2 years, Dubai, Sydney, a fast trip

The 6th of March was the second anniversary of our arrival on to the shores of England. So much has been done and so many changes experienced there are times when we wonder how we have done it all in such a short period. And then there are other times when we think that we have been here for such a long time we feel like old locals.... Anyway on the 6th, as we were together on the exact day, and in some small celebration of the anniversary, we took ourselves off to see some live theatre in Harrogate. Absolutely Frank is a subtle local comedy which was enjoyable and charmingly Yorkshire. http://www.harrogatetheatre.co.uk/ Our long awaited visit to Sydney turned out to be a very quick trip. We were pleased Gail's employer honoured their promise to fund her return air fare but we sort of slipped up on our holiday planning and shorted ourselves a bit on the timing, two weeks was never going to be enough to do everything and everyone we wanted to.

We did however manage to cover quite a lot of ground so I'd best start to cover some of the best bits of the adventure here.

We stopped over in Dubai for a couple of days on the way to Australia.

Dubai, for those of you who have not been there, is an amazing place which has grown from an ancient fishing port into a huge, modern city/state in just 30 years. It plays with the brain when comprehending how so much has been built in such a short period.

The photos will give an indication of the scale but the experience of shopping in the huge malls and old souks, the evening meal and dhow trip on the "Creek", the champagne supper at the Dubai Creek Golf and Yacht club and the big bus city tour will live in our memory much clearer than I can describe here.

Despite it's tacky tourist theme, the night time river cruise was enjoyable for its night time views of Dubai, the pleasant evening temperature, passable fare and availability of questionably passable wine (Jacobs Creek as it turns out, the ubiquitous aussi drop of plonk which gets shipped north in bulk). The Creek, or harbour, has been the heart of Dubai trade for centuries and there is continuing evidence of it's role in local shipping and commerce indicated by the docked cargo barges loading and off loading and by the many little open dhow taxi motor boats carrying workers to and from dockside ports.

Then there was the evening when we sneaked into the rather posh and exclusive Dubai Creek Golf and Yacht club through the back door, that was a fun night. (The photo here shows the club house , a triangular building on the waterfront made to look like a dhow sail, and the golf course on the right, taken from the bus tour, it can be seen better when enlarged by clicking.)

We had been strolling in the golf course grounds and were presumed by grounds staff as being guests of the ultra swank Dubai Hyatt Regency Hotel, not wanting to disagree with the nice uniformed man we accepted a ride in the hotel's golf limousine from the access road we were on, all the way up to the hotel grand entrance. We boldly disembarked the ride, confidently dawdled through the lobby and headed with purpose through the hotel's shops, bumbled into the common areas, wandered outside through the beautiful gardens, down through the ocean liner sized boats moored at the marina and tentatively pushed open the guests entrance into the Dubai Club. We received a lovely welcome, a table for two right on the waterfront and were given exquisite service even though we only ordered one entree and some bubbles. In all fairness, I think we could have been just as welcomed if we had walked in the front door as tourists but the anticipation, presumed scandal and excitement of thinking we were sneaking in was much more of a romantic adventure.

The day time bus tours of this huge city were long but constantly interesting. And we did learn stuff. Most interesting is the fact that Dubai grows and operates on income from property sales, rentals and international business profits in the main, the oil income is much less than 10% of the GDP and that oil income is spent on public infrastructure not commercial activity.

The place is a tax delight for business with whole suburbs granted tax free operation per industries, one suburb dedicated for financial services, one suburb for Information Technologies, one suburb for motor vehicle companies etc etc..... The result is that every international company has a huge office in Dubai with brand names familiar and English as the common language.

It is however always going to be a hot dry dessert and that fact is evidenced by the lack of people out and about on foot, the extensive watering systems needed for any green thing, lots of sand and everything air conditioned, cars, buses, shops, hotels, even the undercover car parks . Dubai has the highest water consumption per capita in the world and the majority of the fresh water is provided by huge ocean fed desalination plants and cunning waste water recycling, part of the public infrastructure that the oil revenue pays for.

Dubai also has the lowest crime rate of any developed economy so walking around and being adventurous is a very pleasant experience. Service is superb and the products and foods are everything you would expect of a wealthy city. The religious sensitivities are apparent with traditional headwear and flowing robes the norm, but the tourist is not constrained by fashion except if girls want to enter certain sacred places they are required to wear a head scarf and have covered shoulders etc.

