distance from the animals to avoid disturbing them. Shortly after, we saw another on the other side of the boat that briefly surfaced, giving us all a great view of how large and majestic it was.

On the way back into the harbour, the Huey people rang to ask if we wanted to go on a flight, which we did, but unfortunately, by the time we got there, one of the people had dropped out, bringing the numbers down to five. We put our name down for one of the flights for Sunday which now had its full quota of people, so hopefully it’ll be okay.

We then went did some more shopping before going to an Indian restaurant for our evening dinner and then catching the shuttle back to the hotel.

I had a bit of a lie-in on Sunday and caught the 11am shuttle to the Waterfront in preparation for the 1pm Huey ride we were booked on. At around 12.30 we were put on the mini-bus and driven to the base where we were to begin our flight. Apparently the company has around twenty Huey helicopters.

There were eleven of us on the flight and after a brief safety briefing (basically – don’t take any loose objects and this is how you put your seatbelt on) we climbed onto the helicopter to begin the flight.

I sat on one of the outward facing seats towards the rear of the helicopter and was strapped in. The seatbelt was a simple lap belt, about two inches wide. These, we were assured were military issue and worked just fine in Vietnam. The End by the Doors began to play (nice touch) and we took off. After initially feeling a little uncomfortable with the fact that there was nothing between me and the outside world (oh yeah, did I mention that this Huey “Combat Ride” was done with all the doors open) I settled back to enjoy the ride, and the stunning views.

After about 5 minutes flying over the sea the helicopter started spiralling downwards towards the water. It then pulled up sharply and swooped towards the land about five or ten feet above the waves. It was superb. The trip continued with low-level high speed runs over the dunes and the scrub punctuated with sharp turns and dives all accompanied by a rock soundtrack.

Unfortunately all this was a bit too much for one girl on the trip who went very pale and spent the rest of the trip with her head in her hands and a handkerchief in front of her mouth.

After about twenty minutes the helicopter headed back towards the Waterfront and 5 minutes or so later it was all over. It was a great experience and one I’d recommend to anyone who visits Cape Town.

From there we went for a late lunch at Cantina Tequila and from there we went to the Two Oceans Aquarium and arrived just in time to watch the shark-feeding. The sharks are fed by divers who drop into the tank and hold out dead fish on sticks which the sharks eat as they swim past. Unfortunately (although this depends on your point of view I guess) the sharks didn’t appear to be hungry and only one bothered to take the fish.

>

The rest of the aquarium was pretty good with some great exhibits of crustaceans, some of which looked like something out of a sci-fi film.

From the aquarium we wandered around the craft market and then watched some of the performers at the amphitheatre before catching the shuttle back to the hotel.

South Africa 2006 - Tired

2006-09-07T08:07:00.000+01:00

It’s Wednesday, or “hump day” as Paul calls it. I think it’s because it’s the middle of the week, but maybe there is some other reason.

It was another long day at work and we were all supposed to be going out to a Mexican with the clients tonight. I was going to go, however, the client has decided not to go and as I’m really tired and still full from the last few meals I think I’ll have a bit of a rest tonight. I was only going to go along in the interest of business relations (honest) so I’m quite pleased to be able to have a relaxing evening in the hotel room and maybe get a takeaway. I think the others, with the exception of Ian are going to go.

Because of the security issues in SA, only certain delivery drivers are allowed to the hotel. There is a brochure from a company called Mr Delivery in my room. It has the menus of around ten different takeaway companies in it. The idea is that you phone the central contact and they then gather your order from the different restaurants and deliver to you. So I’ve ordered a pizza.

The pizza turned up after about an hour – it was okay, a bit soggy but tasty enough. The rest of the evening I spent watching a couple of films on the tv before falling asleep.

South Africa 2006 - Settling In

2006-09-06T08:04:00.000+01:00

I’ve now been here a couple of days now and I’m gradually settling in. Yesterday (Monday) started with breakfast – cereal followed by an omelette before heading off to work.

It was a long day, punctuated only by half an hour at lunchtime while we wandered around a couple of supermarkets in the local mall unsuccessfully trying to find some sandwiches. I ended up with a pasta salad. We finished work at around 6.45ish and we decided to head out into Cape Town and get some refreshment somewhere in the Waterfront. After some discussion three of us decided to get a taxi and the hotel reception ordered one for us.

The others drove into Cape Town and we waited for the taxi. Eventually a clapped out Mercedes turned up with the fattest guy you ever saw behind the wheel. We all piled in and he dropped us at the Waterfront, leaving us with his number so we could call him later. He was a chatty guy and a Manchester United supporter (aren’t all overseas football fans?) and very proud of his city.

We met up with the others in Mitchell’s a pub that brews its own beer and had a couple of drinks. Then, after some discussion, we headed for a fish restaurant called the Ocean Basket. We quizzed the maitre de about the possibility of a veggie meal and he said they would do a halloumi cheese stir fry.

We started with a few olives, fried halloumi and some feta accompanied by some tasting of the various chilli sauces on the table (one of which was very hot) while we waited for the mains to turn up. When they did, the fish meals were huge and my halloumi stir fry was pretty good. It was served in a large frying pan along with some chips.

I was planning on having dessert, but the main meal was so filling that I decided not too.

Once we had paid our bill we went back to Mitchell’s for a drink – I had an 18yr Glenfiddich and we phoned the taxi. Once he arrived, three of us went back to the hotel, but the others decided they’d stop off at the club down the road for a couple more drinks.

