Broadmead in Dorset looks at the world.

Adelaide and Kangaroo Island

2010-03-16T01:14:00.024Z

I started this post some two weeks ago as follows.

I am coming to the end of a very pleasant stay in Adelaide where I have been doing a little work at the University of South Australia and seeing many of the friends I have made at the University and in the City. The weather has been agreeably warm with temperatures in the low twenties Celsius (say 70's Fahrenheit) though the last day or two it has gone over 30 (say 85F).

This is my prize wildlife photo taken in the rolling country south of Adelaide at the weekend house of friends. It shows the Echidna, an Australian hedgehog like creature. You will have to look it up in Wikipedia for more information.

This the splendid view from the house towards the coast and Kangaroo Island some twenty miles away and of which more below.

I shall pick out to describe in more detail two splendid days on Kangaroo Island. Reference to your atlas and to Wikipedia will tell you that this an island some 65 miles long off the coast of S. Australia. It is a popular holiday resort with attractive scenery and lots of wild life.

Here is a coastal view:

A drive of some 50 miles from Adelaide takes one to Cape Jervis where a harbour has been constructed for the car ferry which takes some 45 minutes to coss to Penneshaw one of the two urban places - hardly towns - on the island. Cape Jervis sees the shipping of world pass on the way from Adelaide to the west towards Melbourne and Sydney.

Happily there are no pirates though the original inhabitants of Kangaroo Island at the beginning of the 19th C were by all accounts a desperate bunch of seal hunters, escaped convicts and other flotsam some of whom who had taken wives from the aborigines on the mainland. Ships called for water and supplies such as salt and to buy the sealskins. The seals were nearly wiped out but now conserved have recovered somewhat in numbers. There are sea-lions too.

My hosts in Adelaide, John and Allison Manefireld took me in their big 4wd vehicle to a rented house 'Blue Wren Cottage' in Penneshaw not far from the ferry. The spacious house like all the rented accommdation was very well equipped with the necessities of life from the dish-washer onwards. Here is the view from the house towards the mainland:

The Blue Wren is described in Wikipedia:

The Superb Fairywren (Malurus cyaneus), also known as the Superb Blue-wren or colloquially as the Blue Wren, is a passerine bird of the Maluridae family, common and familiar across south-eastern Australia. The species is sedentary and territorial, also exhibiting a high degree of sexual dimorphism; the male in breeding plumage has a striking bright blue forehead, ear coverts, mantle, and tail, with a black mask and black or dark blue throat.

It is indeed a spectacular bird a pair of which on a previous visit I was fortunate enough close by in the Bush. None this time or perhaps they were among the many little birds that flitted rapidly through the undergrowth. Many Australian birds are colourful but I shall not attempt to describe them.

The wild life which most surprised me on Kangaroo Island was the wallabies. Driving (we ,not the wallabies) through the scrub around Penneshaw at night we saw innumerable wallabies by the road, across the road and in the undergrowth in the way we see rabbits but never in such numbers or of course of such size. Where do they all hide during the day? No burrows. There are kangaroos too but we saw only one. My other surprise was the size of the island which looks small on the map but has lots of agricultural land including a farm which produces eucalyptus oil once a big industry but now only a tourist visit.

But now I am home. I wrote an account of the tedious journey at the time so here it is.

I have decide that this this blog needs more spontaneity so here I am on an aircraft somewhere over Indonesia on the way to Bangkok and London. The passengers n BA10 – British Airways – have been given their dinner and the opportunity to stretch their legs and are now expected to settle down. Having left Sydney at 5.45 local time the plane is scheduled to arrive at Bangkok at about 2.30 a.m., two or three hours earlier by Bangkok time. The sunset has been long drawn out as the plane has chased the sun westward though not keeping up with it. With my meal – Pasta, not bad – I had a little bottle of white wine, quite undrinkable, definitely off. I did get a little something else to compensate and help me sleep.

Today has been a long day. Up at 6.30 a.m. Adelaide time, on to the plane for Sydney departing at 0930. I checked in my two big bags in the hope they would re-appear at Heathrow. It is amazing that in my experience almost they always have. So today they have I hope been transshipped at Sydney.

I arrived at Sydney having put my watch forward half an hour. The difference in time zone of half an hour hardly seems worthwhile but I suspect the independence of the Australian individual States, here South Australia and New South Wales, from one another. After all for a long time each State had its own railway gauge. The Irish still do – 5ft. as against what is the international standard now of 4ft 8 1/2 inches or whatever that is in millimetres. It is of course the distance between the wheels of a Roman chariot and that was determined by the width of back end of the horse in front.

I sat in the Qantas Lounge at Sydney and looked out out the big windows to the towers of the City some five or six miles away.

The tall office blocks cluster in a square miles where presumably the rents justify the expensive construction. Outside this small area heights rapidly diminish. It is strange that proximity still counts for so much in these times of easy communication. After all in the days when the merchants of the City of London communicated by all going to the Royal Exchange every morning and meeting one another for a cup of coffee having an office close to people with who one did business was clearly essential.

Now at home in Dorset with my computer I can communicate all over the world and see pictures of people too but the human face-to-face contact still adds enough to take me to London and Australia. Travel, certainly frequent business travel, is not a pleasure Anyway it is pleasant to talk with people and drink coffee together. We are gregarious, some of us more than others.

My flow is drying up as fatigue takes over and also the sleeping pill I have taken. I have four hours before Bangkok.At Bangkok we all had to get off the plane with our carry-on bags while it was re-fuelled, cleaned and a new crew took over. Meanwhile the passengers had to proceed from the far end of a quarter-mile long terminal building to the other. I used four travelators but still walked a long way. At the end where there were shops which there was not time to visit in a 45 minutes stop we had to go through Security, up an elevator and on an upper floot proceed all the way back to wait to board the plane again. I suspect that Thailand does not like BA so they get the end of the terminal while Thai Airlines no doubt are nice and handy. The exercise did me good though.

There was yet another dinner which I declined – the waste of food on planes is deplorable. Few eat a fraction of what they are given. Eventually there was a snack breakfast. Then after twelve hour at Heathrow incoming passengers were processed rapidly and bags appeared quickly. Outside in the chilly dawn I found a taxi and duly arrived at Long Lane Farm Ickenham near Uxbridge to be given tea and another and superior breakfast.

Two weeks later - where has the time gone? - my clock has been reset and I am used to the cold - happily it is warming up, 12C as I write. I was very fatigued and so it has taken some time to get up and runnig but I am think I am there or as close as I shall ever be. My trip is rapidly fading leaving memories of interesting and agreeable people, places, food and drink.

