Blog – Page 45 – Where is Phil now?

Bush and beach, sun and sea + castles. A perfect holiday?

Sunday 7 September 2014 – Ryde, Isle of Wight.

It felt like it had been ages since El and I last had a weekend away in England together, so we were eagerly looking forward to this weekend trip to the Isle of Wight. We took a day trip there last summer and had committed to ourselves to returning and exploring some more. I holidayed there on a couple of occasions when I was a child and had retained some vague memories of visiting places on the south coast like Ventnor and Black Gang Chine. I was looking forward to revisiting both locations – though I suspect things have changed in the last forty years…

In a previous life El and her then husband owned a flat in Ryde, one of the larger towns on the island, and the destination of the Portsmouth ferry. El’s ex still owns the flat and we were going to stay there and use it as our base for exploring. In summer the prices of everything on the island increase significantly – as they do everywhere I guess, so it was really nice to have some free accommodation.

For a change we had a weekend away with no rain forecast and in a mood of total optimism I did not pack either my rain coat or an umbrella – even more optimistically I threw my togs in my bag (togs = swimming costume in NZish). I have not been in the sea for well over a year and it was definitely well over due.

We were going to catch the 5:30 train from Waterloo to Portsmouth after work on Friday, but discovered at the last minute that the large Bestival music festival was also happening on the island over the weekend so elected to sneak away from work a bit early and catch the train at 5:00. We made it to the train in time and surprisingly it was not too busy, with only a few festival goers adding to the normal number of commuters heading home. I have no idea how they do it, I find the twenty minute train ride I have in the morning to be enough, how people do the almost two hour trip each way every day I do not know. Though living by the sea must make up for it.

The flat is about 500 metres from the end of the pier at Ryde so we were inside and unpacked before 8:00. We decided to keep it local for dinner and just headed over the road to a newish Mediterranean restaurant for pizza and wine and then back to the flat to chill. I had a big day planned for us the following day…

We were up earlyish on Saturday, and as this was a holiday we didn’t bother with making breakfast – just popped over the road to a cafe for, in my case, a bacon and egg roll and a cup of coffee.

We had a bit of an ambitious mission in mind: Catching the train to Shanklin, walking to Ventnor for lunch, then on to Black Gang Chine, catching a bus to Newport and walking to nearby Carisbrooke Castle – then back to Newport and on to Ryde. Sweet, a nice mix of bush, beach and castle!

We headed down to the quay at Ryde and did not have to wait too long for the train to Shanklin, there is only a small line on the island and its sole train is an old London Underground ‘tube’ train.

Shanklin is on the south side of the island and is very much an old beach town, I loved the old town theatre – still thriving and still showing family pantomimes, just like when I was a child.

Before I went to New Zealand when I was eleven, I lived in North Cheam, a working class south London suburb. My neighbours on one side were an old couple Mr and Mrs Aubrey – the strawberries as I recall naming them. They were very interested in ancient history and collecting fossils and played a huge part in my fascination with old things, I still have the books they gave me as birthday presents – rare and treasured things left over from my childhood. The island and this section of Britain’s south coast are well known locations for fossil and stone hunters and it was nice to see that this is still the case.

Like many of Britain’s small towns and villages Shanklin had a ‘new’ part and a historical old part, as we were on a mission we just passed through the quaint old part of the town as we headed for the coastal track.

We found the coast walk easily enough – by following a map, one made of paper, not one made of Google – it was refreshing to work off a paper map for a change , I didn’t need to keep getting my glasses out to keep track of my location either!

Soon we were heading out of town and over the cliff tops towards Ventnor, though there was not really much of a view as the horizon just blurred into the grey of the sky.

It was a nice walk, through a mix of gentle forest and past the back of small villages and through the Bonchurch Landslips, a section of the coast that has been slowly sliding in to the sea for the past thousand of years so. Walking in rural Britain is always such a joy.

We stopped at the lovely moss laden Wishing Seat and rested our butts on the rock worn smooth and slightly concave through the wear of a thousand butts before us.

We stopped to admire the complete lack of view of the French coast, before coming into Bonchurch.

We didn’t head up into the old village itself, just paid our respects to the lovely lovely St Boniface Church between the village and sea. I love the fact this church was rebuilt in 1070!

Though in fact a lot of the church is far newer, mostly being finished only 500 or so years ago… Inside there is still some of the original fresco left.

We reluctantly left the church and its grounds and carried on through the last of the landslips till we popped back out into the 20th century (not quite the 21st here !) just outside the town of Ventnor. As I said at the start I holidayed here when I was a child, and have a photo of my dad sitting on the concrete steps somewhere around here, smoking his pipe.

I kind of like this old fashioned concreted beach front and wall – and I of course utterly hate it. It is part quaint and old fashioned and part hideously ugly and un-necessary. Neither side of the argument in my head particularly held a strong hand, and I left undecided about it. I wasn’t tempted to swim here though, hot and sweaty as I was.

We carried on walking to and then through Ventnor town, past the sort of pleasant beach and sat down for lunch in the pub at the far end of the beach.

One of the things I loved about Ventor and its beach is that it summed all that is great about parts of the English coast. A kind of average beach, sort of sand, beach huts and deck chairs. Fabulous.