Today started with another omelette for breakfast before heading off once again to the office. Despite planning to leave around 5.30pm we still ended up leaving around 6.30pm although we did go out for lunch to a place called Casablanca in the local mall. It was pretty much a burger joint and I ended up with a salad, which was okay, but not particularly exciting.

After arriving back at the hotel, I spent a couple of hours catching up on some work before meeting the some of the others for a late dinner in the Wild Fig.

The dinner was quite spectacular. I started with the fried camembert again and then followed it with a Thai vegetable curry which was lovely. I managed to pick a nice white wine which accompanied the meal nicely. For dessert I had chilli nut ice cream with chocolate sauce – wow! It was lovely. After the meal, despite the bar being closed, the waiter got us some whiskies and brandy to finish the meal off. I had a very pleasing 21yr old Speyburn. They have quite an extensive collection of single malts so I reckon I’ll be back there before the end of the week.

South Africa 2006 - Arrival

2006-09-05T10:53:00.000+01:00

So, here I am on my first day in South Africa. The flight was relatively painless except for the traffic jam at the airport, but I met up with Ben, Paul, Mark and Ian and managed to make arrangements to meet with Ian in SA, as he was on a different flight to the rest of us. Paul and Mark had already booked in when I arrived – Ben had waited so that we could get seats together on the plane.

We had a quick meal in the airport before boarding the plane. Ben and I were at opposite ends of a row, but negotiated with the two girls in the middle to move. This annoyed the air-steward when he brought my veggie meal, but no matter.

The flight took off around a half hour late, but caught up on-route and landed on time. It was fairly smooth, the food was okay (macaroni cheese for dinner, scrambled eggs with mushroom and hash browns for breakfast) and I managed to get a few hours sleep.

Once we’d landed we all made our way through customs and picked up the hire cars. I then followed Paul to the hotel – the Courtyard which is about 10 mins from the airport and about 15mins from the V&A Waterfront. The hotel is quite nice – it has more of a “motel” setup with two storey blocks of rooms around a central courtyard. The rooms each have a small “kitchen” area with a sink, microwave and fridge which might be handy.

After booking in and freshening up we drove in one car to the V&A and had something to eat at Cantina Tequila, a Mexican restaurant. They had a varied veggie selection which surprised me as SA is very meat oriented in its eating. I had a vegetarian combo which consisted of stuffed burritos, tortilla, wrap, peppers and beans and corn in a barbecue sauce all delivered on a huge plate.

While we were there two guys dressed as kangaroos “bounced” along the waterfront where we were sitting, performing a comedy routine, the highlight of which was one of the bouncing along with a large breasted girl while the other one shouted “Don’t look at the headlights!”
“I can’t help it,” replied the first kangaroo.
“No,” shouted back the other guy pointing up the road to an on coming vehicle. “The van!” The timing was perfect.

After finishing the meal, drinks and coffees (which for four of us came to less than £10 each) we made our way back to the airport to meet Ian, who had had to connect flights in Jo’burg.

After returning to the hotel, Ian booked in and I went back to the room for a rest before we all planned to meet up again for the evening.

Around 6.20pm Ben phoned me to say that he and Mark were going to go down to the club that was just down the road. We walked down there, passing the mental hospital that is next to the hotel and had a couple of beers, before making our way back to the hotel and its adjoining restaurant, the Wild Fig, where we were going to eat.

The menu at the Wild Fig has a couple of veggie options and I started with deep fried camembert served with a fig chutney followed by dolmades stuffed with pureed aubergine, rice and mushroom served with a pesto sauce. For pudding I had crème brulee – about a 7 on the scale. The whole meal was very pleasant – the others sampled springbok and ostrich – and it was all presented very well. For five three course meals, two bottles of wine and coffees the total bill came to around R800 (around £75) which is quite amazing. We then tried to get a nightcap in the restaurant and hotel bars, but they were closed up for the night (it was only 11pm) so we all retired to our rooms.

Australia 2006 - Last Day

2006-04-30T10:18:00.000+01:00

Saturday 22nd April
Its our last day. I really don't want to go back. Melbourne is such a fabulous city, and Australia is a great country.

We got up early, booked in to our flight using the internet, finished packing and dropped our cases at the apartment's office.

Then we walked to a cafe opposite South Melbourne Market called Panette where we were meeting Little Louise for breakfast. Last time we were in Melbourne, Alicea told me all about the banana porridge they served, but it was shut over the new year so I've been waiting two years to have it! Louise arrived and I finally got to try the porridge - yummy.

After breakfast we walked around the market It was smaller than the QVM, but still had amazing stuff.

From there Lou drove us to St Kilda, where we had a wander around before meeting Big Lou and Janet at Soul Mama, a vegetarian restaurant in the St Kilda Baths building. Soul Mama is a buffet restaurant where you pick a bowl-size and then you choose the dishes you want to have. It was mostly curry stuff, with the odd pasta and moussaka and I had curry. At present, sitting writing this on the plane, I wish I hadn't as I feel quite bloated and gassy.

After the meal we said our goodbyes and Janet dropped us back at the appartment office where we waited for the shuttle to take us to the airport. Once again, as we left Melbourne, I had a huge lump in my throat and wished that I could stay.

We arrived at the airport and checked in at the online check-in desk - we were pleased that we had done this, as the normal queue was huge.

That done, after a brief moment where Alicea thought she had lost her passport, we went through passport control and looked around duty free, before our flight was called. It took off pretty much on time for the first leg to Singapore.

We arrived slightly early in Singapore. We got off the plane for a brisk walk around duty-free before boarding for the next leg to Dubai. Once in Dubai, we spent quite a while looking around the duty-free and bought a few bits.

