Big Yin and Disneyland Paris - A week of contrasts.

This week I went to see the Big Yin, Billy Connolly in Manchester. As usual he was hysterical. The hair was as wild as always but is now silver in colour. The beard is now nicely trimmed and he prowls the stage with ease in drainpipe trousers and pointy shoes. He came onstage wearing dark rimmed glasses but took them off within a couple of minutes and proceeded to rant and rage about all manner of annoyances in his life. He was onstage for well over 2 hours - without a break, no mean feat for a guy whose now 64 - but as usual with a Billy concert, ( I've seen him 3 times now) I can barely remember anything he said, a point he acknowledges himself during the show. What I do remember however was laughing manically throughout. The guy is a genius and it was, without a doubt a thoroughly good evening.

The lovebirds have truly settled in and have this week been using their play gym. This is a wooden adventure playground that goes on top of their cage and contains several perches, a spiral staircase,a swing, a couple of hanging toys with bells on and four little plastic balls with bells inside. In summary, it's wooden, chewable and noisy. Yogi and BooBoo are besides themselves with joy. The intention with the play gym is to provide somewhere for the birds to play when they're outside of the cage. This is more preferable than the birds swinging off my curtains and chewing through the electrical cables, both activities they appear to thoroughly enjoy.I try to let the birds out for an hour or so each day. Letting them out is easy, the difficult bit is getting them back in again. I've decided that the best way is to use their favourite food, millet seed. If I place the millet in their cage, near one of the many openings, but - and here's the cunning part - just out of reach, then they will come to the opening and once they've realised that they can't reach it from outside, they go straight in. I then rush around closing all of the openings like some demented fool. It's similar to coaxing your little angels in for tea by waving burger and chips at them through the window. They love millet seed although it's the bird equivalent of junk food. It is high in fat and polyunsaturates and has minimal nutrition. I do find it very interesting how their favourite food is their least healthy food and their least favourite food - fresh fruit and veg - is the most healthy. They're just like us humans really in that respect.

I had booked my annual day out in Paris some months ago, when it was a cheap bargain on Easyjet. Thanks as always must go to the mighty http://www.skyscanner.net/ for enabling me to find this, and all of my other cheap flights. I woke at 5:30am and quickly washed, dressed & gathered together the least amount of possessions that I could justify for the trip. I refuse to take a bag on these sort of trips as carrying a bag for 12 hours gets rather weary. I left for the airport at 6am, still dark and as you'd expect for that hour on a Sunday morning, I felt like I was the only person awake in the World. As I watched a glorious sunrise over the motorway, the fingers of light reflecting on the chimneys of the oil refinery (not very romantic I grant you, but I tell it how it is!) my mind turned to what I was actually going to do with my day in Paris. I've been to Paris on numerous occasions and I've been to the majority of Paris' feature tourist attractions. I never tire of these sights but I wanted to do something different on this occasion. It was at that point that I remembered a conversation with my next door neighbour who had commented previously about going to Disneyland. As I drove along the near deserted motorway, I was trying to work out if I could actually do Disney in a day. How long would it take to get to the park from Charles De Gaulle ? - my least favourite airport in the whole wide World and I say that with some experience of the World's airports. What time would I need to be back for check in ? How long would I need to get from the Park to ensure I made check in ? In the end I realised it was going to be tight, that I'd miss more than I would see but it did seem like a really good, fun way to spend the day and I didn't have a plan B. I didn't have a Plan A to be honest but at that precise moment I decided, a day at Disney, it was going to be.

