Digby Visit (Part 3)

After spending part of the afternoon going through a bag of old black n white family photos that went back as far as the 1920’s, Sunday evening saw all six of us out again for dinner at the Wilford Bridge. A great little countryside pub and restaurant - a little more upmarket than most, yet still very homely. The food was excellent, and superbly done. I can highly recommend the Chicken Djionaise, and the homemade apple pie n custard was tip top too. Everything looked good and no one was complaining! Once full, as the portions were certainly not small, we moved round to a table in the main bar to while away the rest of the evening with tales of family and relatives from the past century...

Monday came all too soon, and it was time to head back to London for the final day with the folks before they head off for their jaunt across Canada and the Rockies. Typical London/England weather for the day as it bucketed down all day. We said good bye to Aunt Edna, and then Steve n Eileen took the three of us to the train station, where we did the round of goodbyes before heading back to London.
Once back at their hotel, mum n dad still had their unused tickets for the London Eye, so despite the ordinary weather, we headed around to the other side of the hotel to discover that the line to get on was very short (for obvious reasons). So, while they rode the Eye, i went for a rather ‘moist’ walk along south bank in the other direction (towards Westminster). It was pretty uninteresting, so it was back to the hotel and out of the rain for me. It wasn’t long before the folks returned to tell me all about the ride as well as show off their photos.
Later on it was back over the road to the Troia Turkish restaurant for one last time. A mixed meze for three, and we were sampling about twelve different Turkish dishes in a similar way to tapas or yum cha. Like the other times we dined here in the last two weeks, they didn’t disappoint with the quality of the food. Back to the hotel for coffees and eventually the final goodbyes.
Nice to have had them here for a spell, even if I wasn’t the most fun to be around in my current situation. Good to see Steve n Eileen again too. Their local knowledge of Suffolk over the last four days really gave the stay that something extra as they showed us around. It’s such a lovely spot and with plenty to see. I could easily picture myself spending hours on the bike through this area.
You may think that hanging out with a bunch of sixty-somethings and an 84 year old would be rather dull, but the time spent with them was anything but, and with the Woodbridge regatta coming up in a few weeks, I reckon I’ll be back visiting Steve n Ei for that and maybe out on the water. Might be a chance to finally use those sailing skills I garnered from my time on the tall ship, the One & All.

For now, it’s just back to regular day to day life. At least the kilo of fruchocs that mum n dad brought over for me should help.

Digby Visit (Part 2): Around Suffolk

After a pleasant evening drive through the Suffolk countryside, we arrived at the coastal township of Aldeburgh. Quite ‘Old World’, as Steve put it, and considering that there was a building that had been built in the 1500’s that was still standing on the beachfront, he was quite right. We timed our arrival superbly by just beating the rush on the Golden Galleon (the blue building in the middle of the picture above) - it was nigh on empty when we arrived, but had people queuing out in the street for tables by the time we left their Upper Deck restaurant. We pretty much rolled down the stairs as their serving size was quite generous. Far better fish n chips than Edinburgh, but that really isn’t saying much with that comparison. It was definitely the best fish n chips i’ve had since being over here.
To help things settle, we went for a short walk around Aldeburgh, before going for a drive further down the coast, and then heading back to Melton. On the way, we had a brief moment to check out the Snape Maltings and its famous school. We also drove past Eileen’s workplace, a juvenile prison, and managed to avoid a deer as it dashed across the road in the evening light.