The plane from Dubai to England had a better entertainment system and I watched Wallace & Grommitt and Corpse Bride. When we arrived back in the UK, surprise, surprise it was raining...

Australia 2006 - Back to Mornington

2006-04-30T10:07:00.000+01:00

Friday 21st April
We had arranged to meet Nicki at 11am at Federation Square, so we had breakfast on the way at Southbank, then walked to Federation Square where we had a wander around for half hour or so before Nicki picked us up.

She drove us down to Blairgowrie on the Mornington Crescent where Debbie lives. We all then went to the Portsea Hotel for lunch where the girls reminisced about their schooldays. Lunch was good - asparagus risotto followed by a cheese board, but there was a mixup with Debbie's - she is wheat intolerant - but it was sorted out okay.

We went back to Debbie's for the afternoon, stopping by the local school to pick up her daughter and friend - so it was a bit of a squash in the car. We showed them the wedding photos and some of the pictures of the house before we left and Nicki drove us to Surrey Hills, where Robyn lived. She took the scenic coastal route back which was nice but quite a lot longer.

We were all quite full from lunch, so we didn't have anything to eat at Robyn's but we had a nice evening chatting, before we had to say our goodbyes and Nicki drove us to the apartment. Once there, we packed our cases ready for the journey back to the UK tomorrow.

Australia 2006 - Queen Vic Market

2006-04-30T10:03:00.000+01:00

Thursday 20th April
I got up very early this morning (5am) to chat to the family back in the UK over the webcam. It worked really well and it was great to see them. After an hour or so online, we went back to bed to try and catch a snooze before getting up again and getting ready to go out.

We caught a tram to Queen Victoria Market for breakfast. We went to a small coffee house for breakfast run by some Italians. They lost our order and we could hear the arguments in the kitchen, which was quite amusing. We were given a free coffee as recompense for their mistake, so we didn't mind too much.

Queen Vic Market is fantastic. The food halls and the fruit and veg market are awesome. The produce looks so fresh and the variety of stuff available is amazing.

After wandering around there for a while, we then wandered around the rest of the market, which has clothes, opals, watches, in fact just about anything you can think of. It really is huge.

From there, we caught a tram back into the city and did some shopping. We've popped into a couple of banks here to see what the options are for us to open an account for when we move here – the bank fees are unreal, especially when you compare them to the free banking in the UK.

We had lunch in the Blue Train Cafe on Southbank, where Alicea picked a disgusting tasting white wine – I'm not sure if it was corked or not, but they replaced it with a red instead without any fuss.

We returned to the apartment, picking up a souvalaki on the way and Alicea made arrangements to meet up with all her friends over the next couple of days.

Tonight its the turn of Janet and her new boyfriend Andrew. We went to a restaurant in South Melbourne called O'Connells. The food and service was really good, and it was good to see Janet again. We all had a good time, and Alicea enjoyed catching up with all the news. Janet and Andrew dropped us back at the apartment after the meal.

Australia 2006 - Melbourne

2006-04-19T12:54:00.000+01:00

Wednesday 19th April
We got up at 5.45am as we had to drive to Melbourne this morning and arrive there by 10.30 to avoid having to pay an extra day's car hire. Saying goodbye to Mary was very hard, and we packed everything into the car and left around 6.45. I drove for about three quarters of the way to Melbourne, and Alicea took over for the last 50km or so.

As we got closer, we tuned the radio to Triple-M and listened to the breakfast show, which had us in stitches. They'd never be able to get away with most of the stuff they do if it was broadcast in the UK, but it was so funny. I'll never be able to take the film, The Worlds Fastest Indian seriously if I ever see it. At one point I thought we were in serious danger of crashing, Alicea was laughing so much!

Once we arrived in Melbourne, we went to the apartment booking office and booked into our apartment. Luckily, it was ready, so we dumped the luggage and then took the car back. The apartment is on the 34th floor and has a fantastic view across the city.

We then walked into Melbourne city centre, along South Bank. We did some shopping, and then jumped on a tram that took us to Lygon Street, where all the Italian restaurants are. By now, it was lunchtime so we popped into a restaurant where I had a pizza and Alicea had spaghetti bolognaise.

From there, we did some more shopping, before jumping on a tram to take us back to the main shopping area around Swanston Street. I wandered round the food hall in David Jones (a bit like the Harrod's food hall) and found Tiptree Jams and Maldon Sea salt!

After finishing this particular shopping spree, we popped back to the apartment for a rest, before venturing out for dinner. We walked to Federation Square, where we had a drink at one of the bars, before going to a great Chinese restaurant called BokChoy Tang. The food was really nice, and their was plenty of it.

On the way back we both grabbed an ice cream before returning back to the apartment for the night. Before going to bed, Alicea contacted Nikki to make arrangements to see her on Friday, and I connected my laptop up to the internet, and was surprised and pleased to find John online, so I could test my webcam out.

Australia 2006 - Last Day in Moama

2006-04-19T12:52:00.000+01:00

Tuesday 18th April
Today is the last day with Mary and Ray before we head to Melbourne for the last few days of our holiday. After breakfast the girls went shopping in Echuca while Will dropped me off at the internet cafe for 30 minutes while he got some petrol and checked his car for his and Lauren's journey back to Adelaide.

Once he'd picked me up we went along to the outskirts of the town to where there were a few car dealerships. We took out a few cars for a test drive. Will took out a large Toyota jeep and a Toyota pickup and I took out a Rav4 and a Ford four wheel drive. Once we'd done that, we drove into town with the intention of having a pub lunch. We pulled up to park outside a cafe next to the pub and saw the girls eating at the cafe, so we joined them.

