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A Castle, A Dragon and a Wee Boy – 2 September 2024

Posted on by Zogman

We caught the minibus down from the hotel to the town. We’d heard so much about Locke’s food shop, we visited it first. It was a bit of a disappointment. My coffee was bitter and thin and Scamp’s wasn’t very hot. Style over substance again.

We got the Liberty Bus to Gorey. Gorey was a fishing village with a castle, a dragon and lots of rain. We sheltered in a bus shelter and were entertained by a wee boy explaining to his dad, exactly how he would deal with dragons. Basically it meant kicking them in the head and then being friends with them. Sounded like a plan. The rain was fairly light until we paid our entrance fee and started walking up the terraces of the old castle. Then it just got heavier and heavier. I was glad I’d bought a brolly before we got on the bus!

Halfway up the terraces there was a room for children to dress up in historical outfits. On this day it was more like hysterical outfits, because it was teenagers who were caught by us dressing up!

Further up and in to the castle proper we found the dragons. One was in a glass case. Another was very metallic looking and hung from the ceiling. Both scary beasts. More climbing took us to the old fashioned cannon battery and a great view over the battlements to the village below.

We walked down a slippery looking paved slope that took us down to the village and in to the bus shelter again. Where we caught the bus back to St Helier, where the weather was more forgiving.

Late lunch/ Dinner was in the Italian restaurant called Rigatoni. Then we walked back up the hill again to the hotel.

 

 

 

The Morning After – 1 September 2024

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  • Woke not quite with a hangover, but feeling a bit sick
  • Life returned to a bit more like ‘normal’ after a shower and breakfast of Weetabix and milk and a slice or two of toast with ‘fishy jam’.
  • Scamp was fine with mixed fruit and a couple of slices of toast with jam.
  • It had been raining during the night.
  • Couldn’t decide where to go today so after some discussion, said we’d walk down to the bus station and get the first bus available. Except, no services were available. It seems buses almost shut down on Sundays.
  • However, on  the way I got a photo of an ancient camera and a stoneware bottle that held ink … once upon a time, in an old dusty shop window.
  • Walked through Liberty wharf instead to get photos I’d missed last Wednesday.
  • Walked to La Frégate Cafe which is like an upturned boat.
  • Leave it well alone. Food is poor but highly priced. Building looks good.
  • Watched the Amphibious Duckws driving along the path to Elizabeth Castle.
  • Only accessible for walking at low tide.
  • We walked along the breakwater instead and had a look at the posh boats.
  • Walked back into town and had a beer (me) and a G ’n’ T (Scamp) at a pub playing old style music
  • Went to El Gato Gordo (The Fat Cat) for an early dinner. Good food.
  • Bought some tonic and walked back to hotel.
  • Thunder storms forecast tonight.

The Wedding Day – 31 August 2024

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As has become traditional when we’re away from home, the write-up is more of a place marker than anything else. With bullet points to keep the memories fresh without taking up too much writing time.

  • A walk through a different part of the town on a dull morning
  • Found a monument to Jersey Cows!
  • One calf had found a toad
  • Wandered round the indoor market
  • But soon it was time to get dressed to impress
  • Got a taxi to La Mare Vineyard
  • The weather had improved
  • It was time for Pimms on the lawn
  • More butterflies in the garden
  • Alex and family arrived later
  • Just in time to see the happy couple’s entrance
  • Saw some folk we hadn’t seen in years
  • The meal was delicious
  • The dancing was hilarious
  • I took over 300 photos here are some:

 

 

Jersey Botanic Gardens – 30 August 2024

Posted on by Zogman

As has become traditional when we’re away from home, the write-up is more of a place marker than anything else. With bullet points to keep the memories fresh without taking up too much writing time.

  • A different route to the town
  • Millennium park with water curtain
  • Man with golden dress (statue) in town square
  • Found I could hire a Brompton folding bike
  • Jersey Botanic Gardens with Japanese garden
  • Giant carp in a lily pond
  • Jersey lilies
  • Lots of apple trees
  • Too many flowers to list here
  • Dined at Izakaya at night
  • Peruvian & Japanese restaurant
  • Wagamama on steroids!
  • Walked back to the hotel through the town


– Big day tomorrow for Gillian & Ed

 

Checking out The Vineyard – 29 August 2024

Posted on by Zogman

As has become traditional when we’re away from home, the write-up is more of a place marker than anything else. With bullet points to keep the memories fresh without taking up too much writing time.

