Last Day in England

Thursday was a bit overcast in the early part of the day. I had a lot of email to sort out in the morning so it was about 11.30am before I was ready to set off for Maldon via Little Baddow.

I went past Wayside Cottage. They have pretty much finished all the alterations by the looks of it and there is just some external painting needed where they have blocked in the porch area near the front door. There were no cars in the driveway, so I think the owners were out. Next time I'm in England I think that I would like to visit the finished product.

I then drove down and looked at and photographed Little Baddow Church where Lloyd and I were married. It was open as there were some women arranging flowers (possible for a wedding on Saturday), so I took some pictures inside too. From there, I went down to Paper Mill Lock which is where we used to launch our canoes and then went to Maldon. I did my usual walk up the High Street and then along the front. When I was leaving Maldon, I decided that I might try to find Mill Beach where my childhood next-door neighbours had a beach hut. I did finally find it and the sun was now fully shining, so I had a lovely walk along the front before returning back to Joy and Roger's.

I will put up pictures of the day rather than trying to describe it further. The pictures in order are: Little Baddow Church from a distance, Little Baddow Church outside and inside, two views of Paper Mill Lock, Maldon High Street, Maldon front, Mill Beach, the Harrod's Beach hut, Joy with me and Joy and Roger.

Heswall to Chelmsford

I checked out of the hotel at 10.00am and went to Uncle Jack's. We went to a coffee place we have been to before in Birkenhead and after he had driven us both back to his place, I set off for Chester.

Before going to Chelmsford, I needed to make a brief stop in Chester to buy some tobacco for Lloyd as the shop had been shut on Sunday. I easily found the car park again. However, I was a little disappointed to find that the minimum stay I could pay for was 2 hours and the cost £4.00, but I wasn't about to try anything clever, and just stuck the ticket to the window. I was successful with buying the tobacco and then started my trip to Essex.

I had been a little concerned about how I was going to get from Chester to the M56 as I had passed the exit to it by going into Chester itself. I know that one can get into quite a pickle with Motorways in England by not joining them correctly and I didn’t want to find myself heading to Aberdeen. As I was leaving Chester, I saw a sign which had much too much writing to absorb in the time, but at the bottom it said 'for the M6 Birmingham, follow the A41 to Whitchurch'. I thought that this was probably my best bet and off I set. In fact it would have been useful if we had been warned that there would be an hour and a half's driving on single track windy roads through country villages behind trucks with 'Birmingham' appearing and disappearing off the signs before joining the M6.

Once near Whitchurch there was the inevitable Ring Road and no sign of Birmingham to be seen. I had to guess from the towns on offer and eventually stopped at a garage to ask. I was still on the right road and now apparently needed to follow signs to Wolverhampton. I did eventually get onto the M6 as I said, but it would probably have been quicker to return from Chester to Birkenhead and start again!

Soon after the M6 Toll (the entry to which I had also overshot and had to follow the rather disconcerting signs to M6 North to join), I stopped for lunch. I had been on the road for a long time and was pretty stressed by now. However, the rest of the trip was uneventful and the M25 was pretty clear, so I actually arrived here only 15 minutes after my estimated time of arrival. Probably, it was one of those cases that the Motorway route is much further, but faster.

In the evening, Joy and Roger had a rehearsal of their orchestra which David now conducts. Joy had managed to borrow a clarinet for me and I joined them for the night. It was a very good clarinet and I enjoyed the experience. The only problem was that they are near to a concert and therefore are well practiced at the music. I was, of course, sight-reading and was only really able to play about 70% but no one seemed to mind. Needless to say that there was the inevitable comment about people travelling all the way from Australia to attend the rehearsal, but it was exciting to eventually see Caprice after hearing about it over many years. It is a voluntary organisation that performs and donates many thousands of pounds to various charities.

Some of the players went back to Joy and Roger’s house afterwards for drinks, one of whom lives in Chestnut Walk, Little Baddow (about 100 yards from where I was born and lived for all my life before I was married).

Monday in Heswall and Liverpool

Today has been a pretty quiet day by comparison with recent days. I decided to spend the morning in the hotel doing some work on a paper that is currently in press and to which the reviewers have requested some alterations. I had decided to into Liverpool in the afternoon, but needed to detour to a Post Office to get some parcels weighed for sending back to Australia. I decided to take the train into Liverpool from Hoylake and therefore took the parcels to Hoylake Post Office before catching the train.