After eating, we popped back to the car dealership so that Will could show Lauren the jeep he had test driven. We then said our goodbyes to them and they left for Adelaide.

When we got back to the house, Mary showed me how she makes her shortbreads. I feel quite honoured to have been shown her 'secret' recipe as she said that her, Nick and now me are the only ones to know the recipe.

We then popped back into town and went to Big W, Coles and filled up with petrol ready for the journey to Melbourne tomorrow. For dinner I used up some of the stuff in the fridge and had a curry. After dinner, Michael phoned and chatted to Alicea – apparently he had tried to book a flight from Tasmania to Melbourne to meet up with us, but all the airlines were booked, which was a shame.

The rest of the evening was spent watching the tv before going to bed.

Australia 2006 - Barmah Forest

2006-04-18T01:38:00.000+01:00

Monday 17th April (Easter Monday)
Lauren and Will came round about 10ish and Lauren and Mary went shopping in Echuca. Alicea, Will and myself went to Barmah Forest, a large redgum forest about 30kms from Moama. It was really interesting wandering around the forest with Will as he is very knowledgable about wildlife etc. He found a small ant-lion nest to show us, and we saw a couple of fallen trees that had been used for shelter by kangaroos or wallabies. You could plainly see the tracks left by their tails.

We were hoping to see some goanas, but despite seeing marks on some trees where they had climbed them, we didn't see any of the animals themselves.

We stopped by the river and had some lunch, propping up redgum stumps for a table and chairs before driving through some sandy roads back to the main highway.

We spent the rest of the afternoon at Mary's and left around 5ish to meet with Lauren and Will for a drink at the Border Inn before meeting up with Mary and Ray for a meal. The meal was very nice, but the service was very poor, we had to clear our own table at one point and even summon a waitress for an adjacent table!

Once we left the Border, we went back to Mary's for the night.

Australia 2006 - Easter Barbie and Boats

2006-04-18T01:36:00.000+01:00

Sunday 16th April (Easter Sunday)
Lauren and Will came around for breakfast – a nice fry up of eggs, mushies, tomatoes, bacon etc. I had my veggie bacon and sausages. Once breakfast was over and everything was cleared up, we went down to the “Soundshell” in Moama, where there was a market. The Soundshell is a small open air 'amphitheatre/bowl' where they hold local concerts etc. The market was a fair size and we spent a little time looking round it before heading back to Mary's for lunch. I didn't buy anything at the market, Alicea bought some novelty bra strap thingies.

For lunch, we had a bbq. I did some kebabs and some haloumi cheese and aubergine rolls. The others had ribs, sausages etc. I had my own electric bbq to cook all my stuff on. It was all rather nice and very filling. Nick popped in just after we'd finished eating for a chat. Once all the clearing up had been done, we had a fairly lazy afternoon chatting and watching Aussie Rules on tv. Mum phoned up around 17:20 – it was nice to hear from her and Dad.

Around 6ish, we left to pick Lauren and Will up from their hotel and we went to the port at Echuca, where they were having an Easter Festival on the wharf. We picked our spot on the front of the wharf and Alicea and Lauren went to get some chips for us to eat. Once they returned and it had begun to get dark we watched a sail past of all of the paddle steamers followed by a firework display.

It was a nice evening – the sail past was accompanied by a commentary telling the history of the boats and the fireworks ended the evening nicely. We left the port and dropped Lauren and Will back at their hotel, before going home to Mary's and to bed.

Australia 2006 - Morrisons

2006-04-18T01:33:00.000+01:00

Saturday 15th April
The plan this morning was for Alicea to drive Will's car around to their hotel and to pick them up. However, her and Ray couldn't get it started, so we had to go in our hire-car. It turned out that there was some security thing on their car that we weren't aware of.

We picked up Lauren and Will from their hotel and drove into Echuca where we did some shopping. I picked up a cookbook and Alicea went to see if her ring was ready and also got some Easter eggs. Then we met up with Lauren and Will in a coffee shop and popped into Safeways to get some supplies for tonight and for the bbq tomorrow. On the way back we double parked outside a wine store and Will pretended to check out under the car bonnet while Lauren bought some wine. Then we went back to Mary's and caught a taxi to Morrisons Winery where we were having lunch.

We started with a wine-tasting and we then had the meal. It was fabulous and the service was great. The waiter went through the menu with me, explaining that they could change the dishes if required, so I ordered a spaghetti with mushrooms where there should have been prawns. When it turned up there were loads of mushies of different sorts – it was great. The setting was great, it is on the banks of the Murray river and it was just a really nice meal. We then went back to Mary's for the afternoon and relaxed.

For dinner, we had some antipasti, and I cooked some fennel in cream and some eggplant with pesto and mozzarella. I also did some tamari seeds, which disappeared pretty quickly. The n we all sat and watched a cookery show called the Iron Chef. Its a Chinese/Japanese show dubbed by Americans and was really entertaining. Once that was over it was time for bed.

Australia 2006 - Aussie Rules

2006-04-18T01:32:00.000+01:00

Friday 14th April (Good Friday)
Got up about 8.30 and had hot cross buns for breakfast. I rained quite hard last night and was threatening to rain all morning. After breakfast Alicea and I walked into Moama to a local bakery to buy some bread. The morning was fairly relaxed, and we popped out again to get some stuff for lunch and dinner. Lauren and Will arrived about noon and after lunch, Ray, Will and I went down the local sports club to watch Echuca and Moama play Aussie rules. Moama lost quite heavily (about 105 – 54 or similar) but despite this it was a great afternoon, drinking VB and chatting with Will and Ray. We returned to find all the girls watching a film, which we tried not to make comments through... and then we had dinner. Lauren and Will took a taxi back to their hotel later when the rest of us retired to bed.