Saturday started out with the same fine weather we’ve had for the past two days, so it was off to Felixstowe - another seaside township, and also quite a large shipping port. Another beach with no sand, but the usual pebbles. It also had the fairground, rides, amusement arcades, stalls, etc... and further down the coast it had hundreds of beach huts, sometimes being 3 deep from the beach. We chose here to have lunch at the Fish Cafe down by the ferry landing and fish markets (left). Another very popular place for its food (fish n chips, etc...) despite the fact that it looked like something that hasn’t been touched since the 1930’s. While the fish n chips did look (and smell) good, we opted for ‘sarni’s’.
A short walk around this little boating ‘village’, a stop at a roadside stall, a visit from some mods and their ‘blinged up’ vespas (below right), and we were back on the road again and continuing along the coast of Suffolk. Next stop was one of the local yacht clubs (below left). One of the biggest marina’s I’ve ever seen, and I’m told that this one wasn’t particularly posh, despite appearing that way by both the boats and the cars (or the fees needed to keep your boat here). The drive back home via Lewisham included passing an old saxon burial ground and the two small memorials to two of the prostitutes that were murdered in the region a couple of years back - you may remember seeing that on the news a while back, and it wasn’t an intentional thing to visit or see. It just happened to be in the forest we drove past. Driving about the Suffolk countryside in the nice sunny weather has been great to cruise through the small laneways that are bordered on both side by the forestry of the area, which creates it's own green tunnels at times. It does make it difficult to keep the mind from wandering, but the countryside is really different to what I know from home or have seen on TV.
A cruisey evening followed with the “boys” visiting the local pub, the Horse & Groom, to sample the locally brewed pints and to ponder the world’s mysteries, while the “girls” stayed home with a wine or few (and no, I didn’t leave out an ‘h’ there). As you can well imagine, dinner was a rather relaxed at-home affair that continued through several bottles of reds and whites to become quite an entertaining evening.

Sunday began rather slowly until everyone was up. The fact that the weather had turned to pelting rain was a good contribution to this slow start. However, us “boys” headed out on their own, while the “girls” did the same. We headed over to Bentwaters Airforce base, where Steve had arranged to visit a friend of his (Milt) who has a hangar there full of his fire engine collection. Once in the base, we stopped off at the Cold War museum. Suffolk appears to have been quite a hub of activity for both US and British military forces during the Second World War, and with Steve being quite an enthusiast on the subject we were getting to see a fair bit of it. The museum was quite interesting as it did document the entire cold war from beginning to end. I, like most of us, have an idea about the cold war considering that we grew up through its latter parts, but I learnt quite a bit how it actually began and some of the details of events that I ‘thought’ I knew about. It also gave you a look at one of the command centres that was housed on the base and used back during the early days after World War II. (above right)
Back out in the rain, we headed across the base to find Milt’s hangar, only Steve couldn’t remember exactly which hangar it was. Now you may think that this is a bit lame, but when you then drive around this airfield and base for some time in the pouring rain, you notice that there are dozens and dozens of hangars as well as many large buildings for storage. Most looked identical. And whether or not we should have paid attention to the sign “Restricted Area. Authorized Access Only” is something I’ll worry about another time...

Digby Visit (Part 1): Weddings and UFO's

After starting Thursday with a couple of hours of bonus work - thanks to management surprising me on Wednesday arvo with some new work with a deadline of Friday lunchtime and not realising that I was not going to be in for Thursday or Friday - it was up to Billericay I go. Pronounced Bill-a-rick-ee, I was met by Mum, Dad, Steve, Eileen and ‘Aunt’ Edna, and if I can be half as energetic as her when I reach 84 years, I’ll be pretty happy. She put the energiser rabbit to shame!

With some time to kill before the wedding ceremony of my cousin Mark and his fiancé, Jo, (right) we headed through Billericay to a nearby park with its cafe, trees, squirrels, ducks, lake, field and a truckload of mums with pushers and/or bumps. Talk about your wives clubs. Anyway, lovely sunny day to be sitting outside catching up. It didn’t take much for Eileen to notice how much weight I’ve lost since I was last here in 2004 - I was around 92kgs back then, and today I’m 71, which is only 4kgs heavier than back in ’92 when I was competing in martial arts!!
Onto Crondon Golf Club we went for the wedding ceremony, which was really nice, although a bit tough to watch from a personal standpoint (for obvious reasons). Now, that ‘obvious reason’ was also the reason that I couldn’t fit in with the numbers for the reception that followed, so the plan was to go occupy myself somewhere nearby until that side of the festivities was over, and I could return for the after party.
As luck would have it, if you have a quick chat to one of the friendly female serving staff, it’s amazing what can be done/arranged at short notice. I simply asked “where was the 19th Hole” (the bar where the golfers have a drink or few after they finish their round), with the intention of hanging out there for a bit with a book and the laptop. I was told that it was members only and wouldn’t be an option, and she was curious as to why I would want to go there. A quick tale of how there’d been a mix up with numbers and being a ‘surprise guest’ from Australia, and she called over the woman who was running the staff and reception. Within about 2minutes (after being asked if I was with anyone at the reception and pointing out my parents), she’d decided that I could join the reception ‘on the house’ and my place was set at their table.
A great afternoon and night kicked off with the elder members of the family (Steve is mum’s cousin if you’re curious about the connection. Their fathers were brothers.) and also with other people that you meet at such events. Great food too, and as luck would have it, quite an entertaining table - it turned out that one of the folks there actually lives a couple of blocks away from where I do!
Oh, and if you’re wondering about my earlier comment regarding ‘Aunt’ Edna, well, there was no stopping her on the dancefloor at times and to all sorts of music! Absolute classic! (seen here on the right with Steve)
It was great to be a part of the entire day. As it came to an end, the 6 of us headed back to Steve n Eileen’s place, which is where we are now staying for the rest of the long weekend.

