Morning Loves It

It Opened

2007-02-03T11:13:00.000Z

So I took the car with The Electronic Sun Roof That Opens On Its Own to be fixed on Wednesday. This left me with a new problem. The Courtesy Car. It was a Gunmetal Grey BMW with six forward gears and one reverse. It didn't have a normal ignition key. It had a cartridge thing that slotted into a hole on the dashboard, had to depress the clutch for this to happen, and then a button to press. Most strange.

The problem was the power of the car. I was shocked to see I was sailing over the bendy coast road at 75mph and it felt like I was sitting in an armchair with no sense of speed or motion. Far too much grunt for me. But it was very beautiful and given time I could probably get used to it.

'We'll keep your Mini overnight and you can collect it in the morning' they said 'But phone first'.

I 'phoned first thing.

'Your car is fine. It was just a fuse. They've changed that and the roof is closed but leave it 'till lunchtime so we can make sure'.

They 'phoned back an hour later.

'The roof has just opened on it's own'.

I shouldn't have been pleased - but I was. At last. They have to believe me. It did it in the workshop.

'We have to order parts now so it won't be ready until tomorrow'.

'What about the spare key that sets the alarm off when I try to use it?' I ask.

I know they don't believe me about that either. They had previously told me to charge the spare up by using it regularly even though I told them that I can't actually use it regularly because the alarm goes off when I try to use it.

'We'll make sure everything is working properly before we let you have your car back'. they reassure.

I 'phone the next morning.

'The new parts are installed but we want to keep it here until late afternoon to make sure the sunroof doesn't open'.

I drive over the coast road in the Courtesy Car. Getting rather used to it now - and rather fond of it too. So this is what its like being a BMW owner?

The Mini Sunroof has remained closed. Then I am given two sets of car keys with an explanation that they are newly reset. I don't fully understand this. This must mean that they did try to use the spare key and that the alarm did go off. Perhaps it was the ignition key all the time - although that doesn't explain how the Electronic Sun Roof Opened On Its Own when I was 150 miles away in London with the keys in my handbag does it?

I am inspecting my car every hour.

Sigh

2007-01-27T23:05:00.000Z

I've Started So I'll Finish

2007-01-25T16:40:00.000Z

I've been putting off that moment when I have to start AZX300 20th Century Literature. Got a good reason. I don't know where to start. I know lots about how to study, methods that suit me, presentation, spelling, grammar, understanding how I learn, an expert at organised note keeping on my computer. I use Word as a desktop website with internal hyperlinks to other documents, linked menus and indexes. I could play for hours with my beautifully displayed Bulleted Lists but the thought of a 1500 word first submitted assignment has reduced me to a mindless jelly fish. And on Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard. Got that right. The title of the play written in Italics. That's all I've taken in so far.

I've decided to approach this course as if it were my first and not my seventh, but using all the study skills I've learned along the way. I didn't have these skills on my first OU course. The content is something else.

So I started yesterday. Instant relief at getting something down on 'Paper'. Didn't matter about the quality, simply seeing some sort of structure growing was satisfying. But I already know my weaknesses in debate and discussion. I want to agree with all the experts. I don't want to argue with them. I don't want to oppose their learned opinions as to whether Chekhov wrote a comedy or a tragedy. Yes it is a Tragedy. Oh no it isn't. It's a Farce. Satire? Yes! That's it. It's all of them.

I have another problem being Objective both in reading the text of the play and viewing the DVD stage production. My Paternal Grandfather was a Russian peasant. So was Chekhov's. My Father was a shopkeeper. So was Chekhov's. I feel involved as my Grandfather fled Russia for England around 1905. We know that Chekhov wrote The Cherry Orchard before the 1905 Peasant Uprising, seen as a rehearsal for the 1917 Russian Revolution, so we know what's coming. I am finding it difficult to stand back from the characters and I dislike the Aristocratic family, I want to tell the Servants to stop fawning over their Masters. That they are free. I admire the Serf who becomes a successful business man. I admire the young student Peter who no doubt became a Revolutionary.

But all my non-objective thoughts won't answer the Course Team's TMA Question.

I have started so I'll finish.

But I look forward to the new Level 3 Creative Writing Course promised to be launched in 2008. Then I can make it all up again.

Lunch

2007-01-18T17:40:00.000Z

Had a lovely lunch with my friend Katy at The Bull Hotel . She ordered a bottle of Crowded House. There I was expecting a Band.

I don't know if I like the Band but I do know that I loved the New Zealand wine. We ate good bread and olives with a glass of Champagne followed by Moules and Hand Cut Chips. I asked for real Mayo to go with my chips. I ate Katy's Hand Cut Chips too.

I watched a portion of stunning Sultana Cheesecake being delivered to the table next to ours, resisted and had another glass of Champagne instead. Now I wish I'd had both. Cheesecakes like that one are rare. Perhaps next time.

I took my camera and forgot to take any photos as we were so busy chatting.

Katy goes to the Theatre regularly and we even discussed Chekhov and I have promised her that if I do OK on 20th Century Literature then next year I will study another OU Literature course. This will be Shakespeare. I don't like Shakespeare. Katy can't understand this. She didn't go to my Grammar School.

Maybe I should start with this one rather than the one I've linked above? An Introduction to Skakespeare could be a better choice for me.

Taking the cost into account as well. Almost one thousand pounds for an OU Course is more than I've ever paid. The Introduction to Shakespeare is £135.00.

The OU Course Conference Icons appeared on my First Class Desktop this morning and I felt that rush of excitement at the newness of it all. I've posted into my Tutor Group along with several others as we break the ice and introduce ourselves.

I am going to hang out with the experienced Literature Students. I shall need to. Hope they don't mind.

I'm Back

2007-01-15T20:51:00.000Z

I'm Back. So challenged by technology I couldn't get my Bloggy Password changed. It was that simple too. I just didn't read the question properly. But I did read the questions properly in my 2006 OU Course.

I passed A215 Creative Writing with a Distinction. Never had a big 'D' before. Although this was a writing course it showed me how to read properly. Look deeper into structure, meanings, comparisons, style and so much more. Hence, my next course beginning in February 2007 is AZX300 '20th Century Literature: Texts and Debates' There are many books to read.

We begin with Chekhov and 'The Cherry Orchard' I've never read a play before. I have now. And then to Discuss it. Phew. Very challenging for me but that's why I enjoy learning in this way.

I made a long return journey by Virgin Train over the weekend. To Derbyshire and back from the South West. I took Pat Barker's 'The Ghost Road' to fill the time - one of the Course books. I read the entire book there and back and missed all of the scenery en route. Worth it. I've read all Pat Barker's books in he past and been moved. Never with an OU Literature Course in front of me. So now I am reading them in a different way. Even more moved now.

I shall Blog tomorrow with more tales about my Car and the Mysterious Happenings When The Electronic Sunroof Opens All By Itself. Even when I am in London, 180 miles away, with the key in my HandBag, it opens.

I have yet to convince the BMW Garage that I didn't open the Flossing Roof on a wet and stormy December day to let the rain in and soak the inside of the car. Yet to convince them that I had to take it to a Ford Dealer locally, because to get the car to them meant a fifteen mile drive across a windswept and exposed coastal road and a right soaking, and get them to disable the Electronic Sunroof because they couldn't Close It and were mystified. Even with a Spanner suggested by the BMW Dealer by 'phone. How basic is a Spanner when the entire car is a Computer?

This is the second time the Sunroof With A Mind Of It's Own has done this to me.

The switch for the Electronic Sunroof That Opens All By Itself is in the glove compartment. With all the rain we are having I am very pleased it is.

I wonder if this is what happened to my car. Maybe I need to investigate locally. Am I the only one?

Great to be back and able to read and comment again to my favourite Blogging People.

Drunken Yobs

2006-09-21T08:22:00.000Z

I couldn't bring myself to post the photo of my Mini Cooper without the black bin liners taped to it's rear! I'd driven to East Sussex to spend five days with my Mum as she's alone while her husband is in hospital having major back surgery. I arrived Friday afternoon and got together with her sorting a few things out with plans to drive to the coast, have pub lunches in sunny gardens, go shopping and generally relax.

I was asleep in the front bedroom on Friday night around midnight when I heard loud male voices and one female voice say,

'Don't wind him up!' and then a dull thud - then silence.

Very soon after a knock at the front door. My Mum rushed out of bed to open the door. I said not to answer it but it was her neighbours just returning from an evening out to tell her that somebody had thrown a brick through the rear windscreen of my car! Still in my pyjamas I helped him tape it up at one in the morning which was very kind of him wasn't it?

I hope that person feels good about themselves. I spent all Saturday morning on the telephone to the police Then 'phoning my broker for insurance details as I had no documentation with me. Then arranging with AutoGlass for repairs. Of course they didn't have the rear windscreen in stock. They could get a replacement by Sunday but only if I drove to Tunbridge Wells as no fitters could do roadside on a Sunday. I wimped out of driving there with the car like that. I had to wait until Monday afternoon. The new windscreen cost around £600........

Mum and I got out in taxis but couldn't do the things I had planned. Strange though - When I had my soft-top it got slashed twice by drunken yobs and I said no more soft-tops for me and then they go and do this.

A car can be repaired but Mum and I can't recapture those five days, already in an already stressful situation worrying about my step-dad, spoiled by this incident.

When I heard the dull thud I had no idea it was glass shattering. If it had sounded like glass I would have been up like a shot along with my camera and taken a photo of the villains as evidence.

Morty and my daughter phoned me up on the Sunday afternoon, and after Morty had asked after everyone he said, 'And how's the car?'

I gulped as I replied gazing at the ruin on the street and told him it was just fine!

Show a Leg

2006-09-10T12:05:00.000Z

I am always fascinated by this guy's tattoo. I feel as if he could take it off at night like a lace stocking.

Sandwiches and Bikes

2006-09-06T13:59:00.000Z

No - I didn't get served this plate of crayfish, mayo, dressed salad and good bread in a country pub after an arduous bit of pedalling but in a high street bar called Beach & Barnicott and it cost about a fiver. Good value and it was delicious. I'd eaten half of it before I remembered to take a photo.

Some readers may wonder why I always order a prawn or crab sandwich in these country pubs. I wonder too but these places offer such little choice. They must read each other's menus and stick to the same old boring things. Why not Caesar Salad, fresh sardines, a bowl of moules, a salad that doesn't have a base of iceberg lettuce snipped into strips with dressmaking scissors, an Italian Anti-Pasta? They don't have the imagination.

Braised liver, mustard mash and gravy? I only want lunch! Lamb shank, minted gravy and chips? If I wanted a chilled or frozen ready meal I'd buy one in Tescos - two for a fiver and eat it at home. I don't want to spend fifteen pounds on a pub lunch. I don't like baguettes and a frozen sausage. Might crack my crowns and enamels if I sink my teeth into them. And anyway - I even wear my lippy riding my bike so I don't want my face smeared with Rimmel!

We had a good ride to Burton Bradstock, about five hilly miles, and stopped at the Three Horseshoes and sat in their pretty pub garden and I ordered a crab sandwich. It was six pounds -Rip off Britain? but the bread was tasty and had seen the serrated edges of a bread knife. And I got some white crabmeat mixed with the brown - Hurrah! The mixed leaf garnish had a decent dressing and nobody had cut a cherry tomato into quarters - I had a whole one.

A nine mile bike ride in total, as we came back the easier route, then I almost came a cropper in town as somebody stepped out in front of me on a pedestrian crossing and I hit the kerb to avoid them.

On Friday we're going to The Manor at West Bexington for lunch. Quite a distance on a bike but worth it for the beautiful views and hopefully there'll be no sign of a prawn sandwich.

Thank You Nigella and Jamie -and Jack

2006-08-30T10:58:00.000Z

Apart from his Mum and me, my youngest Grandson Jack's first love was Nigella Lawson.

Ever since he was able to stand on a chair so he could reach the kitchen worktop and help his Mum prepare and cook fresh food, his love of cooking has grown. As he grew older his hero was Jamie Oliver. Jack is nine now.

This Sunday he helped cook our family roast lunch. Here's the photos of his homemade Yorkshire puddings, made to his own recipe with no secrets divulged, and his fruit flan. There was homemade icecream too.

Thanks to Nigella and Jamie for making cooking fun- and a big thanks to Jack who thinks it's cool to cook and to eat healthy.

Sandwiches and Bikes

2006-08-27T10:54:00.000Z

A couple of weeks ago we ate a beautiful sandwich in a Costa Coffee at a service station on the M23. Good granary bread, spread with butter, filled with crayfish, rocket and mayonnaise.It cost about four pounds. It was delicious.

Yesterday we chose to cycle to a country pub for a sandwich lunch. What a strenuous bike ride that turned out to be. Even with my fully charged battery giving me pedalling power up the hills, my legs were aching within the first mile - and we had six more miles to cycle before we got there. The hills were so steep, the lanes so narrow, cars and tractors nudging my backside to get out of the way. The hedgerows are overgrown and I had to hug so close to them as cars passed me that if I hadn't been wearing sunglasses the thorns could have damaged my eyes.

The pub was another twee place. Nicotine coated Toby jugs on shelves, a scabby, overweight pub dog snuffling around the tables for dropped food; the resident elderly local hugging the prime seat at the bar; jovial tapster giving me a knife and fork to eat my prawn sandwich, with the words,

'You'll need these utensils for our sandwiches luv!'

I do not need a knife and fork to eat yet another bog standard brown sliced supermarket loaf of bread sandwich! I do not need a knife and fork to spear limp shreds of raddichio leaves served as garnish! Does anyone ever eat those bitter leaves? Crisps! If I'd wanted a packet of crisps I'd have ordered them. Margarine! Lost for words now. The only good point was it 'only' cost four pounds.

I've grown out of these idylic country pubs that sell rubbish food; that think a jacket potato with tuna is innovative. I shall stick to high street wine bars, bistros and cafe-bars that serve punchy, imaginative, fresh food at a value for money price.

Crocs

2006-08-19T10:47:00.000Z

I don't know why I bought these shoes. I think it was because everywhere had sold out of them after a daily newspaper published an article telling their readers they were a summer must have. They are called Crocs. Made from an ultra light resin they mould to fit the wearer's feet. Good for walking, pebbly beaches, wet surfaces and supposed to be healthy as feet breath in them.

Aren't they ugly though? I wouldn't leave the house wearing them but they are truly comfortable. They don't seem to have caught on where I live as I've only seen one other person wearing them and that was an expectant mother in an M25 motorway services area. Her's were a very bright pink. As you can see I opted for boring beige.

I sort of feel I got caught up in the hype because I ordered mine online and had to wait for almost a month for delivery. It seems that the UK sold out of Crocs. Mine were made in Mexico. The only time I can think of when I wished I'd had some Crocs was when we were in Jordan and I paddled in the Dead Sea. I emerged unscathed but lots of people cut their feet very badly on the sharp stones on the sea bed because the sea is very murky and bathers can't see where they're treading. There's a business opportunity! Set up a stall in Dead Sea resorts in Israel, Jordan and Egypt selling Crocs.

Goodbye and Hello

2006-08-18T09:11:00.000Z

A lovely evening saying goodbye to my dear friend David. We first met thirty years ago when he was a customer in our restuarant. I didn't know it then but the scrawny, leggy little boy he brought out for family dinners was his son Nick and I didn't meet Nick again until fifteen years ago - a fine figure of a man now and a good friend. So David lives in Australia and every year he says he's not going to make that twenty-four hour flight to the UK again, but thankfully he always does.