The flight from Liverpool to Charles De Gaulle takes an hour and I shared my flight with a planeload of Irish who were all en route to cheer on their team in the Rugby World Cup. The Irish were playing the Argies at the Parc de Prance for a place in the last 8. The Irish were in good spirits and the craic was good - as Van Morrison once said. At Charles De Gaulle, I deftly negotiated my way past all of my fellow passengers who had the untold delights of a Parisian baggage collection system to contend with and headed for the RER train station. Things were going too well and I was sure I was in for a fall. I didn't have to wait too long. I had a quick look at the map and subsequently misread the closest station for Disney. I bought a ticket for Chateau de Vincennes station. This looked a straightforward trip, Charles De Gaulle to Chatelet Les Halles on RER B then change onto RER A to Disney. As we're approaching Chateau de Vincennes I did notice the lack of children on the train and especially the lack of Micky Mouse Ears adorning the little cherub's heads. Mickey Mouse ears, of course being the accepted International sign that Disney is close by. I dismissed these doubts as it being still quite early in the day, that it was a Sunday and that it was getting towards the end of the season. I left the train at Chateau de Vincennes and emerged bleary eyed into brilliant sunlight and a piercing blue sky.... and into the middle of a Sunday market. This certainly didn't look like Euro Disney had done when I was last there, some 10 years or so ago. The Disney themed shops I remembered had been staffed by young, smily, nubile assistants selling Disney logo'd merchandise but had now apparently been replaced with beetroot faced women of advancing years and pendulous, sagging breasts using paint splattered decorating tables to sell their fruit and veg ! Alarm bells should have been ringing like it was a World Record attempt at amassing the largest and loudest collection of campanologists but I just figured that the park is pretty large so it wouldn't be hard to spot if I just 'walked around for a bit'. I found a map in the Bus Station and realised my mistake, I needed "Vicennes" not "Chateau de Vincennes"! Actually, I didn't need Vicennes either - nothing like it in fact - but hindsight is a marvellous thing. According to the map, Vicennes RER station looked to be just up the road, it was a nice day and seeing a city on foot is so much nicer than being underground. I therefore headed off in the general direction of the suburb of Vicennes. I passed the Chateau that bore the name of this particular area and it was tall, imposing and very impressive but I didn't dwell as I had a station to find, whereupon the Park would be just metres away. As I came to a major road junction, I was surprised to find that there wasn't any signpost for Disney, nor any billboards featuring Mickey wearing his Fantasia wizards hat at the customary jaunty angle. I was beginning to get the feeling that I was in the wrong place. I decided to press on and find the station, so that I could gather my thoughts and find exactly where I needed to be. I did consider asking a local for directions to one of the Worlds largest, but apparently hidden, theme parks but whereas I felt confident in my "excusez-moi monsieur, ou est le Parc de Disney sil vous plait?" I didn't much fancy my chances of understanding the Frenchman's answer, most likely the French equivalent of "You Sir are a total doofus and are hopelessly lost in my great and noble country... You need to go back to whichever station you arrived at and learn how to read a map. Whereupon you will realise that you need to take the RER B3 line to Marne la Vallee, you pathetic English tourist with your terrible weather, bad food, warm beer and hapless sense of fashion"..... Or words to that effect.

As such I pressed on regardless and despite following the signs to the RER Station - which took me so far then the signs seemed to lose interest and stopped abruptly, I couldn't find Vicennes station. I wandered down every road and side street in the town. I passed lots of pretty french houses with shuttered windows and heavy stone facades. With each road, my hopes that it would lead me to a station, or better still, Disney,were cruelly dashed. Now in London, cab drivers have to pass "The Knowledge". This is a very tough exam that requires an encyclopedic knowledge of the streets of London. A knowledge of London, so remarkable it would make Dustin Hoffman in Rainman look positively forgetful. After exhausting every street for seemingly miles around, I have no doubts that if Vicennes had their own local version of "The Knowledge" then I would have passed with flying colours. I was almost hoping that someone would ask me for directions as I was confident that I could direct anybody to any street in the town without a moments hesitation. At one point I did consider staying here for ever and opening a Vicennes Tourist Information Office. It seemed a sensible idea as I clearly wasn't going to find my way out of town. I could run tours to visit the drunks on Rue de Montreuil and to take hordes of camera happy Japanese tourists for a walk around the large building site on Rue Monmoray. However, it was whilst I was thinking of my new life working in French tourism that I almost fell down a subway. This miraculously turned out to be Croix de Chevaux Metro station (No I've never heard of it either)but every station has a map and is a good way out of a sticky situation such as this. I soon discovered my error and had the indignity of having to buy yet another ticket to get me back to a station I had passed earlier in the morning in order to catch the correct train to Disney.