Realising we would not be able to walk to Black Gang in the time we had left in the day, while we waited for lunch we checked out the bus timetable from Ventnor and then onwards to Newport. Public transport on the island is notoriously bad and off season on a Saturday was even worse, so we decided to flag Black Gang – much to my dismay ! Black Gang is one of the few real memories I have of my childhood holidays and I was quite looking forward to going there. We will just have to come back to the island again.

After a very average, yet expensive lunch we walked up the hill into central Ventnor with leaden legs and full bellies and just arrived in time to get the half hourly bus through to the administrative capital and centre(ish) of the island in Newport. From a tourist point of view there are few features in Newport, but a short walk from the busy bus centre is Carisbrooke Castle and a castle is always something to get excited about in my book.

I got into the habit of walking around the outside of ruins when I was in Cambodia looking at the Khymer ruins around Angkor. There was always less people on the perimeter and it provided a different perspective on what I saw, before following the more usual route through and around the centre.

There has been a castle at Carisbrooke since Saxon times but construction of the castle we visited today was started around 1100 by the de Redvers family when they were gifted the island by the crown. The outer walls were added much later in 1588 when the infamous Spanish Armada came close to the island.

Carisbrooke’s main claim to fame is being were the ex-king Charles 1 was imprisoned after his defeat in the English Civil War in 1647. It is a pretty awesome place and we really enjoyed our visit, though due to time pressure and being a bit knackered we did not stay as long as we could have.

Naturally I took a LOT of photos…

After the castle visit, walking back into Newport and catching the bus to Ryde we did a bit of family visiting before heading out for a tea at a new local Thai place. The service was slow due to a few staffing issues, but we were not in a rush and the food was really really good, some of the best Thai I have had in the UK, it was also incredibly cheap and they gave us a free glass of wine each for making us wait – a very nice touch. I very rarely mention places I have eaten in or stayed at, but Ryde Thai – you were great !! We took a half an hour walk along the Esplanade after dinner to allow all that food to digest a bit before bed.

We were up pretty early on Sunday, the flat is on the main road in Ryde and it a bit noisy at night. With my complete lack of ability to sleep in anything other than ideal conditions I had a couple of restless nights, the street sweeper coming through about 5:30 am didn’t help much either. The streets were pretty quiet when we left for a pre-breakfast walk. The flat was above a shop.

We walked back up the Esplanade again, looking for somewhere to stop for breakfast while I waited for the sun to crack through the low cloud, giving me a reason to get into the sea. The beach along here has some lovely sections and these are groomed over night to really make them shine.

As I had damaged my new Canon G16 camera on my microadventure I had brought my increasingly unreliable Panasonic GX1 with me, and after a few moments yesterday it finally stopped working altogether this morning and this was the last photo I got.

We had an incredibly average breakfast at a place on the waterfront, and then came across a cafe further along the beach at Puckpool that looked really nice, damnit… By this time the sun had finally hit the beach and it was soon time to be brave, take a concrete pill and get into the sea. El grabbed a picture on her phone of me shivering my way in to commemorate the occasion.

It was a very quick swim, but I did get all the way in and made an effort. My swim for 2014 has been done !!

And that was it really. Weekend over. We walked back to the flat, packed and cleaned and headed back down to the ferry. A lovely weekend away. Sea, sand, sun, bush and beach – and castles. Magic.

Microadventure !

Thursday 21 August 2014 – Somewhere near Dorking, Surrey.

In my last post I mentioned that I recently had interviews for two IT based roles, and that I had been called back to both for second round interviews. As it turned out I did not get either of those jobs, which to be honest was a pretty good thing as I was rung later that week about a third job… Bizarrely this was the best out of all the jobs I have interviewed for lately and after a process lasting a mere three days a contract was signed and I started as an application systems manager the next day. It has great money, great people, interesting work and being based in Covent Garden just adds to all the good things about the job. I have been there for a week now, and it was pay day yesterday. My bank account and I are so very very happy:

Anyway, back on subject…. Via someone I follow on Twitter I recently discovered adventurer and author, Alastair Humphreys just as he was releasing his new book entitled “Microadventures” . I was intrigued by some of the things he wrote about in his blog so I bought the book to read on the plane when I went to New Zealand in July. His idea is that people with limited recreation hours should make the most of the time between the 9 – 5 hours of the working day, those spare hours between 5 and 9, for small adventures. Not all of us are fortunate enough to be able to take off for days or weeks on end and do something out side of our own box, and now that I have settled into work the opportunity for adventuring is a lot less. I have also realised that after so much travel I am not entirely ‘normal’ anymore and like to get out and explore off the beaten track every now and then.

After delving into this microadventure thing further I found a small group of people who have been sneaking out after work, jumping on a train out into the counties outside London, walking up a hill and sleeping on it. Heading back into the office with a big grin the following day. This all sounded extremely cool to me so I made contact and the following Thursday…

For the past week the forecast for tonight had been looking really good and it was still showing a clear night as I had breakfast before leaving for work with a backpack loaded for sleeping out. However, when I left the office at 6:00 to walk to the meeting point at Waterloo Station the skies had clouded over and a shower just happened to pass by as I crossed over the Thames – Damn!

I had taken my new camera on the trip and this was the only photo I took with it. With a very full backpack I somehow managed to damage one of the leaf shutters that protect the lens. As you would expect I was not very happy with myself for that. All the rest of the photos are taken on my phone.