He's on his way back to Australia now and he won't see his photo on my Blog until he gets back. We keep in touch by email, even it it's only him emailing me to ask me to tell his son Nick to switch his mobile on.

It was also a hello evening to our mate Phil. He used to live here too but went to London to make his fortune - and he did too! I took a photo of him because he's well handsome but I had my camera accidently switched to Movie mode and have seven seconds of me nattering in the background and Phil smiling patiently at me while I thought I'd snapped him.

My camera software lets me take individual clips as photos from a movie so when I've worked out how to do it out I'll post it in here Phil.

Still a man for the ladies aren't you David? After we said goodbye and hello Morty and me went to the Bull Hotel for a drink and a meal but got caught up in a birthday party celebration. So today it feels like a Saturday as it was more like a Friday night than a Thursday.

But tonight is Friday and we have to go out again (shame) and tomorrow is Carnival day and we can't miss that can we?

The Most Expensive Sandwich?

2006-08-16T09:03:00.000Z

Had a great ten mile cycle ride through country lanes and back. Our aim was to reach an isolated country pub, sit in the garden and have a sandwich for lunch. Got there, asked for the lunchtime menu. I didn't have my glasses on but could see everything was around a tenner. Asked if they did sandwiches and the bar-person said they were there on this menu.

Took our drinks into the garden, sat next to a wishing well, admired the new thatch on the pub roof, noticed a brand new dwelling being built in the pub car-park, read the brochure we'd picked up in the bar advertising a Caribbean villa to let for £1500 a week and read the menu.

The cheapest thing on it was a 'local' crab sandwich for eight pounds! Gulp! The thought of the hilly ride cycling back to the real world for lunch was too much to take as we were starving hungry - so we ordered two crab sandwiches.

Would you be happy with supermarket own brand sliced brown bread? Would you be happy with just the brown crab meat? Where was the white crab flesh? Might as well use Shiphams crab paste! Would you be happy with no mayo on the side? Would you be happy with a slice of tired kiwi fruit balanced on top of a pile of limp 'salad leaves' as a garnish? If I'd wanted a bloody fruit salad I'd have ordered one! Would you be happy with no salad dressing? Can you tell I wasn't happy? Eight pounds! No wonder the owners have a villa in the Caribbean, no wonder they're building a new period house in the car-park.

Captive audience really. By the time anyone has walked, cycled, driven out to this isolated rip-off, over twee, relic of a pub they can't be bothered to move on and find somewhere else to eat.

There are some lovely places to eat round here - but this isn't one of them.

On My Bike

2006-08-11T08:44:00.000Z

My garden needs professional attention, I need a new bathroom and my galley kitchen needs updating but instead of spending money on all that I bought a new bike instead. This is no ordinary bike though. Its very hilly round West Dorset and I don't enjoy the pain of struggling up these hills, so my new bike has a battery! I cycle as normal but when faced with a horrid steep hill I click a button and the power kicks in and up I go. I still have to pedal, it isn't an engine, and thankfully its silent. There's an 'eco' button that combines 60% pedal power and 40% battery and when I pedal without the power I am a human dynamo and recharge the battery using my own energy. It has seven gears, from flat to steep. The first time I went out on it I was gear crazy and rushed through them too fast and my chain fell of and I had to take it back to the shop to be fixed. But I'm more measured with them now and go up and down the gears one at a time. Like driving a car really.

This is a busy tourist area and before 'power,' cycling around roundabouts with cars coming at me from all directions terrified me - but now I click the power button and sail round roundabouts as fast as any motor. The best is when Morty is struggling up a hill and I'm right behind him and he yells 'Overtake me' and I zoom past him and have to wait for him at the top. Before 'power' I was the one pushing my bike up a hill rather than kill myself with the strain.

The photo was taken at The Hive beach cafe in Burton Bradstock. We cycled there, about four miles, had a Greek salad lunch, then cycled into town, had a beer in the Bull Hotel courtyard and then home. The Bull Hotel has had a complete makeover, calling itself a boutique hotel. This has caused much amusement locally as the majority of people in town thought this meant it was a hotel with shops!

Fully charged my bike will travel about 40 miles but so far I haven't had to recharge it because of my own pedalling topping it up. So if you see a wild haired blonde racing up hills on a bike and laughing then you'll know that it's me.

Two Rivers, Two Countries and a Sea

2006-08-08T10:02:00.000Z

Just returned from a week spent on a luxury French cruise boat sailing along the southern coast of Spain, across the Bay of Cadiz and up a lazy river in Portugal .

As well as two, rivers, two countries and a sea we visited Seville, Jerez, Cadiz and Cordoba - four beautiful Spanish cities. Not the Spain of resorts, hotels, apartments but the historical Spain with it's culture still intact.

This was a holiday of indulgence as although we disembarked every day to visit Sherry plantations, Mosques, Jewish quarters, eat tapas, drink San Miguel beers. all the trips were leisurely and we returned to the boat by lunchtime and time to sit on the upper deck in the sunshine to read, sleep before another sherry before dinner. And the food! Let me tell and show you that.

The food was amazing. French cooking at it's very best. The team of chefs presented the sort of meals I would expect in an expensive restaurant and not on a river boat catering for one hundred and eighty passengers - twenty three Britains and one hundred and fifty seven French. If it's good enough for the French than certainly good enough for us.

Fresh ingredients and a light touch with the cooking made it possible for us to eat lunches and dinners of such high quality that we were never over full and returned home without putting on an ounce of weight.

The cabins were the size of small hotel bedrooms with comfortable full size beds and no bunks, plenty of wardrobe space and excellent air-conditioning. I even managed the shower with no distress as I hate showers but it worked for me this time as they were well designed. There was a piano bar and large lounges plus gorgeous sun decks to watch the world pass by as we sailed along the gentle waters.

Seem to have uploaded two meringues - but I didn't eat two of them even though I could have done. But it wasn't all about food. The boat is brand new and the best river vessel we've ever sailed on and shall use this French company again. I think I'm in Portugal on this photo as the sun was going down and we were about to return to the boat for dinner after a stroll around a pretty Portugese village on the river.

A smashing week away and recommended to anyone who needs a rest and not dashing around all over the place on more strenuous tours. This is the link for the French cruise company called Croiseurope. It's all in French with a bit of English but I was promised they have English brochures. We booked through Voyages Jules Verne. The price includes all meals, travel and transfers and some tours. Doesn't include insurance and the optional tours or of course drinks on board. They are building a new boat ready to cruise on the River Thames next year! Wow!

Snake or Slow Worm? Scared Me Silly

2006-05-18T13:46:00.000Z

If you came downstairs barefoot in the night and you saw one of the above slithering from underneath your sofa would you scream? If this happened to you would you yell out loud 'Snake!' Would you care if it was a snake or a slow worm? I didn't care at all. I screamed until I cried. More about slow worms here but they will always be snakes to me.

Last year a 'slow worm' crawled into the sleeve of a shirt drying outside on the clothes line. I didn't know this until I picked the laundry basket up ready to do some ironing. It reared up as if it were mesmerised by the music of a snake charmer and looked me straight in the eyes.

I screamed then too! I was so terrified I threw the laundry, including the snake, into the linen basket and closed the lid. The 'slow worm' tried to escape through the holes in the basket weave. It was succeeding. I kept poking it back inside the basket, amidst more screaming. I opened the bedroom window and hurled the basket and the contents into the front garden.

I don't care if they are legless lizards and have eyelids. Even though it did wink at me! They are snakes.

2006-05-04T08:14:00.000Z

Our first three nights of our trip to Cuba were spent in Havana and the last three nights in the Caribbean resort of Varadero. In beween we travelled through six of the fourteen Cuban provinces staying overnight in individual cabins with palm leaves for roofs. All the cabins were in rural parks with great views and plenty of wildlife. Thankfully, all the cabins had air conditioning - even though some of them were very noisy - as humidity does me in more than high temperatures.

Hemingway and Cuba

2006-04-21T07:24:00.000Z

This is me on our first morning in Havana outside the Hotel Sevilla where we stayed for three nights. A beautiful Spanish colonial hotel used as a location for the filming of Grahame Green's 'Our Man in Havana'

Havana is a captivating city and we wished we could have returned there after our two weeks travelling around Cuba and spent a couple more nights discovering more before we flew home. Especially with all the knowledge we'd gained during our travels about Cuba and of course the Revolution - but that's another story.

We were able to see Hemingway's house just outside Havana but not allowed to photograph it nor his famous fishing boat the 'Pilar' We could peep through the windows and also see the empty swimming pool where Ava Gardner swam naked. Finca Vigia is being restored so if we visit Cuba again in the future maybe we'll be allowed inside? Above is a photo of the fishing village where the Pilar was launched fishing for marlins and the setting for Hemingway's 'The Old Man and the Sea.'

Above is a statue of Hemingway in the fishing village of Cojimar. We had a seafood lunch here in La Terraza, a bar restaurant with walls lined with photos of Hemingway posing with marlins and with Castro.

These are photos of Hemingway in the El Floridita bar in Havana where he drank and where I experienced my first Mojito cocktail. Memorable. Here's the recipe!

Cuban Towel Art

2006-04-18T13:06:00.000Z

Cuban towel art in two of the hotels we stayed in. This art is all the more impressive because, unlike the Egyptians, the Cubans must have been laundering these same towels for years and years as they barely cover your bits after a shower - they've been machine washed so many times. The housekeeping staff left personal handwritten notes in the rooms wishing us a happy stay and telling us how much pleasure it gave them to clean our rooms.

People who work in the catering industry are possibly the best paid people in Cuba as at least the get ample tips to compensate for atrocious wages - not taxed by the state either. One Cuban Convertible Peso equals one USA dollar.

Morty wanted to buy this example of Cuban hand-thrown pottery! Not on my mantlepiece! Must have been the heat affecting him!

Cuban Cars

2006-04-16T12:26:00.000Z

Cuba has hundreds of old American cars belching smoke, rattling along, hand painted yet startlingley beautiful to see. The Cubans must be wonderful mechanics as most of theses motors are kept running with bits of other cars - real make do and mend. Of course we took a ride in one and it was fun. This old Ford was a bit different to the rest.

When our coach driver needed fuel we had to get off the coach and wait on the roadside as he went to the secret destination to fill up the tank, armed with piles of documentation as every single litre of fuel had to be accounted for. It took over half an hour every time.

There were moments when I watched our belongings, including passports, being driven off in the pursuit of petrol when I wondered if we'd ever see them again!

The Ration Shop

2006-04-15T20:38:00.000Z

The day before we left the UK and travelled to Cuba I did an online Tesco delivery order to arrive on my doorstep the day after we returned home.

On day three of our journey we saw this. A Ration Shop. All Cubans have a Ration Book with coupons for: Rice, flour, sugar, oil, bread and little else. Sparse?

Self Concious

2006-03-23T08:19:00.000Z

Oh Goodness! I'm beginning to to write sentences without nouns! Like Annie Proulx in her novel 'The Shipping News' and her character Quoyle. 'Proulx routinely does without nouns and conjunctions--"Quoyle, grinning. Expected to hear they were having a kid. Already picked himself for godfather"--but her terse prose seems perfectly at home on the rocky Newfoundland coast.'

I'm beginning to feel self-concious about how I write now. I've always written travel-notes for friends and family as they enjoy reading my personal experiences about countries they may never visit. Some of these have bits in them that could be reworked for use in future stories. Fiction. Autobiographical stuff. But, I've re-read my original easy flowing travel-notes and how natural they are and they simply won't do anymore.

There are glaring 'mistakes' in them. Now I feel that with the knowledge and practice during these first few weeks of A215, in altering them they may appear contrived, fitting into a prescribed format. On the other hand they could improve with me using some of my newly gained skills - as long as I use nouns!

I wonder if others feel the same? Bit wobbly?

You've Got a Friend

2006-03-19T15:25:00.000Z

After nine months supply teaching in the same junior school covering for a long-term teacher signed off with stress, Morty is leaving as she returns to her class after the Easter break. Since he returned to teaching one year ago, he's only had two schools and yet worked full time.

Problem is he's become very attached to this class - and the kids love him in return - and so do the staff and parents.

Morty and the class have been preparing their final assembly together. It's Carole King's 'You've Got a Friend' Driving back from Bath this lunchtime we played the whole Tapestry album. After the first few lines of 'You've Got a Friend' I was crying.

He was driving; wearing sunglasses; couldn't see his eyes; but I think he was crying too. I don't think he'll get through it. I don't think the kids and the rest of the staff will get through it without a tear either.

You just call out my name

And you know wherever I am

I'll come running to see you again

Winter, spring, summer or fall

All you have to do is call

And I'll be there

You've got a friend

If the sky above you

Grows dark and full of clouds

And that old north wind begins to blow

Keep your head together

And call my name out loud

Soon you'll hear me knocking at your door

Results

2006-03-16T14:39:00.000Z

Received my first returned and marked TMA for my OU A215 course, returned within the week, which is the fastest turnaround I've ever experienced. Traditionally, I get low marks for my first TMA in a new course. Then my marks creep up as I learn, about halfway through the course I peak - then I get complacent - then for the ECA I'm usually fed up and tired and want it all to be over and get an OK sort of Pass.

I received an excellent mark for this first TMA and am delighted, stunned, thrilled - but the pessimist in me is saying 'The only way is down!' Well, that's a cert for the compulsory poetry TMA but I'll give it my best try. But the more I read about how to write then the more fun I'm having trying all this new knowledge out in practice. And it still doesn't feel like study - not as I've known it in the past - more like a joy.

Driving to Bath on Saturday to have lunch with Morty's daughter and her bloke. If ever you're in Bath have lunch here at Loch Fyne. That's if you like fish of course, although they do have super meat dishes too. If staying overnight then the Milsom Hotel above Loch Fyne is very modern and comfortable and also good value for central Bath and shopping. Not that I am going to buy anything of course. Who said that?

Offensive? Yes!

2006-03-11T09:55:00.000Z

The most offensive sentence I've read this week went something like this:

'I blame those bra-burning women of the past who have forced young women now to need have babies, work in low paid part time jobs and study for worthless degrees'

I married for the first time in the 1960s. I went to buy a washing machine in the Co-op. I filled in all the hire purchase forms (credit) and placed a cash deposit. The male assistant told me I had to have my husband's signature on the form to allow the agreement to go through. I earned more than my husband and my job was secure - his wasn't! I had saved the cash deposit yet as a married woman I wasn't allowed by law to buy anything on credit without his signature!

Don't you call me 'bra-burning' Rant Boy!

I Dreamt

2006-03-05T11:26:00.000Z

I've been watching ' Just The Two of Us.' I love Curtis Stigers and also sing very badly like Penny Smith, his duet partner. We are going to see Curtis in concert in April.

I dreamt last night that I raced up on the stage during his performance and begged to do a duet with him as I'm sure he must be missing Penny!

I shall have to sit on my hands to stop myself doing that. I haven't told Morty about my dream because he may well cancel the tickets!

Best I don't have a drink before the show!

The Deal Is Done

2006-03-01T14:06:00.000Z

We did the deal. A 2003 reg Mini-Cooper with 16.000 miles on the clock. The last time I had a Mini I unknowingley drove it for two years with my handbag hanging on the choke knob and start the car by pulling the cigarette lighter knob out as the choke. It started first time every time.

Sitting inside our 'Cherished New Mini' there are so many levers, knobs, switches that I couldn't possibly hang my handbag on any of them!

It's being delivered next Tuesday and Morty will be at work. I know what's going to happen. They'll show me what all the knobs mean, he'll get home from work and we'll have our first row over the car because I won't remember how to de-mobilise the mobiliser. (Should that be the other way around?)