Disney, once I arrived there was fantastic as all Disney Parks are. I jointly hold the family record for Disney Parks having visited 3 of the 5 parks Worldwide. I'm rather disappointed that I've been to Hong Kong twice but never had the opportunity to visit the Disney Park on Hong Kong's Lantau Island and thereby put me clearly ahead in the family Disney Park stakes, with four. The park was as full as I've ever seen at any location and as it was now lunctime everything was in full swing. I quickly found a park map and decided that my plan of attack was going to be Pirates of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones, Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blaster and Space Mountain.
If time permitted, the Phantom Mansion, Small World and Star Tours. I did Pirates first as that is one of my favourite rides, the attention to detail, the smells, the make believe flames, the "yo ho ho, it's a pirates life for me" song, Just fab. I then went to the Indiana Jones ride. In hindsight this was a mistake as the ride lasted a little over a minute but the queue was around an hour. On a schedule as tight as mine this was way too long. As I'm no doubt you're aware, at theme parks they take the queue in a little tour around the ride, snaking up and down and then past the entrance to lead you to believe you're nearly at the front of the line before cruelly snaking up and down again for another half an hour. This means that you pass the same people coming in the opposite direction, every 10 minutes or so for an hour or more. The people you queue with, total strangers of course, become like friends, in fact I've spent more time with people in theme park queues than I have with some girlfriends ! I could almost imagine us having reunions. Anyway, as I'm waiting in line I accidentally caught the eye of a girl aged about 15 coming in the opposite direction with her school mates and then of course every 10 minutes we passed each other and I seemed to catch her eye every time. I felt like some weird perverted stalker. The more desperately I tried to look anywhere but at her, I always seemed to catch her eye. I was dying with embarrassment as I assume, was she. I was so pleased when I eventually got to the head of the queue and didn't have to cross her path anymore. The Indiana Jones ride was excellent but not worth the queue time for such a short trip. I grabbed a bite to eat and headed off to Buzz Lightyear as soon as I could. Now Buzz is one of the best rides at Disney. It's genius. It's a ride where you sit in a moving space craft shaped vehicle, known as a Star Cruiser, that proceeds along a space themed track and all riders, referred to as Space Rangers have their own laser gun to fire. Buzz explains that he needs your help to beat his evil nemesis, a Darth Vader type character called Emperor Zurg. What all of this means is that whenever you see Zurg, his henchman or their various spacecraft during the ride you zap them by manically firing your laser guns. They crop up continually, sometimes to your right, sometimes to your left, sometimes above you, sometimes below, sometimes behind you.
The whole car flicks right and left and even spins through 360 degrees as you proceed through the ride, allowing you to shoot Zurg & his heavies as you go. With each "kill" your personal score increases and at the end of the ride your score is displayed for everybody to see on the big screen along with that of your fellow Space Rangers. In essence, you're playing a sort of real life video game against your fellow passengers whilst physically riding inside of the game with Buzz, Woody and all of the other Toy Story characters cheering you on. Buzz is constantly shouting instructions so that you shoot the right targets to gain the highest scores. It's terrific fun and an idea of true genius as everybody, from young children to senior citizens, are all playing along with smiles so wide we all look like we've eaten coat hangars for lunch. All the while firing hysterically at everything. Fabulous ! I finished with a total score of 5430, which I thought was pretty good until I saw some of the other scores which in some cases totalled well over 300,000 ! How they managed this I have no idea. Another great feature about this game is that you can play Astro Blasters online at home (and get this) against people actually on the ride at Disneyland California! Wowsers !! The link if you want to do this is as follows http://disneyland.disney.go.com/disneyland/en_US/buzzOnline/index?name=BuzzOnlineDownloadPage . Just copy and paste the link into your browser and follow the instructions to download the necessary software. The Buzz ride was followed by the wonderful Space Mountain. This, as I'm sure you'll know, is a roller coaster ride in near total darkness. Space Mountain, as always was great but again the time spent in the queue was really too long given my schedule. The Phantom Mansion was my final ride of the day as I was conscious that I needed to get back to the airport in time for check in at 8pm. Given my error earlier that morning, I was a bit worried of making a similar mistake on the return journey and missing the flight.









