Christmas In London

We left for London from the station on Christmas Eve and after changing at Leeds found ourselves in the City just over two hours later. The trip was made all the better by some lovely Christmas sandwiches and a bottle of Bucks Fizz and Wine we had taken to start celebrating with. We quickly checked in to the hotel in Covent Garden, changed for dinner and then set off for the Albert Hall.
Here we had a Christmas Eve dinner in the newer restaurant "Coda" which I don't think was here last time we came for the Proms, then we ate in the "Elgar". The food was quite delicious and before we knew it, it was time to go into the Hall for the Christmas Carol evening. This was great fun and an absolutely beautiful way to start off the Christmas celebrations.

The following day was Christmas Day of course so we set off for Trafalgar square and joined in with a London Walks group based around the life and times of Samuel Pepys. The guide was both entertaining and informative and we fully enjoyed this interesting couple of hours (to be cont)

Click here for Christmas in London pictures

Marillion Manchester Academy Nov 2008

Its been a long time since I have seen a band greeted so warmly by the crowd on there arrival. For a moment the whole band seemed quite stunned as they walked onto the stage into the the wall of sound that greeted them. (to be cont)

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London and Porcupine Tree

Quick trip down to London in 2 hours on the East Coast Main Line. Great food and wine on the way down then a little sight seeing before heading over in the evening to the Indigo club at the 02 Millenium dome. It was fun approaching the dome using the Thames clippers. The main reason for the trip was of for Porcupine Trees only UK concert of the year and what an exceptional gig it was.The following day lunch in the nice restaurant in the Sainsbury wing of the National Gallery (great food but really lousy service. A smooth trip back again in 2 hours flat. Virgin Trains take note, your West Coast route is becoming a farce.

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Click here for more Porcupine Tree photos

Stonehenge

Stopped off at the National Heritage site/car park that is Stonehenge.. Actually plans are afoot to move the main roads underground and create vast new visitors centers a respectable distance away that may give the site the respect it deserves. Lovely weather again but a long drive back. Catering consisted of a cornish pasty in the car park.

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Cot Valley Cornwall

Superb weather for a full week in Cornwall, who would have thought... Fantastic food in restaurants where the fish is so fresh it was dropped off the same morning from the local harbour... An absolute dream of a Holiday...

The Cot valley is about as far west as you can go, about 5 miles from Lands End near the town of St Just its a lovely little isolated place with three or 4 houses down a lane. One of these has a bungalow which can be rented out and its here we took ourselves for a week in September. As you can probably guess from the first paragraph we enjoyed it rather a lot.

Here's a link to many more pictures which Jackie has labelled up.

More Cornwall Photos

Disneyland Paris July 08

Just a very quick post as I play catch up on the blog . Earlier in July we were back in DLP seeing the park (unusually for us) in the heat of summer. The park was in full bloom and looking fantastic.



All the usual favourites were visited. One new highlight had to be the Early Entry 2 hours before the normal gate time for pass holders and being there just in time for the first trial run of implementing fast pass for the Crush Coaster. With regard to the Early Entry system though its just a pity this can't be extended to mix and match over the two parks or different areas on different days.

Food was excellent as usual with and ended in an evening in the California Grill where the menu has been tweaked and refined a little more since our last visit at Christmas.. The Lobster was divine..

I'll leave you with a link to the full gallery.

More DLP Photos

Purton Green (cont)

The following day had us waking rather late, after a nice breakfast we set off for the village of Clare, where we climbed to the top of the Castle, checked out the village Church and had a lovely tea and scone break.

Purton Green cont.

After a 4 hour plus drive we found ourselves driving down the small lane, crossing the ford and finally parking up. It was a hot evening and we can only hope this weather will continue for the rest of the week. The two wheelbarrows are waiting at the entrance to the path but from here there is no sign at all of the Hall, just fields of crops and areas of woodland. The wheelbarrows are loaded (clanging with rather a lot of wine) and with Minky perched in his cage on top we must look like the most eccentric of travellers. The instructions say to simply follow the path keeping the hedge to the right for about 400yards and that you will not see Purton Green until you are almost upon it as its surrounded by woodland. Its a hot sticky walk with Minky singing away in tune with the squeaky wheelbarrow I seem to have. Eventually we turn a final corner and there is our home for the rest of the week, nestling in the shadow of a walnut tree.