Now we've got to get rid of the Cabriolet. They've got some for sale on eBay but I can't imagine selling a car on there. Ours in MOTted and taxed until July. I hope it goes to a good home.

Goodbye Old Faithfull

2006-02-28T13:11:00.000Z

The time has come to say goodbye to my eighteen year old Peugeot Cabriolet. The last journey we took in it to Torquay it rained and I got a wet lap as the drips leaked through the rag-top. The cost of an MOT is more than the car is worth. No more open top cars. People slash them and the wind noise is deafening on a motorway. Can't see out of the rear window unless the top's down. Still life in her for a new enthusiastic owner. Lots of new parts in her. I think I'll cry when I say goodbye to her.

Going to look at a used Mini later today. I've had two mini cars in the past so looking forward to driving the new models. This one has a panoramic electric sunroof so bit of a halfway between open top driving and closed in. Not quite ready to be too sensible yet with a car. Still need a bit of sexy.

Meet the Author

2006-02-21T12:53:00.000Z

This is fun. This is a website with video and audio clips of published authors talking about their latest book. Meet The Author has around eight hundred clips so far.

I made the mistake of going to Jodie Marsh's video clip and her teeth were so dazzling I had to put my sunglasses on! There are 'proper' authors there too.

Valentine Surprise

2006-02-15T17:20:00.000Z

Since Monday morning Morty was going on about Valentine's Day and my 'surprise' and what time does the postman come. I told him that if it meant we were going away I needed to know. He knows that! Nails need doing, choosing a frock, things sorted.

So why did he wait until 10 a.m. on Valentine's morning to give me a lovely card and to tell me to get packed as we were going away to stay overnight but he wasn't going to tell me where!

The Tesco delivery was booked for the 10-12 time slot! My hair needed a shampoo. He'd booked it all up four days ago so he had loads of time to get excited - I didn't have any time to get excited as I was too busy trying to get a case packed, have a bath, organise myself, unpack one week's grocery shopping and insist he told me where we were going.

Do I need walking boots? Is it a country pub or a bit smarter? It was the Grand at Torquay which is a delicious hotel to stay in. Romantic, wonderful food, and plenty of bracing seafront to walk along.

It was a great surprise and a lovely treat and I bet he forgets the fuss I made about such short notice and does it again one day - I hope!

2006-02-03T17:03:00.000Z

Sunshine on The Nile

The above photo of the River Nile at Aswan, taken in February 2005, has nothing to do with my subject, but it's so cold and miserable I thought it might may everyone feel better.

Our tutor has created subconferences and activities to help us get started as a group. Looks good too. As expected I was the first to post because I know how shy I was the first time I entered a course FirstClass conference. Well, I'm not shy any more so hope by posting others will be encouraged to join in. I even posted a Haiku and that took some bottle!

I've even joined in a story in the Scribs conference. It is about cosmetic surgery and the menopause so - a couple of topics I'm more than happy with. I wouldn't have dared to do something like that a couple of months ago. I used to read the community stories and think everyone was so clever so in this short time I've gained confidence in my new study subject.

I love A215 so far. The Cafe is buzzing and some lovely warm people in there. It doesn't feel like study at all - should I be worried?

Going to a live gig tonight. It's an annual tribute to a local musician who got drunk, fell into an alley on the way home from the pub and froze to death - exactly fifteen years ago this week. The band he played in still exists and everyone who has played in the band, about forty of them, turns up for this, wherever they are in the world. Sometimes there's three saxophonists, a couple of keyboards and as many as twenty musicians on the stage at the same time making a wall of sound. It's Blues, Trad and Modern Jazz, Rock with a couple of good earthy blues singers. We go every year, sometimes meeting people we haven't seen since the last event.

The tickets are a tenner and all the proceeds, every penny as everyone does it for free, go to a local fund to buy musical instruments for school children.

Good weekend to all.

Birkenau

2006-02-01T09:27:00.000Z

The Railway Track

Looking at photos to stimulate my poetry skills (cough) seems to be working for me. This is a photo of the railway track at Birkenau in Poland where Jews, gypsies and other victims of Hitler's Final Solution arrived to be gassed, cremated and starved. Looking at these images of the utter hell they all endured make me feel as sad as I did on the day I took the photos.

Although I prefer typing straight into my word processor for my clusters and freewriting, I'm taking notice of the course book and doing poetry using paper and pen. Have to really as so much to alter and also keeping each draft for reference as there could be some good bits in there.

I wish I could attempt this without the need to rhyme lines because I see how that can look contrived, yet I can't do that - yet - hopefully with practice I shall be able to.

Generated Love Poem

2006-01-31T14:35:00.000Z

Well all A215ers who are worried about poetry like me then this is my effort using the love poem generator. where you enter key words. Better than I can do at the moment. In fact the result has made me even more concerned about writing poetry! Off to have a hysterical giggle!

My Love - Your skin glows like the strawberry, blossoms burgundy as the lily in the purest hope of spring.
My heart follows your saxophone voice and leaps like a cat at the whisper of your name.
The evening floats in on a great parrot wing.
I am comforted by your sock that I carry into the twilight of tablebeams and hold next to my arm.
I am filled with hope that I may dry your tears of water.
As my navel falls from my shirt, it reminds me of your floor.
In the quiet, I listen for the last bang of the day.
My heated toe leaps to my sock.
I wait in the moonlight for your secret sky so that we may wave as one, toe to toe, in search of the magnificient blue and mystical door of love.

2006-01-31T14:08:00.000Z

The Red Shoe

The A215 Conferences have settled down now so no excuse for me not getting on with actual studying rather than clearing every red flag in view. Seem to be managing a Haiku a day now so decided to get on to the poetry guidance in the Creative Writing course book. My photo of the red shoe is my starting point as the image grabs my imagination as I ask 'Who was she?' 'Did she know she was going to die the day she wore her red shoes and got on the train?' I still want poetry to rhyme. If it doesn't then it's prose?

Going to Cuba at the end of March so shall take some Hemingway to read. One of the TMA questions is about a journey so maybe I'll write it fuelled with dark rum, Havanna cigars and dancing the Salsa? If I do I shall suggest to my tutor that they take the same as it'll probably read better that way.

Cafe's Open

2006-01-25T15:11:00.000Z

An exciting day and I've done nothing but hang around our new A215 Cafe. Hundreds of students finding the Cafe icon on their OU Desktops this morning and introducing themselves to each other. Brilliant!

First year OU courses are always an event but this one seems to have an edge to it. Really well organised and things happening when they are supposed to happen. Doesn't seem to be any booze around in there at the moment so if you find your way here please share mine.

Happy A215 studying to everyone.

Literary Links

2006-01-23T07:42:00.000Z

A very interesting Blog linked from Topsydurvydom's Blog - thanks for this Rob, and the other links as well. Scarecow is an online forum for book reviews, literary comment and short fiction focusing on the unheard, unconventional and eccentric. You'll able to read submissions of short stories and poetry, and submit your own work if you want to. There a warning given meaning some contain strong language (csl). I haven't read any of those yet because the stories without the warning contain language that may be too strong for some.

I am doubtful that our tutors on A215 would appreciate us getting heavy with that sort of language. I enjoyed reading the stories. They were different from the norm. Scarecrow condemn the "three for two dross" offered in high street bookshops. I always buy books on offer like this at airports for my holiday reading, so now I feel bad about doing this.

Have a look and see what you think.

Thoughts

2006-01-20T13:43:00.000Z

I have this uncomfortable feeling that I'm being lulled into a false sense of security with my new Creative Writing course. I sense there will be more criteria than I first imagined. OK- so it is free writing but it must have structure, originality and be readable and enjoyable. Now I'm thinking that with Social Science essays there are obvious rules to follow but the rules are sort of hidden with Creative Writing - but they are there. Simply do my best, listen well to my tutor comments and advice and follow them if I can.

I am impressed by the number of tutors on A215 that are published playrights, authors and scriptwriters. I've looked several up in Amazon and they have books for sale. One author is a current chicklit author with impressive reviews from readers and newspaper literary critics. Unfortunately, my tutor doesn't even have a Resume let alone a Blog or personal website.

I feel I may be past the chicklit stage -even though I still have a certain element of Bridget Jones in me - and considering writing about HRT and pre/post menopausal women. Maybe I could call it 'The Patch Club' Copyright Morning 2006!

Poetry Workshop

2006-01-19T07:58:00.000Z

Yet another poetry link posted into the A215 Conference. I read every single poem that has been submitted and the reviews by that month's resident poet. It's the Guardian Poetry Workshop website. I was delighted to have been captured by the same lines that the writer of the month highlighted in their comments. But as for being capable of writing anything similar myself........

Sylvia Plath

2006-01-16T14:35:00.000Z

Making a start on reading poetry out loud I found something quite thrilling on the web. I had been reading Sylvia Plath's poem 'Lady Lazarus' and wondering if it is the fact I know a lot about her that made the poem so moving. Would I have been as moved if it had been written by a person I knew nothing about? Then I heard this! A recording of Lady Lazarus read by Sylvia Plath.

Four Things

2006-01-14T10:20:00.001Z

The writing course must have triggered me off as I can't stop doing it now! Thanks for suggesting this Nogsbad.

Four jobs you've had in your life: Serving wet fish and fish and chips as a Saturday job. I smelt really bad! A hairdresser, a restaurateur, managing property.

Four places you've lived: Balham (Yes! Gateway to the South) Bletchingley (Couldn't afford to live there now) Beaminster and now Bridport. I only live in places that begin with a 'B' so watch out Bristol, Bath and Brighton!

Four TV shows you love to watch: Strictly Come Dancing wanting James the cookie to win. Gordon Ramsey and the F-Word Surely the 'F' stands for food? Eastenders as I have plebby tastes. Later with Jools Holland (Told you Nog!)

Four places you'd rather be: In Jordan at Wadi Rum in the desert sipping Bedouin mint tea watching the sunset. At Aswan in Egypt on Elephantine Island gazing at the Nile. At an airport waiting for a flight to somewhere. Where I am now.

Four albums you can't live without: 'O' by Damien Rice. 'You Inspire Me' by Curtis Stigers. 'A Swinging Affair' by Frank Sinatra. 'Fiddler on the Roof'

Four of your favourite foods: Prawns, strawberries, avocados, fresh figs.

Four movies you could watch over and over: 'The Godfather Trilogy' 'Cape Fear' 'The Shawshank Redemption' 'Crash'

Four places you've been on holiday: Russia to find my paternal Grandfather. Poland to find my paternal Grandmother. China and the Yangstze River and the Great Wall. Egypt twice - and I shall return.

Four websites you visit daily: The Open University WeightWatchers Online BBC Radio 4 and my bank -but that's personal!

Phew! That took longer than I thought it would to do!

On Characters

2006-01-13T08:18:00.000Z

As A215 hasn't begun for real yet I'm dipping into the book and having a sort of play around with some of the activities. Last night I went to sleep thinking about characters and building them up with identities and descriptions. Woke up this morning with my head full of them and began to create my first character for my notebook.

Oh dear! My first 'victim' is based on somebody I know (make note to self not to give them this Blog address) and talk about freeflowing thoughts! They'd sue me if they ever read it. I'm making sure I don't let the name slip out. Nevertheless, it's made a very funny, multi-layered person and has begun to sound like the two characters played by Prunella Scales and Patricia Routledge in the Radio 4 programme 'Ladies of Letters'. Yes - it's a female 'victim'.

Just done half an hour of 'Pump' with Davina on my exercise DVD and now I want chocolate! Although I have to use three handsets to get the DVD to play - so many buttons to click and for the second day running I couldn't get the sound so had to do them to a background of Desert Island Discs. I've got the sequences for the buttons on the three handsets written on a sheet of A4 paper but still couldn't get the upbeat music to play. Morty showed me again last night and got the music to play straight away so I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

Coffee with my daughter and then a bit of time spent on the computer writing my character up in Word. I giggle every time I look at it but it all feels very cathartic - like they are things I would love to say to this person in real-life but wouldn't dare to. Not unless I was very drunk on a vat or two of white wine and then I'd have to apologise!

On Poetry

2006-01-12T08:11:00.000Z

I bravely posted into the A215 Creative Writing conference confessing that I don't like poetry probably because as a schoolgirl I had to learn by heart and then recite 'How They Brought The Good News From Ghent to Aix' by Browning for an English exam. I was shocked when I re-read this poem for the first time for years as the words and rythm came flooding back to me - and I still hate it.

A fellow student replied, telling me that I did better than Browning himself and posted a link to an actual historic recording of Browning reading his own poem and having to keep beginning again as he'd forgotten it. This made me laugh muchly.

I moved on in the Creative Writing book to the poetry section as I need to get a grip and did the first activity. This was a timed activity of fifteen minutes and writing in lines about a photo - what happened before the photo was taken, what happened next, being a character in the photo and imagining writing a postcard to somebody based on the photo. A strange experience indeed. By the time I stopped writing I had something resembling a sort of poem! I impressed myself.

I am facing my demons?

It gets Better

2006-01-10T17:08:00.000Z

My last two Open University courses have only had the OUSA Student conference for online communication. I've been very grateful for this as it has been my only point of contact with other students doing the same courses - I don't go to tutorials as they are mostly more than a two hundred miles return journey. On Saturdays? In a very busy tourist area in the South West of England? Not for me.

So A215 gets better because we have the OUSA Conference, plus an OU A215 Cafe for social chat as opposed to course related discussions, plus official online Tutor Groups led by our regional tutor. And then, we get to submit our TMAs and ECA electronically through the OU system and they are to be elelctronically returned by our tutors, marked and commented on.

A215 is completely different to anything I've studied before. It seems that everyone in the OUSA Conference is as motivated as I am. There are some very experienced writers contributing in there who already know what a Haiku is and how to compose one. Poetry in any form scares me as I don't enjoy reading it and the furthest I can go with a poem is a dodgy Limerick. Big confession here too - I don't like Shakespeare, can't stand the Brontes and prefer a bit of Julie Birchell (sp?) and Ian Rankin.

Thankfully there are options in the TMA questions so I shall carefully choose the ones that suit me the best. So far so good.

So Excited

2006-01-07T10:04:00.000Z

I'm so excited now I've got all the course materials from the Open University for A215 Creative Writing. It's a brand new presentation and although the course doesn't officially start until February it's the sort of course I can get going with before I've even been allocated a tutor. I have no dreams of becoming a published writer but simply want to write better and enjoy the freedom I sense this course will give me to express myself rather than have to stick to 4000 word essays based on course readings. Heavenly! No arguing points, comparisons, evidence and as I'm always being told by my tutors to 'Stick to the script'

There is no script in creative writing. I've begun by keeping a daily journal and as soon as I've put the kettle on for tea in the morning I write down how I feel and what I think before the routine of the day kicks in and my mind gets cluttered. This is supposed to free our minds and maybe provide ideas for future writings. There is some talk of our journals being shown to tutors! I don't think so - not without some heavy editing.

I'm always excited when I begin a new OU course but this one has me salivating.

Mount Nebo in Jordan

2005-11-07T14:16:00.000Z

I am standing on the high top of the sacred Mount Nebo in Jordan looking over the Holy Land where Moses also had his first sighting and where he allegedly died. The sign points out the Dead Sea, Jericho, Bethlehem and Jersualem and the Mount of Olives.

It was a peaceful place to be.

