A kick start to 2012 - Jersey

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.

And so this is xmas --- 2011

As is the way of things the corporate world usually celebrates xmas well before the event.  Shops for example start celebrating in September whereas corporate staff xmas dos begin early November.  Gail's workmates organised a party in Manchester, in a tent, with other companies, for what turned out to be a windy and perhaps less than ideal time.  I am assured however that the night was a good one... I didn't go / wasn't invited......   The girls below are Clair Helen Kim Laura and Gail, I think about 20 staff people went. I am told the entertainment was sort of okay but the food was ordinary and the drinks pathetic as was the service.  I didn't miss much but it was mostly about having a time with colleagues so I guess that was the good bit.
 

What I was involved with was the overnight arrangements for a mate of mine from the 90's.  Phil Crisp and I once attended an extended educational event in Sydney where we shared many a day and night and a lot of weekends together but regretfully not many since then.  Anyway other than a brief visit to his coastal retreat in 2007 we have not caught up. He is not a traveller by nature but his new love, Lizzy, is and as they were touring the European and UK shores we demanded they spend a while with us.  A great night and day were consumed in Wetherby with walks and meals and endless chat. 

 For those of you who know I write for fun may be interested to learn Pete Etheringham and I were chosen as in the top ten Yorkshire Ghost story writers by the Harrogate Library.  Pete got third and I was in the top ten.  this is a photo of us in a bar in Harrogate celebrating our win with a photo op and a little drink.  Gail and Hanah also came along.

 One of the joys of living in Wetherby is the nice folk we have met.  In this photo are Rob and Angela on the floor with their dogs LuLu and Iforget, Clare's hand can be seen patting another Iforget and Paul is sitting next to Gail behind the beer bottle.  The room is in Wales. At the foothills of Mt Snowdon, as in the following pic.  They invited us to go and stay with them for a long weekend.  What a fantastic time we had.  Nights together partying and days they went dog walking on beaches and Gail and I went other places in Wales we had never been to.

 These shots are of Portmerrion  which is a wonderful quirky place built to a small scale but capturing all sorts of european architecture.  It is pretty and you can rent rooms.

 We had a fantastic lunch in the 5 star hotel and as it was mid week and mid winter the crowds were not there.  It was a wonderful day out and I can recommend it.

 As I said, we all caught up at night and this particular night it was Angela's birthday so we went to a great little bistro in a nearby town (Betswy-coed) for another fantastic meal.  Around the table are me Clare, Paul, (some welsh git at the table behind us) Angela Rob and Gail.....

 The river ran past the front of our little rented holiday home, just across from the railway line.  The Ffestiniog railway was not that railway but one in Portmandog which used to pull all the slate down from the mountains to the port.  It is now a tourist line but on the day Gail and I went it was a Santa Train with elves, mulled wine, champagne and mince pies all dome in Edwardian dress.  We took lots of shots but these give a sense of the day

 The Wales holiday was only three days and four nights and finished all too soon .  There were many fine memories not the least of which were the ales shared in front of Pub fires in the Welsh valleys...  A very comfortable way to idle away the hours.

 And all too soon the Real xmas days were on us.  Being away from home does mean these days are rather nicely spent with just the two of us but in a sort of tradition now, David and Carolyn, Gail and I share Xmas eve dinner.

 This year it was Gail's turn to do the dinner and we ordered in a ham from a famous London butcher (online delivered to the door) who supplies meat to the big name chefs , and us.   We had a very happy time and Gail and I both enjoyed the next day using our presents, Gail bought herself a cooking thing and I bought us a new music machine as the one we carried over from Australia didn't like the trip much and had been getting quite ill. The new one is tiny but much better, and does Ipod..... we don't have Ipods.

 Some of you may know my Birthday falls around xmas and this is me having breakfast specially made from special birthday ingredients delivered in bed.  YUMMY!

 Finally, and simply because I am proud of the installation, here is our new kitchen tap.  While we were quite happy with the old tap it leaked and they don't make replacement washers for it so you have to buy the whole ceramic valve, special brass enclosure and neoprene rings and flanges assembly, one each for hot and cold...I already did it once... it really was cheaper to buy a whole new tap.  So I did, on line, delivered free, with all the gubbins and this one has replaceable O rings sealing the ceramic disc.....  Looks good don't you think?





Fireworks, markets, libraries, London, Cheltenham, Savages and Lions



And November of course is also the start of firework season for us with Guy Fawkes night and then new years eve and finally Australia Day. So I'll only include two shots of the Wetherby Fireworks this year, we spent the night at David and Carolyn's but I had man flu and retired before the private firework show..... Sorry David. 

The month also required us to eat out a bit. 

 Thai prawns at The Muse

Scones and coffee at Betty's

 Sausage on a bun in the German Beer tent at Leeds Xmas Markets

And Schnitzel with mustard at the German Schnitzel store in the xmas markets 

 The markets are the same as last year but that doesn't make them any less fun.  We will go back in December so may take some more pics then.