Friday, naturally saw us all have a rather leisurely start to the day, before heading off to Rendlesham Forest for a walk on the UFO trail. Well, parts of it anyway. A great walk through the peaceful forest that borders the Woodbridge Airfield, which used to be a massive USAF base, but is now used by the British military. It is also the location of some of England’s most famous UFO encounters. Didn’t see any UFO’s - not that we expected too - but we did pass both landing sites as we strolled along the several miles of trails. Those trails that have significance to the actual events of the two most famous incidents are actually sign posted (as you can see).
I’d love to come back here to trek through more of the other trails and even stay a night or two - not so much with the idea of seeing any UFO activity, but more for just that getting back to nature stylee type time. Having seen plenty of rabbits about as well as a few deer, the idea of replicating the 'Stand by Me' scene with the deer would be pretty cool.
From here it was back to the Cherry Tree pub and beer garden in the sun to sample some of the local ales and have lunch. (See below on the left for one angle of this pub.)
Tonight will see us at one of Melton’s other local restaurants/pubs for England’s most famous contribution to world cuisine - fish n chips. Hopefully, this will be far better than what I sampled in Edinburgh a couple of weeks back. Will let you know how it went...

Hello Mum n Dad

Wednesday night after work was a pleasant evening with the return of Peter n Judy while we waited for the arrival of Mum n Dad. A good feed at the Turkish restaurant over the road from the hotel before retiring to the hotel bar for some rather potent Irish coffees and happily watching Rangers get done in the UEFA Cup final - as they should have.

Onward to Friday evening and all five of us were back at the same Turkish restaurant for dinner (told you it was a good feed!) and planning of what and where to go see in London over the weekend.
Thanks to the weather, Saturday was more for indoors, while we left the outdoor venture to Sunday.

After a bit of a late start for me on Saturday morning I met Mum, Dad, Peter n Judy at Borough Market. Despite the grey drizzle of the day, at least most of it is under the cover of the railway bridge emerging from London Bridge station. Because of my tardiness, Borough Market had been pretty much done, so it was off to a nearby cafe for a coffee/tea. I had hoped to breakfast out on all the free food samples around the market, but oh well... should have won that struggle to get up earlier...
From here we headed up along the south bank of the Thames to make our way to Westminster, crossing at Southwark Bridge to continue along embankment then up past that large pointy clock that folks seem to love. Once at St James Park, we headed indoors to the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War rooms.
Quite an interesting spot. The underground bunkers that made up the cabinet war rooms were quite intriguing as they were pretty much exactly as they had been left back in 1945. It gave you a very good appreciation of life in those tunnels and rooms that were pretty much lived and worked in for months at a time over the 6 years of world war II.
Added to them, and included in the middle of the tour itself was the Churchill Museum, which gave you the full box n dice of Winston Churchill’s life n times. Mike Munro and his book would struggle to match this one!! A massive room, with all sorts of memorabilia and displays showing his full life n times. A rather interesting fellow if I’m honest. There’s a lot more to him than just some little tubby fella with a cigar, two fingers in the air and some grouchy sounding speeches about fighting on beaches and never surrendering. Ever know that he was a war correspondent who actually took charge of a flagging platoon guiding them to victory in one battle? Unfortunately, I didn’t take a pic of his personal bedroom in the cabinet war rooms, but a few others that you can see about the place here. Oh, and they’re mannequins and not real preserved soldiers from 1945...
Once back up onto the surface, we made our way through St James Park, past Buckingham Palace, then up The Mall to Trafalgar Square before then heading back to the Hotel near the London Eye. Along the way we dodged the rather wayward taxi that you can see pictured here, while yours truly took advantage of the little pancake stall on the corner of Westminster Bridge for that missed breakfast. If you don’t know this little stall, then you do need to check it out if you’re ever in the neighbourhood - trust me!
But I digress... a quiet night in for a bit before trying one of the other restaurant’s across from the hotel.