Australia 2006 - Long Drive

2006-04-18T01:31:00.000+01:00

Thursday 13th April
Alicea, Mary and I went to a place in the old port in Echuca for breakfast called Wistaria. We all had omelettes, mine was spring onion and mushroom and, as it has been everywhere, asking for something off-menu was no problem.

After breakfast I went to the internet cafe, where I updated my blogs and checked my email. Alicea and Mary went into the town to do some shopping. We met up after an hour or so for coffee and then dropped Mary back home while Alicea and I decided what to do for the afternoon.

The original plan was to go to Bendigo and maybe go down a gold mine, but we decided to head for a small town called Barmah instead. It was pretty small, so small in fact that we had driven through it before we knew it. So, we decided to head towards the city of Shepparton.

It was a long and boring drive along about 60 so kilometres of straight roads. Once we got there we parked and wandered around for an hour or so. Shepparton is a fair size but is pretty unremarkable. In retrospect, given the distances we drove, I wish we had gone to Bendigo, as it looks to have a lot more character. We drove the boring drive back to Moama where we picked up Mary and Ray as we are taking them out for dinner in Echuca.

We went to a place called the Harvest Hotel in Echuca for dinner. The food was okay, and once again there was no problem with me juggling the menu around. The only downside of the meal was the mashed potato which tasted suspiciously like powdered potato.

From there we went back to Mary's for the night.

Australia 2006 - A Trip to Maldon

2006-04-13T02:03:00.000+01:00

Wednesday 12th April.
After breakfast we left to go to Maldon, a small town in the Gold-Mining area. We passed through Bendigo, and arrived in Maldon around 11.30. Its a great little town, but I can't help thinking that it could be much better with a lick of paint and a few more shops selling local produce etc.

We had a cheese scone and a drink and then walked around the town. There are a couple of nice little shops there, and an awful lot selling second hand books, antiques, nik-naks etc and much of the stuff in these shops is pretty awful. At one end of the town is a 'gnome factory' which is fairly awful. The quality of the stuff you can buy there looked mediocre to say the least. There was also a pretty rank Christmas shop there. Unfortunately the vintage motorcycle museum was shut, which was a shame as it looked really good through the window.

We then went back to the same place where we had coffee and we had lunch. I had a teryaki rosti and Alicea had vegetable samosas. Both were very nice.

After we left there, we went to the Goldfields Railway, which is a steam train that runs from Maldon to Castlemaine.

Alicea, not being a train bore like me, drove to Castlemaine with Mary while I took the trip on the train. It was pretty good.

At one point, I thought it had broken down as the train stopped for five minutes or so as it reached the crest of a hill. Apparently, they were pumping water into the boiler so that when the loco headed downhill the water didn't run away from the boiler.

I met up with Alicea and Mary at Castlemaine, and after I watched the train turn around on the turntable, I joined them in the car and we drove back to Moama, via the shops.

Australia 2006 - Paddlesteamers

2006-04-13T01:57:00.000+01:00

Tuesday 11th April
I slept better last night and we had crumpets for breakfast.

We popped into Echuca and booked a ride on one of the paddle-steamers for the afternoon. The guy that sold us the tickets knew of Kent in the UK and spoke of 'two oaks' meaning Sevenoaks and the 87 storms. We also popped into a juice bar and had a smoothie each, before driving to see Nick and Natalie's place.

Their place is quite nice, but is in the middle of nowhere. They are doing a lot of work on it and Nat's family were over helping build a pen for the dogs as well as doing other stuff. We spent about an hour or so there before leaving for Echuca once more.

At Echuca, we parked at the port and had some lunch at the Star restaurant. We had sandwiches and some chips and wedges.

Then we had a quick look around the wharf before boarding the PS Pevensey for a leisurely cruise along the River Murray. It was nice and relaxing and the scenery was great.

After the cruise we had a quick look around some of the other buildings, including an underground bar and tunnel where the locals used to escape from the police when drinking.

After that we brought a few bits at the local shops before returning back to Mary's where I cooked myself a courgette and pumpkin risotto and Alicea had stew on toast which, apparently, is one of her favourites.

Australia 2006 - Echuca

2006-04-13T01:51:00.000+01:00

Monday 10th April
I slept in two halves. Despite having some indigestion – I was so full after the meal - I fell asleep fairly shortly after going to bed, but woke up around 2ish and then took a couple of hours to get off again. I heard Ray leave for work somewhere around 3.30 and I must've fallen asleep sometime after that, as the next I knew, it was 8 o'clock.

I got up and cooked some pancakes for brekky as Mary had made a mix up although, to be honest I am still full from the meal last night.

Alicea, Mary and myself drove into Echuca and went shopping at Coles where we bought some food for dinner tonight and the barbecue that Mary is having at the weekend.

Once we had returned to the car, we drove to the old Port part of Echuca which has all the historical buildings. We wandered around a redgum furniture place – there was a fantastic table and a magnificent breakfast bar there – before going to a couple of places to do some wine tasting. We bought a nice Merlot to accompany tonight's dinner and a white port, which was really nice. I also bought some nice olive oil from one of the places that press their own. On the way back to the car, we popped into a fish & chip shop where Alicea had some Dim Sims. From there we went back to Mary's and then popped out briefly to drop some dry cleaning off and have a quick look around the nearby Safeways where I managed to pick up some veggie bacon. The current quest is to find some vegetable suet as it seems to be fairly unknown here, and Mary is going to make some syrup dumplings.

