Malham Cove - Grykes, Clints, Byland abby and Helmsley castle

This merry month of May has offered us challenges in the shape of the weather, technology, the economy and news of widespread rorting of taxpayer funds by seemingly every member of the UK Parliament. I'll cover the last of these briefly if you are in anyway interested in political stuff... The UK Members of Parliament (MPs) wrote their own guidelines for claimable expenditure many years ago, set the self regulated audit process, made it self governing without public review and have proceeded ever since to suck as much money from the public purse as they could dream up for things like moat cleaning, personal property mortgages, investments, floating duck houses, home decorating, bogus travel and accommodation. The Telegraph newspaper received a few discs full of MP claims from an insider and has been exposing an MP or two every day for about a month now. MP resignations and political posturing are rife. If it wasn't so appalling the daily exposures would be getting boring but there is a morbid fascination at just how endemic it is. The disclosure of this vast MP greed is especially galling in a time when the UK economy is suffering, banks and businesses are failing, job losses endemic and public hardship increasing. Joe Public is justifiably angry and the mood sour. But that is enough about the real world. Here in Wetherby Gail and I have been experiencing all that a British May can offer. It started monumentally cold and relentlessly wet with a couple of alright sort of days but right at the end of May the sky cleared, the sun burned our skin and the shorts and T shirts were donned in 20+ degree days. You will have to excuse the quality of the photos this month as our faithful little camera had a digital fit and started to produce arty effects.... I think I have fixed it but some of May's shots are a bit iffy. As for our activity, Gail has been kept very busy all over the country and has been staying away many nights, She did enjoy another night out with the girls for a Hen's night in Nottingham which was fun if a huge bit too noisy. Greg has been occupied with not so pleasant investment problems and has been doing a short course in Leeds.. There has also been structured exercise sessions twice a week which have bought some friendly encounters. I did say last blog that we would be doing a walk of Malham Cove, in the middle of the Yorkshire National Park and the photos here show some of the scenery. It was recommended as a favourite place to go and we picked the one fine half day to attempt the walk in early May. The walk was fantastic, if a bit steep in places, with scenery from valley stream and waterfall (foss), to rolling stone walled pastures, to craggy limestone pavement with fissures(grykes) and huge flat stones (clints). The whole stroll took only a couple of hours and there is a great pub with super if simple meals at the end where we sat warm and watched the rain pelt down. http://www.malhamdale.com/ Because Gail's schedule was so tight this month we only managed one day out in Wetherby but it was a stunner. A local brass band was playing in the rotunda by the Wharfe River and the locals always gather for a relax. We enjoyed a nice cafe lunch by the river and later spent a pleasant hour in the pub garden nearby sipping and listening to the band playing jazz, blues and some big band numbers. Idyllic. I took the opportunity to go to Newcastle with Gail as she was working there and I needed to look at properties for a group who are looking to invest there. It was a good day out for me and I am much more familiar with this town now, there are some lovely, some not so lovely suburbs but Newcastle on the whole is a nice city. I went out to the mouth of the Tyne River (Tynemouth, go figure) and was surprised to see the size of the beach, it was a cold windy day but on a good day like today, it would be a beauty. The night life for the under forty's in this country seems to revolve around consuming large amounts of alcohol and standing jambed together in venues where music and general noise defeats any conversation further than two inches from your ear. Newcastle is well catered for such activity and the streets are always crowded with revellers. No harm, little foul and it feels more party than loutish. Of course it s a two university, three training hospital city so the number of students and medical newbies is huge. As we said last time we were there, the Gateshead side of the Tyne has great cultural venues with theatre, galleries and Newcastle itself has three great public galleries, museums and theatres so there is a good supply of venues and events for whatever takes your fancy. The Geordie accent does take some getting used to and a group of local revellers in good cheer is impossible to interpret by any other than a born and bred Novocastrian. Towards the end of May Gail's holiday of two weeks started and we decided to grab the forecast fine day and head off to the Yorkshire Moors for a recommended lunch at Byland Abbey in Coxwold. The lunch was in the Abey Inn and the food was worth the drive. The Abbey is just over the road and while we didn't go in to look around I can tell you it was the first Cistercian Abey to be built in England, follows most closely the layout of the original Abbey design and has the largest in situe floor of 12th Century monastery mosaic tiles in the whole world, or so we were told by the guy trying to sell us entry tickets. It would be a great place to take a picnic and a good book and spend the day but as we were eating in the pub and heading off to Helmsley later we declined the invitation. Helmsley is about six miles from the Abbey and is a beautiful little Market town with many shops, a vibrant market on Friday's (when we were there) and a fantastic castle partly in ruin, partly restored. All surrounded by lush pasture grazed by sheep and highland cattle which Gail couldn't resist chasing for the perfect shot. Camera being creative as you can see. Anyway, that is about as much as I can recall of in May, we are packing up now to head off to the Cornwall Coast with Peter and Ann for two weeks and will drop in to see Clare H. in Padstow on our way. All about that adventure next month in the blog. Do keep letting us know if there are Yorkshire places you want to know bout or if there are things you want to see.

April, The Dales, London

The beginning of Spring in Yorkshire is almost like the angel of summer is having knock down fight against the Visigoths of winter. There is promise of warmth in the sun but icy fingers are reluctant to let go their control of the clouds and wind. We have enjoyed a few warmer days but there is always that chill cut to the breeze and the reminder of the persistent and cold drizzle. I thought I'd start off the April update with this dose of reality as the attached photos depict some of wonderful days we have had this April. I wouldn't want you to think everything is too postcard up here.

