FW: Ooop North

 

 

 

The other trip which we wanted to do was “ooop north” to Hartlepool where we planned to visit Hilda, a lady of 85 who was celebrating her birthday.

 

We decided to make a trip of it and set off a day early to explore the North York Moors. We saw the delightful town of Helmsley, the Abbey at Riveaulx and of course Goatland where Heatbeat is filmed. We had a very nice B&B just outside Whitby, where we enjoyed excellent fish and chips then on the next day explored Rusnswick and Staithes, all tiny fishing villages with as much charm as Cornwall and much less commercialised.

 

The weather was super, hood down on Sue’s convertible all the way and we finally went to Hartlepool to see Hilda for her birthday visit. Stopped off on the way home at Harrogate for yet more fish at Loch Fyne, at this rate we will be growing fins!

 

After this I was all set  up for my operation on Saturday August 22 to replace my old knee. I am pleased to say that went well and now I have to stick to the exercises to get back to normal in a couple of months.

 

 

FW: Before the operation

 

 

Before I am to be immobilised by the new knee operation there were one or two things which needed to be done.

One was a visit to my daughter, son in law and the grandchildren in Kent. So I caught the train down and we had a lovely day on Camber Sands, a place I had not been to since my own children we in their early years. It hasn’t changed much, apart from a large wind farm which as doing good business due to the very strong on shore breeze and the weather was super so we played silly games, paddles and enjoyed a picnic of sandwiches and sand. The day was rounded off with a trip to the pub and a fish and chip supper, so a good time was had by all.

 

 

 

 

Scarecrows in the Dales

 

 

My friend Craig has set up the blog site for easy access, so here’s a little test.

This week at the village of Kettlewell they hold an annual Scarecrow Festival.

All the village community is involved and at nearly every house there are various wonderful scarecrows.

Of course it attracts thousands of visitors and when we arrived the vicar was on car park duty, seeing in hundreds of cars with happy families on the scarecrow trail. All funds going to support the local school.

 

I’ve posted a few of our favourites but the winner in our opinion was the Simpsons.

 

What do you think?

 

Johnny

 

Another month, another cruise....

July 16 2009 and we are off again on another P&O Cruise to entertain the passengers on “Artemis” as it sails around The Baltic ocean.


As we have crew status the company requires us to “sign on” before 12.00 so this entails setting off a day earlier and stopping off in a hotel on the way down. We discover one in the attractive town of Brackley, well it looked pretty when we drove in after dark but less so in the colder light of day at 8.30 next morning.


At Southampton port we saw our ship, smaller than the other P&O ones we have been on, and this one is child free so no small passengers to trip over underfoot. We were pleased to find the Cruise Director was Nigel Travers who we had worked with on Oriana. Less pleased though to find ourselves allocated a rather scruffy inside cabin with no kettle and no safe. Sue used all her persuasive powers to have us a passenger cabin and thankfully we were soon settled in a more comfortable room on the fifth floor. As a matter of principle we believe that there is no reason why a guest lecturer should have to live in conditions worse than he/she normally has at home, other cruise lines don’t try to allocate inferior cabins so why do P&O?


Once all the passengers we on board we sailed at 1700, and after a day at sea when I did the lecture on the BBC in World War 2 to an audience of around 400 we arrived at our first stop, Kristiansand in Norway.


Summer was no better here than in the UK which is having one of the wettest July’s for years. Sue and I had offered to act as escorts on some of the shore excursions and I was to take a party on a coach and steam train into the surrounding hills. I’m sure it is very pretty and would have looked beautiful if we could have seen it but with so much rain on the outside of the train windows we could only glimpse mist, rivers and a few pine trees. Then, when I was counting my passengers back onto the bus, after the train journey had finished I discovered two were missing. I searched everywhere and eventually located the two elderly Jamaican ladies seated back in the train which was going nowhere! Eventually we all returned to Artemis where I found an even wetter Sue who had trudged round an open air museum of old Norwegian houses in the rain. We were glad to get back on board and sail for Copenhagen.