My train ride back to the airport was uneventful, as was my flight home,apart from the worlds most annoying child in the seat behind mine. He spent the entire flight kicking my seat, shouting at his dad because he didn't like his seat, refusing to put his seat belt on and then immediately taking it off when his ineffectual Dad put the belt on for him. Despite the obvious health and safety hazard and personal risk to myself, I could happily have opened the door of the aircraft and hauled him out of the plane from 34,000 feet. If being a cheeky Brat was a University course, he would have a Masters degree. Both the airport and the flight were once again filled with Irish rugby supporters, although following a rather dire performance (the fans appraisal, not mine) and a 30-15 defeat to the Argies which put them out of the tournament; they were much less buoyant than they had been on the outbound flight. They were all in good spirits nonetheless due mainly to the fact that they had spent the day drinking good spirits and no doubt the odd pint of the black stuff as well.

I arrived back home a shade after 11pm. Tired but happy and very much looking forward to my bed and to taking off my shoes. - although not necessarily in that order.

My summary of the day? Trying to do Disney in a day was a tall order to say the least and it really isn't possible to do it justice unless you're able to get there very early and leave very late. It is not really possible in a single day with flight & train times and especially with stupid navigational errors such as mine. However, the day was brilliant, I loved every minute of it and will definately do it again...maybe next year, maybe next weekend, who knows ??

So that was my week really, the start of which featured the very un-Disneylike Billy Connolly and ended with the erm, very Disneylike, Disney ! A week of contrasts you may say ?

Things I've learnt this week

1. To check which station I need to get off at beforehand. Quite important this bit.
2. That 7 year old children can be the most irritating people imaginable.
3. That it's possible to feel both a stalker & a pervert at the same time when standing innocently in a theme park queue.

Things that have annoyed me this week:

1. Parking machines that don't give change... Why not ?
2. Human generated Global warming (this may become a common theme in the future)
3. Politicians that don't answer the questions.
4. Queuing.
5. Previously mentioned 7 year old brat.

Things that have made me smile this week:

1. Billy Connolly
2. A colleague stating " I see the f*** up fairy has paid us another visit"
3. Reading a piece in the paper that stated "I dream of a world, when a chicken can cross the road without having it's motives questioned"

Til the next time. ta ta

Another few weeks have passed...

Well there I was saying that I was going to bring the story upto date but as each week passes I find myself getting further and further behind so I decided that I'd update in one post and then it will be easier to post, a week at a time. Quite frankly trying to blog some 9 months in roughly chronological order in individual posts was too daunting a job and, with the best intentions it wasn't going to happen.

I'm now working at a different organisation. Its a Laboratory about 20 minutes from where I live, not that I work in science myself, I still do the same type of work that I always have but the organisation does DNA, BSE, Scene or crime forensics, drug testing etc so it's quite interesting. I also have an office (rather than an open plan environment that seems to be fashionable these days) and I can work in jeans and t-shirt rather than a business shirt and tie. Best of all, I can be home before 5:30 which, when I've been used to getting home after 7:30 for more years than I care to mention is a major bonus. As it's a permanent contract, I don't earn anything like I did as a contractor so I'm going to miss the money but with a slightly tightened belt (and with my belly these days that isn't easy or particularly comfortable.... and my trousers already leave flesh marks on my skin when I take them off. I can sometimes count the change I've had in my pockets during the day!) I should be able to get by. If I find myself skint however and my lifestyle is compromised to any great degree the I'll just go back contracting.