Sunday, and another late-ish start to a far nicer and sunnier day. Greenwich it was this time, and while I bussed and DLR’d it, the folks took a leisurely cruise on the Thames ferry. Strangely, I got there first, so it was time to just chill out in the University park in the sun with the ipod and just watch the world go by. Our species is a strange lot at times - and we reckon that the regular monkeys are funny!!
Once we were a family again, it was time to explore Greenwich. First it was a trip through the tunnel under the Thames that was recommended by friends of mum n dad. A little longer walk than even I expected, but the nice park in the sun on the other side of the Thames was quite nice to visit, if even only briefly.
Next up was a pleasant walk...erm...stroll through Greenwich and both her markets. Both were quite interesting, and both are ones that I will have to return to. I was quite surprised by the number of folks that had ridden their bikes to Greenwich, and must admit that it will be a definite weekend trek when the weather is as nice as what today was. Perhaps even link it up on a Saturday with a visit to Borough Market...
Anyway, once through the two markets of Greenwich it was onward through Greenwich park and up to the Royal Observatory. And when I say ‘up’ I mean UP. Despite my ‘apparent’ fitness level, even I felt the walk up this rather steep hill. At least the observatory and all its facets were free. We even managed to time it right to see the dropping of the Time Ball (see the pics of the Red Ball on the left). Okay, so it wasn’t all that exciting, but still “we were there”! Well, pics of being on the Prime Meridian (that didn’t quite work), and investigating the Camera Obscura were next up. The Camera being basically a giant pinhole camera that projects an image from outside onto a table in a dark room. Kinda cool to watch the folks walking around the national maritime museum some way off.
From here it was into the Time Galleries, which is what I wanted to see. Well more precisely, 4 particular clocks that I’d read about in the Longitude Problem and how it was solved by John Harrison. Unfortunately, no pics were allowed to be taken, so you’ll have to excuse their poor quality of "H-1", his first clock, below left...
When we finished exploring these galleries/exhibits, we headed round to the Astronomy Centre, and ooh baby, were there some interesting bits to play with more than see. A bit like my first trip to the Natural History Museum a few years back when I didn’t care that I wasn’t 12yrs old, it was just fun to have a ‘play’. (And I wasn’t the only one either!)
A quick-ish lunch in the cafe and we were on our way back through Greenwich Park, and through the Markets again (where I picked up a new t-shirt with the Japanese Kanji for ‘Fighting Spirit’ down the side) to the Docklands Light Rail for a scenic trip through Millwall and Canary Wharf/Docklands.
Back in central London we headed to Covent Garden for a bit more of an explore. Covent Garden was it’s usual busy self with the markets and buskers in full swing. You can’t visit Covent Garden Markets without a visit to Paul’s Patisserie, so we picked up a few things to go with our coffee’s later.
On the walk back to the hotel, we stuck our heads in Gordon’s Wine Bar for a quick look, before heading through embankment, over the Thames and back onto the south bank. It was all happening along here with Jamaican drum band (see vid below even if it doesn’t do them justice), carousel and buskers of all types scattered around the place. Coffee’s in the hotel bar it was - on the couch with our pastries.
We rounded out the weekend with a quick dinner in, yep, you guessed it, a restaurant over the road, before settling in to watch the evening tv movie together - Indiana Jones of all...

So today’s back to work, and life in general just continuing to go through it all. At least I’ll be joining mum n dad again on Wednesday when I head up to Billericay for our cousin’s wedding, and a couple of days off...

Rock on Jamaican stylee...