I also bring back some academic thoughts with which I must now engage. I actually did some work at the University of South Australia in Adelaide. To convince you here is a picture of the University:

Here I am in full flow giving a Seminar talk:

That seems enough for one post, dear readers.

Art Deco in Napier

2010-02-21T09:11:00.009Z

I pick up this post after two weeks in Adelaide about which I hope to write later. For complicated IT reasons I have been unable to post earlier. So this is what I wrote earlier.

I am writing this on the plane flying from Wellington in New Zealand to Melbourne Australia en route to Adelaide after a very pleasant visit to NZ. I leave it to my readers to look up in Wikipedia the geography, history and politics of a country which is the antipodes of Spain and closer to the Equator than Britain though I shall add a few details.

For the benefit of new readers I should explain that I say little about the kind relations and hosts who look after me. This is a public document and people do not always want their personal and family details broadcast.

I arrived in Napier in Hawkes Bay a fortnight ago. Napier was in 1931 was largely destroyed by an earthquake and fire. The town was rebuilt in the current Art Deco style and thus has many interesting buildings in a well laid-out town centre. The sea-front has attractive gardens and the beach looks out towards South America. Hence the claim of the town to be the Art Deco capital of the world. It is certainly one of New Zealand's most attractive towns.

I went to see some friends there, people whom I have met on previous visits, at their house several miles outside the town in a valley with some of the vineyards of which there many in Hawkes Bay. The house is in a riudge and here I am with the river and valley scenery lookingh toward the mountains of the central sdpine of the island which lie to the west some forty miles.

One place I visited was the Trelinnoe Gardens some twenty-five miles inland on the one road which finds it way through the hills and over the forested plain to Taupo with it great volcanic crater lake. There are few alternative routes in New Zealand. If this road is closed by say a landslip one has to drive seventy miles south before striking north again. The railway never attempted to penetrate the jagged hills of the central mountain spine though the hills are much lower there than in the volcanic mountains to the south.

One strikes from the main road forsome three miles along a very minor road, partly a track to the gardens. These are extensive and landscaped with trees, shrubs and lake though few flowers. They surround an attractive house and the whole is a surprise in the mkiddle of a forest. There is a large working farm attached. I chose a damp morning – everything was very green and had the place almost to myself but I was able to get a cup of coffee in the café.

Coffee is a new phenomenon in NZ. A few years ago I described NZ as the country of pale toast and weak coffee – tea was the universal drink, many times day. Now espresso coffee is on sale everywhere in roadside and small town cafes while in Napier there is a proliferation of coffee shops. NZ has indeed within my experience changed dramatically to a much more sophisticated society with all the latest technology. There are many signs of affluence such as the handsome houses to be seen on prominent sites all round Napier. One suspects that the affluence is not shared by all.

The cultivated New Zealand landscape in the North Island is reminiscent of England but subtly different. There are no hedges – just wire fences. The trees whether of native or introduced species seem a different shape.

Here is a vineyard just outside Napier:

The roads are straighter and parking is easier – in towns most roads have a wide enough border marked off for cars to be parked on both sides without obstructing traffic. The parked car lined streets of English towns are unknown. Apartment blocks are few and the single-story houses almost invariably detached though often on a tiny plot. The houses and buildings look strangely insubstantial. Brick or stone is rare – earthquakes do not encourage their use in many parts – and timber has always been cheap. The older houses and large buildings are all in timber. The typical small town has one story shops with an arcaded canopy in front with a few more pretentious buildings at the centre. Auckland and Wellington have of course grander architecture in their centres.

My Kiwi friends are invited to comment and disagree with my observations.

In Napier I attended the Art Deco Weekend Celebrations as I did last year. The 1932 architecture provides an ambience where people can adopy what they hope to be the costumes of the 20’s and 30’s. On the Saturday and Sunday the Marine Parade and principal streets are full of people exotically dressed. Many indeed ist of the participants are of mature years though there are some very convincing flappers with short waistless dresses and a bandeau perhaps with feather around the head.

I myself again took my genuine blazer and with a cravat, a boater (locally sourced – no known school) and a borrowed stick felt I looked the part. Here is a picture:

My companions, complete strangers, in this picture were not though up to the level some of you may recall from last year.

The parade of some 250 vintage cars was impressive. When I subsequently drove from Napier to Taupo I had the company of two impressive classic touring Bentleys dutifully adhering to the 100kph (60mph) speed limit except for occasional overtaking with a throaty roar. This is a more modest MG.

I paused briefly in Taupo a holiday town on the border of the lake and pressed on through pastoral country – arable areas are few – to the west coast where I followed a good road up and down and round about through gorges and over river estuaries to reach New Plymouth and my hosts. New Plymouth is in Taranaki, a peninsula about twenty-five miles across – see your atlas – centred on a dramatic mountain, formerly Mount Egmont now known as Mount Taranaki.

There is off-shore oil and the area is popular for retirement.

After a couple of nights with family I was back to the east to more cousins at Palmerton North

And now I am in Adelaide in South Australia my last stop before home.

Update from Australia and New Zealand.

2010-02-14T07:07:00.007Z

I am on my travels again and writing from Napier, New Zealand. Earlier I declared that my blog would be about interesting places and people rather than my own doings but I find that I cannot help writing about myself.

For instance, I flew from London to Sydney where I had arranged to spend Thursday and Friday night last week. I arrived on Thursday morning and was not up to much for the rest of the day. I managed to walk the quarter of a mile or so down to Circular Quay to have a cup of coffee and then to plod back. It was quite warm - about 26C, call it 80+F.

Friday I had decided to do what I did once before and take the ferry to Manly at the entrance to the Harbour and where just a few yards further on is the ocean beach on the Tasman Sea. The Tasman Sea stretches a thousand miles to NZ and past it, since NZ is quite small on the map, is the Pacific all the way to South America. I find those horizons with almost illimitable seas beyond rather frightening.

My choice of outing was not as it turned out ideal. Last Friday Sydney experienced a two month temperature peak of 38C. Manly was probably not much more than 30 - say 90F - but warm for a stroll. Manly is a popular day trip for Sydney people. This display of ice-cream on a stall in the arrival pier tells one that:

There is another side to Manly as in even the smallest place in Australia, one which we in Britain should noot forget.

Here is the beach, just like all the other pictures of Australian beaches.