I met Anna, who has been organising things, and Lara under the big clock in Waterloo station and while we waited for others to show up Lara and I went to M and S to grab some basic snacks for a shared dinner. When we got back to Anna we discovered that the four other people who were to meet at the station had all bailed out – I guess due to the weather, suckers ! As we were getting tickets for the return trip to Dorking we heard the announcer calling the train – at the furthest platform from where we were standing. We made a mad dash for it, got through the ticket barrier and watched the doors close and the train ease out of the station…

With thirty minutes to wait until the next train at 19:24 we sat on the platform, ate some of the food we had just bought and introduced ourselves to each other until the train arrived. Three total strangers heading off to sleep in a field, awesome.

The train arrived in Dorking a few minutes late at 20:20 and we met the fourth member of our small party, Glenn, who had been waiting patiently after driving in from a nearby town. Night had fallen before we arrived so the original plan to walk from Dorking station to “God’s Seat” just off the North Downs Way for sunset was thrown out the window. As a plan B we headed towards the downs and looked for a convenient hill that would give us a view of the morning’s sunrise as well as trees nearby in case the now forecasted light showers turned into something more unpleasant in the wee hours.

After half an hour of vaguely planned walking around we came across a field in a National Trust park that seemed to be facing the right direction for sunrise, had some trees for rain cover if needed and some nice soft long grass for lying on. Strictly speaking it is against National Trust rules to sleep in their parks, but this was kind of out of the way, and I am a member, so…..

We found a patch on the far side of the field and unpacked food and drink and settled in for a chat, a feed and a laugh before finally organising to settle in for the night around 11:30. As this was a very light weight trip there was no tents involved, I had a sleeping mat and slipped my sleeping bag into a recently purchased bivvy bag. The bivvy is basically a large waterproof bag that fully covers the sleeping bag as well as having a head cover to snuggle into – in case of rain and cold. Mine was long enough to allow me to stuff my pack down into the bottom if the rain got too hard, but for tonight I was using my bag as a very hard pillow.

I must say I did not get a lot of sleep, though this was well within expectation – I mean I sleep badly in a nice bed, there was little hope of a great night sleep while in a field! I did get some sleep, between a couple of light showers, the bird noise and the sun rising way too early. It was lovely to be sleeping out, something I should have done before – especially when I was in Africa and had some great opportunities to get out of the tent and sleep under the stars. It was a reasonably comfortable night, I stayed completely dry, considering it did rain a bit – and having bought wisely, my bivvy breathed well as well. Something I was quite pleased.

The sun started to rise just before 5:00 and that was when I discovered my camera wasn’t working anymore. I grabbed a couple of blurry pictures with my phone before the others got up and the rising sun started to colour the horizon.

I spent a vast amount of the night staring at these two trees, in the dull light of the night they really looked like two dinosaurs fighting.

We were all up, packed and off just after 6:00, taking a slow walk back to Dorking station from Denbies Hillside before jumping on a train back into the city – and in the office for a shower before starting my day at the desk at 8:30. A happy grin on my face all day, though my new colleagues did think I was a bit mad…

Whales ! – A quick stop in Queensland.

Sunday 20 July 2014 – Brisbane, Australia.

After an early walk with my mum on Friday morning I packed up the remainder of my stuff – I have accumulated enough extra bits and pieces to be taking a second bag back to London. Surprisingly I did not buy anything in New Zealand – apart from essentials like wine and four packets of Tim Tam biscuits to take back with me 🙂

My daughter, Meliesha was taking me out to the airport so mum and I met her at the newly renovated Lopdell House in Titirangi. I used to be on the committee of the local community arts council in Titirangi and we had a gallery in Lopdell House. The gallery has recently re-opened after the renovations and the new space is so much better than the old one, with some really nice natural light. Mel, mum and I met on the new roof terrace and some lovely views over the start of the Waitakere Ranges and the Manukau Harbour – and such a glorious winters day to be up there.

After saying my farewells to all I was dropped at the airport for my flight to Brisbane, Australia where I am going to spend some time with my oldest son, Dom. I was on time for my flight, unlike the plane – though you can see it has just landed in the distance.

It was a good flight over the Tasman and I was only a little bit late landing. I have decided to rent a car while I am here as distances are long and public transport not quite at London standards. I drove down to the small town of Beenleigh, which is about half way between the Gold Coast and Brisbane airport. Dom has been back in Australia for three weeks now and has started work as a plumbing apprentice, he is living with his mother, my ex-wife and I am going to be staying there as well. Thankfully we are on good terms ! I have been gifted a lovely head cold by my mum, so did not stay up too late on Friday night.

Last night we kicked around a few options for things to do while I am here and decided that if the wind dropped we would spend a pile of money, do something mega-touristy and go whale watching. Luckily it did, so we did…

I am not really one for large scale organised tourist activities so it was a bit strange to be forking out almost 200AUD to go whale watching with SeaWorld. We arrived 2 minutes before the boat left, so grabbed a quick coffee before getting on board.

The journey started from the harbour created by the Spit and there was a good mix of bird life on the low tide sand banks while we waited for the boat to head out.

It took about fifteen minutes to get through the harbour and out to the open sea, to the south was the ugly expanse of hotels that is Surfers Paradise and to the north, where we spent most of the trip, was South Stradbroke Island.