Once installed we explore every inch. The Great Hall is lovely and cool whilst the rest of the building is cosy and more traditional. Wine is quickly opened, the deck chairs placed under the walnut tree and all our cares quickly evaporate. That evening we cook fantastic fillet steaks and eat at the long table in the Great Hall watching the sun go down beyond the large oak door and listening to Porcupine tree on the small hi fi we brought along (Music being the one thing we could not go without for the week)

Click on pictures for the full size versions.

Purton Green

Just back from a wonderful break at Purton Green, an isolated Landmark Trust property in the heart of the Suffolk countryside. One or two pictures for now but lots more details to come soon about the trip and the property itself. Just a few details here from the Landmark Trust's own description:

Purton Green is one of the many lost villages of Suffolk, where generations spent their lives, but which are now just patches of lime and fragments in the plough. It lies on an old road running south from Bury St Edmunds, today hardly a path. All that remains is this house. Inside its late medieval walls survives a hall of 1250 – a great rarity.



Aisled on both sides, with scissor-braced trusses and a highly ornamental arcade at the low end, it must once have been an important place.When we bought it in 1969 it was little more than a ruin. As with almost all medieval houses, a floor and central chimney stack had later been inserted, but these additions were so derelict that we felt justified in removing them, to return the hall to its original open state. Part of the house – the high end – was rebuilt in about 1600 and this part we have turned into living quarters. These can only be reached through the hall, which you must cross and recross if you stay here, as your predecessors have done for 700 years.



The house now stands surrounded by fields, with unchanging Suffolk countryside in all directions. After crossing a ford, you leave your car 400 yards from the house; but we provide a wheelbarrow for the rest of the journey. Purton Green Continued.

Ightenhill to the "Bay Horse Inn" Fence

Looking from our garden towards Pendle

Whilst the weather still attempts to hold onto Spring and remains dry we decided it was time to pull out the Ordnance Survey Explorer Map for our area, see if we could walk across the footpath that cuts across the back field and find our way successfully across country to the "Bay Horse Inn" Fence. We set off mid afternoon and stepped into the field immediately sinking up to our ankles in a bog. Not a great start but we headed on, crossing to the footbridge across the Calder and up a shingle lane that passes by Pendle Hall farmhouse.

Looking back at our route from Pendle Hall after crossing the River Calder

From here we had to locate a path heading east and finding this we headed off in the direction of a copse of woodland sticking out of a valley which was clearly marked on the map. Apart from a few cows who moved rather reluctantly out of our way as they had done the sensible thing and lay down against the gale force winds that have struck up this weekend not a single person was seen all day.

The hidden valley at Moor Isles Clough

Arriving at a stile above this valley or mini gorge and checking the map that we were still on the right path we discovered the place is called Moor Isles Clough. The path leads down into a lovely leafy steeply sided gorge with a small brook gurgling through at the bottom. A fantastic location right on our doorstep that we did not even know existed. Absolutely full of the sounds of birds and wildlife and with wild garlic growing profusely on the banks of the stream.

Wild Garlic in Moor Isles Clough

Crossing the stream by the footbridge ad climbing to the other side we continued towards the village of Fence. Soon the white building of the Bay Horse could be seen and we arrived slightly muddy but rather hungry. This used to be a favourite restaurant of ours when the previous owners Carl and Marie ran the place. Food especially the fish was always excellent even if the service was best described as erratic. Carl and Marie have finally moved on and the new owners have elected to run the place with an almost identical menu. As Carl himself did much of the cooking we found it odd on our first visit after the change of hands to find the menu unchanged. I would have liked the new owners to try to introduce something fresh and new to make their own stamp on the restaurant, so we left disappointed last time. Perhaps it was all the fresh air from the walk and the great wine but this time everything was rather good.

Dinner at the Bay Horse Fence

Deck Summer Visitor

Wow could this be an indication that we are going to get a summer at long last. I think I'll wait and see but the swallows are in the back field and the frogs have returned to the pond. Thinking back to last year I'm sure we got a few days sun like this and then that was it for the year.
To celebrate this change in the weather I dusted off the MTB from the garage which has been in winter hibernation and took it on a 15 mile round trip on the canal, not a great idea as this morning I can hardly walk let alone sit down. Still my fitness regime has started, this time next year you wont recognise me :)

Bride Stones Walk

Finally a little sun and dry weather has arrived, so on a lovely evening and taking directions from "The Walking Englishman" website we set out to the edge of town where Lancashire becomes Yorkshire and the Landscape becomes moors and craggs.

I have never seen these stones before or heard of them and our route to them follows the old pack horse roads and bridleways that criss cross this area.