Dubai is experiencing the global downturn with the exodus of retrenched expatriate workers (you can't stay if you are unemployed for more than 30 days, if I recall correctly the voice in the tour bus earphones) the expats are reportedly leaving their cars abandoned at the airport as they depart on the last day of their efforts to find more work.

We did not experience much in the way of public economising, although the shopping malls are apparently quieter than normal the products for sale are mindblowingly opulent.... Gail did have me browsing the elite jewelery stores until I was totally blinged out by all the gold and diamonds. Gail was in her element as the Dubai retail experience is something amazing but best enjoyed with another girl, sans husband.

Building works all over Dubai still are underway 24 hrs a day so I guess the sense is that all this global economic doom and gloom will abate and office and living room will again be needed.

Dubai is in the UAE (United Arab Emirates), 7 tribal/kingdom families combined and committed to building the world's biggest and best commercial and trading hub.

I will admit to being very impressed with Dubai from the moment we set foot in the arrival lounge of Terminal 3 until we departed from the same huge building, (another terminal of equal or greater size is under construction).... I didn't know Emirates Air was the largest airline in the world but seeing the Dubai airport facilities, existing and under construction and the endless number of Emirates aircraft lined up, I am in no doubt. The terminal 3 is unfathomably huge. I'll happily put Dubai on my favourites and would recommend it as a real treat if you ever need a stopover in or out of Europe.

The flikr photostream at the side of this blog will take you to heaps of our other photos, many of Dubai.

But probably enough about Dubai, it is only one city after all.... .And not a patch on my home town of Sydney.

It was amazing to visit Sydney as a tourist. We felt very different driving the streets and highways, angry at the no cash tollways but delighted that the recent rains had made the place so much greener than we remembered it. I will not bang on about the people we caught up with, the family sleep over, the wonderful hospitality and the joy of meeting up with friends but I do want to include here some of the Sydney adventures we had.

It is always a joy to walk the city and after a delightful outdoors lunch in the MLC at Martin Plaza with our good friend Edua, we had time to see the Archibald Sulman and Wynne prize exhibitions at the NSW Art Gallery. I am always amazed at the Sydney art scene, the world has none better and the city is so lucky to have such venues and artists. Once again Gail and I were mightily impressed by the selected works.

The walk to the gallery took us from the city streets, through Hyde Park, the Domain and then down to the Quay for an early evening meal with our old mate Grazie.

The pictures show we enjoyed the best of Sydney weather for our 10 days in town.

Any chance to go to a restaurant on the harbour is one we will seek out at every opportunity and we did two new places (to us) this visit. Ripples at Chowder bay http://www.ripplescafe.com.au/ and Plonk at the Spit in Mosman. http://www.plonkbeachcafe.com.au/ If there is ever a "Sydney thing to do", lunch or just a coffee at places like these is the pinnacle of things to do. We also spent half a day at Manly where we had a great lunch at Manly Grill, an ocean side restaurant, met up with our long time friend Cathy for afternoon cocktails on the first floor balcony of the Stein pub where we discussed builders architects and her trip last year to our home in Wetherby. Time flew and we were then off to a slap up Thai dinner at Thuptim Siam with friends Mando and Sal who had travelled down from Kendall and Loren who had come up from the deep southern suburbs.

It is a great tourist experience to taste the wonderful food, sample the fine wines and enjoy the great service Sydney is famed for. As a couple who had forgotten just how wonderful Sydney can be, it was a timely reminder for us and we savoured every second of the warm air, smiling faces and relaxed atmosphere.

Gail also enjoyed the chance to spend a night with all her friends at Sydney Town Chorus, they welcomed her back and she had a ball singing with the girls again. Got all enthused and wants to join the Harrogate choir here but reckons she needs to get a bit fitter as standing all night singing made her realise how long it had been since she has performed..

We also had the chance to share a fantastic Yum Cha at the Marigold in Chinatown with Matt and Ret who were by chance in town from Perth. We also got up to our place in the Hunter Valley with our host Marlies for a couple of days.

The flight home to Wetherby was long and uneventful and the 11 hour sleep we both enjoyed the first night home was a great release from the lag of the jet.