We spotted our first whale soon after getting into the ocean. The humpback whales spend a little bit of time in the large Gold Coast bay as they head north (and then back south again) in their migration from the winter Antarctic oceans to their breeding grounds off the coast of North Queensland. I was testing out my new Canon G16 camera today and was pretty pleased. All the shots were taken at maximum optical zoom, any closer photos posted here have been cropped.

I was not sure what to expect from the experience, visiting animals in the wild is never a guarantee for any sort of action, nor any close up shots. The boats are not allowed within 100 metres of the whales – of course the whales can come closer to the boats if they desire – though this did not happen for us.

The trip started off fairly slow, with some distant viewing of solo whales and small pods. So I did do a photo swap with Dom while I had the chance 🙂

We followed one whale for a while and when it chose to dive, we did get the opportunity to get the ‘tail shot’. Though this means the whale has dived deep and could be gone for up to 45 minutes !

We soon spotted a small pod of whales in the distance and motored over to have a look. Often the whales are spotted in the distance when they blow out water as they exhale, and all hundred or so of us on the boat were scanning the water for the tell tale spouts. This group made it easy to spot.

We were told that this group was likely made up of a mature female and two or three young males seeking her attentions. She was obviously getting frustrated with them as she started to bang her fin on the surface, a humpback whale signal for leave me alone ! It was very cool to watch.

After a few minutes of banging her fin, she decided to give up and took a dive.

We were looking around for a while when all of a sudden there was yelling from some of the other visitors and I turned round in time to see a humpback just smashing back into the water after a breach – when the whale ‘jumps’ out of the water.

According to the whale expert on the boat they do not see breaches every time they go out, so this was really exciting for us. The whales breach for a variety of reasons, most likely to clean barnacles or other hitch hikers off of their skin or to have a good scratch of something that is itching. Whatever the reason, it was very cool to watch and we were lucky to see three or four of them. They are also really hard to photograph as you never know exactly where they are going to appear.

After the action was over and the whales disappeared beneath the surface we waited for a while before this group finally re-appeared on the surface.

But they did not stay long and this was our final view of them. We turned around soon after they left and headed back to land.

It was a great outing and I was really pleased we did it. We saw way more than we expected and the breaches were amazing to watch.

Back in the car Dom and I cruised down the the coast as far as the coastal road allowed before heading in to a mall for some lunch. After lunch and still with a few hours of day left we took a drive up into the coastal hills and visited Mount Tamborine. We stopped off for a beer near the top and I took a photo back down over the coast and the other side of Surfers Paradise to the one seen earlier in the day, this was the last photo I took in Australia for some reason.

After popping in to visit my ex-brother in law on this 40th birthday, Dom and I went to Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane to join 38,000 others to watch the NZ Warriors lose to the Brisbane Broncos in a NRL rugby league game. It all started so well (the Warriors ) were 12-0 up after only a few minutes.

On Sunday Dom and I went for a posh lunch in a restaurant in Sanctuary Cove before heading to the movies to see Transformers 4. It was OK, longer than I expected, but I mostly enjoyed it. The CGI is getting pretty special these days. And that was pretty much it for my holiday. In the early evening I drove back to Brisbane Airport to return the car and with a massive head cold boarded the plane for the shorter of the two flights back to London. Amazingly I had a whole row to myself and actually slept for a good couple of hours on the flight. I was very pleased !!

I had a good time in Aussie, it was great to spend some time with Dom, and really pleased he is doing well over there. It was good seeing my ex, Deana and I really appreciated being able to stay at her house as it saved me having to find accommodation that would have been quite a distance away.

I had three hours in Singapore airport and caught the little train over to terminal two to see if I could find the Kobo e-reader I left on the flight to Singapore from London. It had been found and was in lost property. Sadly lost property is on the other side of immigration and there was not enough time to get out of the airport to get it. Though Singapore Airlines are going to send it to London for me to collect, nice one!

The almost fourteen hours of flying to London was pretty awful, I did not sleep at all, and the plane was very full. I watched a few movies (Lego movie) and seven episodes of the new TV series ‘Believe’, but was hugely relieved to land in London !

It was a very short, very busy and very enjoyable trip to NZ and Australia. It was great seeing my family again and the new addition, Luca. I love you all and look forward to seeing you again soon.

Ten days in New Zealand.

Thursday 17 July 2014 – Auckland, New Zealand.

After a fairly relaxing weekend away near Donnington Castle. about two hours out of London I spent the following Monday morning doing a final pack before heading off to Heathrow airport for a two week trip back home to New Zealand, and a final couple of days visiting my oldest son in Queensland, Australia. I had vaguely planned my departure to be after the one time when I would be really close to somewhere where the Tour de France was passing by, sadly I had gotten the time completely wrong and the lead riders were due to pass through Walthamstow as I was due to be heading to the airport, Doh !

I am not one to sleep on planes, I have trouble enough sleeping in bed, let alone planes, and though the flight from London to Singapore was in the evening and was reasonably comfortable I did not really doze much more than a few minutes at a time over a number of attempts – I did watch some bad movies though – and once I arrived in New Zealand found I had left my e-reader in the plane. (Yay to Singapore Airlines, they are sending my e-reader to London for me to collect !)