Right, it's time to drop in a few pics and in doing so, I can remind myself what I've been upto since coming back from Auckland.

I worked on a Christmas lights switch-on in Sheffield in early December. The lights were being switched on by the group, McFly who then proceeded to play a blistering set.



Christmas was spent in the South of France. I'd finished my contract with a major television broadcaster immediately before Christmas and I gladly accepted my elder Brother's offer of a road trip from the UK to the South of France. My Dad asked if it was possible for us to drop into the War Graves near Flers in the Somme as his Grandfather (who had been killed some 20 years before my father was born) was buried there and nobody had ever had the opportunity to visit the grave. Mainly due to none of us knowing where he was buried or even if his body had ever been identified and buried in a marked grave. This Gentleman had fought in the trenches of Somme during the Great War and died on the 1st September 1918, a mere 2 months from the end of hostilities. The picture below is the graveyard where he lies. This is known as the AIF Graveyard and is maintained superbly by the War Graves Commission and remains a credit to the 3000 plus soldiers who lie there.



The weather was very foggy which gave the whole day a really eerie atmosphere. On the plus side it did give tremendous opportunity for some fabulous photo's, some of which are below as well as the photo at the top of this post. As the day wore on the fog lifted and gave way to the beautiful sunset in the photo below.



We spent a long time in the Somme and we were surprised by the number of war graveyards there were, many from overseas forces such as Canada, USA, New Zealand, South Africa & Australia.



All these graveyards were neatly tended and the graves were all perfectly aligned and identical in every way. All the headstones were a gleaming white & certainly didn't look like they were around 90 years old. The American graveyards featured little white crosses rather than the headstones favoured by the other Nations. It was quite a moving experience really and I'm glad that we had the opportunity to visit the Somme and to visit my Great Grandfather's grave, the first people ever to do so in nearly 90 years. This is kind of sad really but it has to be said if it hadn't been for some serious sleuthing by my Dad and the wonders of the Internet, Dad would never have eventually found the location of his Grandfathers resting place during 2006.



On a more happier note, we made it from the North West of the UK to the South of France in two days arriving on the 22nd December. On Christmas Eve we went to the Christmas Market in Monaco. The best bit for me was the Ice Karting on the frozen Swimming Pool. This was terrific fun as the karts were conventional apart from chunky tyres with metal spikes embedded in them for extra grip. Despite Mark's protests which continue to this day, the history books will show that I was first past the chequered flag ! The photo's of the race were rather poor and certainly not to my exacting standard (??) so instead here is a picture of the Casino in Monte Carlo taken that same night, all lit up for Christmas Eve.



Christmas Day Afternoon was spent sledging on the ski slopes. There was very little snow on the pistes but the snow making machines had been out and created a really smooth surface to sledge and ski down. The slopes were really quiet given that it was Christmas Day, so we had large amounts of the Piste to ourselves.



The evening was spent watching - with a vast number of others, the Christmas Parade in one of the harbour side villages (Can't remember which one) where the Mayor had also organised an outside ice rink. I was too tired to skate but it did look a lot of fun and makes me wonder why we don't have these events and facilities in the UK on Christmas Day (or any other day for that matter).


Boxing Day was spent having a BBQ in glorious sunshine whilst wearing our shorts and t-shirts ! Throughout the entire week, the weather was wonderful, clear skies and warm sun, In France, Boxing Day doesn't exist as a Bank Holiday so everybody is back to work as normal making it a conventional day with all businesses and facilities open.