I managed a prawn salad for lunch and a glass of cold lager in a pleasant beach-side restaurant:

Then I made my way back to the ferry and slowly plodded back up the hill to air conditioning. I did pause at the forecourt of some large building to photograph this Leopard one of a pair cheering the surroundings.

In the evening the temperature dropped and a thunderstorm flooded part of the city.

Napier a pleasant 23C. Wait to hear about the coming Art Deco Celebration Weekend.

In countdownmode - now D-8

2010-01-31T20:11:00.004Z

I have been scurrying round today unearthing archives for the retrospect of my involvement in marketing science which I am due to give in Adelaide. Looking at old work files is depressing - so much effort of which so often little came. Even worse one can see looking back that much of the effort at the time was misdirected and clearer thought would have produced more at less effort.

I am now in my anecdotage - I have a repertoire of stories with which my friends are becoming regrettably familiar. At least though my tales have a beginning, a middle and an end. I have acquired a little voice recorder to which I am starting to entrust these reminiscences for the edification and perhaps amusements of future generations. There remains the slight techncal problem of gettingmy words from the voice recording onto paper. I am looking for voice recognition software which will take the files which the recorder will helpfully create on my PC and turn them into Word files ready to be edited.

Archives kept on PCs are very vulnerable - they die either with the PC or if they survive that they die with their creator. I propose therefore to go through my collection of photographic prints and discard the bulk of them. the others I shall put in albums with some annotation. But who will ever look at them? I have inherited old albums full of photographs of scenes from the past of which I know nothing and showing people of whom I know nothing. My collection therefore should be small and such as to be of interest to younger family members who would like to know something of their forbears.

More constructively I made some lamb curry for my supper - a very English curry based on cold lamb from the freezer and curry paste but I though quite successful. Cooking for oneself is an odd business - mostly it is something easy, though I eschew prepared meals, and a bacon sandwich is always a tempting option. On occasion though I take the trouble to prepare something a little better and enjoy sitting down to a table laid as for guests - Lucullus dines with Lucullus.

Catering for guests always has the problem that one cannot be in two places at once. One wishes to be with one's guests and also in the kitchen. I do not have the size of kitchen nor the ability to talk and cook at the same surrounded by guests with their pre-prandial refreshment.

Careful selection of dishes helps, with something either cold or like soup needing only serving to start with. A main course is trickier though as a celebrated chef wrote recently the trouble with amateurs is that they try to get everything ready at once - items can be kept hot.

My ambition is to serve a souffle but I have not yet attempted even the necessary rehearsals. The principle is very easy. The preparation clearly needs very close attention. Pancakes straight from the frying pan are easier - if I called them crepes, cooked them and piled them up in advance it might serve. I could then serve them flambe with flaming brandy. Catering after all is a branch of entertainment.

A few warmer days have seemed like Spring. The snowdrops are already flowering and in a neighbour's garden daffodils are already in bloom. The willow trees at Whitcombe at the bottom mof the hill on the way to Dorchester already have a pink tinge when one sees them as one comes down the hill. Whitcombe was a thriving village once but has never been the same since the Black Death. The next dip intheroad takes on past Came. Thomas Barnes the vernacular poet ot the ninethteenth century held the living as Recor, a far from onerous charge with only one or two cottages and Came House. Came House is not big as such houses go but is very grand in style. We once went to a Carol Service in the disused Came Church, very chilly indeed, and afterwards to mulled wine and mince pies in the Grand Saloon of the House, very chilly indeed.

The builder was the brother of Lord Damer who in the 1770's acquired Milton Abbey where he blended the ruins of the mediaeval Abbey with a large new mock-Gothick house, now a school.

Offended by the sight of the surrounding village he moved it away from sight to what remains a pcturesque street of cottages but to the inconvenience of the inhabitants. One man who was brave enough to go to law to keep his property was ruined. The site of the old village became a lake with a surrounding landscape shaped by Capability Brown who was very good at that sort of thing. The lake was drained it is said to prevent it being an aid to navigarion by bombers in 39-45 and has never been reinstated but the landscape as seen from the school remains delightful. Lord Damer's figure in an elaborate marble monument in the church shows his unlikely support by angels.

I have been looking for a picture to include but can see nothing that fits. I am mindful of Alice's comment in Alice in Wonderland, "A book without pictures is very dull."

So that is that.

Outward Bound.

2010-01-22T14:13:00.010Z

Bound is Bound Outward again. On February 9, 20210, I am booked to fly from LHR (Heathrow to you) to SYD (Sydney) and do not plan to be home again until March 20 when the grass will need cutting.

If February 9 is D-Day this is D-17. The organisation that has gone into my trip and indeed is still going in is comparable with D-Day Planning.

My acquaintance Admiral Ritchie, formerly Assistant Hydrographer of the Navy was on D-Day in charge of the party that lasid the buoys to mark where the Mulberry Harbour was to be parked. He was there very early in the morning and the Harbour was duly mored in the right place, an achievement of considerable technical skill in the most peaceful conditions. In Southampton where my family lived there were rumours of concrete barges being built - no one knew what for.

Then everybody knew. It was a brilliant and successful device to provide an instant harbour to land quantities of heavy vehicles. Admiral Ritchie is still around and aalways wears a red tie.

I digress. I shall tell you sbout Conundrum another time, or you can look it up.

I go from Australia after a brief rest to New Zealand to visit my relations and a university visit. My plan for my rest day in Sysney is to do what I have done before and take the ferry across the harbout to Manley to go out to Manley Beach on the Ocean side of the harbour. There I shall look for a cafe where I can sit in the shade looking at the sunny Pacific Ocean, eat seafood salad and drink cold beer. Last year my similar plan met alas wet and not very warm weather. I went to the Art Gallery and looked at one of my favourite pictures "The visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon". Look at it on the Web. It has everything.

There is a serpent in every Eden. The swimmers on the beach at Manley swim within the shark nets. Nowadays I do not have to photograph such places - the Web has pictures ready for you.

It takes almost the whole day to get to Auckland and on the 150 miles to Napier. It seems a long time until one reflects that it took Captain Cook some months. As the plane flies over the watery waste one wonders if there really is land ahead as Capain Cook must have wondered. The reports of earlier navigators has been one suspects vague and it was not until Cooke with the chronometer that gave him his exact position landed and spent some weeks taking astronomical observations that a precise latitude and longitude could be establshed. Your Satnav today does it instantly of course.