Once back at the house we cooked our dinners. Mary had done herself and Ray some lamb cutlets and Alicea made herself some Spaghetti Bolognaise. I made papardelle with zuccini and chilli.

After dinner we sat down and began to watch the TV, but we were both still tired, so around 8.30pm we decided to retire to bed.

Australia 2006 - Arrival

2006-04-13T01:49:00.000+01:00

Sunday 9th April
We awoke and breakfasted at the Hilton around 10ish. After checking out we picked the car up from Budget and began our trip to Moama to see Alicea's mum and Ray. The car is a Nissan Pulsar and has cruise control, which is a bonus when you are driving long distance and have to watch the speed limit.

After an initial mistake, where we missed a couple of turn offs, we were on the road to Echuca and Moama. We stopped at a small town to go to the loo, but other than that it was a straight though drive and we arrived at Mary's around about 2.3ish.

Their new house is really nice. It's spacious and really well laid out. Our bedroom is a good size and the bed is very comfy.

We sat around for the best part of the afternoon chatting with Mary, Ray and Nick (Alicea's nephew) and it really feels like we've never been away. It was good chatting to Nick. He's a chef at a local restaurant and we spent quite some time talking about food. He's quite keen on getting a better knowledge of vegetarian food and has asked me to send him some recipes when I get back.

In the evening we went into Moama and ate at the Border Inn Hotel, which is where Nick chef's, although tonight it was his night off. The food was very nice – and the gnocci was the best I've had for a long time. After eating we went back to Mary's where we watched CSI before going to bed.

Australia 2006 - Getting There

2006-04-13T01:48:00.000+01:00

Saturday 8th April

We landed at Singapore more or less on time. Apart from the stewards forgetting my food, the flight was straighforward and fairly smooth. The planes have outside cameras which let you watch the take off and landing or what you are flying over, which is quite fun. We only had about half an hour at Singapore, so we rushed around duty free where Alicea bought herself a gold charm.

The flight was a bit late taking off, which meant we were around half an hour late landing at Melbourne. I was really pleased that we had booked into the Hilton Hotel opposite the airport as we were able to have a shower and fall into bed vitually straight away after we had cleared customs.

Australia 2006 - On the Way

2006-04-13T01:47:00.001+01:00

Friday 7th April

The taxi picked us up just before 10am and dropped us at Edenbridge station. The train was on time and got to Gatwick nice and early, enabling us to check in and have something to eat. The flight to Dubai was fairly uneventful and we had a couple of hours at Dubai airport to look around.

Getting Married - Back Home

2005-03-25T06:00:00.000Z

We woke and went down for breakfast, where I had porridge followed by scrambled eggs, mushrooms and a potato cake.

Then we went back to the room to collect the bags before checking out. The express checkout form they had pushed under the door had missed off last night's restaurant bill, so I queried it. They had removed it from our bill for some reason as it looked as though there had been a mix up and we were charged another room's dinner.

Once we'd paid we drove back to the airport. Once there we dropped the hire-car keys off and checked in.

The flight back was on time and uneventful, and we arrived back home at about 1.45pm to find our marriage certificate and a new bank card for Alicea awaiting.

Getting Married - All Done

2005-03-24T06:00:00.000Z

We woke and went to the dining room for breakfast. Then, after we had packed we took the cases to the car. On the way we met an artist who was unloading his pictures for an exhibition. We liked a couple of the pictures and arranged to buy one of Culzean Castle at winter time. The offices to the castle were closed so we couldn't pay our bill, so we had a wander around the grounds, taking a few pictures before we went into Ayr to take my suit back. While I was there I also bought a coat.

From there we drove to Burns' cottage where Robert Burns was born. We looked around the museum, and the cottage itself before going back to Culzean to pay and to pick up the picture. We also got a couple of extra brochures of the castle to give to our families.

Once we had paid and said our goodbyes to David Heron, the castle manager, and Gordon, we had a quick chat with the artist and made our way to Turnberry.

We booked in to find that we had been upgraded to an ocean view room. The room wasn't quite ready so we went across to the spa centre and had a drink and a bite to eat. Alicea booked in for a facial and I waited until about three o'clock before returning to the hotel to get our keys.

The room was lovely and had a magnificent view over the golf course to the sea. There was also a bottle of champagne, flowers, chocolates and a card of congratulations waiting for us. The porter delivered the bags and I sat and waited for Alicea.

I popped down to the car for something and met Alicea in the car park as she returned from her facial.

"What's the room like," she asked.

I told her it was a bit small, trying to keep a straight face. When we got to the room, I had shut the door between the main door and the room itself.

"See, this is it," I said.

She called me some names and opened the door to the room.

We were both very pleased with the room and opened the champagne. We each had a bath and got ready for the evening meal. Before going to dinner we popped down to the hotel shop and then across to the pro-shop to get some presents.

Then we went to one of the bars in the restaurant, the Ailsa Bar where Alicea had a wine and I had a scotch. Then we went to the restaurant. We had both dressed up, Alicea in a lovely black dress and myself in a suit. The food was nice, although the main course I had, poached asparagus, was disappointing as it was little more than a clear soup with a few sticks of asparagus floating in it. Also, there was a mix up with my desert that meant it was late arriving. Other than that, the meal was very nice.

Once the meal was finished, we went to bed.

Getting Married - Wedding Day

2005-03-22T22:00:00.000Z

Just Married

The big day!