Here we it was also raining. I had arranged to meet an old friend Knud Orsted and his wife Birgitte and they live near Elsinor, Hamlet’s castle. We took the train and explored that, had coffee at their charming house then Knud, who worked for Danish Radio all his life, took us on an extended tour of the new Danish TV & Radio HQ which has just been finished, miles from anywhere, on a green field site.
If you imagine something like a B&O piece of equipment then you’ll get an idea of what it was like, It's on a tube line but has no facilities for staff, car parks, shops etc and the news room for TV and radio is in a huge glass box, roasting in summer and freezing in winter according to the news editor who was not impressed with it. What’s more they've had to sack 410 members of staff to pay for the overspend on it. You can get an idea from the pictures, Sue discovered the smallest fire engine in the world and I had to try out the studio, of course!


Anyway by the time we left the sun came out and we went to Tivoli Gardens for a typical Danish lunch of herring and smoked eel, it was delicious and very pleasant to feel some sun on our backs at last as we strolled around.

Two more days at sea and our next stop was sunny Stockholm where we met up with more old friends Lillemar and Gurt Eberhardt who took us on a boat tour of the city then lunch at their apartment. Being of a similar age to us they have recently downsized and sold their country house and moved into a waterside apartment about 500 yards from the mooring for the Artemis so we were able to have lunch looking at our ship. It was a fabulous situation, looking at sea and watching the sailing boats. I could live in a place like that!

From Stockholm we sailed overnight to the home of Sibelius, Helsinki. Visited its fabulous church carved out of granite and the Sibelius monument, browsed the colourful markets with super strawberries and cherries as well as massed of fresh peas which the locals snack on, rather as we do peanuts.

We were to have stopped next at Visby on Gotland another part of Sweden but due to rough weather the ships tender boats could not do the run ashore so this port was missed. Sad really as neither Sue nor I had been there before and I had to do an extra lecture to fill in the extra sea day.

So two more days we were at sea to get back to Russia and St Petersburg, all the regular sites, the Hermitage, the Ballet for Sue, Peter Hof palace and so on. Sue also saw a folk concert with a man who seemed to have the “biggest balalaika in the world”, makes a change from an aspidistra!

Day one was good but on day two, which was a Saturday I set off escorting a party and we arrived at 0910. We were hustled off the coach by our guide on our way to the palace in the pouring rain, only to find we could not get in until our allocated time of 0945. There was no shelter and no flexibility, “You have to wait!” We pointed out there was no shelter and it was raining cats and dogs but to no avail. This was the system and I had a lot of very angry wet passengers to mollify. Eventually we were allowed in, did the tour, “No Photos!” and emerged to look at the wonderful fountains. These are all gravity fed and very spectacular as you can see.

Another month, another cruise...

Estonia and Tallinn was our next port and I’ve already described this in an earlier blog so won’t waste any more words on it except to say it was as charming as ever.

From Tallinn we should have gone to Gothenburg in Sweden, but again we had to miss out as the ship developed a fault in one of the turbos so in order to get back to Southampton in time we had to steam directly there.
I was to have met another business friend and was going to lend him my large collection of Beatle material which I had carefully packed up but of course that was not possible and I have to bring it all back home.

More extra work for me in the form of another lecture and all too soon we were back where we started, saying goodbye to the many new friends we had met on the trip. Due to the vast amounts of excellent food and too many cream teas on the ship we will both have to diet now to get back to our normal weights.

As we were in the area we stayed in Dorset for a couple of days to meet other friends from previous cruises and drove home on Saturday August 1st. Again it rained nearly all the way but by now we were used to it, after all it’s Summer time isn’t it.

No more travel blogs for a while as I have decided to have my other knee replaced in August so that will put a stop to cruising until the new year.