Napier in Hawkes Bay on the east coast the North island claims to be the Art Deco capital of the world. Following a disastrous earthquake and fire in 1931 the town centre was rebuilt almost entirely by two gifted architects in the contemporary style in the contemporary style. I hope again to attend some of the events in the annual Art Deco Festival weekend.

Many people attend the gatherings in the gardens on the Marine Parade in period costume and some of you may remember my own picture in boater and blazer. I felt I lent a touch of authenticity to the occasion. The parades of vintage cars are astonishing.

I do try in this blog to write about interesting things and people without too much about my own doings and of course I respect the privacy of my hosts.

Lots to do - must have Oz Visa and print list of addresses. Need some cash too - $AU and $NZ more expensive than before. Using the Big Mac Index - the price of a Big Mac Burger is a guide to the general price level we have:

UK $ 3.32 £2.06
US $3.15 £1.95
NZ $3.08 £1.90
AU $2.44 £1.51 - something wrong there.

That cheers me up as a prospective traveller but not what is was.

It is all because unemplyment causes in Britain a shortage of labour. This is not just facetious. Once people are out of the job market it is hard to get them back. One reason is the very high marginal tax on the extra income from work as opposed to social security.

Enough for one posting.

2009-10-25T21:43:00.005Z

So here is my final apple crop, nine fine apples still unripe. The other three apples from the original twelve I tried at different times. Wait for me to report their final consumption.

I have already reported making my Quince Cheese. I served it with my cheese-board, well a selection of three cheeses, when I had friends to lunch last week. I found it sweet and with little taste. An ornamental flourish to a meal I feel.

Then I decided to make some scones - what people in the South of England pronounce as "Scones" and in the North "Scons". Although brought up in the South regarding anything north of the Thames as nearly arctic I still use the northern pronunciation. My grandmother was Scottish and the pronunciation came to me by way of my mother.

There have been stirring events in Broadmayne. The main road through the village is shut for a week for laying drains giving a welcome respite from the heavy trucks of which more and more pass along Main Street at the expense of those wishing to travel eastwards from the village.

What is more the Black Dog public house has been closed for ten days. The tenant - the pub is owned by a chain who rent it to a tenant on condtition that he buys only their beer - having been there only some six monnths gave up. This was not surprising. He did not have the personality to make people feel welcome and had no wife to provide a joint effort. Catering including running a pub is a branch of entertainment. Food and drink are secondary to the experience. I am not sure though how well MacDonalds fit into this but Starbucks certainly understand it.

The premises are however being refurbished and there is to be a grand re-opening on Friday. The new tenant I am told is a local electrician with a wife, and also four children. Whether he has had experience or the training which is offered to prospective tenants I do not know. Running a pub is hard work with late nights, trouble with staff and in running the restaurant side where I suspect any money is made. The Black Dog is eminentlly respectable with a local clientele. That is its problem. Such people do not spend as much as drunken young people and the customers expect glasses rather than drinking expensive imported beers from the bottle. They do get glasses with Vodka though I believe. My knowledge of such places is based on the reports in the local paper of Court cases.

We shall see what happens to the Black Dog. I hope they put back the hanging sign which has disappeared in recent years. I have made some intersting acquaintances on my occasional visits. There is little or no overlap with the church-going community except in the restaurant which is modestly priced.

Another inititative of mine has been the installation of a water meter. This is optional and I reckon that water at £2 per cubic metre, or 0.2 pence per litre (is that right?) will save me money as a one person household even with all the usual appliances including a power shower.

So there are some of the details of village life. And I cut the grass this afternoon - perhaps the last opportunity of a dry sunny daybefore winter sets in.

Another picture to end. I walked the other afternoon by Hardy's Cottage where Thomas Hardy the novelist was born. The cottage is now preserved by the National Trust. Here is a picture on a fine autumn day:

As the cartoons used to say, "That's all, Folks."

The Days are drawing in.

2009-10-06T19:25:00.008+01:00

Autumn, a gentler word than Fall, is well-advanced and on this gloomy evening it was dark by seven. At the end of the month when Summer Time goes it will be dark before six. The rate of change of dusk and dawn then slows down to a minimum at the solstice.

It puzzled me why the earliest dusk was before the solstice and the latest dawn after it. One would have expected them to have been virtually the same. The reason is that the Equation of Time, the difference beween actual sun time, that is to say Apparent Solar Time and Mean Time is changing more rapidly han the change in the length of day. There is something to dowith Refraction too but we shall pass over that.

My little apple tree which I rescued from the shrubbery where it had long been struggling to survive has rerwarded me by twelve apples. Here it is in blossom last April:

And here it is with twelve apples - one not visible:

It is said to be a Charles Ross, a variant on Coxes Orange Pippin a popular variet which ripens only after long-keeping. The Charles Ross is supposed toripen ealry but mine are still not ripe, though edible - I have just eaten one. I shall pick the remainder and store them carefully until they appear a little softer. When the Coxes is ripe the seeds rasttle when the fruit is shaken. I had four apples last year, twelve this year - 48 next year?

There is something very satisfying about growing something to eat. It is seldom economic of course. To grind one'sone flour with a quern - look that one up - and make bread hoping thatg wild yeast will make the dough rise must be rewarding if laborious.

I was given a bag of Quinces, not a common fruit. I quote:

"Although grown mainly for their flowers, ornamental quinces can produce attractive, apple-shaped edible fruit that persists throughout autumn.

The fruit of the common quince, Cydonia oblonga, has by far the best flavour. It can be trained as an open-centred bush on a short stem and once the framework is established, needs minimal pruning. It needs regular feeding and mulching with a well-rotted compost or manure every spring.

The fragrant fruits, which resemble hard, lumpy pears, can't be eaten raw but are valued in preserves and for baking. The most common variety is C. oblonga 'Vranja', whose pear-shaped fruits are ready for picking when they turn from green to gold in late autumn."

I have made Quince Cheese a thick jam or jelly recommended to be eaten with cheese. That was tedious but moderately creative.

More of life in Broadmayne and London later.

A trip to France

2009-08-31T19:44:00.015+01:00

n August I spent a week in Normandy staying with friends who have a house there. It was many years since I had been to Normandy. France amazed me. There is so much of it with so few people in sharp contrast to even this quiet and rural corner of England. The new fast rail routes in northern France cut through stretches of country with apparently few buildings or roads.

I know that it was the August vacation season but Normandy is the sort of place to which people go rather than leave. However there were quite a few shops shut and labelled ‘fermeture annuelle’ (no accents available I regret) but not of course those catering for tourists. The roads were good and the dual carriageways agreeably empty.

