January was always going to be the few weeks of recovery from 2011. Normality re-established itself with Gail returning to work and staying away for days at a time prior to our planned escape to the warmest place in the UK. Jersey is publicised as such and I love a bit of warm do I. They lied. Well I suppose it was still the warmest place in January in the UK but we stayed well wrapped up and got wet a bit.
We like Jersey.
The above shot is the lighthouse (obviously) at the Western south isthmus of the Isle, place called Corbiére Point where lots of ships wreck. The Jersey coast is littered with wrecks, after all it has been a disputed Isle for some time.
We were not all that history focused but are aware of its Huguenot occupation, German occupation, British occupation and close French ties all of which provides scope for research and is not the role of these pages which are just to capture the highlights of our adventures.
Jersey is pocked with sculptures depicting theme and history and we include a few of interest. This one of the population welcoming the British back after the WWII german occupation, that's the union jack being waved.
The one to the left here is hung outside the Tourist info office and is blue lit from below, I am sure if I read the plaque I would know what it represents but I didn't so you don't.
This one I did read it is a thank you to the people of Jersey for rescuing all on board the wreck of the Saint Marlo in 1995, some 300 odd souls were pulled from the sea in heavy weather off that same Point Corbiére in the first photo.
We took our little rent a car all around the Isle over the four days and met many and saw lots. We had to pay for 20 quid of deisel as part of the hire cost and in a ford fiesta microturbo that would have got us to Yorkshire and back so we wanted to get about as much as we could.... I mean 20 quid.... that's a lot in real money. This much thirstier vehicle is an amphibious oyster harvester. Jersey is famous for oysters, potatoes (Jersey Royals), and of course pretty cows and thick cream.
The pic on the left is of Mount Orgueil Castle, never breached since the 1100's or some such, again look it up. The foreground is potato crop germinating. Sloping sandy soil, south east facing for sunlight the covering is thermo plastic with 300 or 500 holes a sq meter and is rolled out after ploughing and planting and rolled up when the tubers have re-germinated. The Jersey royal potato crop is much awaited on mainland UK. Jersey is part of Britian but not part of the UK, it has it's own currency and police and tax.. Look it up if you are that interested.
This here left pic is a stack of ice age new lithic rocks (megalthic) is the Dolmen de Fadouet which a local bloke called, I forget, Alec or Arthur or something, knew an awful lot about.
http://jersey.typepad.com/faldouet_dolmen/ gives a little bit. We walked all around Gorey with Alec or Arthur, I forget, and he knew lots of history but not much about the little local furry animals Gail wanted to know about. Or about local gossip and rumour and intrigue, financial skulduggery and pirates that I was interested in. Nice bloke tho.
There was a sign on La rue de Moulin on the way into Belval Cove saying ducks on the road.
But I am pretty sure these are geese, but we didn't run them over anyway.
This was why we were going to Belval Cove, we were recommended that the Hungry Man did the best Jersey Crab sandwiches in the Isle. Turned out they had no crab. Despite the sign. That was the story of our Jersey stay. If we went somewhere on Tuesday it was open all week except Tuesdays, unless we went somewhere on Wednesday when that place would be closed but only on Wednesdays. And it was off-season so many places were closed every day. We still like Jersey.
Thankfully our Hotel room was available every day and as we got a special deal at very reduced rates we enjoyed our time in it a lot.
http://www.grandjersey.com/reception?gclid=CL2Op-X4i64CFQ8gfAodVismwQ tells you all. Room was huge, view quite nice and the champagne and flowers on arrival very special.
Heating controls were not too hard to figure out and there was plenty of ceiling height, always nice.
It took us almost no time to settle in
Before heading to the bar for a cheeky couple of margaritas, straight up.
As it so happened, this was Jan 26th, for those of you who don't know, that is Australia Day. Landing of the first pommy settlers in Sydney, 1778. It was only right that we celebrate with a 3 hatted Michelin star restaurant meal at Tassili.
Quite nice Starter, iberian ham, rhubarb icecream, trio of duck
Main of deceptively filling local fish, beluga caviar and sea foam with accompanying tied and stitched vegetables... Quite nice
A special cheese menu with friends of gingered fruits, jellied whatnots, pickled pots and spiced bitzies all described if you enlarge the photo here but not necessary really.
We do like a nice cheese platter and mixy things to go with do we.
Then there is the seemingly everywhere currently fashionable Amuse Bouche, they used to be called pallet cleansers and were usually lemon or lime sorbet but now, all posh eateries seem to have happy mouths.... this one was a blindingly sumptuous mango plop inside a mango fruit dab on a mango creamy splat. Quite nice.
then there was dessert. Chocolate trio and ice creams.. Also quite nice. Wine was an Aussie White from the McLaren Vale a voigner of some splendiferousness which matched the fish to perfection and carried through the rest of the meal quite nicely, but I may have said that.
This here is the old entry to St Hellier's General Hospital which is now quite a modern and well funded place. It has it's very own MRI machine which it lets the private hospital doctors use. It is very busy. We walked in and asked to talk to the boss of MRI. Gail spent a good half hour chatting to the staff head and I chatted to a nice Jersey girl patient in the waiting room. Gail has now sent the MRI boss her resume and while there is no position available there, nor do we particularly want to live in Jersey, but you never know, the head girl of MRI is a Yorkshire girl so Gail and her have that in common as well and you never know where your next friend is going to come from do you?
On the same day or another day, it matters little, on a drive around we found the Crab Shack and dropped in for a wine and a fish lunch. The Crab Shack is one of a group of eateries owned by the family that used to make Jersey Pottery, the pattern of which is on the table mats, you can still buy it but it's made in Poland or somewhere now..... Anyway the food is good and the view and location fantastic, and it was open on the day we went so that was a plus.
I think these two shots were taken the same day as something else, anyway on one of our drives around trying to use 20 quid of diesel.... we only used about 7 quids worth and saw the isle twice, well bits of it. Anyway these two shots are of the St Ouen coast and long beach. They do car racing on the beach. Gail wouldn't let me take the rental on the beach. There was no one on the beach. She wouldn't let me race either. We had plenty of fuel. I still don't understand.
Last day , looking down from Fort Regent onto St Hellier and around the bay towards St Aubin
Again from Fort Regent but looking towards Fort Elizabeth across the port.
This one and the one below at Le Hocq Point. You can glimpse the edge of one of the many Martello towers on Jersey in this shot to the left. More on Jersey's Martello towers on
http://jersey.typepad.com/martello_tower/
And as it was our last day and we had made sure we had the right day, not like our Spanish holiday, we went back to Gorey to see it on a sunny day rather than the miserable blowy stinking wet cold bloody excuse for a day we chose to take a walking tour on. As a final point of interest and as I didn't include any photos of the german WWII bunkers that litter Jersey, if you look at the row of houses behind Gails head, second one from the end on the right, that is a concrete gun emplacement made to look like a house but aimed to protect the harbour. There are a few such camouflaged bunkers but this is the cutest.
And then we flew home to start the prep for our Aussie Day 2012 party on the Saturday.