We awoke and went down for breakfast to find that Caroline and Iain had got us a card and present for our wedding day. How lovely. It was amazingly nice of them. It was a wooden picture frame. We made arrangements to leave the dress and my suit there until we needed them after lunch and the, after breakfast, we walked into Ayr so that Alicea could get her hair and make-up done.

While she was doing that, I wandered around the town, returning to the B&B around midday. Alicea phoned shortly after to say she was done and I went to pick her up. We returned to the B&B to pay and say our goodbyes and got big cuddles from Caroline, the landlady. We then left for Troon where we had to pick the flowers up. That done, we drove to Culzean, stopping en-route to get some hairspray. The weather was staying dry, but getting very windy.

We arrived at Culzean and were met by Gordon who informed me that he was to be my best man. We were shown up to the Eisenhower apartment and given a quick tour by Kelly Jo, who was arranging afternoon tea and dinner for the evening. I then got changed and went to wait in the drawing room where an afternoon cream tea and cakes was waiting for us. After eating some scones, jam and cream Alicea went back to the bedroom to get changed.

Denise, the registrar, and Robert, the photographer arrived, along with Isabelle who was to be our other witness. Gordon is quite a character and along with Robert and Denise kept the banter light and relaxed while we waited for Alicea. At one point Denise even ended up doing an impression of the Monty Python knights 'galloping'.

At 4pm, Alicea arrived looking absolutely beautiful and the ceremony began. I was quite nervous and concentrated on getting my words right, all the time thinking how wonderful my bride looked. Alicea was quite nervous too I think as she got my forenames around the wrong way, but quickly corrected herself. Once we were pronounced husband and wife Alicea's eyes filled with tears (of happiness I hope) and I gave her a big kiss. Robert had been taking pictures throughout the ceremony but to be honest I'd hardly noticed as he kept out of the way. We signed the register, had some photos with Gordon, Isabelle and Denise and it was time for Robert to do his stuff.

I was really pleased that we picked Robert to do the photos, as he new the castle very well and also knew the people that ran it. This meant that he knew the best locations to take the photos and also managed to get into other parts of the castle. We had quite a few pictures taken outside, but it started to rain before we had a chance to go to the beach to have some pictures taken there. Once Robert had finished, he left and we then had some time to relax before dinner was served.

We had a drink - Alicea had a gin & tonic and I had a whisky - and we decided to phone our parents. They were all thrilled with the news. We put some music on the CD player and had a dance, but the player kept switching itself off.

At around 7.30 we went into the dining room where we were served Cheese Souffle and Stuffed Peppers for starters (which we shared) Alicea had Sea Bass and I had Vegetable Pie for main and a chocolate torte for sweet. This was accompanied by wine.

Once we had finished dinner we sat in the lounge for a while, in front of the fire that they had lit. By this time, we were on our own in the castle. There was a weird moment when the door opened and nobody came in – perhaps the castle has a ghost!

After the fire had started to die down, we went to bed.

Getting Married - Settling In

2005-03-22T06:00:00.000Z

We both had a fairly big breakfast and after another chat with Caroline we left for airport to get my name added to the car so I could drive it.

Today we had to see the registrar and the photographer. We were both a little apprehensive about seeing the registrar as we weren't sure whether Alicea's visa requirements were correct for her to get married. We arrived at the registrars and spoke to Denise Mackay who was going to carry out the ceremony. She was really nice and went through all the ceremony etc and chatted about Culzean. She didn't mention the visa, so neither did we. Once we were back in the car, Alicea said that we ought to speak to her about it, just in case, so we went back in and she took a photocopy of Alicea's passport, but said that as we had booked the wedding before February it shouldn't matter. That done we went to visit Robert Clark, the photographer.

Robert is a really friendly guy who has done loads of weddings at Culzean so we felt really happy with our choice once we left him.
We then parked back at the B&B and walked to the station where we caught a train into Glasgow to have a look around and do some shopping and get Alicea's wedding ring cleaned. She also got a manicure. Glasgow didn't have the same effect on me as Edinburgh, it seems quite industrial and dreary, but the afternoon was pleasant enough and we had lunch at TGI Friday's before catching the train back to Ayr. We ate in an Italian restaurant called Cecchini's, which was very nice, before returning to the B&B for the night.

Getting Married - Arrival in Scotland

2005-03-21T06:00:00.000Z

Having packed the night before, we left for Stansted about 6am. We arrived in plenty of time, parked and made our way to the terminal and booked in at the Ryanair desk. We then went to Ponti's where Alicea had a bacon baguette and some coffee and I had an orange juice. Once that was finished we popped to the cash machines. Alicea put her card into the machine, typed her PIN in and the machine switched itself off and rebooted, retaining Alicea's card. She was not happy as she now had no cash of her own to use. She spoke to the man at the Travelex kiosk where the machines were located, but he had no way to retrieve the card. However, he did give us a customer services phone number from where Alicea obtained the number she needed to contact HSBC. Once through passport control we made our way to the departure gate where Alicea spoke to HSBC. They weren't an awful lot of help and just said that they would post the card back.

We boarded the plane and it took off on time. The flight was uneventful, except that Alicea kept getting kicked in the back by the child in the seat behind.

We landed at Prestwick ten minutes early. While I waited for the cases Alicea went to the bureau de change to change some of her Polish and Czech money to sterling. Once she returned we went to the Hertz kiosk to pick up the rental car. I hadn't brought the paper part of my license so couldn't drive until they could verify my details with DVLA, which would be tomorrow.