Here is a picture of my friends' house in a little hamlet where some four houses out of ten belonged to English people resident either permanently or occasionally.

Two periods of history dominate Normandy – 1066 when William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy became King of England and 1944 when the Allied D-Day invasion saw battles all over the area. There are many cemeteries and memorials of these battles.

Here is William's castle in Falaise, with gunports added in 1944 to the mediaeval archery slits.

Here are pictures of an isolated memorial north of Falaise where the Canadians took and held the high ground to the north commanding the town and its roads. This carefully tended isolated memorial is very moving.

I saw of course with a slowly moving queue of tourists the Bayeux Tapestry telling the story of the Norman invasion of England in 1066. That impressed me first because there is a lot of it – some 20 metres of individual tableaux on a continuous strip of fine linen about 2 feet or60cm. high. Secondly because it all looked so fresh and new though one suspects the colours were brighter originally.

Not far away from my friends' house was the charming Spa of Bagnoles de l’Orne a charming Edwardian resort where once a direct rain from Paris brought the elegant visitors. Some pretty architecture:

Some frivolity – this vehicle belonged to Brit neighbours and the occasion a party.

So home to very long grass to cut – before I left it had been too wet to cut and after almost too long.

I have been reading other people’s Blogs and note they do not necessarily write at length but offer their ideas often briefly when they are fresh in the writers’ minds. I note also they tend to leave pictures in accessible albums like Picasa or Flickr – must try one. So I hope more later.

J. A. B.

Boadmayne and Portugal

2009-07-07T21:56:00.023+01:00

When setting up this Blog I opted for it not to be visible to Google searchers because I felt that only those who knew the Blog address were the people I wanted to see it. However many of my friends appear routinely to access Intenrtet URLs via Google so I altered my options but without any apparent effect. Perhaps with a new posting you may be able to access this Blog via Google. Otherwise it means putting in the Blog address at the top of the screen.

I have not posted since returning from Australia in March, 2009. Life in Dorset and the occasional visit to London seemed hardly to merit it an account, agreeable though it may all have been. Some exciting things have happened. The little apple tree I moved from the shrubbery next to the big Cedar tree looks like producing a nice little crop of a dozen Charles Ross apples. The first is the little apple tree and the second the big tree

More excitingly though I have just been to Oporto in Portugal for a week to visit my friend John Stevenson who has moved there to live round the corner a short walk from his son and family. I do not give an account of my week but rather pick out a few highlights about the city. The only personal happening of note was that the washing machine jammed with my clothese inside and it was 36 hours before i got them back, clean but very creased. Happily I had takeing plenty. I pass over London Heathrow airport, this time not too bad but as always crammed with people of every kind and shape. Why can't they all stay at home? But on to Portugal.

Porto as the Portuguese call it ( “O Porto” means “The Port” ) is a city – I paused to look up the population and realised you might as well have the whole Wikipedia description:

Porto (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈpoɾtu]), is Portugal's second city and capital of the Norte NUTS II region. The city is located in the estuary of the Douro river in northern Portugal. The largest city in the region, Porto is considered the economic and cultural heart of the entire region. The city, which had an estimated population of about 220,000 (est.2008), lies at the centre of the political Greater Metropolitan Area of Porto, with a population of slightly more than 1.7 million (est. 2008),[1] and is the main agglomeration of northern Portugal.[2]
The city of Porto comprises 15 civil parishes. The historic centre of Porto was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1996.
One of Portugal's most internationally famous products, Port wine, is named after the city because it is produced in, and shipped from the area.[3] or, more precisely, from Vila Nova de Gaia, a city just across the river which belongs to the same conurbation.
The country was also named after the Latin name of Porto, Portus Cale[4]
Porto district is one of the most industrialised districts in Portugal, and Maia, one of Porto's satellite cities, has the largest industrial park in Portugal.

So there you are. The city itself is picturesque and extends down the steep banks of the Douro river with six bridges. Here is the view from the car of the Funicala as it begins its alarming descent towards the river.

Here is the same bridge from the boat in which we had a trip up the river under the six bridges.

Not all is picturesque. While waitingon the quay for this cruise boat to arrive we watched urbulence innthe river where a black stream evidently of sewage was discharge from the bank. Suddenly the flow increased in volume and we saw hundreds of black fish active among the black effluent. Not far away,happily upstream of this particular source of pollution, boys were swimming in the river.

We saw the finish of the annual race of the Port-carrying boats. These boats used to carry the wine down the river fro the vineyards to be matured in the warehouses and cellars lining the river.

Here is Taylor’s warehouse where the wine is still stored to mature in the great barrels. When matured it is bottled and sent off, still quite a lot to Britain. At one time many of the Port exporters were in fact briish - Taylor,Dow, Sandeman etc as you may see in the picure above on the sails of the Port boats in the annual race.

My posting would not be complete without a picture of me in a restaurant. Heere am I in a restaurant on the quay across the river lunching with my friend John Stevenson and his daughter-in-law Natalia. Her son Paulo took the photograph.

I ate excellent sardines and a very good goat and cow ixed cheese was put on the table with bread to start. Wine is remarkably cheap. in the supermarkets it is around €1 a bottle - rather less than £1 though one can pay as much as €3. The wine is Portuguese and very drinkable.

Porto is preparting to celebrate in 2010 the 200th Anniversary of the expulsion of the French invaders in 1810 in what the British call the Peninsula War. A splendid monument commemorates this. The picture – taken at a distance – shows the British Lion trampling the French Eagle.

Other parts of the monument portray battle scenes. Many sculptures show proud horses but this one has a dead horse amid the debris of battle in bronze. My photograph regrettably is not very good:

Extravagant sculpture in bronze seems characteristic of 19th century Porto. The twentieth century seems though largely to have passed Porto by in terms of architecture. The twenty-first has seen a burst of construction of every kind, apartments, toads and a splendid Metro on which we travelled frequently.

I found that I had reciprocal rights of access to the Club Portuense a fine 19th Century establishment on the lines of Victorian London clubs. Here are some pictures. They come from their web site so I am not breaching confidentiality in showing the images. Here is the Ball Room.

More pertinently, the Dining Room where we enjoyed an excellent dinner elegantly served.

As a contrast here is the market in a nearby seaside town we visited - Espina if I recall correctly.

The assorted poultry bundled together await their destination.

Finally here is a picture of the River Douro from one of the bridges taken in the evening.

So once again we say "Farewell to Oporto, city of river and bridges - and Port Wine".