Changi Airport in Singapore is an interesting place, I was there for four hours so had a pretty thorough look around terminal three, If I had not been so damn full after eating at least three meals in the past twelve hours I would have been up there eating some lovely noodles like a shot.

I was less tempted by the pokie machines though. I have never seen gambling in an airport before!

The airport is pretty massive, and I walked a good ten minutes up to where my flight to Auckland was to depart from, only to find it had moved, almost the same distance away in the opposite direction. It was good to stretch out with a walk though.

But, there was a lovely sunset to make it all worthwhile.

I arrived in Auckland mid afternoon on Wednesday, what seems like two days after I left London. The primary reason for my trip this time was to see my new grandson, unnamed at the time I left and I was thrilled to see him when my son, Aiden, brought him around to my mum’s house after work on the day I arrived. We had a lovely family dinner that night and it was great to see everyone, and I got my first hold of my first grandson – Luca Ken (Ken was my late father’s name, it brought a tear to my eye when I found out) . Yes, it was pretty damn cool!

I hadn’t really planned anything beyond seeing family, apart from sorting through some of the stuff I have stored at my brother-in-laws house, disposing of the stuff to be disposed of, and maybe sneaking some vinyl into a bag and taking it back to London.

I spent the first couple of days relaxing and hanging out with my children and on Friday I took a trip down to Mt Te Aroha for a very windy bit of outdoors adventure with my friend Vicki.

With most of my friends working during the week I had a fairly full weekend of catching up with people and took a trip with old friend Chantal,out to Piha on Auckland’s west coast , which is my favourite part of Auckland and the one part of the city I miss. The weather was not the friendliest but we did get to walk along the beach for a bit between the showers, and had a pretty good lunch at Piha Cafe.

In the afternoon I had a great catch up with some friends I met many years ago via Flickr. I missed seeing them last time I was in Auckland, and I really enjoyed our brief couple of hours together – next time we must go and spend some time taking some photos. We had coffee in a couple of cafes including this lovely cafe on K Rd, It looks to be part of a closed theatre but I cannot place one there.

I also took a quick walk around to look at some of the limited range, but quite cool street art in the area.

On Monday mum and I took a trip out to Muriwai Beach, another one of my best loved Auckland locations, dad’s ashes are scattered here and we always come out for a visit when I am in Auckland.

That was pretty much it for the week, I spent two days organising my stuff, visited the kids a few times, hung out with some friends and saw my sisters my lovely new house.

On my last day I went for a walk around mums ‘hood in Henderson. The council here have done a great job over the years in building and linking up walking paths that snake around the greener areas of the suburb, taking walking and cycling off of busy – and in some cases ugly, light industrial roads. Mum walks these regularly and it was nice to get out for a couple of walks while I was staying with her – especially on such a nice morning, cool though it was.

We walked through Tui Glen which is now a park, but back in the 1970’s it was a caravan park village and we lived here, in this small home when we first arrived in New Zealand from England in the summer of 1973. We stayed here for a few weeks while my parents found jobs and a place to set down roots. I will say it was the most unhappy time for me and I suspect all of us. A lot of the flats have been knocked down, but some like this one – now called Glen Oaks have been preserved.

I had to take a photo of this mill house in Henderson it is 170 years old and an historic place. After recently walking on Roman ruins from almost a thousand years ago in London, I do find it so amusing that anything of a century old in Auckland is considered historic – though it will never get to be a thousand years old if they are not preserved now!

And that was pretty much the end of my NZ trip. I did buy myself a new camera, this time I have gone for a more traditional point and shoot style with a Canon G16. Time to replace my Lumix’s. I won’t say I will miss the GX1, I found it too frustrating to use in the end, but the GF1 served me very well all around South East Asia.

Next stop Brisbane, and my other son Dom. Yay!

My Grandson….

Friday 18 July 2014 – Auckland, New Zealand.

I am going to act like some large multi-national corporations do with UK tax law and act within the wording of the rules, but ignore the spirit of them. Just like Amazon doesn’t pay tax in the UK because it does not sell anything there – all 7 billion pounds of UK sales come out of Ireland**, I am going to put some photos of my new grandson here, which will be linked to FaceBook, though no photos will actually be on Facebook 🙂

His name is yet to be officially recorded in the book of births, but I have been assured it will not change (probably) so here is Luca Ken Platt, born on 19th June, two weeks early.

I am going to say I was not overly excited about the prospect of being a granddad at only 51, but my heart melted when I had my first cuddle and looked into his blankly staring little eyes. He is really lovely and I am very proud of my son Aiden and his partner.

These photos were taken over a few days during my ten day visit to Auckland. I am writing this at the airport as I wait for my flight to Brisbane to see my other son, Dom, before heading back to London on Monday. I miss them all already !

P1030878

P1030890

P1030909

P1030900

Luca and my mum.

P1030903

Aiden and his sister, Mel.

P1040029

P1040036

P1040037

I had forgotten what it is really like to hold such a small, vulnerable life in my hands, the little wriggly strength, the squishy faces they pull and the strange rumbles as they fill their nappy. It is pretty magical, and I look forward to holding him again.

He is not really ginger – not of course there is anything wrong with that ! I have finally got sick of my Lumix Gx1, was disappointed with the quality of the shots of Luca so went out and bought a new Canon G16 yesterday and I will sell the Gx1 when I get back to London. Too late for baby photos this time!