Cherry Vodka, Cheesecake and Coffee

2005-10-04T13:22:00.000Z

We chose Krakow in Poland for our five day summer city break mainly because my Paternal Grandmother was Polish, and having visited Russia in 2003 to get closer to my Russian Grandfather's roots, I needed to in some way imagine what my Grandmother's life was like before she fled to Britain from Poland for safety; these emotions were all the more heightened for me because they were both Jewish and if they hadn't escaped they too could have been victims of 'Hitler's Final Solution' and I wouldn't be sitting here typing this story of my Krakow experiences.

Krakow was once the royal capital city of Poland and was designated to be the European City of Culture in the year 2000 and it is easy to see why. The city universities carry the same status as Oxford and Cambridge and as soon as we arrived at our Hotel Wyspianski, after a two hour flight from London Gatwick and the short drive from the Pope John the Paul 11 Airport, by late afternoon and within a three minute stroll we were in the centre of the vast, magnificent, medieval Old Town market square, second only in size to St Mark's Square in Venice. The square is surrounded on all sides by cafes, bars and restaurants, as well as imposing merchant houses and palaces, so we sat under a sun umbrella of the nearest café and christened our safe arrival with flavoursome cold Polish beer, absorbing the surroundings and the grand variety of architectural styles of buildings, the flower sellers, musicians, mime artists and people meeting up under the central statue of Adam Mickiewiicz, Poland's premier romantic poet and philanderer.

The tourist rated Hotel Wyspianski has a restaurant, and although we spied many enticing restaurants surrounding the square and in the cobbled side streets, travelling is tiring so we were ordering dinner in the hotel restaurant by seven o'clock. This first meal was memorable. Herring and soured cream and meat balls for first courses, then veal escalope and rabbit plus potatoes and onions fried in goose fat, plus two deserts and several drinks and we signed for a bill of twelve pounds for two of us. The Zloty is the Polish currency and we were unfamiliar with this, so we double checked the bill but this was the true cost.

Next day, after a filling breakfast, including a wide range of International and Polish hot and cold buffet style dishes, we were ready for our visit to Auschwitz and Birkenau, the satellite camp of Auschwitz. It was a bright, sunny August morning and the thirty two miles drive from Krakow through the surrounding countryside was very interesting. Particularly the way the Poles farm in small individually owned strips and even the smartest new build houses grew fruit and vegetables, and kept chickens and rabbits in their large front gardens rather than the landscaped yucca and gravelled minimalist gardens we favour in the UK.

The moment we arrived at Birkenau and stepped down from the coach, an icy cold wind blew across the huge expanse of the grim looking camp with wooden sheds stretching as far as the eye could see. It was silent. I imagined a cold deserted winter day here and not the crowds and sunshine of the peak tourist period in August. The Final Solution at Birkenau was carried out at a fast pace by the SS with Jews transported by rail from all across Europe being killed in their thousands every day. As we walked across the railway line and over the unloading platform towards an incinerator an old Jewish man was shuffling towards us held up by two very young Jewish males; I imagine his Great-grandsons. The old man was in his nineties, small, bent double and dressed in white robes with the Israeli flag bordering them complete with white skull cap. I looked at his bowed head and the shape of his brow and the tears welled up in my eyes and my heart was overturning. My Jewish Father died four years ago in his mid-eighties and this old Jewish man could have been him. He was his double.

I hadn't expected to cry. I knew the history of the Holocaust. I looked at the rest of our group, and realised that very young people were crying too as the English speaking Polish guide softly relayed the background information of the 'bathhouses,' corpse cellars and crematorium ovens; an industrial extermination factory; as I imagined for many of the younger visitors this may have been the first time they had heard the truth in as much detail. Auschwitz itself is two miles from Birkenau. The short journey on the coach to Auschwitz with our fellow travellers was spent in silence. Walking through the infamous gates of the extermination camp at Auschwitz sent chills down my spine. My lasting memory will be the floor to ceiling displays of hair shaved from the female prisoners, false limbs, spectacles, shoes and childrens' clothes.
We had been out all day visiting the camps and when we arrived back in the Market Square in Krakow at 4.30pm we understood why there had been no lunch-break. Who could eat in that horrific environment in the knowledge that millions had died of starvation in Hitler's Final Solution?

We sat in another café/bar appreciating our freedom and putting our lives into perspective as I sat sipping my Cherry Vodka, a perfect black coffee and a mammoth slice of sultana cheesecake as sweet and sour as my Polish Grandmother used to make, raising my glass of Vodka and silently thanked her for being so brave and giving me life.

In the centre of the Market Square is the Gothic and Renaissance Cloth Hall, an elegant shopping arcade lined on both sides with wooden stalls, and a history that goes back to the 14th Century when it was a major trading centre with the East, trading silk and spices in exchange for lead, salt and textiles. The stalls sold mainly amber jewellery, leather goods, clothes and tourist memorabilia and had a charming atmosphere and I loved the happy smiling faces of the Krakow stall holders as they took loads of money from the hordes of visitors buying their goods. The Poles are embracing tourism - and so they should after years of repression. They appeared to be enjoying taking money from us with broad smiles and a happy attitude.

Our rung out emotions needed to dwell on pleasanter things so the next day we started the morning walking the mainly pedestrianised city as it is surrounded by beautiful gardens with the ring-road placed beyond them; rather good urban planning; then to explore the Jewish Quarter stopping for lunch to eat a real kosher meal. We began our cultural experience at the famous Jagiellonian University of Krakow in the six hundred year old Collegium Maius where Poland's famous son Pope John Paul 11 studied. The Gothic courtyard houses the University Museum with memorabilia of famous students and tributes to the USA President Herbert Hoover who was responsible for aid and support to Poland after both World Wars.

Then we hopped onto a double horse and carriage driven by a beautiful young Polish woman wearing the same coloured livery as her sleek and healthy steeds and we clip clopped along the cobbled streets to visit the old Jewish Quarter of Krakow, Kazimierz, where in 1941, up to 68,000 Jewish people were confined by the Nazis to ghettos before being transported to Auschwitz for 'resettlement' in other words - extermination. Stephen Spielberg chose Kazimierz as his location for the film Schindler's List. Kazimierz is run down and dilapidated as the area has been left as it was after the war as tribute to the horrors that took place there.

Nevertheless, I had promised Morty a kosher meal like my Grandmother used to make, so we sat in the courtyard of the Ariel Jewish restaurant in the central square of the Kazimierz district and ate herring and sour cream, dumplings, potato latkes, chicken liver with egg, gefiltre fish, matzos and honey cake topped off with kosher beer. Food I happily remember from my childhood.

We walked off our substantial lunch with a stroll back to the royal castle of Wawel, the residence of Polish kings for centuries. Wawel Castle is a magnificent Renaissance building with an arcaded courtyard and houses many museums illustrating Polish history and culture, including the Royal Apartments, the Armoury and Treasury. We enjoyed the underground tour of the remains of pre-Roman and Gothic walls under the foundations of the Castle and the Dragon's Den, a long cave that was once allegedly home to a child eating dragon. Just time to walk back to the Market Square to catch the hourly single trumpet fanfare from the tower of the 14th Century Gothic St Mary's Church, which historically warned the city of impending attacks, before my daily requirement of Cherry Vodka, coffee and cheesecake and a rest before dinner.

Krakow has a comprehensive range of places to eat from the ubiquitous McDonalds to inexpensive and expensive national dishes and globally fashionable cuisines, such as Italian, French, Chinese and Japanese. Whatever your pocket and your palate eating in Krakow is fun with something to suit everyone with excellent service and all of a very high standard. You won't go hungry. After dinner there are many jazz clubs and blues bars to visit, all offering live music until the early hours of the morning. Our hotel was minutes away from the late night-life yet during our five night stay we were never disturbed by people turning out to go home at three in the morning as can happen in the UK and late night drinking. The Poles know how to drink. It wasn't unusual to see people of all ages and gender drinking a litre of Polish beer at 9.00am in the morning. Perhaps 'Binge-drinking' isn't in their vocabulary or culture?

We were up early the next day for our trip to the Wieliczka Salt Mines, thirteen miles outside Krakow and Poland's oldest working salt mine and UNESCO World Culture Heritage site. The mine has ninety miles of galleries, chambers, tunnels and lakes all sculpted from salt, but we were only to walk for about three miles. But first we had to walk down eight hundred steps having been assured we would ascend via a lift! It was far more interesting than I thought it would be illustrating amazing engineering skills from over nine hundred ago. There is a chapel with alter, chandeliers and art all carved from the salt rock complete with a Polish military band 'Ooompahing' away and available for weddings.

We were deep down in the mine for over two hours and I began to feel slightly claustrophobic and wanted to get to the surface. We began queuing for the lift. I had imagined something resembling a large cable car carrying a hundred people at a time as there were thousands of people following on from each other along the tunnels. We queued for a long time. The panic was rising in my throat. Was there something wrong? Suddenly, an official guide grabbed nine of us and we were shoved into a minute industrial miner's cage with no lights. I have never been as intimate with strangers before. Everyone screamed in shock as the tiny cage lifted off in total darkness, shooting to the surface in 45 seconds, then the cage door opened and we all stumbled blinking and disorientated into the reception area. An extremely pretty young Polish woman approached me and said sweetly 'I love your perfume. It smells so good. What is it please?' and I realised that for 45 seconds I had been physically closer to another female than ever before in my life.

Our last day was spent visiting the numerous art galleries in Krakow; all are within easy walking distance of each other as it is a city to explore on foot and at leisure. Krakow has a temperate climate with hot summer days and frosty winter ones complete with a ski season from December to March on the Tatra Mountains, a two hour drive from Krakow. The rest of the year the Tatra Mountains offer hiking, bird watching, rock climbing, cycling and paragliding for the more energetic and activity minded. There are National Parks and castles all within easy reach of this stunning city.

There are many cheap flights to Krakow offered on the Internet as well as a variety of accommodation for the independent traveller.

So be it art, history, culture, academia, music, religion, activity or simply a Cherry Vodka, a coffee and a slice of cheesecake that you fancy, then Krakow has it all.

Setting Up Shop

2005-10-02T12:08:00.000Z

I love this picture taken by Morty on top of one of the highest peaks on the Atlas Mountains in Morocco where a local Berber has set up shop in the hope of making a sale to any passing tourists.

Seven Things

2005-09-30T11:38:00.000Z

7 things I plan to do before I die:

1) Not wait for my avocado coloured bathroom suite to come back in retro-fashion.

2) Not wait for my eighteen year old Peugeot Cabriolet 205 GTI to become vintage.

3) Visit Machu Picchu

4) Never need to use a credit card again.

5) Have some Botox.

6) Hit my target weight of 9st. 7lb and stay there.

7) Get my Open University Degree.

7 things I can do:

1) Cook.

2) Love.

3) Laugh.

4) Spend money.

5) Make money.

6) Sleep in my mascara.

7) Walk in high heels and not look like Tootsie.

7 things I cannot do:

1) Swim.

2) Shower in a wet-room or in a shower with a plastic curtain.

3) Eat live oysters.

4) Maffs.

5) Play a musical instrument.

6) Open the car bonnet.

7) Take the back off my computer.

7 things that attract me to another person:

1) Easy eye contact.

2) Quick thinking and humourous.

3) Masculine men and feminine women.

4) Smell.

5) Independence and reliabilty.

6) Imagination.

7) Individuality and not following the crowd.

7 things that I say most often:

1) Wanna cup of tea?

2) Large one please.

3) I love you.

4) I'd like to extend my overdraft please.

5) We can't afford another holiday-then book up for Jordan.

6) We won't 'do' Christmas' this year.

7) I've got enough clothes.

7 celebrity crushes: Not crushes but I'm a loyal admirer.

Yes, they're all male and they're all American and they're all actors or singers. But I love films and I love music so these are my favourites.

The Last Lap

2005-09-14T10:49:00.000Z

As usual for me I'm struggling to finish a 4000 word final ECA for my current OU Course. I hope none of my course tutors read this because I'm doing a lot of copying and pasting of suitable bits from the eleven thousand words I've written so far in my five assignments to answer the question on social segregation.

I've enjoyed my two Social Science courses but there's rather a lot of the same to read, analyse and argue. I like courses where each module covers something different as the variety can hold my interest. Hopefully, my next OU Course in February 2006 will be a little freer in expression and imagination and more varied - although I'm not banking on it. I've done an Education OU course before when the Course Team told us there were no wrong answers and I still managed to get a lot wrong.

I shall be very happy when I print my ECA out and trot to the Post Office, weigh it, get a proof of posting card and forget studying for a while. Then there'll be no excuse for cob-webby corners, dusty surfaces and my over grown garden! Will there?

Lamorna Cove

2005-08-27T08:20:00.000Z

Lamorna Cove

Lamorna Cove in Cornwall a few miles from Penzance. I last visited here with my late-husband fifteen years ago and returned to Lamorna with Morty this week. I fell in love with Lamorna Cove the first time I saw it and my love has endured.

John le Carre has a home there on the cliffs overlooking the Cove. The post-impressionist artists colonised Lamorna Cove in the early part of the twentieth century.

We stayed in the Union Hotel in Chapel Street in Penzance. The best meal we had was in a super, modern restaurant in Chapel Street called the Bakehouse. I had what I can only describe as 'Posh Fish and Chips'. Scallops, squid, giant prawns and strips of sole rolled in oats and deep fried served with a homemade mayonnaise, and I don't mean Hellmans! To cap it all they served real chunky chips that began with a potato that had to be peeled on the premises.

Other meals we had in the pubs such as The Turks Head and the Admiral Benbow were good but why a whole fresh Megrin sole from Newlyn had to be perfectly cooked but served on a sauce of crab and pink peppercorns that was really a soup was a shame as the soup drowned the fish and I kept getting a mouthful of fish bones; and I'm a fishmonger's daughter.

It was wonderful to return to Lamorna Cove, Penzance, Newlyn and Mousehole and Marazion. We would have visited the Eden Project but the volume of traffic around St Austell was too dreadful to contemplate. Instead we parked the car up when we arrived in Penzance and left it there from our arrival on Wednesday until our departure on Friday. Instead we walked along the coast to all the above villages, stopping for frequent coffee breaks, beer breaks, water breaks and looking for lavvy breaks.

But if you visit this area of Cornwall then make sure you drop into Lamorna Cove and maybe have a pint in The Lamorna Wink and imagine the smugglers, the brandy thieves and the impressionist artists having a good time.

Up a Smoggy River

2005-08-21T10:20:00.000Z

Lovers' Padlocks On Yellow Mountain

Fourteen weary Jules Verne tourists climbed off the coach that had taken them from the city of Shanghai to the River Port of Zhenjang on the Yangtze to board their cruise ship the MV Victoria Rose and their eight night journey upstream along the Yangtze River in China ending at the river city of Chongqing. We shouldnt have been that weary. Six intriguing days and nights spent in Beijing and finally Shanghai had been fascinating. Our minds were full of the exciting images wed seen. Our bodies were weary with the walking and climbing wed done, but our weariness was more to do with a coach journey that should have taken three hours from Shanghai to the River Port. The fact that China is under construction meant that the motorway from Shanghai to the River Port was still being built as we drove on it, resulting in the journey taking nine hours. The road was so rough that we spent the entire time either hitting the roof of the coach with our heads or jarring our spines on the seats. All of us were dreaming of a relaxing cruise with the highlights being our visit to the new Three Gorges Dam site and to see the magnificence of The Three Gorges before the completion of the Dam in 2009 submerges The Three Gorges leaving just the peaks as islets above water. But how relaxing was this cruise going to be?