April Fools found us in York for a lovely fish lunch at Loch Fyne Seafood http://www.lochfyne.com/ overlooking the canal and then a stroll through the town centre finally ending up in Betty's Tearooms for a nice cuppa and cake. http://www.bettys.co.uk/ . We were really filling in time as we (Gail) had booked tickets to see a theatre production of Women on the verge of HRT at Harrogate Theatre and thought a day out would be my reward for joining her in that. The show was everything it could be.

We set off the next day to Hawes, a lovely little Dales village very popular with hill walkers and ramblers but we were heading up to a country house for lunch. On the way we called into an open garden at Constable Burton Hall on the A684 because there was a spring garden display. It is a grand house as you can see and there is a self guided walk with an honesty box for a leaflet explaining the plants and paths. Most enjoyable hour or so, met one of the house staff and the house dog for a chat but mainly strolled alone through the grounds.

Hawes itself is built over a stream and has many quaint shops and backstreets mostly cobbled and some lovely pubs and cafe's. Our destination was Simonstone Hall and the web site tells you all about it with some better photos than we took but you can see from the ones I've included we enjoyed ourselves and the food was well presented, and worth the trip. http://www.simonstonehall.co.uk/ .

Half way through the month we visited Temple Newsam a few miles south from Wetherby and just north of Leeds. It is so called not because it is a temple but because the place was granted to the Knights Templar in 1155 until their suppression in 1307. Since then it fell in and out of decreed grants and purchased ownerships and its history does lay claim to providing accommodations to Dukes, Viscounts, Princes and Queens, It is now owned and run by Leeds Council as a museum and gallery of some note. The grounds are vast and you can really get a taste of days long gone when you are strolling through rooms furnished as they were in the time. Despite me saying I could live a long life without ever visiting another large country home or castle, whenever we do think of going to one up here they are always a very rewarding day out, Temple Newsam was no exception. www.leeds.gov.uk/templenewsam/

As a bit of more modern culture we saw The Boat that Rocked at out local Wetherby Cinema, don't know if it made it anywhere outside the UK but it was a great movie, with Bill Nighy and a great cast supported by a strong storyline and fantastic 60's music track. If it comes to a DVD near you I'd recommend it . http://www.theboatthatrocked.co.uk/

At the end of the month Gail left for London to attend a three day course and a night out with the Girls at a theatre production of Priscilla Queen of the Dessert which she thoroughly enjoyed. While Jason Donnovan was very good, the ensemble cast was spectacular and the show was not only well done it was funnier than the movie. Maybe in part because all the audience got into the swig of things by dressing for the night in appropriate garb. The pre-theatre room party and booked dinner set the tone for a wild night out which finished with some dozen or so partying on till the small hours in the morning back in Rose's and Gail's room.

The next day was spent farewelling the party goers with a walk through Hyde Park and a bit of a stroll through the streets of Padington.

The education course was in MRI and held near St Pancras and Euston Station. It was a fantastic learning event as Alliance Medical are famous in the UK for delivering the best education and as employees get it for free there is real value add especially as it is so relevant to the work here. There was also lots of opportunity to walk the streets nearby. There are lots of interesting buildings and sights to see, the British Library and it's sculptures, The new (Re-open late 2009) St Pancras Midland Grand Hotel, some 244 rooms, 5 Star and also private apartments up amongst the old spires, and the London University hospital which is a huge modern multi story glass wonderment of a teaching hospital.... and the Champagne Bar of St Pancras Station where one just has to wait for her train to leave, even if the Champagne is ten quid a small glass, the smoked salmon was as delicious as it was hugely proportioned. Quite the place to people-watch from above and imagining walking to one's spire apartment through the fine old brick arches of the Midland Grand Hotel.

While Gail was off doing and dreaming London, Greg was driving through the Dales going to see Malham Cove, often described as the best part of the Dales National Park http://www.malhamdale.org.uk/malham_cove.htm (Gail had the camera), it is spectacular but we do need to walk it together just after rain so the waterfalls are at their most spectacular, also he went to a local Theatre production of "Murder Deferred" in the Collingham village hall, and thrill of thrills, put the car into the Service shop to get a thumping rear suspension fixed, all of which was very enjoyable if a bit more of a solo affair than Gail's London triumphant girly tour of London, Piccadilly, Paddington and St Pancras.

And despite us yet again thinking nothing much happened in April it does seem that , on review, we are having a wonderful time here. We are of course not immune to the current pressures of life, the relentless calls on Gail to work long distance, twice in Scotland, and silly hours, and for Greg in trying to figure out ways to minimise the impact the credit crunch is having on our mid life adventures and future dreams. But one does have to reflect on the good times to bring some balance and we do hope everyone we know is managing with the same resolve in these tough times.

That's all for now, the month of May is looking a bit quiet for us, nothing planned except an RDPD investment seminar in Leeds City for Greg, and for Gail there is a Hen's night in Nottingham and another training day down in Coventry.

If you have read this far Peter L..... Happy Birthday for the 3rd of May! All the very best from Gail and Greg for your next enjoyable decade. See you in Cornwall!

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.