Gail has returned to embark on a stint of 5 days away to work in Manchester so she is back into the thick of life in north England while I return to the challenges of more domestic pursuits and the continued seeking of desirable paid activity. I am advised that Gail does have some days off in a row this month and that she is posted for a few consecutive days in Scotland again so there may be adventures as yet unplanned for April...... stay tuned.

Spring sprung early 09

Had to pop these shots into the blog before we left for Oz. We didn't expect Spring to have come early especially as snows are forecast for this week but you can't argue with the sheep and flowers it would seem.

The first shots are of crocus buttercups and snowdrops in the paddock at the end of our street. The purple carpet is on the drive from our home to Harrogate, as are the mummy sheep and lambs.

These photos do look a lot better when you make them bigger by clicking on them.

Wales, Chester and Leeds 02 09

These pictures tell you about our weather through February.

When the geese have to learn to walk on the canals and the lakes freeze over it doesn't take a meteorologist to declare a severe winter, although to be fair it is somewhere between 10 and 8 degrees as I write this and the deep snows have finally melted away. The tulip, daff and other bulbs are breaking through the lawn and spring is felt to be around the corner.

Despite the cold snap, We did manage to get out and about. Spent a few days in Chester and Wales.

Chester is one of the most complete, in use, historic walled cities in Europe with parts of the existing walls dating to the Roman times and with medieval streets and buildings of some antiquity it is a fantastic place to roam, shop and eat. We took a river cruise, walked the walls and had a cocktail in Duttons all of which were wonderful experiences.

Staying in our Chester hotel also placed us on the boarder of England/Wales and as we had read a lot about a little town called LLangollen (pron: Klangoughlan) http://www.llangollen.com/ we headed off to see if it was open in mid winter.. It is famous for a few things, a working river-powered corn mill, now a restaurant,

the world's highest canal aqueduct, horse drawn canal boat trips, and the house of Britain's first "civil partnership". This was set up by two Irish femme known as the "Ladies of Llangollen" , one a teacher and the other her teenage student as the relationship started, they were not able to stay in Ireland so came to the UK in the late 1700's. When they set up this house and did some Gothic decorating, farming and astounding gardening they bought much notoriety to the town . They also attracted many regency notables and titled folk who were no doubt tantalised by the social scandal as much as entertained by the ladies charm and wit by all accounts. The gentry came to stay and made Llangollen quite the trendy tourist place of the early 1800's http://www.llangollen.com/plas.html .

The aqueduct in the nearby village of Trevor (no I don't make these names up) is an amazing thing, high and elegantly fine.. It has stood for over 200 years and has only needed once to be restored as it is built of marvelous stone and beautiful cast iron and was sealed with welsh felt and treacle syrup. (it's true, look it up) It bridges the river Dee and a beautiful little valley. This village, together with the horse drawn canal boat tours would make for a great day out in the summer season. http://www.chirk.com/aqueduct.html . I would bet though that the tourist crowds make it a nightmare to park anywhere nearby. We however did have a great time, even if it was mid winter, as despite lots of places being closed we enjoyed the peaceful walks, deliscious meals and managed to get access into all the places we wanted to see.

A few days later, Gail got a couple of days off work and we decided to have a late Valentines day by booking a suite in a fancy hotel in Leeds city http://www.residencesix.com/, had a smashing dinner in a special eatery in the Corn Exchange http://www.anthonysrestaurant.co.uk/piazza/ and , just to make the two days a bit different we caught the #98 bus from our front door, into Leeds, right up to the door of the hotel. Most convenient, scenic and relaxing.

We have been doing a bit more holiday planning and March sees us heading off to Sydney, June hopefully down to Cornwall and the Scilly Isles, September, if we can organise our friend Kathy in Canada to provide guide services, a week touring Nova Scotia then a few days at Niagara Falls and a few in New York. Gail also has a week holiday booked in both July and December so 2009 will be an exciting year of adventures for us. We are falling into a nice groove of life here, Gail has received praise from her employer for the efforts she puts in to her learning, teaching and work so her stress levels have reduced and making a planned structure around our activities is becoming more viable.....