Can't Think of a Decent Title

Feels like everything's coming to an end.

Marathon's done. Back to singledom. And now the football season's over, with more of a whimper than a bang too...

Lovely sunny day to have it. About 25C and sunny, so the brits were stripping off in the parks like no tomorrow! I was just happy to only be wearing a t-shirt for the first time since leaving home!!

Long story short, while the match between Spurs n Liverpool was nice in the sun, it was rather lack lustre as neither side really had much to play for. So the eventual fun was had back at the Brickies for the final bit of matchday drinking for the season. Ahhh, packed beer gardens full of maniacs... A good bit of fun anyway.

So what's next?

Dunno really. I've just been enjoying riding to work in daylight and not needing rain gear or long sleeves for the trip home. Caught up with Peter n Judy for dinner last night while we awaited the arrival of mum n dad. The next week and a bit will be a family one, which will be nice. Anyway, more on that later.

Hope you're all well.

Awaiting the Dandelion Express

After this morning’s "run-in" with a motorist it was a reminder that I was back in London and on her roads - the long weekend was over...

Back to Edinburgh for one last time. Stupid? Walking into a world of hurt? After all I’ve been through in the past month, I admit that I could well have done exactly that. Thankfully it was a long weekend that was something far different.
With a bonus ‘Bank Holiday’ on the Monday, I took Friday off to have a 4 day long weekend and to go and support Charity do her first running event - Edinburgh’s Great Run 10K - in much the same way in which she did for me at both the Reading Half Marathon and the London Marathon.

I arrived early Friday morning after the short flight from Stansted to Edinburgh. With the sun shining we met in the heart of Edinburgh where Charity needed to finish off some work before we set out to walk down to Portobello Beach and Fish n Chips.
An interesting walk as we went through the 4 seasons of weather along the way. Down the Royal mile (above left) to Hollyrood palace and Arthurs Seat. Along the way stopping off in a fudge shop, discovering a hidden little garden, as well as ducking into several alcoves to avoid the rain. From the base of Arthur’s seat we passed by a small lake with swans and all manner of water fowl (right), before following the road down to Portobello. Discovering a rather extroverted buttefly on the footpath, we took a few close ups. Further down the road and it was a quick stop in a wine shop after noticing Grant Burge wines in the window. We left with a bottle of Nebuchadnezzar (which we can highly recommend!) as well as directions to the best fish n chip place.
After managing to walk straight past it - well, it was closed - we eventually made our way back only to find that it didn’t open for another 40mins. So it was the quick walk to the beach to take a look. A pleasant day and there were Scots about. Mostly kids though, with a few adults. Along the esplanade we found a small fish n chip shop that was open, so eventually opted to give its eat-in side a shot. Serving size may have been reasonably generous however the quality left something to be desired... Oh well, on we went.
A bus ride back to central Edinburgh and a pint in both the Whiski and the Bank pubs to round out the evening before returning to Charity’s for dinner.

Saturday, and Charity had to work, so off I went to fill in the morning. I started with a short walk along Princes Street before settling at a cafe opposite the Edinburgh gallery. Nice to score the corner window with a good view of the castle and the world below (right). A few hours just chilling out buried in a book with breakfast and the view was all good.
From here I decided to head down to the Scot Monument as I’d noticed that there were some people at the top of it. After passing what would have to be the most oddly placed Ice-cream van I’ve ever seen (left), I soon discovered how to get to the top of a monument that looked strangely like a black stone version of Thunderbird 3. Dizzying and somewhat claustrophobic stone stairwells (seen here on the right) it was to the four viewing areas this monument had to offer. Did I mention that it was nearly 300 steps to the top? There’s the morning exercise taken care of...
From here I then made my way to through the gallery to the gardens below Edinburgh castle, which you can see in the pic of the view from the top of the monument below left. My destination was a zig-zag path/walkway that made it’s way from the gardens up to the castle itself. Unfortunately, the gate at the bottom was chained shut, so I settled in to listen to the band that was playing in the parklands. As I did this, I noticed that there was a fair commotion up on Princes St, so I decided to head up and take a look. Only a protest march/demonstration for dozens of different political groups. What the hell, I had to head that way anyway and make my way back to where Charity worked, so I joined in for a bit before they went left as I needed to go right.
After Charity finished work, and with the sun shining in the mid-afternoon, we headed off to the Edinburgh Botanical Gardens via a small walkway along a small river that we found along the way. The gardens were superb and peaceful with both birdlife and loads of squirrels. Unfortunately, by the time we got there our time was limited as they were closing within the hour. Still we managed a reasonable walk through them and even fed said squirrels. Well, one more brave one anyway (below left). Once leaving the gardens, we made our way through the nearby parks before locating more of that ‘river’ walkway. Back on the bus for home, dinner, the Nebuchadnezzar and a relatively early night so that Charity could rest up for her run.