The Yangtze River in China is the third longest river in the world after the Amazon and the Nile. The River Yangtze is over three and a half thousand miles long with more than seven hundred tributaries. We were to sail one thousand, three hundred and twenty miles of the Yangtze River over eight nights with frequent shore excursions. Ten percent of Chinas population live and work along its banks. Almost half the crops eaten by the Chinese are grown along the fertile banks of the River Yangtze including rice, wheat, cotton and maize. But the first impression of the River Yangtze at Zhenjang as we boarded the MV Victoria Rose at 10.30pm is industry, factories, rusting freight and cargo ships, ferries, cruise ships and the lasting memory of smog.

The MV Victoria Rose was comfortable and spotlessly clean and a very welcoming sight after our long coach journey. The cabins were a reasonable size with very sleep inducing beds and adequate bathrooms, complete with a wet-room which I loathe, television, telephone and efficient air conditioning. I stress the importance of air conditioning in China in general and on the River Yangtze in particular. The temperature during these eight days at the end of September remained in the 80 degrees Fahrenheit range but the humidity soared from 50% to a suffocating 90%. Bottled water was supplied daily free of charge in our cabins and is essential to prevent dehydration. The MV Victoria Rose had a relaxing one-sitting only restaurant, another important factor for happy cruising, and a good bar that hosted gentle entertainment, lectures and demonstrations of kite flying, calligraphy, language lessons, Mah Jongg instruction, traditional painting and early morning Tai Chi shadow boxing with Dr Wu, all fronted by an onboard Cruise Director and his staff. It became apparent after only one day that the fourteen passengers from the UK, ranging in age from thirty two to seventy eight years old, were the only ones from the seventy others, exclusively Americans, which actually drank at the bar. After our time together in Beijing and Shanghai we became even more bonded as we met every evening in the bar for a pre dinner drink and most certainly after dinner for our nightcaps. Travelling in an organised tour group is bit pot luck as there is no escape from the others, but we all got along very well for the entire sixteen days.

So much for the anticipated rest though. The MV Victoria Rose set sail from Zhenjang some time during the night and docked at Nanjing, a few miles upstream. But we didn't sleep for long as the buffet breakfast was being served at 6.45 am and we were to disembark on a shore excursion to visit a Mausoleum in Nanjing. The German Cruise Director was already getting on our nerves as he gleefully told us there were over four hundred steps up to the Mausoleum of Dr Sun Yat Sen, the Father of Modern China who led the 1911 revolution and founded the Republic of China. After lunch we were to make a further visit to a Bazaar and then a Confucian Temple. The Cruise Director had a rather unfortunate manner. He didn't seem entirely suitable in his role as what was in essence in charge of Entertainments. On our arrival the night before after the fraught coach journey we had all wanted a drink at the bar and he'd refused to serve us after 11.00.pm because we had a busy day ahead. We were on holiday, not an army assault training course! After out post lunchtime visit to the Bazaar and the Confucian temple we set sail at 3.00pm to travel one hundred and thirty miles to the port of Gui Chi. Now and again the smog cleared on the River Yangtze- a few gaps appeared on the river banks, lessening the effect of industrial smoke belching out of the factories and coal mines that line so much of the sometimes obliterated river banks.

The next day was even more threatening. By this time we were calling our Cruise Director Herr Flick! With great joy he told us that breakfast was at 5.15am as we had a full day shore excursion to the Yellow Mountain from Gui Chi and were scheduled to leave the boat at 6.00am. With even greater joy he told us there are many stairs and steep pathways to climb at the Yellow Mountain but walking sticks were available to buy at the bottom of the mountain. However, even Herr Flick couldn't spoil what was to be a wondrous day out. Yellow Mountain, or Mt. Huangshan, has been named by UNESCO as a world historical and cultural protection area. The day was clear and sunny with no fog. This made us especially fortunate as the seventy two peaks of the Yellow Mountain are enveloped by fog and clouds for three quarters of the year. The majestic peaks, crags and granite rock formations with pine tress growing from every crevice are the inspiration for much of the traditional Chinese landscape paintings with just wisps of mist feathering the summits and the Yellow Mountain is a place of pilgrimage for poets, writers and philosophers.

To reach the top of the Yellow Mountain we boarded a cable car that held one hundred people and took almost fifteen minutes to ascend on what looked to me like a bit of string. We were all more confident when told it was Austrian technology and engineering that had designed and built the whole system. Looking down as the cable car smoothly soared upwards we passed over peaks and gorges and deep ravines, which was a breathtaking and scary experience but stunningly beautiful. We then followed a pathway downwards past the Cloud Gathering Pavilion and then to a mountain restaurant for lunch. This pathway was narrow and steep with nothing but an iron railing on the edge to prevent anybody falling through and into the terrifyingly sheer drop to the valleys and ravines below. At stages along these pathways there were thousands of padlocks on chains on the iron railings. Lovers declare their undying love for each other by locking the padlock onto the rail and throwing the key into the gorge, so expressively romantic? After a delicious Lazy Susan lunch in a restaurant perched high on the mountain we had to climb back up the very steep paths and steps to the cable car station for our descent. The afternoon sun was very hot and immediately after a large lunch we were uncomfortably out of breath but all considered ourselves very lucky to have seen the Yellow Mountain in these weather conditions, as visiting groups only a few days previously experienced high winds and rain and could see nothing of the intoxicating scenery.

It was some relief to discover we had two days sailing upstream with no shore excursions but for one brief evening tour of the city and river port of Wuhan, and thankfully no early morning starts. This gave us the opportunity to discover more about our ship the MV Victoria Rose, perhaps read a book and learn a little more about Chinese culture and traditions from the Cruise Team. The ship had a large lobby and reception area complete with a shop selling jewellery such as Chinese jade and Chinese fresh water pearls, kites, silk clothes and accessories. Reception was manned twenty four hours a day and each of the three passenger decks had an attendant house keeping member of staff ready to meet any requirements. The ratios of staff to passenger appeared to be two to one and they were all attentive, charming and eager to improve their English at every opportunity by engaging in conversation with the guests.

The Dynasty Restaurant served excellent hot and cold buffet style breakfasts at the respectable time of 8.00am with selections of food from traditional Western taste to Chinese style. Lunch was a hot buffet, again with choices to suit everyone. Dinner was waiter service as dish after dish of Chinese style foods arrived and was placed on the Lazy Susan so let the spinning begin! Early bird tea and coffee was served from 6.00am in the Yangtze Club and tea and cookies at 3.30pm every afternoon. I never made the early bird coffee and somehow I never made, or needed, the afternoon tea. Fortunately there is no dressing up on board. People were wearing the same casual clothes to dinner as they had worn to breakfast. The onboard laundry service was so reasonably priced that if I did this trip again I would only pack one set of clothes, wear the other set, and have each laundered on alternate days.

I was disappointed that we couldnt walk right round the MV Victoria Rose outside decks as they were both too narrow and sealed off for access. Although all the cabins had large picture windows overlooking the outside of the ship the cabin doors opened into internal corridors. This made any length of time spent on board feel restrictive. There were two sundecks fore and aft and an observatory top deck. Two online computers, a hairdresser and beautician, a masseur, a library and a doctor were on board. The MV Victoria was non smoking apart from the bar, in the lobby and the outside areas.

The weather was warm enough to sit on the decks in spite of the persistent mist and fog. The Yangtze River was a deep yellowy, muddy colour, probably because of the tons of sewage and industrial waste that is dumped in it all the time as well as the enormous amounts of silt that are deposited in the flood season. Only three weeks prior to our visit unseasonably heavy torrential rainfalls had caused extensive flooding with the loss of many lives from people who lived in the villages along the banks of the river. As we sailed along some pleasure was gained from the intermittent breaks from riverside industrial plants and their smoking chimneys allowing us to see more clearly and enjoy the landscapes. Rice fields worked by manual labour with the help of water buffalo were scenes that I'd expected along this part of the Yangtze.

The upstream current was very strong so it took us twenty seven hours to travel just 295 miles up the river to Wuhan for a brief two hour visit where we saw yet another Buddhist Temple and led into yet another shop selling yet more Chinese arts, silks, jade, pearls, kites, Mah Jongg sets and calligraphy tools. Although this was just day four on the River Yangtze it was day nine of our visit to China and we were simply jaded out by then and I didn't care if I never saw another artefact or indeed another Mausoleum or Buddha statue. I desperately needed to see nature and not manmade things. But this wasn't yet to be!

The distance from Wuhan to our next stop, Yichang, was 440 miles. Yichang is most famous for the Gezhouba Dam. A massive civil engineering feat completed in 1988 which at the moment is Chinas largest hydroelectric power generator, until the gargantuan Three Gorges Dam, 25 miles further upstream is completed in 2009. Now, most all of the Yangtze cruises begin at Yichang to sail upstream and visit the Three Gorges and the construction site of the new Dam ending at Chongqing or, vice versa, begin at Chongqing and sail downstream via the Three Gorges and finish at Yichang. These trips last three or four days, half the length of our cruise. Considering we had been on board since Shanghai for five days and apart from the magic of the Yellow Mountain I did wonder about the value of these extra days on the MV Victoria Rose. We'd seen no birds, no fish, and no wild life at all, unlike all the other rivers we've sailed on, including the Volga and the Nile, and my lasting impression is of a polluted river, industrial waste, rusty boats and junks and everlasting smog. The MV Victoria Rose crew tried to excite us by telling us to keep a keen eye out for Finless Porpoises and Yangtze Dolphins but once we were told that our Captain had been sailing the River Yangtze for over thirty years and never seen any himself we gave up the search and put our binoculars away!

When you're on a river boat it is very exciting going through the ship-locks on a river and the Gezhouba Dam was no exception. From the moment the back gates closed behind us it took about twenty minutes for the water to pump into the lock to reach the same level as the outside and for the front gates to open, but this was small fry compared to the Three Gorges Dam. The Three Gorges Dam has five ship locks. Each lock can hold from five to nine ships. Our passage through each of these locks took a total of four hours. As well as flood prevention the new Dam will create a reservoir over 350 miles long. At the same time displacing almost two million people from their homes and their land but also providing electricity for 80% of the country! Many people are leaving the rural farming areas altogether and taking jobs in the fast expanding industrial areas in the cities.

So how much of the Gorges would we see now that the drowning has begun? The Three Gorges Dam is built in the forty seven mile long Xiling Gorge which was once a dangerous part of the river to navigate because of the currents and the rapids, but not any longer because the water levels have risen as the Three Gorges Dam nears completion. We entered the twenty five mile long Wu Gorge, often described as the most sombre of the gorges because of the steep cliff walls bordering the winding river and the sunlight sometimes breaking in shafts through the splits in the rocks. Then onwards to Wushan where we were to board a small ferry and sail along the Daning River, a tributary of the Yangtze, and see the lesser gorges. I liked these lesser gorges best of all. The River Daning was clear and blue. We saw monkeys climbing trees, goats clambering up the rocks, plenty of green foliage and wildlife but were sad to realise that these lesser gorges will be submerged once the Three Gorges Dam creates the huge reservoir.

Finally, the five mile long Qutang Gorge where the river narrowed to a matter of a few hundred feet with sheer precipices either side and then onwards to Fengdu The City of Ghosts. It looked like it too as it was shrouded in mist but we had a pleasant on shore visit to the Snowy Jade Caves which were in fact an alternative Wookey Hole. Then our final day on the MV Victoria Rose; we were sailing the last one hundred and fifty miles to Chongqing and our ultimate destination on the Yangtze. As we approached the sub-tropical city of Chongqing I read that it is nicknamed the Furnace or Fog City and I could see why! We couldnt actually see it! Chongqing is one of the few Chinese cities that dont have millions of bicycle riders as it is so hilly, and humid and hot and industrial with towering skyscrapers and flyovers.

Along the cliffs and the precipices that bank the Yangtze through all the Gorges as well as on large stretches of the Yangtze are huge signs in metres showing where the water will stand in 2009. This had a huge impact as we saw the houses, villages and even cities which will be underwater or demolished when the dam is finished. They say that the deep waters will allow ocean liners to sail all the way to the huge city of Chongqing from Shanghai making vital trade links to the western regions of China. They say that instead of reducing the beauty of the Gorges, tourists will be offered submarine trips down into their underwater depths thus increasing the revenue from visitors. They say that thousands of archeologically important sites will be drowned when the Dam is finished. Others argue that many cultural and historical relics are being moved to higher ground.

Our two part visit to China has given us more insight into modern China and where it's going in the world. It is undergoing an industrial revolution. Be prepared to feel tired as there is so much to see and it is a vast country. It will be foggy on the Yangtze. September and October appear to be the driest seasons. During our holiday in China we saw no rain or winds at all. Thank goodness, imagine that combined with the fog? Drink plenty of the freely provided bottled water because the humidity is generally high. Consider the four day Yangtze cruise from Yichang to Chongqing as an alternative to the full Yangtze cruise of eight nights. But try to get to the Yellow Mountain for spiritual refreshment. And although the river boats are luxurious and very comfortable with excellent service and delicious food with plenty of on board culture to stimulate the mind, the continual fog can get to you.

But this wasnt the end of our China adventure with Voyagers Jules Verne and our intrepid little band of travellers. We were to see the threatened species, the Giant Pandas, eating four tons of bamboo a day in Chongqing Zoo but even better than that. We were to take an internal air plane flight on Air China to the beautiful city of Xian to visit the Terracotta Warriors. But that's another story.

Limbs

2005-08-16T08:26:00.000Z

They took all the prisoners artificial limbs away too. These legs made me feel as if they were trying to run away and escape from the atrocities.

The room with the shaven hair from all the female prisoners, weighing several tons, was equally shocking. Nothing was wasted and the human hair was used to make mats and rugs.
Limbs

The Red Shoe

2005-08-15T11:25:00.000Z

The Red Shoe

Of all the images that have stayed in my mind since visiting Auschwitch near Krakow in Poland last week, this one had a huge impact on me.

The Jews were stripped of all their belongings on arrival at the concentration camp, including shaving the womens' hair off. One of the blocks is dedicated to all the possessions and the wall to wall, floor to ceiling piles of shoes were made even more dramatic by imagining the young woman who would have been wearing these red, wedge heeled shoes.

I have some shoes like that.

What? No Caesar!

2005-08-02T14:09:00.000Z

It was a lovely walk across the fields to the thatched pub on the beach. I knew what I was going to order for lunch. A Chicken Caesar Salad and sit outside in the sun watching the wobbly, over-exposed flesh that people seem to think is acceptable to flaunt just because they're by the sea.

The dimply flesh and burnt skins didn't let me down as they were there in abundance, but the Caesar Salad certainly did! What I should have had on my plate was young pale lettuce leaves, Caesar dressing, anchovies, croutons, garlic, parmesan cheese and warm grilled chicken served with good bread on the side. What I got was old iceberg, strips of chicken and - worserer than anything else - grated mousetrap cheddar cheese and no bread!

The person who wrote the flowery description on the menu and the kitchen staff (I can hardly say Chef can I?) had obviously never met each other and this cost over £9.00. Where was the Caesar creamy dressing - the parmesan, the croutons, the anchovies? Where was the Caesar?

AntWorks

2005-07-20T10:42:00.000Z

Have you got one of these? Do you want one of these?

It's an AntWorks - a sort of ant aquarium and I bought one for my grandson's birthday. It comes without the ants and as I bought it online and had it gift wrapped I couldn't get inside it to get the form to order £4.00s worth of ants so when he opened his present yesterday afternoon the first thought we had was we had to get some ants, and at once.