I spent about 2 hours in Liverpool. I visited the docks, the Liver Building and the Mersey Docks & Harbour Board Building before heading up into the city centre to go to the shops. The weather had returned to sunny and 24 degrees after last night's deluge, so I sat outside to eat some fresh fruit for my lunch (bought at Marks and Spencer). England is certainly turning on some excellent conditions for my visit.

I returned back to the hotel at 4.00pm and Uncle Jack arrived at 6.00pm to take me to his favourite restaurant for dinner. We had a magnificent meal which for me included a toffee meringue with praline ice cream for dessert. I will have to go on a week's fast after I return to Australia, I fear, to lose some of the weight I have gained on this trip. Naturally, I don't need to have desserts all the time, but they are so delicious!

Sunday to Chester

I started today with a walk in the local area. The walk was interesting as it was along a promenade which used to be beside the River Dee. However, the river has retreated so far away that it is virtually invisible from the pavement, and is covered in lush vegetation. The weather was once again fine but a bit overcast.

After breakfast, I went to Chester. I easily found the car-park on the Ring Road where I had parked with Bryn and Rose and had to decided whether to pay for 2 hours or 4. In the end I decided on the latter which was 5 pounds!!! As it was Sunday, entry to Chester Cathedral was free, so I went in and photographed the carved elephant I had wanted to look at in January (pictured here). The significance of this carving on the end of one of the choir pews is that it was done by someone who had never seen an elephant, so he created it from descriptions he had heard. You will see that it appears to have the body of a bull and an earthworm for a trunk. As I was photographing it, one of the guides came up to tell me about it (not realising that I already knew the story). He said that he was telling a family about it recently and the little girl asked why the man didn’t just go down to Chester Zoo to have a look at one.

On my way back from Chester, I stopped at the Cheshire Oaks outlet mall. I had noticed that they had a Toshiba shop and, as I am a bit wary of my laptop after its performance in London, I thought that I would have a look to see what sort of laptops Toshiba produce now. I was interested to see a little one (12 inch screen) which had a built-in DVD RW (unlike my current machine) only weighed 1.3 kg and had 5 hours of battery life. It wasn't desperately expensive either. I didn't get it of course and I have also seen a similar little VAIO. I just need to keep these things in mind, in case.

Tonight, I booked for Uncle Jack and me to go to King's Gap for dinner. Even though the weather had been excellent all day, once I was back in the hotel, I became aware that the heavens had opened outside. It was good timing however as I didn't have much else to do for the day and it would have been very inconvenient in Chester. When I went out to the car park, I found that I couldn't enter on the driver's side because of a huge puddle. There must have been several millimetres of rain in no time at all. I picked Uncle Jack up at his house and drove him to Hoylake. He then spent a good deal of the evening reminiscing about how enjoyable the two nights he had spent with Bryn and Rose in January had been, one at Kings Gap and one at the Caernarvon castle pub. I'm so glad that they managed to fit in a visit up north to see him.

Saturday in Bath and Heswall

I am including this picture of Judy and me taken this morning before I left.

One thing that I keep forgetting to mention is that it is still light here at 9.30pm and is light again by 4.30am. Consequently, I have been sleeping in the eye-shades provided by Emirates. They are certainly achieving the desired effect as the first night without them I awoke ridiculously early before realising that I needed help with darkness.

Another fact that I must include here is a report on the weather. It has been bright sunny and very warm (24 degrees) since I arrived in London. One could really be persuaded that England has an excellent climate if my recent experiences are anything to go by. I do still have a week to go though and anything could happen.

Because of the late night last night, I didn't set an alarm this morning. As I was also wearing eye-shades and it was unbelievably quiet, I didn't wake until after 8.00am. Luckily, I felt fine and all the various flu-like symptoms from yesterday had seemingly vanished. I went out for a walk, getting a bit lost but finally finding my way back to the main road through the village which I recognised. It was about an hour's walk which is usual for a Saturday. As I would be in the car for most of today, I was pleased that I actually deviated from the planned half-hour round trip walk that Ian had suggested. When I got home, Judy had already ironed my 3 pairs of trousers and all the other washing was dry from the dryer, so I now had a case full of completely clean clothes again. It was a very good feeling.