Will tell you all about our Aussie adventure next blog, we will be doing a lot of business and personal stuff there but I am sure we will have some great experiences to update.

snowfall feb 2009

We have been asked if the snowfall that has stopped the UK for two days has affected us here in Yorkshire. Other than encouraging me to stay indoors more, no. Gail as managed to get to and from work in her little mini, most of the the roads here 'up north' have been getting regularly snow plowed and gritted and by and large, other than the schools being closed, everything is going along as normal. Driving on standard road tyres is challenging but people help those who get stuck and there have not been too many incidents.

There is much debate as to why the UK gov't has not spent the money on snow management infrastructure, the impact of no trains buses and planes, and the knock-on effect on business here makes the northern Europeans and Russians shake their heads in disbelief. This has not been bad snow in comparison. The falls have been less than a foot but everything in London ground to a halt.... some 6 million folk couldn't make it to work. The last similar "weather event" was 18 years ago and before that there was one in the mid 1960's.

The photos below show about half our snow as Gail had the camera during the Monday/Tuesday falls and today is the forecast day between the snow falls, it's a warm and cozy 4 degrees at the moment so the melt is well underway. More heavy snow is expected tomorrow and Friday. Some are postulating that as global warming ramps up the winters will be more severe and these heavy snow days more common in winters.... time will tell. For now, a pic of our rear yard and the back of our house and a couple of shots at one of the hospital grounds where Gail was working at Bradford. More on our February at the end of the month.

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Only one Party - 0Z day 09

January has been a quiet month and the wet chilly days have not really been calling us to walk or explore, more enjoyable to curl up in front of the fire, but do not despair, I can report on some worthwhile events.

The tits have returned early. Blue, Coal, Great and Long-tailed.

Of course I am referring to the small finch-like birds that are usually the early warning symbol of spring to come. Nice to see them from my office window feeding and fighting in the back yard with the wintering Robins, Blackbirds and chiff-chaffs.

We are acclimatising though and coming to terms with celebrating favourite days in the chill. Australia Day was celebrated here on January the 25th from 1:01 p.m. (0:01 a.m. of the 26th in Sydney) 30+ degrees on Sydney Harbour, -3 degrees on our front lawn.

The umbrella, Fosters and sunglasses were a staged prop to welcome our visitors, you may note the photo was taken from inside the nice warm lounge room. The beer can froze as the night fell.

I had intended to take some more daytime photos but forgot until late in the afternoon when the sun had set and the daylight passed.. From the quality of the shots you might think the sobriety of the photographer was also long past.

Sufficient to say the afternoon was very well spent and universally enjoyed. The Oz day party was Gail's idea and she invited those of her workmates who were not working and lived within a drive to Wetherby and we also asked our neighbours ( they can't complain if they are involved with the frivolities). The attendee nationalities included a wide sampling with Canada, Yorkshire, Kiwi, Iran/Swedish, and even other Oz folk all represented.

We requested all attendees to wear appropriate Australia Day attire which is why you will note open shoes in the frost and shorts with puffer coats.

Traditional summer salads and cold meats were supplemented by a lamb roast and the obligatory Pavlova x 2.. All praise to Gail for catering the whole shebang single handed. Well, with a little help from me.

Fireworks were exploded for half an hour from 6 p.m. with champagne explosions to match.

A wonderful afternoon and while most folk had to front up for work on the Monday (not us) and had left by 9p.m. there was a particular determined contingent that remained till well past 1 a.m. and required a walked escort to nearby accommodation booked earlier.

This was the only local adventure this month but one that warmed us enormously. We really do know some lovely folk and it was a joy to share our house with them.

February is forecast to be snowing but we have some plans to travel to nearby Wales for a couple of days so we will at least be able to show some snaps of that even if we do spend the rest of February in blankets by the fire. Of course we will be heading back to Oz for a few weeks in March and are quite looking forward to that. There are loose plans to spend a couple of weeks in Cornwall in June and even looser plans to go to Nova Scotia Canada and Niagra Falls in September/October..... so keep posted for continued travel adventures from Wetherby.