** The numbers may or may not be fact…

To the manor born.

Saturday 21 June 2014 – Weston Park, Staffordshire.

As part of her job in the publishing world El gets invited to a few events, launches and openings throughout the year. Most of which she cannot attend – some just would not work for the magazine readership and some are just not timed right. Occasionally there is one that meets all the needs of her publication and is on a date that she is free and even more occasionally there is one where I am invited as well. This was one of those occasions – and what a lovely occasion it was too!

Weston Park is an old English manor house set in a thousand acres of lovely Staffordshire countryside in the English midlands. The park is open to the public and already has a popular cafe and restaurant. They are planning a proper English afternoon tea offering in the manor house soon, one of the reasons for the press event. A proper English tea is not just a cuppa and a biscuit; it is a real event with sandwiches, scones with jam and cream, little cakes – and of course there is loads of tea (no coffee !!)

Weston Park was gifted to Britain in 1986 and is now run by a private trust, it is not part of the large National Trust estate, though it is run on similar lines and is largely open to the public. The main manor house itself is not often open to stay in – though it is available for weddings, parties and corporate events, so it is a rare opportunity to be able to stay there the night.

Weston Park is now most famous for being the site for the massive V music festival, though in the past it has held rounds of the Northern Ireland peace talks and the G8 summit.

We left London a bit late after some faffing on the platform at Euston while a train driver was found, though we did arrive reasonably on time at Stafford station. El and I were collected with five others by a taxi-van that took us out to Weston Park, about a half an hour drive from the station. The park is surrounded by five and half miles of wall, and we seemed to drive round all of it in the journey, it just kept on going and going ! But once we got there is was pretty wow ! While I have visited a few manor houses and small castles on my travels I have never had the opportunity to stay in one over night so was quite excited about the prospect.

Construction of the main house was started in the 1670’s, under the design and guidance of the lady of the house Lady Wilbraham and built in the popular restoration style. The house has been changed significantly over the years with the front door and reception area being moved and a whole new wing added from the 1860s. The last major changes to the structure of the house.

The house was open to the public when we arrived and as we are staying the night we were allowed to cross into the roped off area and head upstairs to our room.

We stayed in the ‘Church’ room at the back of the house with a view to Weston Church next door as well as out over one of the gardens – and the roof of the Orangery.

The room was massive and the bathroom was almost the size of my flat ! It was comfortable, though the bed was a bit short for me.

After settling in we had canapés and juice by one of the gardens outside the orangery and met the other guests, mostly similar to us – a writer and their partner.

We also met the people who ran the house who soon took us on an interesting tour of the building and told us about the history of both the area and the families who lived there. This included a walk through the old stables building and on to the main public areas outside.

After a very nice afternoon tea we were allowed to wander around the house and gardens and have a general explore on our own. As this was after the public opening times all the rope barriers had been removed and we could go where we liked. It was very interesting, and quite different to be able to look and touch things that are normally out of reach.

The library – though the books were all locked in, some are incredibly old – and very interesting looking.

The drawing room. I had not noticed on visits to other houses, but the library was very masculine and the drawing room very feminine. I had not realised there was a clear definition between rooms before.

The dining room, where we had our evening meal. As part of the major refit in the late 1800s the dining room was created by removing the first floor and a load of walls to create this lovely large space. I ate my dinner sitting in front of an original Van Dyke portrait of Sir Thomas Hanmer from 1637. I have never eaten a meal in front of a masterpiece before ! It is the bottom left painting.

Dinner was preceded by bubbles outside in the sun over looking another of the gardens as well as an interesting event where we were all 360degree scanned so a 3d model can be printed, though these were not printed on site as they take a long time and we are waiting to see ours.

The meal was fabulous, five lovely courses, matched with lovely wines. Heavenly! This was followed by coffee and port in the library and then sleep.

After breakfast El and I went for a walk around the back of the house, through a small gate.

Into one of the free public areas. This used to be a working farm and I liked these derelict sheds we found,

Before walking back to the house around a small pond.

After our walk it was time to go on the official walk with the head gardener. He is the third generation of his family to have worked on the estate, so he knew it pretty well. He was a very interesting man, and has a major passion for the estate and ensuring that the vision of the original developers is maintained. The core of the estate was planned and built around a design by ‘Capabilty’ Brown in 1765. Capability Brown is a famous (I have discovered) gardener and landscaper and was involved in some of the most famous gardens in England.

We walked up to the temple to Diana – the goddess, not the late princess !

After lunch at the public restaurant it was time to catch a ride back to Stafford and jump, heavily with full bellies after thirty six hours of eating, on to the train back to London.

The following day was an Audi hosted function and as we were leaving the Audis were starting to arrive. I was hoping they were going to be a parting gift !

It was a great night away, the house and gardens are beautiful and the people who run the show are very knowledgeable and engaging. Thanks 🙂

A brief update !

Monday 30 June 2014 – London.

The last few weeks have seen a few changes for me, though much remains the same, so I it is time to put together a brief update post.

This time next week I will be winging my way to New Zealand for a two week family and friend catch-up. I will only be visiting Auckland, arriving on Wednesday 9th and leaving late the following week to go and see my oldest son, Dom, who has just moved back to Queensland in Australia.