John Bound.

The Spring is Sprung

2009-03-23T09:20:00.000Z

I am reminded of the rhyme which I have checked to find:

Spring is Sprung
Spring is sprung,
De grass is riz,
I wonder where dem birdies is?
De little birds is on de wing,
Ain’t dat absurd?
De little wing is on de bird!

I am looking at Spring now I am back in Broadmayne after a tedious flight, an overnight stay with my kind friends near Heathrow, a quiet drive back to mBroadmayne last Saturday and a couple of days to reset my clock by looking at the bright sun.

As to my journey, some of my readers may remember the trouble I had last year at Sydney with nail scissors which were in my hold baggage. For complicated reasons I had to take all my bags on the train from the Domestic to the International Terminal to check in from the beginning and retain my nail scissors. It was laborious and I had to buy a rail ticket but worth it to defeat bureaucracy.

This year however bureaucracy got its own back. AS I left through Sydney International Terminal I realised that I had some coins left - $AU 9.65. In the Duty Free there was a half bottle of Bundaberg Rum from Queensland at $ 5.99. I found a bag of Queensland liqorice sweets for $ 3.75. My readers will have no difficulty is seeing that this totalled $9.75. I persuaded the checkout girl to let me off the 10 cents and put my purchases in my carry on bag.

At Bangkok after eight hours flight there was a brief stop for refuelling and a crew change. Passengers were reuired to leave the aircraft which was of course a pleasure, to take all their possessions and to be back in 30 minutes (we were then kept waiting for some time to board of courser). That left time to walk a very long way to the other end of the terminal where one could move to the upper floor where the departure gates were, in fact to just where we had left the aircraft. So everybody walked back benfiting from the exercise and then had to pass through Security. In Security they said firmly no liquids and too my rum away from me.

I presume had I bought it in the Bangkok Duty Free it would have all right. I was allowed to keep the sweets. I wonder had I had my bottle in a bag from Sydney Duty Free whether it might have been permitted.

A tedious story about a tedious experience. I had no particular need for rum but I grudged the $6 . They say $5.99 but in prectice everything in Australia is rounded to the nearest 10c. We might well do the same here to say 5p and no doubt before long will do so. If as I expect inflation will be the result of printing a great deal of monrey we shall probably be rounding to the nearest £10.

After that 11 hours 25 minutes to London Heathrow was a long time. I was glad eventually to get into my friends' house not far from heathrow and to get a cup of tea and some proper rest.

I did write before that I had more to tell about Adelaide. I was saying that my ciolleagues were very kind to me. For example, here I am at Henly Beach, a seaside suburb of Adelaide with two of my colleagues and their daughter enjoying lunch in a beachside cafe. It is shown with their permission. As I said I am careful not to infringe the privacy of all my friends.

The Adelaide Fringe was on - a park was illuminated and filled with booths with sideshows, temporary theatres and bars. I was taken by anither colleague toa show "The Boy with Tape on His Mouth". It was a one-man show, done entirely in dumb show. In short he brought members of the audience onto the stage and made them do silly things. It was in fact extremely funny. The whole setting was delightful on a warm evening:

Other friends live in a disused church building which makes a spacious and unusual house as the picture shows:

Adelaide suburbs are full of interrsting houses, usually single-story. The older houses have verandahs often supported by substantial and elaborate columns. Here are two isuch houses n the pleasant suburb where my hosts live:

The last evening of my stay I was taken to a restaurant overlooking a small cove where we sat on a balcony watching the sunset and eating King George V Whiting, an exellent fish, with chips and all on a pleasantly warm evening. It made a fitting conclusion to my stay.

That concludes my narrative of this trip. I shall add to my blog from time to time and if it seems likely to be of interest will send round a note. Otherwise you may become a Follower and get automatic notices but I am not going to attempt to explain how.

So here to end is the sunset:

As the travel films used to say, "And so we say Farewell to the fine city of Adelaide" !

And so we say "Farewell" to Australia.

2009-03-17T04:38:00.000Z

I write from the Qantas Lounge in Sydney airport waiting for BA to make me feel at home as they take me to Bangkok briefly and on to London Heathrow to arrive at 6 a.m. on Saturday morning to a no doubt chilly England. When I left Adelaide this morning the sky was cloudless and it looked like being 30C - that is hot in Fahrenheit. From where I am sitting I look out of the window to the towers of Sydney some six or seven miles away. They form an impressive group but it puzzles me why just a few hundred yards in location should make it worth building forty stories and not far away only two or three. The towers (picture later) form a remarkably small group as in any city centre.

I am told that England is bursting ionto Spring with fleecy clouds and blossom everywhere. Indeed I look forward now have been away five weeks to being home and seeing my home - just like Mole and Mole End in the Wind in the Willows - and all my freinds. Of course the grass will need cutting when I get back.

Back-tracking, I spent the first three nights here at the Adelaide Club a very old-established bastion of the Adelaide establishment where I enjoyed comfort and attention in their 1863 Clubhouse in the centre of Adelaide.

The interior is impressive and of the period. Here is the main dining room.

These pictures are taken from their web site so I am betraying no confidences in showing them.

I am fortunate enough to enjoy reciprocal membership. I found myself among friends - I went to dine alone andnthe only other occupants of the dining room were a party of 12 or so who immediately sent over for me to join them. Even whenthey realised I was a Pom they were all still charming. I am confirmed in ny happy experience of Australia.

Then I moved on to stay with my kind friends John and Allison Manefield who had just returned home and was again looked after in their spacious house and introduced to many nice people.

Having said all this let me note I went to do some work and most days I have been in to the Unoversity of South Australia where I had desk in the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Research in Marketing with which study I duly occupied myself. My colleagues.

So watch this space for more about Adelaide with the inducement of pictures too.

And now the tedious part - stting in an aircraft for some 22 hours with only a two hour stop at Bangkok.

Farewell to the Land of the Long White Cloud

2009-03-11T05:31:00.000Z

After all the excitement of the Art Deco weekend - my picture there I may say with pride has been widely admired - my narrative becomes more humdrum. I deliberately write little about my hosts and friends since as I said before not everyone wants details of home and doings published to the world. My readers are I presume all my friends and family but there must be an occasional web browser who finds this blog. Perhaps indeed it may become a cult. The paucity of commnenIs does not suggest this. Comments and particularly corrections by local residents are much to be welcomed.