Hence, the hysterical sight of my daughter and son-in-law in their garden trying to get the ant colonies to come out of hiding so they could catch them and put them in the tank and get them tunnelling. They needed to catch a couple of dozen. Smart little insects aren't they? As soon as they sensed either of them coming near them with the small ant-catching thimble supplied they veered in the opposite direction. I did hear my son-in-law mutter 'Bloomin' mother-in-laws' at some point during the hour long, back breaking, catching process but chose to ignore the comment as I was beginning to itch, imagining the ants swarming over me in retaliation for buying the AntWorks in the first place.

Eventually they caught two dozen ants and placed them safely in the tank and put the lid on. The blue jel is the ants new home. At first the ants formed two groups and we realised they were having a commitee meeting to decide where to tunnel so as not to overlap and collide. They then seemed to send one strong ant on a mission to begin tunnelling and report back. The ant burrowed down for an inch or so then surfaced and scuttled back to tell the others it was a safe environment.

They won't need feeding as the gel holds all the necessary nutrients and all that needs to be done is once a week briefly open the top lid for oxygen to enter, and thats it. Meanwhile, with the aid of the supplied magnifying glass, all the ant activities and way of life can be viewed from birth to death. If a relative dies in a tunnel they carry the body to the surface and wrap it in the gel - like a proper respectful burial - and allow you to remove the dead bodies.

I can't wait to see the ants progress, form communities and do their daily work, get married, have babies, tidy up, have arguments over territories; just like real life really.

The Temple of Extreme Moisture

2005-07-15T07:02:00.000Z

Silk Worm Fritter?

In China the people say they will eat anything with four legs, except a chair, and anything with two wings, except an airplane. Thus we were well prepared for our first evening in the capital of China, Beijing, as our local Chinese guide Jackie took fourteen exhausted UK Voyagers Jules Verne travellers through the open air street market in this remarkable city. Three hundred and sixty five days a year from 6.00 am until midnight and in all the extreme weathers these fast food stalls line the street by the hundred preparing and cooking food for the hungry tourists.

Skewers crammed with plucked sparrows, skinned frogs, wriggling scorpions, silk worm cocoons and water rat, all ready to be stir fried and grilled, served and eaten on the go. Snakeburger anyone? Delicious steamed dumplings seemed to be normal fare on this bustling food street and we werent really shocked at the skewers of scorpions, after all we eat prawns don't we?

So what was our itinery for the sixteen night visit to China? Our holiday was booked with Voyagers Jules Verne and charmingly named The Original Yangtze Cruise as eight nights of our sixteen were to be spent sailing up the vast Yangtze River to include the new Three Gorges Dam and the Three Gorges as they are now before the dam is completed in 2009 and drowns another eighty metres of the mountains that make this part of the Yangtze River so recognisable. The remaining eight nights were to be spent in five star hotels in the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, and Xian with internal flights between Beijing and Shanghai and after our river cruise a flight from the river port of Chongqing in the Western provinces to Xian to visit the Terracotta Army and then flying back to Beijing for an overnight stay and then the ten hour return flight on China Airways to Heathrow.

Five airplane journeys in sixteen days. A warning disclaimer at the end of our booking confirmation from our travel company Voyagers Jules Verne told us that this trip was strenuous and should not be undertaken by anybody with walking difficulties or health problems. Tired yet?

First impressions of China were vivid and will remain with me always. Beijing has a population of over thirteen million people and covers a land area larger than Belgium. It certainly is a city of the old and the new with cyclists braving the heavy traffic that clogs up the roads for most of the day, plus risking the fumes. China is under construction so bring a hard hat with you as essential travel wear. The people of Beijing are beautiful, both male and female. They are small boned, slim, high cheek bones, clear complexions and sculptured features, beautifully dressed and always on the move. Our local guide told us that although China has a communist government everyone is a mini-capitalist holding down three jobs at a time.

We visited a local park that was like an outside gymnasium. The majority of the people using the basic equipment were well past retirement age and were supple and able to manoeuvre their bodies into positions that a thirty year old would envy. Music played under the trees as elderly couples danced together. Groups of people practiced Tai Chi together, played ball games, gambled, sang, played musical instruments and made the most of this free amenity provided by the government to keep a fit body and mind. I somehow couldnt imagine our retired population in the UK making use of walking machines, benches and even a cobbled path that people were walking around and around barefooted.

Another significant impact was how polite and non aggressive the mega city of Beijing felt. Usually in any big city there can be a feeling of threat and menace but we didn't experience this sensation at all in China. We felt completely safe.

Another huge impact was that after the scruffy, dirty and worn out atmosphere of London Heathrow and the obvious discontentment of the people who have to work there, and then Beijing International Airport was indeed a sharp contrast. Spotlessly clean with polite smiling staff and a very modern, streamlined appearance putting Heathrow to shame at the first impression that it must surely give to our visiting tourists.

Another lingering thought was the absence of wild birds and dogs and cats in Beijing as the only birds we saw were in cages and I pushed the thought of sparrows on a skewer being stir fried right out of my mind. I didnt want to know!

Our group of seven couples with ages ranging from thirty two up to seventy eight got to know each other during dinner on our first night in the revolving restaurant at the top of the extremely comfortable five stars Xixuan Hotel in Beijing. Eating a delicious Chinese buffet meal and gazing over the dramatic skyline of tower scrapers and congested newly built road system choc-a-bloc with gleaming new cars we noticed the descending smog that began to obliterate the tops of the high rise hotels, apartments and office blocks. We wondered, was the smog a warning of things to come?

Being part of a group has its pros and cons. The independent traveller would choose to stop mid-morning while sight-seeing for a coffee or glass of green tea but we knew from prior travel experiences that the host country and their tourist board wants the visitor to see as much of their country as possible. On the other hand, the independent traveller would need more than sixteen days to see everything that we saw, probably more of a gap-year? In one day alone in Beijing we visited the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square with lunch in a local restaurant en route then dinner at a local restaurant followed by an evening at a Beijing Opera performance and all this without returning to our hotel.

Tiananmen Square is vaster than any news footage can reveal as it covers 98 acres and of course images of the student demonstration in 1989 flash before your eyes. I considered our group of fourteen were pretty intelligent people but we still found ourselves lined up and saying Cheese for a group photo taken with an immense portrait of Chairman Mao as a backdrop. I blame jet lag!

The Forbidden City will be familiar to many as the setting for the excellent film The Last Emperor. The Forbidden City was out of bounds to ordinary people for over five hundred years as it was the home of the Ming Emperors. The last Emperor only left the city after the 1911 revolution but not till 1924 when this, the 24th emperor was expelled by military troops. Considering there are allegedly 9999 rooms all contained in 800 stunning buildings with yellow tiled roofs and surrounded by a moat and high walls it isnt surprising there was a revolution. Translation from Chinese to English was aptly named as Chinglish by our guide as exotically named temples were translated as The Temple of Excessive Moisture and The Hall of Preserved Elegance.

The Summer Palace covers twelve square miles, three quarters of which is a man made lake, but this was built by an Empress using money that was intended for a naval fleet. Bring on the revolution? However, the landscaping was tranquil consisting of classic Chinese gardens featuring water, rocks, bridges, willows, bamboo, jasmine and traditional buildings showing the balanced Yin and Yang of nature.

At this stage of our trip we had realised that whichever tourist wonder we visited there would be a souvenir shop at the end of it. Or a silk factory, or a jade factory, or a pearl factory, or a Chinese traditional landscape painting shop, or a porcelain shop, or an enamel shop, or a silk carpet shop, or a Buddha factory, or a calligraphy shop, or a name seal shop, or a Chinese tea shop, or a hand-painted snuff bottle shop, or a kite shop. It was endless. On the other hand bargaining with the Chinese was a fun business all undertaken with good nature and a result that pleased both the vendor and the buyer. We had been warned about the Hello People that congregates around any recognised tourist site. Hello People because they called out Hello, banged drums, whistled, clapped and shouted to attract attention to their merchandise. But, they were nowhere near as invasive as their equivalents in the Middle East, taking No for an answer with fine humour, even after punching in an inflated price into their large hand-held calculators. Let the haggling begin!

A bit about eating out in Beijing and indeed all of China. We were already Lazy Susanned out! The dishes at both lunch and dinner kept coming one after another on to the spinning wheel, albeit totally delicious but impossible for our group to eat everything. We all felt guilty as we left the table with enough food remaining to feed another group. Perhaps it did? A tureen of clear soup, a bowl of rice and a pot of green tea would arrive first, rapidly followed dishes of pork, ribs, chicken, prawns, beef, vegetables and sometimes a whole steamed fish on the bone picked from a tank of live fish. Then watermelon and pomegranates. Spinning the Lazy Susan was an art form and for kack handed people like me chopsticks made for awkward and sloppy eating. Although I did like only having small bowl rather than a large dinner plate as this prevented that mass pile up of food on a plate that is the inevitable end result of a Chinese Take Away at home.

Morty had to be my food taster in the more Western provinces to protect my mouth from being fire bombed as they cook with red hot chilli peppers or lip numbing wild peppers as in a hot and sour soup. Sadly, whilst in Beijing I mistook a dish of fresh green vegetables as green beans instead of wild green peppers with attention grabbing consequences and an inability to speak for twenty minutes.

Part of our evening city tour in Beijing was a visit to the Opera, a condensed version especially for tourists. Before we entered the Opera theatre we were able to watch the performers applying their make-up and costumes as they got into character. Chinese opera is unique. The facial makeup and costumes identify the characters as good or bad, evil, brave or honest. Everything is very vivid and colourful and the singers sing in a shrieking falsetto and the music sounds like a band tuning up. But the dance and the acrobatics and sense of drama were enthralling made all the more amusing for the Chinglish sub-titles displayed on a screen either side of the stage. The opera visit lasted around one hour and we were all relieved to get back to our comfortable hotel lobby and listen to the excellent female pianist and base player playing tuneful Western classical music as we sipped a few glasses of cold Chinese white wine before bed.

I gather there is some debate as to whether The Great Wall is the only man-made structure that can be seen from space. It stretches for over three and a half thousand miles from the Yellow Sea to the Gobi Desert. It was begun in the 5th Century BC built in small stretches then linked together at the end of the 3rd Century BC unifying the whole of China. As I climbed the steep worn steps on this hot day determined to reach the fourth tower on this minute restored section at Badaling Pass forty-four miles north of Beijing I thought about the forced labour of millions of people who were conscripted to build this wall as a defensive protection against the people of the North.

This section of the Great Wall is the most crowded and surrounded by souvenir stalls run by the Hello People and there are many restaurants. There are quieter places to visit the Wall where the traveller is able to climb in comparative solitude away from the tour groups. The views as I climbed higher up this restored section became more dramatic scanning a wild and rugged landscape with just the sight of the unrestored Wall disappearing into the distance.

Our afternoon was a welcome contrast to The Great Wall and the throngs of people. The Ming Tombs were a relaxing experience. The third Ming Emperor Yongle chose the Shisanling Valley, twenty five miles north-west of Beijing, as the burial place for himself and eventually eleven of his successors. We strolled in the afternoon sunshine through huge marble gates that marked the beginning of The Sacred Way leading to the tombs. As we approached a triple arched gate we were all superstitious enough not to walk through the central arch as this was only used when an Emperor's body was brought through for internment. Rather than face more crowds our guide recommended we enjoyed the peace and tranquillity by following the half mile long Sacred Way route past the eleven unrestored and unopened tombs. Ah! Bliss! The beautiful formal Chinese gardens and huge statues of men and animals carved out of granite gave us a feeling of calm. The fully excavated tomb of Emperor Yongle took thirty thousand people six years to build. It is difficult not to appreciate these labours as I strolled through courtyards, marble terraces and palatial buildings all centred onto The Hall of Eminent Favours, one of the largest wooden buildings in China.

As if this wasn't enough for one day our last night in Beijing was to enjoy a meal of Beijing, or Peking, Duck in the Quanjude Restaurant, the largest duck restaurant in the World. This Duck Palace has over forty dining rooms and can serve five thousand meals a day. Needless to say, the gang were a bit travel weary by this time and dissolved into laughter when the expert chef arrived at our table to carve our duck wearing a mask. Some bad taste SARS comments bounced around the group but I put this down to the bottles of very strong Chinese fruit wine that were spinning around the Lazy Susan. I have never been inside such a large and busy restaurant and as we left to return to our hotel at 9.00pm there were hundreds of people, mainly Chinese, queuing to have a meal.

The afternoon of day five we were to fly from Beijing to Shanghai on an internal flight for the next stage of our holiday but on the way to the airport that morning there was one more stop en route to The Temple of Heaven where emperors held their religious ceremonies. But again we were Minged out as we felt culturally drained and all agreed that we were looking forward to our overnight stay in Shanghai and then boarding our river boat, The Victoria Rose, at Yuhan for a relaxing eight night cruise up the River Yangtze. Oh how we were to recall those words relaxing in the days to come!

Tour prices for China vary enormously. This was our sixth holiday with Voyagers Jules Verne as they appear to be in the mid-price range and have always been completely reliable and efficient and always ensure their clients have comfortable and often luxurious accommodation, particularly on more strenuous touring holidays such as this. A Tour Manager is always supplied and they employ professional English speaking and knowledgeable local guides wherever required. The second part of our visit to China will focus on the Yangtze River Cruise, the Three Gorges and the new Dam, the Terracotta Warriors and our exciting trip in a cable car to the top of the Yellow Mountain, plus of course some personal observations, including the smog.

Tsars in Their Eyes

2005-07-01T07:46:00.000Z

Im writing this with a large shot of Russian Lemon Vodka and a dish of salted pretzels by my side as I relive my experience of our ten day trip to discover Russia by river. After two days spent on board our river ship in St Petersburg our river cruise of five days was to take us to Moscow for two days. The distance between the two cities by water is 1400 kilometre (840 mile) made up of rivers, lakes, reservoirs and canals. We were to travel on a German boat carrying 260 passengers, hence the 231 fellow Germans on board and 29 passengers from the UK, including myself and Morty. The summers in Russia are hot and sometimes humid, the winters are famously cold, but we were travelling in the first week of September, the Russian autumn, before the snow falls begin, usually in October. How would we view the Russia we were to see after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s? How have the Russian people dealt with this freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of trade? How has a country ruled by the Tsars until the 1917 Revolution and then ruled by strong Communist regimes led by such as Lenin and Stalin managed these extreme changes? We were about to gain a little more knowledge and understanding about the Russia of the past and the present on our brief but illuminating journey through a relatively small area of this vast country.

I need a sip of vodka here when I recall the very old Aeroflot aircraft that was to fly us from Gatwick to St Petersburg. I promise you the tyres were bald! However the scheduled economy flight was comfortable arriving after less than four hours at St Petersburg, and once through immigration then transported by coach to St Petersburg’s River Port on the river Neva, where we were soon happily unpacking our gear and ready to explore. Now then, we’re not Group Tour kind of people but, mainly because of my cowardice, we opted for the organised City tour of St Petersburg, once Petrograd, then Leningrad and now St Petersburg once more. Peter the Great built the city of St Petersburg 300 years ago as a port for his navy and as a major trade route to Russia’s inland waterways. As with many of the beautiful buildings and colossal engineering achievements we were to see in Russia they were built using forced labour with a huge cost to human lives. This beautiful city was built on marshland so amazingly it consists of 42 separate islands connected by 70 canals and rivers all to be crossed by around 300 bridges. Does an image of Amsterdam and Venice enter your imaginations?