They overlook the Calder Valley and stare down at Todmorden from high up on the Bride Stones Moor. The Bride Stones are a super example of Yorkshire bouldering crags formed when glaciated within the last 15000 years. These edge tors are periglacial in origin and probably the result of freeze thaw and sand blasting. They post-date the end of the Devensian Ice age and they are spread all over the hillside. Many of the interesting ones are individually named. They include the Indian's Head, the Villain, the Cheeseblock and the Bride Stone itself which is a large rounded rock in the shape of an egg perched on a slender pillar. It is an amazing sight as it stands precariously on its small base. Myth has it that the stone is a rich source of fertility for newly married couples.

I have included a link below which will take you to an album showing the bridal paths, old abandoned dwellings that are scattered around the moor and some of the local population of spring lambs that live up here. Also if you click on the title of this post it should take you to the Walking English man's site for full maps and other walks in the area.

Click for more Pics

Guernsey - 11th April

The gods finally shone on us for a change and our flights left on time for the first time in a few years. A 50mins flight with Flybe on a turboprop soon had us landing at the airport in the middle of this channel island. The weather check this morning had promised little, the BBCs web site intent on showing a solid rain symbol sat over the island for the whole weekend, however as we descended the co pilot announced the weather had cleared and it was clear. Getting our first view of the island as you fly around it to approach the runway we were both surprised to see how populated it is, for some reason I expected the town and then a lot of green, but the whole island does see quite covered in houses. Perhaps its the scale that gives this illusion or maybe I was confusing it with Jersey and watching episodes of Bergerac as a child.

A taxi is waiting for us at the terminal and we are soon checking into La Fregate hotel in St Peters Port. The room is a beautiful suite with a stunning panoramic view of the town and port with Castle Cornet sitting prominently in the distance; as promised the weather has indeed cleared.

After unpacking quickly we head straight out for a walk around the town and out towards the Castle. The Castle is like an illusion, it doesn't look that far from the room but it never seems to get any nearer as we walk towards it. Eventually we arrive at its walls and check the opening times for tomorrow, there are guided tours at 10.30am so we decide we will spend the morning doing that if the weather holds out. The town itself is lovely and clean and you could spend a good week here and never run short of somewhere good to eat and I mean somewhere really good and not the usual touristy rubbish or pub reheat pet food that seems to swamping the nation at the moment.


(to be cont)



La Fregate

Malham

With Easter arriving ridiculously early this year we decided to head out down the road and visit Malham. Its only 40minutes away yet for some reason we have both never returned there since the obligatory school trips. We decided to take a good lunch first in the Buck Inn which consisted of Cod, Chips and Peas for Jackie and the house special of Homemade Malham and Masham Pie - (Chunks of beef cooked to perfection with our Old Peculiar Ale accompanied with baby onions, mushrooms and topped with Short Crust Pastry). The fish and its beer batter was excellent and despite the fact you could probably use the Pastry as extra armour plating on a Tank the pie was very tasty and tender as well; all this was washed down with a nice bottle of Shiraz in front of a roaring fire.

to be cont.


We walk out from the restaurant down the valley,aling the stream and watch the rock climbers attempting to climb the cove.
Standing some 80 metres high and 300 metres wide and north of the mid craven fault, Malham Cove is a curved crag of carboniferous limestone formed after the last ice age. Meltwater, particularly from Malham Tarn, cut back the cove as it fell over the edge as a waterfall. This erosion took place more actively at the lip of the fall rather than at the sides, hence the curved shape.




We then take the stone stairs to the left of the cove and climb to the top to the limestone pavement.
The magnificent limestone pavement on the surface of the Cove is deeply fissured and fretted by a pattern of channels. Chemical weathering due to the slightly acidic rain dissolves and widens the many joints of the limestone , carving the patterns that can be seen today. The resulting limestone pavement is known as 'clints' or 'grykes', where the naked limestone lumps are the clints and the fissures in between are the grykes. The grykes are home to many rare (shade-loving) plants - harts-tongue fern, wood-sorrel, wood-garlic, geranium, anemone, rue, and enchanter's nightshade.


From here we walk on to Gordale Scar where the weather decides to play strange tricks, giving us a 2minute blizzard as we sit at the base of the waterfall.
The sides of this gorge overhang to a considerable extent, suggesting that there was once a great cavern, the roof of which has subsequently collapsed.

On close observation remnants of this roof can been found to the right above the first waterfall. The left side of the cavern is noticable for its close and intimate vertical jointing dividing the limestone into thin plates sometimes less than an inch in thickness.

Disneyland Paris 26th Dec Day 3

A quick update for the blog itself. I have managed from this entry forward to fix the picture links so they will now expand properly on clicking. And so on with Day 3...