So to resume. I moved on from my cousin Graham and his wife Marjorie in Napier, Hawkes Bay (there is I believe some dispute as to whether there should or should not be an apostrophe) about 80 miles south to Palmerston North. I took the second of two possible routes for the first part of the journey and passed through vineyards and orchards before rather higher ground carried forests as well as pasture.

Since New Zealand has a mountainous spine like the Pennines only bigger. It has few crossing points and the population is well scattered there is not the network of roads to which we are accustomed and I had the choice of one of two roads for the first part of this journey and then of only one. Off the main roads are numerous small turnings each leading to a few farms, duly signposted and nearly all labelled ‘No Exit’. As with much else of which I write, look at Google Earth or Maps to see what I mean.

As I approached the hills I passed through a district settled by Scandinavians – the town Dannievirke and also Norsewood, a little settlement now by-passed and where I had a not very satisfactory snack. I should have done better at the Hotel a typical pub, Here are some views:

Here is another picture. As with every other little place on New Zealand and Australia there is a War Memorial with an impressively long list of names from the First and Second Wars. In Britain we too often forget what the ANZAC did. But as I say to people here, the names on the memorial in Broadmayne were of men who had never been ten miles from Broadmayne in their lives and to whom Flanders was as far away as it was to the ANZAC.

I pressed on to the south towards the hills now following the railway (3foot 6 in gauge and very winding – unfenced too) and the Manawatu (Manna- wat – tu) river as it was funnelled into a gorge. Before that I turned down a side road over the bridge pictured below to a café tucked away in the woods. The one lane bridge is again typical of country areas.

On either side of the gorge there are extensive wind farms on the hills. Some towers may be seen in the picture. They are a feature of the landscape visible for many miles and not out of place on the hills which are otherwise sheep pasture. I should not like such installations any closer to habitation than are these.

The road wound down the left side of the gorge which meant all the places to park where on the riverside so no pictures. The gorge is striking but the cliffs each side are only two hundred feet or so high. The railway is the other side of the river.

Then the road dropped into the plain and Palmerston North. The town of some 20,00 inhabitants at a guess and laid out on a grid pattern with wide streets is an agricultural marketing centre and the home of Massey University where I was able to call and talk usefully with colleagues. It is also the home of my young cousin and his wife with whom I stayed.

The principal centre of the district used to be Foxton on the west coast and now a yachting harbour and rather featureless holiday home centre. Coastal shipping was the principal and indeed the only means of communication in New Zealand before the railway came in the second half of the 19C and later the motor car. The car must have been a major improvement for the farmers. Instead of an all-day drive with a wagon into town and perhaps having to stay the night, they had easy contact and of course their children could get to school.

Before that road transport was by ox cart through the Bush. The area of Dannivirke and Norsewood was in the 40-mile Bush and the first settlers hauled their supplies over unmade tracks by the 2 mph oxcart. Only the fertile coastal areas offered accessibility and transport for their produce to the farmers. The same was true in England to a lesser extent. Towns by-passed by the railway in the 19C withered and ugly new centres prospered. In Dorset I think of hill-top Shaftesbury which decayed while Gillingham nearby on the flat and on the rail prospered.

I had an enjoyable few days in Palmerston in the 1910 wooden single-story house which is being patiently restored with period features. I was take to a party at a farmhouse in the country where I had great hospitality and the best cold beef I can remember. The beef of course came from the farm.

I visited a steam engine Museum, started by the retired proprietor of an engineering company and still run entirely by him and his wife. They have some massive machines which are in steam on specified days which alas I missed. Here is one engine, a patent slip engine designed to haul vessels up onto a slipway:

The interesting thing to me about it that it was built by Day Summers in Southampton. That is a name I recall. My father had his first job there in the office. Here is the name plate on the engine:

Then it was another 80 miles south alog the west country lined with little holiday resorts and second homes until I reached the suburban rail terminus where suburban Wellington began in earnest concentrated down the Hutt Valley to the sea.

Wellington has a fine harbour almost surrounded by steep hills and cliffs. The city occupies a narrow coastal shelf leaving the suburbs to climb up the hills. Alternatively commuters and business travel a few miles along the coast to the Hutt Valley extending north with more space. From Wellington it is about 15 miles across the strait to Picton the ferry terminus in the the South Island. One must remember that it is always the North Island and the South Island, never just North Island and South Island.

I found the car rental depot tucked away in a little street balance on a small bluff and had a lift back to the airport which occupies a flat isthmus and so has sea at both ends of the happily adequately long runway. So through the sirport where $NZ 25 were collected from me, cash only, at the last moment and the currency exchange had no Australian dollars in stock - evidently a surprise that anyone was going there.

In NZ the two dollar coins are bigger than the one dollar coins. In Australia the one dollar coins are bigger than the two dollar. Justy one of the confusing things of the world like the American dollar notes which are all of the same size, colour and basic design for all denominations. This explains the traditional American bill-fold but is not helpful in handing out the right money.

There was of course nothing like the old Bank of England high denomination notes. I never handled more than a five-pound note, large, black printed on white paper with a handsome if meaningless promise in script on its face. One always had to write one's name and address on the back when using one photo identity in those happy times was not needed. When they were returned to the Bank they were always cancelled never to be issued again.

I left New Zealand with regret. The weather had been pleasant, though rain in Palmerston and all the people kind. I had my hair cut (no tips!) in Trardale the suburb of Napier in which my cousin Graham lives. The barber said to me, "You're a new face in the Bay."

I replied, "You said that the last time I was here - two years ago."

I did though have some problems with Camembert Cheese. New Zealand is a big dairy country and has some very good cheese as well of course as the usual processed kind. The splendid state of the art new supermarket in Taradale has an extensive cheese counter and I bought some camembert which was solid creamy-brown. I took it back and the manager explained that it was NZ Camembert - all his stock of various brands was the same. No soft whie inside gradually ripening to a ore solid consistency. Australian Camembert is normal but sold definitely on the ripe side I find. Mature Cheddar on the other hand though not cheap was excellent. The supermarket presented me some in addtion togving me my money back so I had no complaint.

A three hour flight saw me at Sydney, a tedious change via bus from the International to the Domestic Terminal and on to Adelaide. More in my next.

Your peripatetic correspondent.

Art Deco in bulk!

2009-02-23T04:14:00.000Z

The last post seems to have been published satisfactorily so here is another about Napier and its Art deco weekend. Three cruise liners called on successive days disgorging passengers for a brief shopping expedition. The Weekend is though and occasioin for the locals to enjoy themselves and is not really a tourist thing at all.