We had just two days before we sailed so do I need to tell you how little we were able to see of the 200 palaces, the 50 museums, the 20 theatres, 60 stadiums and 4500 libraries. We benefited from the fact that the city smartened itself up for it’s 300th anniversary in May this year as royalty and world leaders flocked here to pay homage so all the buildings in the city centre and along the Neva were freshly painted and all the onion domes were freshly gold leafed. The Hermitage museum was top of our list for our second day but having read that to spend a few moments looking at each item would take nine years we felt slightly fazed. We managed a few hours and with spinning heads saw more art by Picasso, Matisse, Renoir, Gaugin and Monet than I have seen in my life as well as the bejewelled state rooms that were once the home of Tsar Peter and Catherine the Great. Later, we broke away from our group to wander about on our own. We strolled down Nevsky Prospekt, the main street where the rich Russians rub shoulders with the poor Russians as this wide street is full of fashionable shops, souvenir pedlars, artists and smart restaurants and the homeless. We sat in a pavement Bistro (Russian for fast-service) by an ornate canal with a view of a church called Church of the Spilled Blood where Alexander 11 was assassinated in 1881, and ate a late lunch of Chicken Kiev and drank Russian beer.

Tired on this our first day, we took a half our taxi ride back to the River Port and our boat. The St Petersburg river port is in a very down at heel area, in stark contrast to the dripping wealth in the city centre. Grim high rise blocks of neglected flats, pot holes in the roads and pavements, broken windows, unkempt small parks, beggars, drunks, lots of broken down cars and yet there were lively street kiosks with entrepreneurs selling everything from root vegetables to tobacco and CDs. We know we have to return to St Petersburg for a city break as our appetite is whetted, staying in one of the many luxurious hotels being built and armed with a city dedicated guide book, to do this fairy tale city justice.

Surprises:
The young women of St Petersburg are extraordinarily beautiful, slender and dress in the height of fashion. It was no surprise when reading the English printed edition of the St Petersburg Times to see four full pages of personal adverts from Russian women looking for Western husbands, an equal amount of adverts from Russian Marriage Agencies plus personal adverts from Western men searching for Russian brides. Considering the average wage for a surgeon, a university lecturer or a cleaner is $30 a week then it begins to make economic sense for the Russian women and a different kind of sense for the Western male. Need I say more?

Another surprise was the currency issue. Aware that roubles are unobtainable in the UK the bank advised us to take currency in the form of US Dollars- not travellers cheques or sterling. Imagine our surprise when we saw everything from the most expensive boutiques to remote villages on the inland river banks pricing their goods equally in US dollars and Euros with Roubles a very poor third. On the boat itself when we paid a bar bill with US Dollars we were given any change in Euros! Consequently, the $150 we innocently changed to Roubles at an expensive percentage on our arrival became even more expensive when we couldn’t spend them and had to change them back to US Dollars (They didnt have any sterling) on our departure from Moscow airport at an even more exorbitant percentage. If we just taken Euros at least we could have returned to the UK with some convenient money to spend on our next European holiday!

The overland distance to Moscow from St Petersburg is 650 Kilometres. The river route is 1400 kilometres, so we were to sail on ten separate waterways to include Europe’s largest lake, its longest river and the world’s longest man-made canal. This waterway journey was to take us five days and we had scheduled stops along the way. What did we see of another kind of Russia?

It was a new experience for us as we left St Petersburg and sailed along the river Neva in the early evening only to wake in the early morning to discover we were on Lake Lagoda, Europe’s largest lake. We knew it was large because we couldnt see land to the front, to the rear or either side of us so it seemed like we were on an ocean! This confirmed for me that I never want to do an ocean cruise as I so missed the interest of the river banks, the woodlands, villages, forests and the comfort that land wasn’t very far away. Historically Lake Lagoda is known for its vital role during the 900 day Siege of Leningrad from the German blockade of 1941-1944 when vital supplies were carried across it, even when frozen solid, to the starving population as they held out against invasion. Sadly, we were warned not to drink any tap water in St Petersburg as Lake Lagoda is close to death with pollution from phosphate pollution due to lake side industry and this is where St Petersburg gets it main water supply. Therefore it was enchanting to eat breakfast on the boat as we sailed into the beautiful River Svir, the river that links Lake Lagoda to Lake Onega over a distance of 137 miles.

The Svir is landscaped on both banks by beautiful pine and fir forests with plenty of activity as we saw lumbering, log piles and men working on timber rafts. We were beginning to take to this cruising lark, sitting on the sun deck, sipping Lemon Vodka and espresso coffees. In no time at all we were sailing into Lake Onega, a lake complete with 1300 islands, surrounded by forests and we were to stop and visit one of these islands in the north of the lake (which is linked to the Arctic by the White Sea canal built by Stalin using forced labour) to Kizhi Island renowned for its miraculous wooden churches and a reconstructed 18th Century village. Our local guide was a little too beatific as she fervently described the meanings of the many religious icons in the churches and her halo was hurting my eyes!

Yet more icons were to be seen when we stopped south of the White Lake at Goritsy for a tour of a 15th Century monastery. Goritsy is isolated yet, in readiness for future tourism, is building luxury hotels and a tourism centre. Perhaps if we returned there in ten years time we may well find it completely unrecognisable as the West catches on to what could be a major resort with fishing, water sports, wildlife and a monastic retreat?

Surprise:
Since the fall of Communism, Russians are now free to worship again. Apparently the number of Russians returning to the Orthodox Church is extremely large. However, there is also a movement to bring back the Tsars and others who are discontented with the progress being made under the move to democracy and want to see the return to Communism. Isn’t the Church a hard disciplined ruler? Werent the Tsars hard selfish rulers without any thought for their subjects? And as for Communism?

Our next waterway was the Volga Baltic canal which begins by linking Lake Onega and the River Kovya and runs for 229 miles. This was very exciting as we were lifted by amazing locks by as much as 370 feet and dropped again sailing through yet more splendid scenery then entered the legendary White lake, known as the Tsars Fishing Ground as government boats sailed around taxing the fisherman but not those from the monasteries as Tsars knew better than to tax God!

This gets personal now so another sip of Lemon Vodka. My grandfather was born in Russia and I have the name of his village but no amount of web research could locate it. Rybinsk Reservoir was formed by Stalin damming the Volga in 1941. In order to do this Stalin failed to inform the 700 villages and their occupants of his plans and they were given days to collect their belongings and find alternative accommodation. Wouldnt you possibly have wondered if this was where your Granddads village may have been? Drowned in true Stalinist style? Even worse was that Stalin used educated political Gulag prisoners as construction workers who died at the average of one hundred a day. Suddenly I felt like a spoilt Westerner and could feel the sadness and death all around me as I viewed this feat of engineering.

The complicated network of man-made canals and rivers link the River Volga to all five of Russia’s major seas and flows about eighty miles from Moscow itself so its linked by the Moscow Canal. Again, beautiful to sail along and experiencing another series of lifting by several locks but once more built during the 1930s by Stalinist methods using Gulag prisoners who dug the canal out shovel by shovel. But I mustn’t dwell on this. We had one more stop, until we arrived at Moscow’s Northern River Passenger dock, at the town of Uglich. This industrial town has a small Kremlin, or fortress, preparing us for Moscow, and another church complete with icons where we heard the ethereal singing of a Russian choir. Morty succumbed to a famous Chaika watch made in the factory in Uglich. These are mechanical watches and our guide book advised us to buy one from a market stall as this was more likely to have been made from stolen parts and more reliable than those made in the factory itself. For six pounds it’s still ticking!

Animal lovers dont read this as I bought a divine sable hat and I cant wait for our winter ice and snow and for people to sing Laras Theme to me. My sable hat, when worn with my Russian Baltic amber pendant, makes me feel like A Russian Princess.

The Moscow River Port is about a half an hours drive into the city centre and smarter than St Petersburg dock, so once we’d moored up and knowing we only had two days to see the city we chose the group City Tour. At least this tour took us around the main attractions and trust me, you wouldnt want to drive yourself. There are six lanes in and out of the city and it is chaos. The other benefit of group tours is avoiding the queues as group tickets makes admission to museums and major sites hassle free. A serious warning about pick pockets as this applies in any major city.

Once again, how could this visit give us a chance to contemplate the 2500 historical and architectural monuments, 70 museums, 125 cinemas, 50 theatres, 4500 libraries, universities as well as the obvious such as the Kremlin and Red Square? The Kremlin was a stunning array of palaces, minarets, domes, battlements and towers in every shape and colour. I preferred standing outside the Kremlin rather than enter the Cathedrals and churches as by this time we were both iconned-out but were more than happy to visit the State Armoury Chamber which was full of the wealth of the Tsars in the form of chalices, Faberge eggs, jewellery and thrones dripping with diamonds-no wonder there was a revolution! The cobbled Red Square was as impressive as we expected, so impressive that we paid a second visit by night to see it illuminated, though Morty wanted to visit Lenins Tomb but sadly it was closed, and we saw the multi-coloured onion domed St Basil’s Cathedral which symbolises Russia -better than the postcards!

We did stroll round GUM, Russia’s largest shopping centre. GUM is like a palace in itself with fountains, waterways, and glass roof, selling the most expensive International designer labels Ive ever seen under one roof, in contrast to the empty shelves in Soviet times.

Surprise:
I wonder who are buying the luxurious million dollar apartments springing up throughout the city considering the average wage. I have never seen so many casinos in one street as I did driving through Moscow. Who are the people driving the Ferraris and the Lamborghinis? Are they UK football club owners?

Limited time meant we had to make a choice between using the famous Metro at night or the Bolshoy ballet. In fact, we have vowed to return to Moscow as well for a City Break, stay in the centre and take in more. After all, we didn’t even manage a visit to Gorky Park! The Metro, by night to avoid the commuters, was an eye opener. One 7 rouble (a few pence) token buys unlimited distance within the network. The trains travel at over 80mph and there is one arriving every 55 seconds. The doors remain open for exactly one minute for boarding and getting off with an automatic announcement saying they are closing-and then they do. I was scared stiff in case I didnt get off in time! Of course it is the beauty of the stations that enthral. They are like palaces and museums with chandeliers, mosaics, original art, stained glass, statues and sculptures and they are all different as we discovered as we got on and off at different stations.

Our ten-day visit was over and in contrast to the rickety old Aeroflot plane we arrived in our return flight to Heathrow was in a very modern Aeroflot airbus with halfway decent in-flight food and not a bald tyre in sight.Did we enjoy Russia? Do we recommend you to visit? Yes, whatever way you choose, be it on a City Break to St Petersburg or Moscow or a leisurely cruise with a city break at each end you won’t be disappointed -I promise.
Sailing on the Volga

Pass The Port

2005-06-27T07:01:00.000Z

~~First there were twelve~~
It was our usual beer, wines and spirits order from the small independent Brewery in West Dorset. The order reflected the type of trade we had in our country pub. Trade ranging from hard working, cider drinking farmers smelling of sheep dip and manure, to champagne sipping television personalities smelling of Guerlain Vetiver, half-a-bitter drinking pensioners at lunchtimes eking out their pensions, and good food lovers, wanting the dry sherry, good wines and Port to compliment the fine fare we offered for lunch and evenings.

Summertime 1980; busy holidays season in the coastal area, with plenty of visitors plus the annual Agricultural Show. Though not directly involved in the Show itself, it was a tradition that the farming community, who were very local to our pub, always had their own Annual Dinner with us. Very macho; just the men; men who I only usually saw in their working clobber; twenty local farmers and meat magnates scrubbed up well in Dinner Suits, and smelling of Brut rather than Dip. They were terrific spenders, had no taste at all, but great fun, outrageous, yet respectful to the female waitresses, to me and to my husband, the licensee and the Chef. Considering they all bred beef, slaughtered beef, filleted beef, sold beef, their choice of roast rib of beef, well hung and cooked rare was no surprise. Considering this was the eighties, their choice of deep fried battered mushrooms and garlic mayonnaise to start, with Banoffee Pie to finish was no surprise. But they had to finish with local cheeses, the most famous being Blue Vinney, and Port! They had to have Port, late bottled would suffice.

Hence our Brewery order included a case of late bottled Port. To be served long after the last legal punter had left, often around three in the morning. These men worked hard, had rough hands and the stamina to drink copious amounts of anything and still be up and working at dawn. I checked the delivery, made sure it was correct and signed for it. I noted the price of the Port as around four pounds a bottle and put the case in the cellar. Perhaps not as observant as I should be, and because the label on the bottle said Cockburns 1963 Vintage Port I thought this was another name for late bottled. I was front of house, taking food orders, always behind the bar, making the bills out, maintaining some sort of order out of chaos. My husband was purely kitchen, with a brilliant business brain, and a superb chef. We worked well together.

The twenty farmers and meat magnates arrived looking ruggedly handsome in their ill fitting Dinner Suits. There was something rather sexy about these earthy men, whose hands were usually up a bullocks botty or splitting a pigs rib cage, arriving at the pub looking more like a male stripper act than diners! They ate, laughed, joked, drank beer, cider, wine, and spirits, flirted and made a lot of noise and created a wonderful atmosphere. They had a certain finesse about them, and always liked the Port decanted, which I dutifully did in the kitchen. My husband was still in there, clearing up the last of the debris that always remains in a catering kitchen. I took the decanted Port into the dining room.

Back in the kitchen, his head was buried in a wine manual. “Cockburns 1963 Vintage Port is a declared vintage year. How many bottles have you decanted for ***** sake?” “Just the one!” “Quick! Don’t decant any more. Give them something else. They won’t know the difference. They’ve had so much of everything, they’re all smoking cigars. Their palates are B*****ed! This is worth seventeen pounds a bottle. How much did we pay?” “Four pounds” I said cursing my lack of knowledge a propos the difference between Late Bottled and Vintage Port. I tippy-toed back into the Dining Room; I saw the empty decanter, and heard them demanding more Port, "as fine as the last one" they bellowed. The more sober of them asked me what the Port was, as it was the finest Port they’d ever tasted, and they’d supped some.

I thought quickly, disappeared into the kitchen, filled up the decanter with another ordinary Port from the cellar, returning to the Dining Room with the empty Cockburns 1963 Vintage Port to display, hoping they wouldn't notice the difference. Fortunately, their palates were shot away, and the rich, lingering taste of the original Vintage Port, along with the smuggled Havana Cigars they were smoking, were playing tricks on their taste buds. What a relief.

Taxis were called, and at two thirty in the morning, twenty well fed, drunk, happy farmers and meat magnates, with bow ties undone, cummerbunds loosened, faces red and paying a restaurant bill of hundreds of pounds fell into their cabs that were waiting in the Square to get them home to their wives and their beds.

~~Then there were eleven! ~~
The years passed by. We sold the pub, and then a restaurant. Every now and then we’d check on the value of the Cockburns 1963 Vintage Port. Twenty five pounds a bottle; thirty pounds a bottle; thirty-five pounds a bottle; forty pounds a bottle; then in 1991, my husband died. I faithfully laid down the eleven remaining bottles of Port in the attic, as we’d always said we’d open and drink it on some special occasion; a birth, a marriage, but not a death.

Its 1996 and I’m living with Morty. He’s been playing golf, had more than a Happy Hour in the pub and he’s fallen asleep in the armchair. It’s 9.00pm and there’s knock at the front door. One of our joint close friends has been blown out by his wife and needs to talk. Morty is past being able to counsel anyone. I sit at the dining table with our mate and we drink everything alcoholic in the house and we do good talk. It’s 1.00am. Morty hasn’t stirred. This friend doesn’t want to go, that’s obvious, and we’ve no booze left. But I have.