Northumberland 2008

We want to start this update by wishing you a fantastic 2009. The past 12 months have been variously interesting, challenging, frustrating and wonderful for us, all at different times and levels of intensity and only the good bits have been reflected in these blog pages, which is only right for a blog page. We are keenly feeling the change in the world, so it is with real meaning that we wish the next 12 months will provide all of us with more solutions than obstacles, more fun than trial, more reward than penalty and that the fiscal correction is swift and a balanced recovery can soon be charted. We will continue the monthly blog updates through 2009, partly to ensure Gail and I remember everything we have been doing, partly for your enjoyment, but mainly to tempt you to consider visiting Yorkshire and to help us explore this part of the world. To that end I have decided to make all photos we take from now on available on http://www.flickr.com/photos/wetherbyadventures/ as well as selecting some for these pages. The shot above is of us in a little pub near the middle of Hadrians Wall. That sort of brings me to the monthly update I guess..... Well, December has been cold, damp, grey and best spent indoors. Gail has also been doing lots of extra work days because of the holiday season and due to lots of bugs circulating the ranks of her colleagues. Thankfully we have remained untouched by disease, I think it is because we are immune after years of exposure to the more virulent tropical viruses, these tender europeans are all a bit soft... Let's hope this is the case and we remain free of germ infestation. We did get out to dinners and some gatherings and towards the end of the month we had the usual xmas focus. Our neighbours David and Carolyn had us and our other neighbours round for a fish pie dinner and apple flan dessert. the night was fuelled by far too much red wine, fantastic company and good cheer and set the two of us up perfectly for a nice xmas day in front of the fire with a big roast meal and pudding. Boxing Day took us up north to look at Vindolanda ( http://www.vindolanda.com/ ) near Hadrian's Wall. This is an active archaeological site in the summer months where Englands oldest record of writing is slowly being recovered on wooden tablets some 2000 years old, preserved in the anaerobic sub soils. We got interested in the site on our last trip north and the visit to the museum and walking site was really rewarding as well as educational, if a bit chilly. We stayed overnight at a nearby B&B http://www.saughyrigg.co.uk/index.html where we enjoyed a beautiful trout meal (the owner's sister farms the trout and is one of Rick Stein's food heroes.... a cultural plus apparently) Food was grand, four poster canopy bed a treat and the surrounding scenery a great experience. We dawdled along the road to Newcastle stopping off to see the views from the top of Hadrians wall. We arrived in Newcastle the same day and had a quick stroll along quayside and over the Tyne into Gateshead where we visited the Sage http://www.thesagegateshead.org/ building (performance venue ) and the old flour mills http://www.balticmill.com/ where Yoko Ono was having one of her conceptual art exhibitions over three floors. The old mill also allowed space for an extensive collection and display of international works from the fluxus artists movement on the lower floors..... I will say that, after studying all the works on display, the restored Baltic flour mill is a wonderful display space for high quality modern art. Shame there was none there. Call me biased but the MCA, Sydney Art Gallery and Biennale are world-leading art venues. The river Tyne is crossed by some 13 bridges, tunnels and viaducts between Newcastle and Gateshead but the two just outside our hotel were of real interest. The Tyne bridge is sort of a mini Sydney Harbour Bridge and was built around the same time. The SHB's span, temperature extremes and the fact it used siliconised steel to cope with the loads made it the technological masterpiece of its time. The myth endures that that the Tyne Bridge was the model for the Sydney Harbour Bridge... it is a myth. Tyne Bridge was completed and in use by 1928 and the Sydney Harbour Bridge opened in 1932, but design and engineering was all done and work had started for the SHB by1923, the first Tyne sod wasn't turned until 1925. Most likely the Hell Gate Bridge in New York , completed in 1916, was the design inspiration for the SHB. The millennium bridge is interesting because it tilts up so the wire stays become horizontal to let ships through but regrettably there was no call for it to do that during our stay. We did walk over it though and all the bridges, the Sage building, old shipping buildings carved from stone and the Norman period churches make this part of Newcastle very appealing. The night was spent with some of Gail's workmates in the Centurion Bar at Central station, a fantastic space of edwardian grandeur having cavernous rooms with glazed tiles and wonderful skydomes. Great company and conversation, not all work related. We returned home via Durham, a cathedral city which we have decided to return to and investigate in detail as it is a very nice old town with great little cobbled side lanes full of interest. January is forecast to be cold and chill again so we will have to see what adventure we can eek out of it but rest assured we will have some photos to post and a few words. Keep well!