I think we deserve a gentle and relaxing lie in. Don't let those words cross my lips again. Even at the late hour of 8.30am the restaurant for le petit déjeuner has either been stormed by a division of the riot police or its full of children; looking at the carnage around its hard to decide which but there are a lot of small princesses running around. Wow! Belle really should have tried wearing salopettes under her dress before she set off looking for the old guy. We eat quickly and beat a retreat leaving the destruction behind. A bus arrives promptly and we head off into the fog.

Heading straight for the transformed Studios, which have opened a little earlier than the gate time, we are quickly through Studio 1 and make a right turn towards Crush. It's already beginning to generate a queue despite the fact it has not yet opened and this tends to be the story all day. It's not what you would call the highest capacity ride in the world, nor the fastest loader which makes Fast Pass a bit of a non starter for it, so arrive early and don't leave the queue no matter what story the CM comes up with to try to move you to another attraction. Once inside and at the front of the boarding area the house lights come on and the attraction is declared to be broken down. I eventually start to develop a theory about this; once a queue reaches back to the park entrance, pretend Crush has broken down for 5mins and disperse the queue. Finally we ride again and once again it's as crazy as ever and we still don't know which way is up. We love it.

After riding and re riding ToT on a FP we grabbed earlier and then taking the customary cup of hot water and a tea bag in the studio 1 cafe its time to head back over to the MK. The parks seem busier today than the previous days but all the gates are open and I have yet to see any major queues at the entrance barriers; apart from the central gates which people seem to flock to like sheep, ignoring the fact those on the left and right are often empty. We have a lunch booking today at the newly re opened Agrabah restaurant. We are about to take the customary short cut through the enclosed arcades at the back of Main street when a small parade takes place however so we stop to watch watch as the character express glides past.

Lunch in the Agrabah after another ride on BTM and POC is a nice enough affair, a few teething problems seem to be affecting the efficiency of its operation but its a hidden delight and the theming is exquisite, the food is fine as well and I'll cover the restaurant in more detail soon. After lunch we decide to wander over to the far reaches of Frontierland passing the Cowboy Cookout Barbecue, a building I have somehow missed previously. In fact this whole area is one I'm not over familiar with. It seems quite an empty area, indeed the area is earmarked for a future as yet undisclosed attraction. The biggest name on everyones' lips is Splash Mountain which would fit in thematically. Personally if that rumour is true it will have to be "You are guaranteed to keep dry" water ride to have any hope of attracting guests in the freezing winter months. Hopefully the park will get something totally new along the lines of the new developments currently earmarked for CA and WDW.

As it is this area is rather open and in some ways quite attractive, the Frontierland Depot Station looks very effective in its detached lonesome position, especially surrounded by the bleak yet bright colours of the fallen leaves. There's also a small western themed corral which has currently been turned into Sherrif Woody's round up Village and a place for Father Christmas to meet and greet. Just hidden down a small path as you approach this area of the park, and I note unmentioned on the guide map, is a small landing stage where the Keel boats dock. Even today at a relatively busy time there is hardly a queue at all. So we board for a sedate trip around the lake weaving around the Mark Twain and Big Thunder Mountain Island. The Keel boats only run on days when CMs with boat piloting licences are working so its hard to guarantee when they are operating; if they are though take a trip if only for a short break from the crowds.

Whilst in this area on arrival back from our sojourn around the lake its good timing to take in the show that Frontierland has to offer. Yes it's "Mickey's Winter Wonderland" in The Chaparral Theater, described in the guide as "A musical comedy full of wit and magic". I'm already beginning to question the sanity of the Imagineer who thought it would be a good idea to have a ice skating show set in the icy wonderland actually in an outdoor theatre in the icy french winter; but its all good fun even if we appear to have frozen to the bench by the end of the show and can no longer feel our toes. We head across to the Cookout Barn for hot drinks to warm up, actually this looks like quite a nice cheap and cheerful place to eat serving rather good looking (and smelling) ribs rather than the obligatory burgers most of these self service places seem to specialize in and its quite well themed inside as well as out.

After riding more of our favourites on the Fast Passes we had collected earlier and a little more shopping to pass the time we take in the parade and have a dinner appointment at one of our old favourites upstairs on Main Street "Walts". It's the final sitting and we have the place almost to ourselves and once again enjoy a long slow dinner looking down from the window onto the crowds on Main Street getting snowed on at regular intervals. Then its time to head back and set the alarm clock a little earlier to avoid the scrum tomorrow morning and hit the early entry for the MK as well.