The following day Mark and I woke early and took Mark's Kayak out onto the Lac de St Cassion for an impossibly early morning paddle. There was an eerie mist on the water as we paddled under heavy cloud cover. It was quite cool until the sun burnt through later in the morning but it was delightful to be out in the countryside at such an early hour of the day. I should do it more often really, it's just a shame I like my bed too much ! Still... it's the thought that counts I guess.



In March of 2007, I went with younger Brother Simon and his family to the Lake District for the day. Regular readers will know that the Lakes are one of my most favourite places in the World. The weather was pretty awful but a good day was had by all nonetheless. We went to Beatrix Potters museum as well as Keswick, Derwent water, Bowness, Windermere and Thirlmere, where we had our picnic. The picnic was memorable as whilst we were tucking into sandwiches and sausage rolls in a layby on a B, or possibly a C, road in the middle of the National Park, alongside the not often visited banks of Thirlmere lake, the BBC Newsreader Michael Buerk and his wife wandered past on a hiking holiday !! Despite the inclement weather, we all had a lovely day - especially the kids who particularly love picnics more than anything else, regardless of how soggy it is or which celebrity newsreader happens to be holidaying in the area. The photo below is a rather moody shot of Derwentwater showing how bleak the weather was that day.



In the late Spring I found a cheap flight on Ryanair to Riga in Latvia. The return flight was unbelievably just over £20, including all taxes and charges and the 5 Star SAS Radission Hotel was a mere £45 per night. I was really expecting the city to be very stereotypical, Soviet Union, having been under the Iron Fist for so many years. What I actually saw was a vibrant, beautiful European City. In many parts of the City, it felt like Northern France with cobbled streets, shuttered buildings and streetside cafes. Add to this the ubiquious European tram service and the "Disney style" coloured buildings of the Old Town and what you have is a delightful little city (you can walk it from end to end in 20 minutes)that is well worth a visit for which I would hope the photo's below illustrate.



The place didn't really get dark during my stay. The night time photo's were taken between 11pm and midnight and as you can see, there is still a serious amount of light in the sky providing a dramatic backdrop to my photo's.



There were several bridges across the river and as an ardent fan of bridges, I took several photo's of them. The weather during my weekend was gorgeous, around 25 degrees with barely a cloud in the sky. The people were very friendly and the cost of living for us at least, not the Latvian's, is very cheap. Apparently the average salary in Latvia is £304 per month ! Riga is known as a hen & stag night destination, due largely to the cheap cost of the flights, accommodation and of course that most basic requirement of a hen & stag night, alcohol. Having said that, I didn't see any unsavoury antics, trouble or drunkeness and it was a pleasure to spend my Saturday night in amongst the partygoers.


The locals were very friendly and all spoke English. They hate the Russians with a passion however, and have a very emotive museum dedicated to the ocupation. This was free to get in (maybe they all are) and was an agreeable, and needless to say, enlightening couple of hours. Latvia is a very small country and is surrounded by much larger countries. In addition, it has a large natural harbour with direct access to the Baltic Sea. This regrettably makes it easy & attractive for invasion and over the years their larger neighbours have almost walked, unchallenged into the country when it has suited their purpose.



I would thoroughly recommend a weekend break in Riga. Get yourself a cheap flight by booking ahead and look through the weekend rates for the businessman's hotels and I'm sure you'll find a bargain (my SAS Radisson was £45 per night). It was a totally different city to the one I was expecting and a very agreeable one. My only criticism is that the women shouldn't wear flat soled shoes with short skirts and flesh coloured tights... not a good look ladies but apparently very fashionable given all of the young women wearing this attire. Get yourself some heels or boots and for the love of god, lose the tights or at least get some coloured ones. I don't ordinarily give fashion advice, largely due to being a fashion disaster myself, but go with me on this one.