It all starts because Napier claims to be the Art Deco capital of the world. Following a destructive earthquake and fire in 1931 the town was handsomely rebuilt in 1932 in the contemporary style, loosely termed Art Deco a term used to described constructions from the sinuous decoration of the 1900’s Paris Metro to the 1930’s rectangular chrome and concrete styles. This one of the most celebrated Napier buildings:

Other less pretentious commercial buildings followed the style:

Last weekend was the annual Art Deco weekend with hundreds parading in a wide variety of costumes, plays, receptions, and a parade of at least 200 vintage cars. This 1920 Silver Ghost Rolls Royce is straight out of the pages of Dornford Yates ‘Berry and Co.’.

I went to quite a few public events wearing my striped blazer and a borrowed straw boater with a borrowed stick and found that I fitted in well though I do not go back quite that far. As for example:

They were complete strangers. I hasten to add that the picture was taken by the husband of one of the ladies.

A feature on Sunday was the `Gatsby’ picnic. This was held in the Marine Gardens where several dozen gazebos (a term little used in England since the 18th C – or am I behind the times with a revival?) but a handy word in NZ to describe a temporary shelter or tent as well as a summer-house housed period picnics such as :

Warm evenings meant that good-nature crowds continued to circulate. Here is the illuminated fountain.

So now the weekend is over and it has all been put away until next year after a few days when lots of people, many of them older, were able to enjoy a genuine carnival of dressing up and good natured amusement.

My descriptive powers are exhausted.

On my way to Napier NZ

2009-02-23T03:34:00.000Z

Here I am in New Zealand.

The road along which I drove south from Auckland is State Highway One which runs from the extreme North of the North Island down through Auckland all the way to Wellington, some 250 miles. It then jumps across the strait to Blenheim in the North of the South Island and runs another one hundred miles to Invercargill, the most southerly town in New Zealand. Invercargill sounds Scottish and has a climate to suit. A small country has quite a range of climate. The extreme north is almost sub-tropical with tree ferns and avocados sold by the roadside in bagfuls.

For some fifty miles south of Auckland Highway One is busy but not congested Motorway or dual carriage-way and then I turned off to avoid Hamilton the second largest town I think in NZ and on to Cambridge a centre of rich pastureland and horse-breeding. Here is the splendid 19C Church, entirely timber-built.

The road heads south through wooded hills with rocky cliffs down to the lakeside town of Taupo.Taupo is a not very attractive holiday resort on the edge of the great crater lake some twelve miles across. From Taupo the blue mountains of the central range form the skyline to the west.

Highway One continues south up over the arid upland plateau in the rain-shadow of mountains to the west and past to the east Mt. Ruapehu a still active volcano but paradoxically skiing areas,. I recommend Google Maps or Google Earth to follow all this.

The road to Napier heads west up over a plateau and through one of the world’s larger planted forests where in plantations the Radiata Pine grow to large trees in some twenty-five years. It must be nearly fifty miles without a filling station before the road meets the coastal mountain range and winds up and down into the valleys and across the rivers for another twenty-five miles. I met low cloud and some rain too over the hills. There is a steady flow of traffic. On the hills a passing lane often enables slow trucks to be overtaken. Then the coast, the Pacific Ocean and Napier town and port where my cousin and many of his family live.

So now let me see how this posting works before I put in a lot more about the Art Deco weekend which is the interesting topic. As they used to say in what were called teaser advetising campaigns, 'Watch this space!'

From New Zealand

2009-02-13T21:37:00.000Z

In the past I have sent my friends Travel Bulletins but have now decided rather than cloggingn their Inboxes just to tell them when I have posted and update to this Blog in which I intend to post accounts of my travels and some pictures as I go. I write now from Rothesay Bay on the North Shore not far from Auckland where I am staying with kind hosts Murray and Tricia Smith .

I am saying little about my various hosts in this Blogand and I hope not too much about myself. I try to write like a travel correspondent describing particular places and incidents which strike me as of interest. Comments are welcome, especially corrections from people who actually know about places and things on which I comment superficially.

I pass over getting here via Sydney which was boring and tedious. I had a day in Sydney, tired and with cool, gloomy, foggy and wet weather. I had had in mind to take the ferry to Manly Beach where I have been before and to contemplate the blue Tasman Sea while I ate seafood salad with perhaps a glass of something to drink. No luck, so on to Auckland where Immigration and Customs took an hour and I was lucky still to be able to pick my rental car and drive through Auckland for an hour to my kind friends Murray and Tricia Smith who are putting me up for the weekend in their agreeable house overlooking the wide Pacific.

It is after a long hot summer today cool and wet. The Pacific looks rather less inviting than Weymouth Bay. The glamorous photographs I hoped to add are not avaialble just now.

The North Shore contains a string of attractive outer suburbs along the East Coast north of Auckland, across the Harbour inlet south of which the main city lies. I suggest Google Maps or Google Earth to see what it is all like. The coast road winds up and over headlands and down into valleys, all once covered with dense Bush, but now with attractive houses, timber-built, shopping centres and a beach for each bay.

Commuting into Auckland is inland to the Motorway and then south over the Harbour Bridge - five lanes, one of which is reversible, and still a bottle-neck. Along the Motorway there is Park and Ride for bus services with reseved lanes into town. Not the country for a suburban railway up and down hill.

All the Media and indeed everybody in Australia of course at the moment is talking about the Bush fires and the shocking loss of life in places which might have been expected to be peaceful and untroubled by the problems of the world. The concern has spread across the Tasman Sea to NZ from which fire-fighters have gone to NSW to help.

However the morning paper here has as its headline and leading story the family who found a broken overhead power line snaked and sparking across their front lawn. A happy place where that is the headline story.

So greetings to my kind readers: more of the Antipodes before long. New Zealand is actually the Antipodes of Spain - Britain is nearer a Pole than is New Zealand.

Greetings from Dorset

2009-01-17T16:11:00.000Z

We move slowly in these parts. The last big thing that happened here was that the Romans arrived in AD 46. Since then it has been very quiet. So starting a Blog is quite an innovation.

However I have decided to replace the Travel Bulletins which have previously clogged my friends' inboxes by a brief note telling them whenever I publish a blog about myself or about my travels. I can put in a few pictures in the Blogs too.

I am not sure how much personal information to give but my relations and friends do not need this anyway.

My first travel news is that I am booked to fly from Heathrow to Sydney on February 10 on the way to NZ and then to South Australia. All being well I am due back at LHR - London Heathrow perhaps I should write - on March 20.

John B.