The main thing that hasn’t changed is that I am out of work, I have been looking fairly solidly for an IT management job since El and I got back from New Zealand in February. I have been close on a number of occasions, have had a few interviews, but have yet to actually land a job. I have been thinking about looking for any old job to tide me over, so I will see what happens when I am back at the end of July, though I suspect I will be reinvigorated after a break from the job hunt. Having said that I do have an interview lined up for the end of the month, so all is not lost, and I remain positive. My travelling is being held against me to a degree – though I did expect that when I left my job all that time ago, so no real complaints (OK, to be honest, it really pissed me off !). It has been a frustrating process though – and one worthy of a blog post, but not until I am well into a job and do not need the recruiting industry.

Partly as a way to save money for both of us, partly as a test to see how it works but mainly because it seems like a good idea I am going to leave my flat in London Bridge and move in to El’s place. I spend over half the week there anyway so it just makes sense. I have been slowly moving my stuff in over the past couple of weeks and will complete the job before we go away this weekend for a trip with her sons. It is a big move that we are both looking forward too. The plan at this stage is for me to find my own place once I land a job – a place for us to both escape too when we need a break.

Big thanks to Kevin for letting me stay for so long, I have loved living in London Bridge and I will miss the flat and its stunning view !

The really big change that has happened in my world is that I have just become a grand dad, my youngest son Aiden is now the father of a beautiful baby boy – currently known as baby as a name is yet to be decided.

I had been very undecided on whether to take a trip back to New Zealand when the baby was born, but as soon as he arrived my mind was made up – he is very cute. With no employer to haggle leave days with I decided to go between weekends away with El, booked my tickets and am off next week.

I had a look at taking a side trip somewhere on the way or the way back, but flights and costs did not make any sense so, while I would love to have had a wee adventure while I am away, I will save it for another time. EL and I are going to Copenhagen a few days after I get back, so I have nothing to complain about and lots to look forward to !

E17 Art trail

The annual E17 art trail has been going since 2005 and has been growing each year with this the tenth anniversary being the biggest yet. This year it ran over three weeks from the beginning of June with over one hundred and sixty locations showing art, holding performances or learning experiences. All by local artists, fabulous !

For those who do not know what E17 is, it is the postcode for an area in north east London, around the suburb of Walthamstow, where I mostly live – and one the many good reasons to live in the area!

I was not able to, nor to be fair, interested in going to every event that was included in the program, but El and I did manage to squeeze a fair few of them in and I took a few photos as we went. June was a bit of a mad busy month for some reason – SUMMER I guess, so here is a quick summary of the things I liked best.

There was a huge range of exhibits from the large mural by Stu Lee on the side of a house down by Blackhorse Rd tube station – which was my favourite single piece from the trail, I guess with my love of street art, there are few surprises there.

To the small knitted figures from the Howard Rd garden.

Unsurprisingly my focus was primarily on looking for photographic based exhibitions and the two I enjoyed the most had photography as the key visual element, though the stories behind the photos were the more important aspect. I didn’t get photos from the first.

The Ex-Warner Project is a photographic and oral history project recording the stories and histories of the people who live in the old Warner houses near Lloyd Park. The Warner houses were built at the end of the 19th century and into the early 20th century as social housing, they are quite distinctive small terraced houses, which are now mainly privately owned. I really enjoyed listening to the stories and looking at the images. An interesting project.

The second project I liked was on display at a newly opened coffee shop Bygga Bo, which just happens to be at the end of El’s road and serves great coffee and really nice cinnamon buns… This project had stories and photos of people who are of mixed-race, sharing their experiences of growing up. Again it was really interesting to read about people’s experiences in this, very multi-cultural piece, of London.

In the grave yard of St Marys Parish Church was a cool little exhibition from Whitefields school of small sculptures made from found items, I really liked it.

There was also an exhibition inside the church. I am going to visit the church properly soon as it has an interesting history!

There was a load of stuff happening in Walthamstow Village including Breaking Bard, a collection of sayings from Bill Shakespeare posted in the windows of houses in a few of the streets. It was quite amusing.

And in the streets of the newly named “Poets Corner” – so named as the surrounding streets are named after poets, were a collection of verse.

What I liked about these, and the whole art trail in general was that it gave all residents an opportunity to participate and share in the event.

There was some interesting work in the Winns Gallery from Waltham Forest College, including this interesting sculpture from student – Simona Pesce.

Even the underground station was in on the project with a couple of walls holding some quite interesting prints.

There are a few small galleries in Walthamstow and we visited a few of them, including the Pictorem Gallery way up by the Bakers Arms, which had a show by a range of artists. El even bought a small piece!

I am not sure if this was part of the trail or not, but it was on the way , and it looks like it has been left for a reason – maybe it is art ?

Separate, but sort of part of the art trail, is a new project called the free library project that now includes Walthamstow. There are a number of small library boxes around where people can exchange, take or leave books. A very cool idea – one that should be taken up everywhere ! This box has been painted by street artist Hannah Adamsezek – who I last found here, a slightly different environment !

I missed a whole load of things out due time and missed a bunch of photo ops as I didn’t always have a camera.

It was a truly awesome event, and I am looking forward to 2015 – I may even join in as well !!

Gods Own Junkyard

Saturday 31 May 2014 – God’s Own Junkyard – Walthamstow.