There are eleven bottles of Cockburns 1963 Vintage Port in the attic. Fifty pounds a bottle by now I reckon. I look at our friend, and I weigh it all up. His need is greater than the fifty quid I’d get for the Port. I muse that I’ve carted this crate of Port around for sixteen years and never tasted it myself. Why not now? This guy knows his wine, and when he sees the bottle and the label, due to his emotional state, he weeps. I weep too at the thought of fifty pounds down the lavvy the next morning. He advises that I decant it, and the memories come flooding back to me of the farmers and the meat magnates dinner back in 1980. How things have changed, and I too get a tear in my eye, then control myself as I know it’s the wine getting to me as well. Life moves on my friends.

I get the tea strainer and a big glass jug and decant. The sediment in the bottle is at least two inches deep; the liquid in the jug is purple, black and rich. I fill two small Port glasses and we raise them to our lips; so smooth, so luscious, a head-ache in every sip. I felt as if this bottle of Port wasn’t wasted on this man. He needed my support and he appreciated it. Sharing the Cockburns 1963 Vintage Port played a large part him regaining his faith in friends and human nature, as his wife had been having an affair with a friend. Morty woke up at 2.30am, asked what time it was, and went to bed. He doesn’t do good counselling. I woke in the morning with the driest mouth, the worst head, the most sluggish digestion I have ever had before or since, but our mate has never forgotten the support from that night, both from me and the Vintage Port and the gesture.

~~Then there were ten~~

Its now 1998, the Cockburns 1963 Vintage Port is valued at fifty-five pounds a bottle. My wonderful girlfriend, an ex-actress of a certain age, is celebrating her fourth wedding anniversary to a rich antique dealer. The old Scrote that cost Morty a £200 bet. My girlfriend flat shared with Linda La Plante in the 1960s, and was in the first ever episode of the Avengers with Patrick McNee and Honor Blackman, playing a flower seller. Morty and me were broke, but were going to supper at their house and needed to take something special with us; into the attic again, and another bottle of Vintage Port to be shared with special friends.

~~Then there were nine~~

Its now 2000, the Cockburns 1963 Vintage Port is valued at sixty pounds a bottle. Another male friend of ours is hitting fifty. Once again I trip to the attic, get another bottle down and give it as a present. We share it together after a splendid meal with him and his lady at his house. I still have a dreadful head the next morning when I wake up. My capital investment is dwindling. I had dreams of selling my Port on an online Auction site and perhaps with the proceeds, having a holiday, mending my forever needy car, updating my computer, paying for another Open University course, having plastic surgery.

~~Then there were eight~~
Its now 2005. I’ve been online and discovered the value of my Cockburns 1963 Vintage Port; ninety-nine pounds a bottle; twelve hundred pounds a case. All those years ago, we paid forty eight pounds for the entire case. I shall never sell them. I shall drink them or give them away. They are priceless. Each bottle I open, each bottle I drink, each bottle I share, and each bottle I give to a friend goes back to those heady days in 1980 when I was spontaneous, young, and went with the flow. I like to think I’m still like that, and live long enough to watch the next eight bottles be significant in my own life and the lives of my friends and family. Its impossible to put a price on that.

The Old Scrote

2005-06-25T08:54:00.000Z

Five years ago our good friend, an eccentric antique dealer fondly known as the Old Scrote, hit seventy years of age. A heavy smoker, never without a cognac in his hand and still jogging every day, Morty bet him £200 that he'd never see seventy five. I think the Scrote made his mind up that he'd collect.

Earlier this year he fell over in the public bar and banged his head and was unconcious. The concerned landlord lay him out on a bench and phoned his wife. Friends were mopping up the blood and phoning the emergency services. The Scrote regained conciousness and the first words he said were ' That Morty isn't going to get away with it - I want my £200!'

Great relief and laughter all round and the ambulance was cancelled. Well, its his seventy-fifth birthday this weekend and he's called in the bet. But he's a generous man and insisted the four of us go out to dinner together this evening. I guess he'll accept the money from Morty and then settle the restaurant bill with it.

We're going the The Riverside Fish Restaurant at West Bay and I'm taking a chance on this happening and going to order lobster! I'll let you know.

A Swan in Aswan

2005-06-23T07:57:00.000Z

Romantic Towel Art
This is one of the many variations of towel art that greeted us every night during our stay on Elephantine Island on the Nile in the Hotel Oberoi. Rose petals, hearts and love arrows and a glorious full size swan plus a crocodile or two.

2005-06-23T07:56:00.000Z

The Nile at Aswan
This is the sunset view from our hotel on Elephantine Island in the middle of the River Nile at Aswan in Egypt. We spent one week staying in the Hotel Oberoi after one week on Lake Nasser getting rather 'templed-out'.

The hotel is on the island next door to a Nubian village and we sailed across to Aswan every day in a felluca, a small sailing boat, to wander around Aswan, once the capital of ancient Egypt.

Egypt is a perfect destination in the grim months of January and February as the weather is as good as a normal summer's day in the UK. Don't go in the high summer months as even the breezes are blistering.

Towel Art

2005-06-21T14:53:00.000Z

When you sail on the River Nile and Lake Nasser in many of the river cruise boats the Egyptian crews love to demonstrate their skills with towels. They can create crocodiles, swans and the most funny is the one in the photograph above left in our cabin on the last night of our trip to Abu Simbel - and it's tipping time. After a few glasses of Egyptian wine and some Nubian dancing it came as quite a shock when we opened the cabin door and saw him.

They'd used loads of towels stuffed and shaped together for the body, using our jumpers and sunglasses to leave this scarey looking man in our bed complete with envelopes to put money in for the housekeeping staff. On shore in the hotels they strew rose petals on the beds in the shape of hearts and lovers' arrows. The cabin on this Egyptian boat was as big as any hotel bedroom. It even had a three piece suite and writing desk in it. The cabin in a Russian river boat was so small that when we were shown to it Morty asked the steward where the other cabin was - for me!
Towel Art

2005-06-21T14:35:00.000Z

Oh goodness! Now I don't know how I did this because I clicked a lot of things in the Picaso software and the Hello things that come free with Blogspot and my own Blog opened up and this picture of me on a boat in Russia practising with our orange things has been published.

Not only can't I swim but I couldn't do all the strings up either and had to have help. Oh well - if I can remember how I did this then I'll have to do it again with more worthwhile stuff won't I?
I Can't Swim!

Your Money or Your Life

2005-06-19T13:22:00.000Z

I'd arranged with the builder to pay him ten monthly instalments as the renovation works progressed. I'm in Dorset and the project was in South London but he wanted cash. So I made an arrangment with my bank to have the cash waiting for me in London on a set date and I would travel up collect the money on a monthly basis and inspect the work in progress at the same time. The bank told me to make sure I had my passport with me for identification and that was all there was to it. Except that the amount of cash was £12000 each time!

The bank branch was a very small one in a very busy high street. I stood in the long queue and began to sweat with fear. I may be a South London girl but I've been Dorsetised and I wasn't used to standing in a queue of strangers which was made worse by the fact I could see and hear every single detail of every single counter transaction because of the size of the bank. My turn - I mumbled my name, showed my passport, whispered the amount I was collecting and went into a menopausal flush. The cashier said in her normal voice "Oh yes! Twelve thousand pounds wasn't it? Wait here while I get the forms for you to sign" I wanted to turn and run. I didn't dare look round at the queue of what I was sure were armed bank robbers.

The cashier came back, I signed the forms and then-she counted out twelve thousand pounds in £50 notes in front of everyone, they all saw her, bunged it into a buff envelope, sealed it and that was it. Now I had to leave and walk past the ever growing queue hoping that nobody had mobiled a mate telling them to bump the flush faced perspiring blonde over the head and grab her bag.

My building project was just six shops along but it was the longest few yards I have ever walked in my life. The builders were all there. Well, they would be knowing it was pay day eh? We went behind a skip and I said to my builder that he'd have to trust me that it was all there as I had no intention of standing anywhere and counting it all out. I wanted out of there!

I'd calmed down by the time I arrived back at Waterloo. As soon as I got home later that afternoon I 'phoned my bank and told them this was never to happen again and that I would rather wait for as long as it took for a private room to be free. They did agree this should never have been allowed to happen. For the remaining nine monthly cash withdrawals I had a private room set aside where the money was counted in private. Nobody in my home town knew what I did once a month and Morty was sworn to secrecy on pain of death if he told anyone about it. Just as simple for a local villain to pass on the information.

This was all two years ago now, and do you know what? I've only just been able to talk about that dreadful experience. I've gone all goose bumped just writing this.

2005-06-18T08:04:00.000Z

So being a traditional, old fashioned bloke Morty always goes out for a drink on a Friday evening. Being a creature of habit I know exactly what time he'll be home - eight o'clock and starving for his dinner. So last night he asked me to go with him. Its a bit of a blokey session and not many women bother on a Friday and I usually spend an hour or so on the 'phone to my Mum, but I agreed to go with him. At five to seven just when I was settling in he said 'Come on! Lets go home'

I said to him that it was a whole hour earlier than his normal time. I was in the mood for another hour at the bar but not so much that I was going to stay there without him. So home we came and a cold chicken and jacket potato supper as I can't cook with wine. Well, I do cook with wine but not when I've drunk it as well.

Be interesting to see what time he comes home next Friday as I won't let him forget that when I go with him he wants to come home earlier.

Off to try downloading some photos as I will not be beaten by technology - yet!

On Extended Saturday Lunchtime Sessions

2005-06-13T13:55:00.000Z

As usual our Saturday lunchtime table in the pub grew from the original four to about ten of us eating and drinking and eventually talking rubbish until seven o'clock in the evening. Strange how drinking makes you hungry because on the way home we bought fish and chips.

Sunday afternoon we joined up with family and sat in another pub's lovely garden and that table grew to about a dozen including Moroccan Joe and Cosmic Ken. For a small town we really do have an interesting mixture of people living here. Once home I produced a pretty good roast pork dinner so today I'm busy gardening and working off the excesses of the weekend.

The sick teacher still hasn't returned to work so Morty has another month booked as supply in the same school. A mixed blessing, as the guaranteed money is good but the three hours a day driving and keeping up to scratch on the History means he's really having to earn it. The kids are taking to him as they missed their teacher at first and gave him a bit of a hard time but now they think he's OK because of his taste in music and the fact that the eighteen year olf Peugeot rag-top seems to have given him some street cred!

We've booked up for a city break in Kracow as soon as the Summer holidays start. This is my choice as my paternal grandmother was Polish and I like going back to my roots. I shall always remember how I felt when we went to Russia eighteen months ago and I located the area where my grandfather was born. It was a village that had been drowned by Stalin's huge engineering programme to link up the Russian waterways using forced labour to construct a reservoir with thousands of lives lost. As we sailed over it I felt very moved imagining the past. My grandfather was a cooper and we visited a reconstructed wood cutter's home on an island and I could see how he must have lived when he was a boy.

I used to ask my Dad why he never felt the need to visit Russia amd Poland and because he knew his parents stories he would always say 'What do I want to go there for?' I am just the opposite and felt complete within myself in Russia and look forward to going to Poland.

How Much?

2005-06-09T14:59:00.000Z

A tenant contacted my management agent to report something nasty happened to the washing machine in his flat and when he opened it after his laundry had finished raw sewage poured out - all over the floor of the galley kitchen and then soaking the carpet. Management told me he'd made a list of what was in the machine plus all the bath towels and tea clothes he'd used to mop up and wanted the cost deducted from his rent.

Fair enough. Then I got a copy of the list. I'm not as green as I look!

Ten pairs of Calvin Klein knickers at £30 a pair.
Two pairs of the most expensive jeans in the world=£300
Six white designer label T/Shirts at £40 each.
Four bath sheets at £40 each.
Ten linen tea clothes at £10 each.

Now, I've been on the web and I can't find any Calvin Klein knickers that cost that much anywhere. I've been to department stores and I'm having problems finding linen tea clothes costing more than £3.00 and anyway I bought the washing machine and you can't load it with that much stuff as its too small.

Not only that, I'm betting he has contents insurance anyway so he'll claim on that and expect over £1000.00 off his rent too! The agents asked him where the ruined items are and he said he'd binned them. He also had a receipt for every item but I reckon he knows somebody who works in this particular department store and they did him a favour. Cheeky eh?

Plumber and carpet shampoo firms have already been in and sorted things but I shall feel sick if I really have to replace all that gear. Specially as I shop in the local street market ;-)

Blogging and my Education

2005-06-08T13:23:00.000Z

How strange this is. I'm writing an OU essay including stuff about gated communities and safety and security. Over a month ago I was doing online research and found a website about 'Facts and Myths about Gated Communities' and saved the link. Opened it today as a reference for my essay and here it is in Bloggspot named Heavytrash and back then I never knew what a Blog was let alone use some content in an Open University assignment. Wonder if my tutor will be suitably impressed with my sophisticated research? I wonder if my tutor Blogs - after all there seems to be quite a few of them Blogging the night away ;-)

Spys and Dissidents I Have Served

2005-06-08T06:22:00.000Z

Just read Nogbad's wonderings about Burgess and it took me back. We owned a pub in a small Dorset village in the late 1970s. One busy weekday lunchtime a tall elegant man and a male friend sat in a corner drinking a bottle of Chablis and peeling a pint of prawns between them. There was a rumble of interest from my 'old codgers' at the bar. It was Anthony Blunt and a male friend. The news had just broken in the newspapers about his activities. All pretty harmless but later that day we had a visit from the police and then we were interviewed by the Special Branch asking searching questions about the whole episode of lunchtime in the Greyhound and serving a spy! What made this even more awesome at the time was that the wife -- by this time the widow - of the Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov, murdered with a poisonous umbrella dart on Waterloo Bridge, was also a regular in our pub along with her parents. I must have served Markov with a beer or two before he was murdered. We read the local paper with interest that week but there was no mention of Blunt being in the village so the information was probably blocked and he was arrested and charged soon afterwards.

I Am a Coward

2005-06-07T06:21:00.000Z

Had an email from a couple we met in Croatia last year. They travel a lot and they had said we'd meet up at the airport and spend some time together in Jordan. In the email they said they didn't think they'd be there because of the terrorist attack on a tourist bus in Jordan earlier in the year. When we booked I didn't give any of that much thought but now they've said that I'm trembling. We've been to Egypt, Israel and Morocco and when we've arrived back home there's always been some sort of attack while we've been there and we didn't know anything about them but if I had I'd have been in a right state.

I was more frightened walking in the desert looking at ancient monuments on Lake Nasser with armed guards because they were all about fifteen years old with guns and me wondering how useful they'd be if we got attacked by bandits. Best forget it and we think our friends from the North will just turn up at the airport anyway and surprise us anyway.

Morty had a strenuous day back teaching yesterday. The classes were all hyper and he rescued one of those dodgy suggestive dice offering dubious sexual favours from a girl who was passing it around to all the lads. Then they started chucking glue at each other. More like riot control than learning. He got them back under control by showing them a video about slavery linked with the history they are doing right now. No wonder their class teacher is still off sick and doesn't look like he'll be back till September!

Half Term Is Over

2005-06-06T06:40:00.000Z

Morty is back to work today supply teaching in a tough Middle School in Somerset. The class teacher has been off sick for months now and his students miss him so he's been a hard act to follow. Even more so because he is the History teacher and Morty's subject is Science. On the one hand it would a be a good earner until the end of term but on the other it is damn hard work for him. I shall chill today and even get stuck into my own OU studies. Postman has been and we have our confirmation for a visit to Jordan in October. We said no more Middle East holidays but the temptation to visit Petra and the Dead Sea was too great. Trying to book a break to Cracow in August but Poland seems to be full! Think I'm getting the hang of this now but we'll see if this gets posted.

Am I here yet?

2005-06-05T18:13:00.000Z

Am I here yet?