I left Judy and Ian's at 12.15pm and started north. Once again, I made an error in the early stages of the journey. I managed to get onto the M4 with no problem and was looking out for the M5. They alternated between referring to it as M5 north (as opposed to M5 south) and M5 Midlands (as opposed to M5 South Wales). However, I was clear about what I wanted and thought that I was in the correct lane. It was one of those situations where I needed a centre lane and somehow, I was too far to the right and set off on some other motorway which looked like it was going over the Severn Bridge (with a toll). Luckily about 5 miles down the road (and before the bridge) were some services which were off the road, and there is always a roundabout on these occasions so that both carriageways can use them. I used the roundabout to turn myself around and was soon on the correct M5. The rest of the journey was completely uneventful. Judy and Ian had predicted bad traffic because of the end of half term, but the roads were completely clear. I stopped at a motorway services area once I had negotiated the M5/M6 interchange at Birmingham, and then was in Heswall by 5.00pm.

The Premier Inn (Heswall) is very good. The place is in the same grounds as a pub which serves food (that is where Uncle Jack and I ate this evening) and the pub has a lovely garden area with tables and chairs. Also, as a result of the lovely summer weather, the garden was full of people. My room overlooks this garden, so it was very pleasant. The wireless Internet system works fine as well.

I must say though that for the first time, I feel that Uncle Jack is ageing. I guess he has to eventually as he is 85 now. Nevertheless, he is still fun to be with and I intend to see him on both tomorrow and Monday evenings before I venture south to Joy's.

Friday in London and Bath

It had been my intention to have a very quiet start to today. First of all I wasn't feeling great, so I decided to let myself off the morning walk. The symptoms consisted principally of a headache, a sore chest when breathing and a croaky voice. I was hopeful that I just had a mild virus infection and nothing more serious. Also, I was going to have to pick up the hire-car later and negotiate my way out of London. I had a few concerns about this. The first is that I am not too confident about manoeuvring my way to the M4 from Central London and the second is that I didn't want to get caught with the Congestion Tax. The limits for the latter are not immediately obvious. I know that the traditional route to the M4 from here is down Park Lane, but I am sure that that will be included in the Congestion tax area. However, I found out that the place I was picking up the car was actually in the Congestion Zone, so I couldn't avoid the 8 pound fee. The upside of this though was that they would add the fee to my rental so I didn't have to fiddle around with paying it.

Yesterday had been quite exhausting with many miles travelled on foot, so I figured that today I deserved to be let off a morning walk. I planned to check out of the room, put my case into storage and walk to see the Princess Diana Fountain once it opened at 10.00am.

However, the best laid plans of mice and men…I was part way through writing to Lloyd this morning before leaving for Bath, when suddenly 'the blue screen of death' appeared. Attempts to restart my computer failed and the same message kept coming back. I tried various things including an option (when pressing F8 at start-up) to restore the last working version of Windows. Eventually, I managed to start it in 'safe mode'. Usually if one closes properly from 'safe mode', the problem gets sorted out, but this time it didn't.

I rang reception to see if there was an IT person who could help, but they said that all their chaps were out. However, they did say that there was a computer shop near Queen's Park tube station. So I checked out of the hotel, stored my case and set off. On the way, I was running through various options including buying a new laptop. Luckily all my work is on my USB keys, but I do not have the disks for the programs such as Office and SPSS, not to mention my printer. I arrived at the computer shop and found the repair part (the front sold suitcases and a side section sold hookahs!). I described the problem and an enormous man (West Indian, I think) said he would see what he could do to help. I turned on the computer and, of course it started completely normally!!! The man joked that it knew to be frightened of him. Anyway, he went into it to see of he could see what the problem had been, and Windows was at least courteous enough to announce that it had 'recently recovered from a serious error'. He removed some odd looking files including a 'memory dump' which I had seen being formed during the blue screen. He then suggested that we run a complete check of the disk which would take a while, so I decided to go to the Princess Diana Fountain as originally planned.

It was open and is very lovely. I took a picture of an American couple together on their camera in exchange for them taking one of me, that is included here along with a couple of other photos of the fountain and the Peter Pan Statue. I then had a cup of coffee on the edge of the Serpentine (eating bananas removed at breakfast as well) in the sunshine before returning to the computer place.