As regular visitors to my blogs will know I am a big fan of panoramic photo's and in Riga I took many ! I enclose below several of the better one's. The elevated photo's were taken from the top of St Peter's church, arguably the highest point in Riga. The shots in the park were taken from the large recreational area, adjacent to Freedom Square, the politically symbolic centre of Riga. This is also the location of the National Opera House and was a truly fabulous place to spend a couple of hours.













At some point during the year I attended a Spearhead concert with Shorty. Michael Franti and the boys were superb as always and a great night was had. I've also seen Xavier Rudd (tremendously talented Aussie whose a one man band playing guitar, harmonica, drums, digerydoo and I can't remember what else but he was very impressive). I've also seen Beth Ditto and her band The Gossip. Thanks to Shorty for arranging all of those.



As usual with Spearhead we fought to get to the front of the audience and managed to be directly infront of Michael as he stood only 2 feet or so away from us. If you've never seen Spearhead or heard any of their music then I urge you to do so.



I bought a wood burning chimenea during the year which I love to pieces. It's beautiful to sit and watch the flames. In fact, I've two chimenea's as I bought a very small one to take camping. I now look for campsites that allow camp fires (most don't) and I take my small chimenea along with me. It's also nice to be able to boil a kettle on it and also cook some sausages, bacon and eggs. Definately one of this years best purchases.



I also bought a new car this year. My old trusty 206 was a tremedous car but it was beginning to cost me money, around £1,000 to get it through it's MOT with the prospect of a new (expensive) cambelt and an equally expensive service to come. I therefore decided that I'd rather spend money on a new car than on an old one. I subsequently had a look around the market and eventually decided that once again Peugeot offered me the best car. In this instance a brand spanking new 207 Sport.



I elected to go for a Ferrari Red (to match my eyes) coloured car and I duly placed my order. I was able to get a really good trade in for my 206, probably £1,500 more than it was worth but I'm guessing that the dealership needed sales as the new 57 plate was due within a couple of months and most likely people were waiting for that new plate. I didn't much care about the 57 plate so made the most of their geneous offer and bought the car there and then. Needless to say, I love it.



In July I went to the South of France for a week. My trip was curtailed due to problems sorting out work contracts. I was a day late leaving from Liverpool as I had to attend an interview in Bristol and then I had to leave France early in order to train my successor, pending starting work in Bristol. As it was, the Bristol job was cancelled a few days afterwards - which was a shame for two reasons, it would have been a very good job and secondly I could have stayed longer in France. Anyway, I had a great time in France, the weather as always was tremendous. I took my inflatable kayak over there and one day Mark and I went out onto the Lake for around 5 hours. I don't understand the science of it but the longer we were out on the water, the less inflated my kayak became. It hadn't sprung a leak but it was certainly going down (its something to do with temperature, pressure and air density I believe) and this was making it harder to paddle, and a little unstable. This was slightly worrying as I knew that there was almost certainly going to be an inevitable sinking occurring at some point later in the day. It was just whether we'd get back to the car before I did.



Mark on the other hand was positively steaming along in his hard shell kayak, despite him getting a blister on one of his hands and having to use one of my gloves for protection.... thereby earning himself the nickname of "The Claw". A terrific day.



In August I had a week to kill between finishing one contract and starting a permament job. I decided to go camping for one night in Snowdonia. I picked a site that allowed campfires and therefore took my mini chimenea. The weather, unusually was as stunning as the scenery. Usually when I've been to Snowdonia the weather has been awful and the peak of Snowdon has been shrouded in cloud. Not on this occasion as you'll see in the photo's below.



The campsite was excellent and all around the gentle plumes of smoke from a myriad of campfires, rose into a starry night sky, my chimenea amongst them, providing light, warmth and cooking possibilities. This is how camping should be !

I took my hard shell kayak with me (as opposed to the inflatable) and took it out for a paddle on the lake, Llyn Gwynant, adjoining the site. You can see the lake in both of the photos below and if you view the enlarged pictures, you can make out the campsite at the head of the lake. Llyn Gwynant was beautiful and the wildlife was all around. Unfortunately I didn't see any otters or kingfishers but it was a terrfic way to spend a morning. Later in the day I went to the foot of Snowdon and looked down the valley. You can see Snowdon in the 2nd photo below. I could live there quite easily.