I took Carolyn to the British Library at Boston Spa.  They are celebrating 50 years of being the national scientific library for Great Britain.  Every journal, thesis, reference book text or magazine and newspaper ever published has a copy stored in the British Library.  Boston Spa is about to take in every newspaper ever published.  I won't drown you in stats but that's alotta paper.  Thousands of kilometres now all being transferred to robot stored low oxygen racks in this building and another one for newspapers.

 The automated storage robot fed retrieval clerks ask for a book and it comes to them in a box full of unrelated books but sorted by frequency of request.  The books are either sent to the requester or scanned or digitised and emailed around the world to research clients.  The general public can use the facility but can't take books away only See them for reference.   The Boston Spa site sits on 60 acres of land in a 400 acre industrial park just up the road from Wetherby.

 The transfer of all books to the robot store will take some time and the older reference material is still stored in manual access buildings each of 6 stories.  Each floor has picking people and scanning people and admin people and each floor supplies about 1000 requests a day.  That's picked, recorded scanned or sent.

So you need some fancy scanners. these are the overhead dual page scanners with image rectification and page justification but as all the operators need to do is turn pages they are fat slugs of people... We began to think you had to be fat to work there but that was not the case. There are a lot of slow fat public servants there though. We decided we didn't want to work there but if you want to find out everything about the library go to www.bl.uk/ or keep reading for more interesting stuff we did in November 2011.

We headed off to London to see Cora and Trish and to learn how to play cribbage, and to teach them how to play canasta.  we did all these things and managed to slot in some eating and drinking time.  The first bit of eating fro us was at 

 Kegworth Cottage restaurant.  We have decided that rather than stop at motorway services we will take a slip road off to a local town and use their local shops.  Cheaper and better food but you have to look.  This was a great find and we had a lunch that made us late for London but who cared, it was great.

 Heaps of fish and veg, and veg, and veg and veg.... and the dessert was fantastic chocolate concoction, nice wine and dirt cheap. http://www.cottage-restaurant.co.uk/

Anyway in no time at all we were in Hampstead and had picked up Cora and Tricia in a London hackney cab on a quick trip to the Bull and Bush pub for a slap up meal and a great catch up chat.

 

Next day was spent playing cards and drinking wine with a night out at a local pub near their flat.  I was less than impressed with the food but I may be spoiled by Yorkshire standards.... Still miss my majic Sydney food too.  Anyway we had a fantastic time and stayed the night.  We headed off the next day after a slap up french toast and fresh fruit breakfast cooked by Cora.  A short but sweet visit and most pleasant.

 

Next stop , Cheltnam, to catch up with Peter and Ann who have just bought a new house having sold Richmond and Winchcombe this year.

 We met up at the Green Dragon pub nearby and had a slap up meal and I had a welcome re-introduction to an Otter Ale, a sup I have come to seek out when in the Cotswolds.

 For those interested these are the shots of their new (Georgian/Victorian) home.  Massive high ceilings, big rooms and four to five bedrooms, plenty of grass to mow and lots of work to fix up to the standard they like.  Lots of time to do it though.  Very convenient to Ann's family.

We enjoyed a great evening around the kitchen table and I managed to resolve a couple of problems they had with their lights, sound system  and other niggles that old homes bring.  Had a fantastic night catching up and solving the worlds problems Before a much needed sleep and super breakfast before heading back to Leeds.

The Leeds booking was for the Savage social night.  The writers and sketchers of who there are about 30 now were holding a night out and I was keen to take a place at the table.

As usual the company was great and the food fantastic, Gail drove home so I could have a pint or two and as you can see a happy time was had.  I think it closed off nicely the 600 mile driving holiday over the 4 days Gail had rota'ed off work and we felt like we had rewarded ourselves and fully relaxed in that time.

 

But November still had a couple of things left in store.  There was a night at the Muse with Graeme, Kate and Bently the Great Dane and,  as the photos above indicate, a Lions black tie night for the ladies....In the posh room at the Wetherby Golf Club with posh waiters, champagne and stuff.  All the blokes made the effort with tux's and bow ties but Gail was doubly disappointed .  The singer was out of tune or off key and while Gail made an effort with the glad rags, bling and face paint, some of the wives sort of let the team down making Gail think she need not try so hard next time..... I have to tell her there is another one in March..... This time in a posher place so maybe the girls will all spark out.  Anyway the food was great, the wine quite nice and we were made most welcome and I am sure, once I get some younger friends to join the Wetherby Lions we will have a much better time of it.  I am on the entertainments committee this year and they are a fun bunch of blokes so I'm sure stories will result.

Lots of other things happened to us in November but these are the highlights.  December sees us off to Snowdonia in Wales and then to Jersey in January so the adventures continue.