  • We walked down to the church with the blue building beside it
  • That was a much easier way of finding the town centre
  • Scamp got a new pair of trainers
  • Just missed the bus to the vineyard
  • Had a coffee then got the next bus (only one an hour)
  • What a roundabout road. A long road for a short-cut
  • Scamp got tickets for a tour of the winery and a few glasses of wine
  • Interesting talk
  • I only liked the white wine. Scamp liked the red and the white
  • Rosé was the only poor one
  • Stayed for about two hours


– Walked back to the bus stop
– Didn’t have long to wait for the bus
– Got a bottle of Gordon’s gin and a mixer
– Scamp led the way to the road back to the hotel
– I kept a check with Google Maps
– Booked dinner at hotel
– Waited 45mins for our main course
– Lots of excuses
– Waiter let slip that a big order had come in and ours missed out!
– Lots more excuses
– Food was late but it was lovely
– Entertainment was two blokes. One played trumpet other played guitar. Playing jazz
– Disappointing dessert. Lychee & Raspberry Pavlova.
– Had a couple of G ’n’ Ts in the room.

Travelling 28 August 2024

Posted on by Zogman

As has become traditional when we’re away from home, the write-up is more of a place marker than anything else. With bullet points to keep the memories fresh without taking up too much writing time.

  • Alarm played a merry tune at 6:15am
  • Walked over to terminal building and divulged the contents of our bags for all to see
  • Walked into Frankie & Benny’s and had breakfast
  • Too much chilli sauce for a morning
  • They didn’t even check to see if my bag fitted in the grid
  • Easy flight to Jersey
  • Saw a Spitfire on the grass of the airport
  • Taxi from the airport to the hotel
  • Very grand and our room was ready
  • Changed into something more fitting for summer
  • Got a free minibus ride into town, courtesy of the hotel.
  • Walked for miles, photographed everything
  • Got a weekly bus ticket.
  • Lunch in a wee Italian restaurant with a view of the town square
  • Saw an Amphibious Duckw
  • Saw and heard the Spitfire £3,500 for half an hour’s flight!!!
  • Got lost trying to find the hotel
  • It’s a long walk up that hill
  • Swam in the inside pool

Preparations – 27 August 2024

Posted on by Zogman

One of those days when I couldn’t settle.

I knew we’d have to finish packing today, because we were going to be driving to the airport to park the car and then have a few hours sleep before we got the plane tomorrow morning. Had I packed this? Had I packed that? Did I really need all the stuff I’d packed? Would my rucksack fit into EasyJet’s shrinking metal boxes?

Scamp called a halt and suggested a lunch at Brodens in Condorrat. Great idea, even if I couldn’t have my traditional pint of Guinness because I was driving in the evening. Mac ’n’ Cheese for Scamp and Fish ’n’ Chips for me.

Bumped into George from the corner who had been forced to slum it in Brodens as a fire at his usual Weavers pub had been bad enough to force it to close, then vandals had found a way in and created more carnage. We stood and spoke for a while and then Scamp and I made our way down the road.

The hours slowly ticked away until it was time to pack up the car and drive to the airport. Parked, then took the cases to the drop-off place in the terminal building then we had a free drink in the bar of the airport hotel, free because Scamp had signed up to a club account which gave extra benefits as well as a cheap one night stay. PoD was the view over to Paisley from the room.

Hopefully sleep will come faster than the day did.

More good news – 26 August 2024

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Off to see the nurse this morning.

We drove up to the health centre where Scamp left to walk to the town centre to get some English notes at the bank, only to find that the bank was closed. Today was an English bank holiday, but not in Scotland according to NLC, but what do they know, they are only the council.

While Scamp was at the closed bank, I was getting some good news from the Nurse/Sister. I’ve been taken off another of my meds. The nurse took my BP both sitting and standing and was happy to take me off another pill I didn’t need. I’m still being monitored and have another appointment to attend in a month or so, but it’s another step in the right direction.

I drove up to the town centre to meet Scamp who had sent me a message about the bank and I had sent her a message to say I was on my way to meet her. Neither message reached its target. Maybe one of the masts was down or maybe it’s just Cumbersheugh. Anyway, when we got home the messages appeared and we had lunch.

Later in the afternoon, plans were made to lighten the loads I carry on my shoulder. Two cameras is just too much to carry with associated lenses. Just for a test I took only the A6500 with two light lenses and it was comfortable for a walk in St Mo’s. That’s actually lighter than one A7iii camera without a lens. I’m beginning to think I may have to reduce the load I’m carrying on my shoulder, although the quality of the final image will suffer. At present it’s just an idea, whether I can carry it through is another thing entirely

Today’s walk to St Mo’s got me a PoD I was happy with. It was a drone fly or maybe a large hover fly on a Scabious flower head. I quite liked it, I think because of the out of focus background. The weather wasn’t exactly warm, but it certainly wasn’t cold and thankfully it was dry. More rain forecast for tomorrow.