We picked up the car and drove to the B&B. We had arrived quite early but the room was ready, so we dropped off our bags and walked into Ayr town centre to pick up my suit from Slater's hire shop. All of the measurements had been faxed to them so I hoped that I'd got them right. As it was, the suit fitted perfectly and I bought a shirt and a couple of ties before we went for a wander round Ayr looking for somewhere to have lunch. First of all we popped into a Wetherspoons, but they had no electricity in the kitchens so half the menu wasn't available. We then found a place on the way back to the B&B where we had a soup (I had mushroom - yummy, and Alicea had tomato and coriander) followed by a risotto for me and chicken for Alicea and we shared a bowl of chips.

We the drove down to Culzean to have a look at the castle grounds. On the way we stopped at Electric Brae, a place where the lie of the land makes it look as though the road is going uphill, when in fact it is going downhill. We pulled up in the layby and spent five minutes with the brakes off, gently rolling 'uphill'! We arrived at Culzean after the restaurant and shops had closed so we had a quick look around before making our way to Turnberry to look at the hotel we would be staying in on Wednesday.

We then went back to the B&B to relax and have a bath before going out to find somewhere to have dinner. The B&B was really nice and we stated chatting to Caroline, who owned the place with her husband Iain. She recommended a place called Ellisland to eat which was just around the corner. We decided to try it and were glad we did as the food was lovely and it was very reasonably priced. We discovered this was because they'd left a couple of items off of the bill, so we got them to rectify it, but it was still reasonable. The food was very nice too, especially the sticky toffee pudding! We were also taken with the pictures they had in the restaurant by someone whose signature looked like Hagen, or Hayden, so we're going to try and find out if we can get a print of one of the pictures.

After the meal we made our way back to the B&B for the night.

Weekend Woes

2004-08-16T05:25:00.000+01:00

Well, I've been pretty busy with other things this weekend. Saturday was filled with jobs around the house and shopping, and today we went to see the Tin-Tin exhibition at Greenwich before Alicea goes off to Oz.
However, I have now got a couple of hours to have a last fling now, before I go back to work, so we'll see how I go. Overall, I'm please I hit the 20k, I feel that I'm well on my way now, and my previous estimate of fifteen years to finish this thing can now be revised quite a bit!

Writing On...

2004-08-14T06:40:00.000+01:00

Just finished watching the opening ceremony of the Olympics - it was very impressive.
Today, I have mostly been writing "Back Story" and it seems to be coming together okay. I've now hit my target of 20k words and would like to add another 5k before over the weekend before I return to work on Monday. I'm not sure how realistic this is, as we've a few jobs and outings planned that will take a lot of the available writing time, but you never know.

Once I hit the 25k, I feel I wil have broken the back of it and it will be plain sailing to the end... Here's hopin'

Going Steady

2004-08-13T16:46:00.000+01:00

Yesterday was a good day. I worked all afternoon and late into the evening, finally retiring about 11pm. So, now most of the back story is done and I can continue with the main plot. I had to shift some chapters around yesterday - I use a program called QuickPlot that holds the outline of each chapter, which made it reasonably easy to move things about and see whether the story still flowed okay. So, back to work today - blog later!

Early Edition

2004-08-11T12:36:00.000+01:00

It's 4.30am and I'm up early to pick Alicea up from the airport. She's arriving back a couple of days early, so it's gonna be really nice to see her. Mum & Dad are popping over today to see us, I'm not sure what kind of company we'll be as Alicea won't have slept much on the plane, and I didn't sleep much last night either.

After the change of plans over the last couple of daye, yesterday I was finally able to crack on with the writing. And I am pretty pleased with the result. I did a whole load of back story yesterday, setting the scene for why and how everything is happpening. I'm feeling reasonable confident I can hit the 20k - 25k words (my target to be roughly about halfway through the book) by the end of the week, providing nothing else comes up to change my plans.

Slow Start

2004-08-09T08:04:00.000+01:00

So, things haven't gone as well as I'd hoped, but I have done some more writing. All in all, I've done a couple of chapters over the last week and fleshed out one or two of the earlier ones. Anyway, I've now got a week off of work to spend as much time as I can on the novel.

Having said that though, I've a list of jobs to do that Alicea left me. I was supposed to do some today, but I had a terrific migraine and didn't get up until 4pm, which was too late to do most of them, as the shops were shut by then. I've got the gas man coming tomorrow to look fix the hot water and Mum & Dad are coming by on Wednesday. So, between those events I've got to buy and fix a new gate, tidy the shed and garage and write my novel. Fingers crossed...

First Efforts

2004-08-02T09:34:00.000+01:00

Last night I did the chapter I've been putting off for ages - the rude one. It's been awkward as the main event that the chapter leads up to came very close to home a few weeks back, so I was reluctant to write about it. However, its done now and I can get on with the rest of the story.

Last night, while doing some research about ancient societies that I need to reference during the course of the story, I came across many references to the DaVinci Code by Dan Brown. By coincedence the book is next on my list to read, after I've finished Ian Rankin's latest Rebus novel. I hope I'm not seen as jumping on the bandwagon, or ripping Dan Brown off -although this will be difficult as I've not read the book at all yet.

Preparations

2004-08-01T09:47:00.000+01:00

So, I drove Alicea to the airport last night for her two weeks in SA. I checked that the plane had landed safely this morning (which it did.)

And here I am, with two weeks to try and flesh my novel out. I've uploaded everything I can think of onto my new PC and read through what I have so far, to try and get back ito the swing of things. I'm still working this week, but next week, I've a week off, so the plan is to go 'hell for leather' to get as much done as possible.

I thought I'd keep this Blog, just for interest and see what happens during the writing process.

I'm off for brekky now.