I travelled around the National Park calling into Trawsfynydd, Betswy Coed, Bala & Blaneau Ffestiniogg (what a scruffy place that is ! Enormous heaps of slate all over the town and hundreds of feet high as well. Either the slate miners were very fussy or not very good at it given all the slate that had been discarded). I also dropped in to Swallow Falls on the outskirts of Betswy Coed. I was quite suprised to be charged £1 to view the falls though. Maybe my time in NZ had made me expect that these natural views would be free for all but no ! The falls were very impressive all the same, despite the cost and luckily for me were in what looked to my untrained eye, to be in full flood.



Further down the river the waters were much calmer and as I had my kayak on the roofrack I decided that I'd have another paddle. Once again this was a beautiful way to spend a couple of hours, no noise apart from the babbling waters, the birds, the rustle of the leaves and just occasionally, the odd motor boat.



I had a very engaging weekend in West Sussex at Simon's new house. The house was great and the area is beautiful. They'll be very happy there once they settle in. I'll take some photos when I'm there the next time and post them here.

Finally, I think I'm turning into Bill Oddie ! I find myself sitting in my kitchen watching the birds on my bird feeder (In other words watching the birds peck at my nuts !!) ha ha. I don't know where it came from and Lord knows where it will end but I suddenly got this strange urge to buy some bird feeders and a pole to hang them on and each day I sit and watch the birds in the garden.

I've even started getting up early to feed them before I go to work !! As I say, I can only assume that I'm turning into Bill Oddie !! Please tell me if I start to grow a beard and whistle "The Funky Gibbon" at every opportunity ! Arrgghhhhhh. It's a mid life crisis I'm sure. On the other hand the birds are only little and it's going to get very cold out there in the next few months so I'm doing my bit for nature. I think that since going to NZ I've really rediscovered Nature (I'm convinced my new found interest in birds, kayaking, camping following my trip to New Zealand are all related). The more I think about it, buying a kayak so that I can paddle through the countryside, going camping, feeding the birds ... dear me, it's not very rock and roll is it ??



Just to prove the point, I've bought myself a pair of Fischers lovebirds. Their names are Yogi and BooBoo.... although their middle names are Colin and Betty !! Yogi is Pastel Blue and white and BooBoo is a truly stunning Orange, Red, Yellow & pale Green with a hint of blue on his rump. They're very comical little birds, if rather loud and I have to sometimes give them one of my best Paddington stares to get them to keep the noise down. They don't yet appreciate the concept of neighbours. They're like a couple of naughty schoolboys though, always up to mischief. As I'm writing this they're both taking a bath but the bath isn't big enough for both of them so a squabble has ensued and the water's going everywhere. Tsk Tsk birds hey ?

So all of that kind of brings me upto date. From here I can now write regular posts. I've missed out lots of other events but time and space means that I can't include them all. I've other events planned for the future including a trip to Paris, a trip to West Sussex,a trip to Southern France and a trip to Berlin. I'm going to see Billy Connolly and I've another paranormal investigation at the Galleries to do later in the year. I'll also have lots to tell in the future I'm sure. Thanks for reading and for getting this far !

PS Lovebird update: Bathtime has now ended, largely due to a lack of bathwater (which is now all over my laminate floor) and they're currently sitting in their food bowls intently watching telly ! It's true, I've just taken the above picture showing them glued to the football. In fact Lovebirds are supposed to have the intellignce of a 3 year old child. Time will tell if this is correct or just nonsense but I'm not doubting it yet.

Late Update: The birds have taken themselves off to bed which is a fleece tent - called a snuggle hut - that hangs from the cage roof and the birds cuddle up in that for the night... Just took this picture. Bless.