Tomorrow Scamp is intending getting her nails done and I’m still clearing up more stuff to go to the skips.

 

 

Rain – 25 August 2024

Posted on by Zogman

It rained today from early morning until late at night.

Actually it did stop around 6pm when, for an hour, the rain stopped, the sun shone and I managed to get a handful of photos of flowers in the garden. After that the rain returned as heavy as ever and I think it’s still raining. Usually I say that the gardens need it, but the gardens are fed up with it too and just want some late season warmth and sunshine. An Indian summer we used to call it.

In a way, the rain was a blessing. It forced us to start tidying things up. Making bundles and packing those bundles away for better days to come, but first there were some messages to get.

Normally Monday is the shopping day, but we’d meant to do it yesterday, then yesterday slipped from our grasp and it turned into today. We couldn’t let it go any further or else there would be no food in the house, so we braced ourselves and drove to Tesco to buy some much needed supplies. Just the essentials today. Fruit, veg, milk and some sausages. No wine, no beer, just the bare necessities.

Then just as quickly as we finished our lunch, and read a few chapters in our books and played the occasional game of Angry Birds or finished a jigsaw for some, it was almost dinner time.

Just before dinner was when I got the PoD. It’s a bunch of Japanese Anemones with a bit of bokeh in the background courtesy of a hand made steel Allium that holds the raindrops beautifully. Thanks again for that Hazy.

Also around that time we found a PDF of the Holiday Recipes had arrived in the WhatsApp mailbox. Thank you for that Neil. Very well presented. It’s now downloaded and will be printed off tomorrow.

Spoke to Jamie later and agreed that stripping paint is not the most pleasant of ways to use your weekend, but sometimes it just has to be done. If we could string a few dry days together here, I’d like to give the window sills a fresh coat of paint, but if present weather systems are anything to go by, it would need to very quick drying paint!

I have an appointment with the nurse tomorrow to review a possible change in my meds. Hope it’s not as wet as today.

Dancin’ – 24 August 2024

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Today we drove to Brookfield for the first dance class in about three weeks.

It started well, with a Mayfair Quickstep which isn’t a quickstep, but that’s splitting hairs. Two tracks to make sure we were well warmed up, because it’s summer in Brookfield and they don’t have heating on in the morning until winter.

The first ‘real’ dance was a new Cha-Cha, new to us, anyway, but made up from figures we already knew. They were put together in different patterns, though. I thought I’d filmed it on my phone, but when I got home and looked at it, I’d a photo of Jane, the teacher, but no video. I really need to learn how to use this phone. I expect that someone, somewhere has a video of the new routine, but it’s not me!

Next up was a Viennese waltz. You see folk dancing this in Strictly and it seems to be all about blokes in evening suits and ladies with sticky out dresses ( that’s a technical description, by the way), twirling around on the floor, but it’s much more complicated than that. Oh boy, is it more complicated, and fast too. We did the baby steps quite well to start with, even that was difficult, but when they started mixing up Half Natural Turns and Half Reverse Turns with Full Natural and Full Reverse my brain sort of gave up and went to sleep. I don’t suppose we’ll ever go to Vienna and neither of us speak Viennese, so what’s the use of learning their dances? Huh?

The next one was more down to our earth. It was the Tina Tango danced to Ed Sheehan’s Shivers. I believe Scamp could dance this blindfold. I also believe that Scamp think I DO dance it blindfold which would account for stubbed toes for both of us. Anyway it was much easier that the Viennese waltz.

The final dance of the day was the Vogue Waltz. I can just remember dancing this on a Perth weekend. Bits of it were stuck in my memory slots, but other bits of it were Vague rather than Vogue, but we struggled on until I was almost fluent in it. Then they sprung a curve ball. We would only dance one round of the steps, then move on to a new partner. Woah! Chaos reigned for the three or four minutes this new routine was being danced. I’m so used to Scamp calling out instructions quietly in my ear that I though all the ladies did it. They didn’t, but a few of them laughed!! It was actually fun.

We drove home from Brookfield with our heads spinning with new and half remembered dance routines. We may try them out some time in the living room, just not today.

Lunch was a sandwich for both of us and we’d agreed that dinner would be provided by Golden Bowl.

Today’s PoD was a vase of flowers that sits on the kitchen window sill. Every time I’ve passed it for the last couple of weeks I’ve told myself I was going to photograph it, and today I was true to my word. I just liked the composition.

Tomorrow we are maybe going shopping.