God’s own junkyard has been a feature of Walthamstow for many, years and amongst other things is a place to store the neon signs collected by its owner. Last year the site it was on was sold so the ever pervasive building of flats could spread there. At the time it seemed to be the end of God’s own Junkyard and there was a bit of a local hue and cry about it – it even made the national papers, so maybe it was bigger than local. Luckily a new place was found and God’s Own Junkyard can now be found inside at the small industrial estate on Shernhall St, and still in Walthamstow.

Chris Bracey who owns it has been in the neon-sign business for many many years, originally working with his father who also made neon signs. The “Junkyard” is a massive collection of signs made by and collected by Chris, his work has been seen in loads of major motion pictures and videos. It is also frequently used as a location for photos shoots and videos. Some of the work is for sale, though I suspect a lot of them are just too good to let go.

It is great place to visit, for a look around – and from this weekend (hopefully) there will be a cafe opening for coffee and food. I really enjoy visiting there. The photos will give you some idea of what the place looks like.

There is a small garden out the back, where coffee can be drunk and food eaten. It is almost as quirky as the inside and I really liked the subliminal message here…

One of the other great things about an afternoon visit to God’s own junkyard – is the factory over the way – a new East London brewery – The Wild Card Brewery. It was too early in the day to be open when I was there, but I have been for a visit and a taste before and the beer is brilliant.

For a good afternoon out, check out Shernhall St Industrial estate….

And now for something completely different – ComicCon 2014

Saturday 24 May 2014 – ComicCon, London.

I cannot believe it has been over a month since I last wrote a post, I also find it hard to believe that I have not done anything in that time that I found blog-worthy – though it must be true as there are no posts. I have been pretty busy though, there seems to always be a lot happening. I did start a project to photograph all the remaining sections of London’s Roman walls and thought I had finished until I found a blog post that showed I had missed a fair few pieces. If it stops raining in the coming week I will get out there and finish it off before I start the next project on my list.

A few weeks ago my mate Steve asked me if I wanted to go to ComicCon at the ExCel Centre and take some photos, I have never been to a comic festival before so immediately said yes, something completely different to my normal activities.

I have been suffering from some minor back pain for a while so decided I would not take the big camera as I get a sore back from lugging it around. I took the small Panasonic, which was a decision I really regretted at the end of the day. I took a lot of photos and deleted most of them as the focal point on the camera was not in the centre where I thought it was, I had knocked it out to one side. This meant that virtually all my photos were badly out of focus – gutting ! It was my fault; I have never really gotten into the habit of closely checking photos when I take them – “chimping”. I glanced at them to see if I had exposure set correctly, but without my reading glasses on everything is sort of blurry anyway. Mistake – oh well. Lessons learned – when taking photos of people in low light environments use the Canon, or learn how to take photos properly with the Panasonic first.

Steve and I had arranged to meet at the ExCel at 10:00 but I got there really early as I badly over-estimated how long it would take me to get there. The train ride in was interesting as the carriage was jammed, with half the people in weird and wonderful costumes, some I recognised – most I didn’t. It must have been a surreal experience for those on the train who did not know what was going on.

I grabbed a coffee and stood on the concourse from the station and watched the crowds go past.

Slowly and surely I was forced further and further back by the crowds as I tried to maintain a position where Steve could easily find me, until finally I was right back at the end of the concourse and just waited in the crowd. I was really surprised at the amount of people here!

Steve arrived on time and we slowly made our way into the venue, past some pretty serious security.

We finally made through the front gate into the centre itself, where we split into two groups, those with priority tickets, like us – and those without. Those without had to queue downstairs.

While we went into the exhibition centre itself – into another mass of people waiting to get their tickets checked.

Once through the ticket barrier I assumed it would be all go. No – there was the wrist band barrier to go through next.

Finally after an hour and a half of queuing we were in !!

I had no idea what to expect inside, I knew there would be stands and normal exhibition type stuff and I knew there would be people dressed as their favourite character, but I was surprised at the amount of people in costume – and I thought it was all rather cool. Most people would pose for photos if asked and there were (I am assuming) a number of professionals posing in all the well lit locations. There were a lot of photographers!

The exhibition itself was not that interesting for me, I am not a comic guy or gamer, so a lot of the references were meaningless, though of course there was still plenty of familiar things – like Cyanide and Happiness – I like how “The Joker” is buying something…

There were stands from some of the big boys in the genre, like Transformers and Dr Who.

Along with live comic drawings.

Gaming

Loads of large weapons – luckily there was no bag search !

And weird stuff for sale.

After walking round, the rather disappointing, exhibition areas for a while Steve and I hung out in the couple of locations were the light was good and took photos, which in my case were mostly rubbish, though I saved a few for the sake of documenting the event.

Yay – R2D2 !

Even evil gods like Loki need some time out to keep their social media feeds updated…

I left just after 2:00 and headed outside and was completely surprised to see hundreds of people out there. I had read on the event program about loads of meet-ups for the various fan clubs and here there were in the all their costumed glory. Perhaps we should just stayed outside !!

It was a fun day out, I was disappointed that some zombie facial close-ups I took were just terrible, along with a load of other out of focus shots. You would think I would have learned this lesson before now, but no – I haven’t!

I will definitely go again, but will just hang out outside – where the real action is.

Thanks Steve, I look forward to seeing some of your photos – no pressure 🙂

I made it home just before the rain hit!