Sunday morning, and it was up reasonably early to get to the Meadows park for the start of the Great Edinburgh 10K Run. A little overcast, but still a very pleasant day with some sunshine showing through at times. There was a theme for this one and because the date was May the Fourth (be with you), Darth Vader was starting the runners. There were plenty of Star Wars costumed runners about too.
Charity was hoping to get round in 1hr20 and she’d be happy. Excited, raring to go and kitted up with my heart rate monitor and footpod to boot she made the start of her ‘wave’ with a few minutes to spare.
Armed with my backpack and both cameras (well, more hers than mine) I saw her off at the start, then headed across town to make the first of three spots I thought I could make in time to get both pics and a shout-out. I made it to three spots along the course to take pics and video using both our cameras.
She did brilliantly and came in with a time of 1hr 5mins. [Very proud of your achievement Charity. I now have an idea of how you must have felt after I’d done the marathon. Hopefully this shows you just what you can be capable of if you put your mind to it. No excuses now, onwards and upwards from here. Time to get it together.] After congratulations and medals getting put on, we ran into one of her workmates who was out for the morning. He too had been out along the course and caught some pics. Being an osteopath he gave Charity a bit of a recovery treatment, before heading off to print some of his pics for their work notice board!
We then headed to the nearby Pear Tree Pub beer garden for a celebratory pint and text message frenzy of congratulations. As the rain threatened, we decided it was time to find somewhere indoors that preferrably had some food, and the vegetarian restaurant over the road turned out to be the ideal spot. Our mid-afternoon arrival turned out to be worthwhile too as we scored two free serves to help them finish off the lunchtime foods and allow them to begin the evening menu. With a duo of a harpist and violinist playing in the corner, we settled in for remainder of the arvo that included some deserts and a pot of tea, much to talk about and over, some photographic tomfoolery, and just plain hanging out together... Later it was back home and finishing off the Nebuchadnezzar and other things.

Monday morning and Charity had to work again, so after reaching her work and dropping off the backpack, I headed down the road for breakfast in the sun with my book again. A full Scotch breakfast complete with a certain black ice hockey puck thing in the middle of the plate. Well, there’s a first time to try Ecky Thump for real. Interesting, and not bad when you put it on potato scones or with the eggs, mushrooms or hash browns. So that was black pudding, and it was on to the book with the remaining coffee and bits of toast that were left.
Eventually, I ventured off towards the same gardens below the Castle in an attempt to try that path up to the Castle. Along the way I discovered an out of the way lane with a cafe and a few shops that were actually under one side of the large church at the end of Princess St. This lead through an old graveyard that was under the canopy of several trees full of springtime blossoms (left). Very peaceful, and a really nice spot to just be in, with no one about but the centuries old stones, moss and lush green grass. As I left this spot, I got a call from Charity to say that she had a cancellation and that if I’d like the spot for the massage it was mine. About face and it wasn’t long before I was on the table dozing off under her skilful hands. That over, she had her next client to see, so it was back into the sun with the book for me.
Over an hour later and we were checking out the “under-the-church” cafe to while away the afternoon under the blossoms in the sun. As the sun kept moving so did we through into the park until it was time to head to the airport for what can only be described as a very emotional goodbye.
On the flight back to London I was seated next to a fellow from New Jersey, and having some mates there, he proved to be a very good distraction as we chatted about all things Jersey, New York and places to travel through Europe...

All up a lovely weekend with some nice memories to remember each other by... Despite the hours of talking we did, it still makes me wonder just why we're ending things...