My computer was just completing its 'check-up' and seemed now to be fine. We checked it by opening some documents etc. I paid 30 pounds (which I was more than happy to pay) and returned to the hotel to finish email. I then found that BT OpenZone was playing up as it has been intermittently for my whole visit. The concierge rang them while I continued to write the email I had started a couple of hours earlier in Word, and finally the connection came up. At about the same time the concierge came over to give me a phone number to ring to get a refund from BT. I have since received an email from BT announcing that they would refund me all the vouchers for my stay, but the amount hasn't yet hit the bank account.

Leaving London was, in the end, uneventful and I arrived at exactly 6.30pm, much to the amusement of Judy. I was reminded about how Rohan and Bryn used to laugh about the fact that no matter where I was coming from, how long the journey or how unpredictable the journey time, I always arrived on the dot of my estimated arrival time. At the car-hire place they provided me with a map and directions for getting out of the city. I was actually directed through Hyde Park and managed to get out pretty much without delay. The radio kept providing traffic updates/delay information, so I was aware of potential problems. In fact, there were brief periods of heavy traffic and then it cleared - no major hold-ups.

I must confess though that on my travels into Bath, I made the same mistake as when I was with Bryn and Rose in January, heading off up a hill which finally landed me at the University of Bath again. As before, I turned round and went back down the hill, eventually finding the correct road. There must be something odd about the road signs at that point for me to have done it again.

This week is the 40^th anniversary of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and the radio stations are all going down memory lane. While on route to bath I heard interviews with Rod Stewart and Paul McCartney as well as with Disc Jockeys from the pirate radio stations – Radio London and Radio Caroline.

Judy put all my clothes into the wash after I had showered and changed and then we went out to eat. We had a lovely meal at the same place we went with Bryn and Rose in January - I had a salmon steak with a prawn and lobster sauce served with new potatoes and vegetables. For dessert I had ice cream with toffee sauce served with crushed Maltesers.

Judy and Ian have a wireless network, but it is password protected, so it took quite a time when we got home from dinner trying to remember the password as Ian never uses it himself (his desk-top and laptop are cabled into the router). The process wasn’t really helped by their large fluffy ginger cat called Oscar who kept marching across the keyboard each time I attempted a 15-letter string. We finally cracked it, but we then just sat around talking until well after midnight.

The pictures in order are: the Peter Pan Statue, a squirrel in Kensington Gardens, and the Princess Diana Fountain.

Thursday in London

This morning I woke up at 6.30am this morning, which wasn't bad as I had gone to bed reasonably early. Despite weather forecasts of rain, the sky was completely clear and blue. I went out for a walk in Kensington Gardens and went to see what was happening with the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain. There were workmen in the enclosure this morning cleaning it and there was a notice with opening hours from 10.00am - 6.00pm. The notice talks about being free to dip one's feet it the water (there was none there this morning - but it was not yet 10.00am), and various other 'dos and don'ts'. I walked on to the Albert memorial and back via Kensington Palace. It was cool but very pleasant for walking. I will investigate it tomorrow after 10.00am. After breakfast I set off on the organised tobacco hunt of today.

I don't think I had mentioned earlier in the Blog about a problem with my glasses that happened on the flight from Melbourne. For a while now, the glasses case hasn't shut properly and on the plane, somehow one of the arms got caught and bent back in my handbag. Although I had managed to straighten it a bit, the glasses had sat crooked on my nose since I arrived in Greece. This issue was becoming an increasing problem. Because they were so bent, every time I put them into the case, they were even more lop-sided when I put them back on. So this morning, I decided to set off to the tobacconists via Oxford Street and Regent Street rather than my usual Buckingham Palace, Westminster route, to see if I could find an optician.

I found a Vision Express at Oxford Circus and went in. I showed the man the problem and he said that they would try to bend them back, but there was a chance that they might break in the process. I noticed that the shop said that they could make up glasses in one hour, so I asked about the possibility of this if the frames did break. It seemed that I could have an eye-test and if my prescription was available on the site, I could indeed have new glasses in one hour. I started looking at frames and found a pair I really liked. It is ages since I've seen good frames in Australia as so any people have those tiny slit-like frames these days. These were perfect in every way - the right size, a good pale colour and 'my' shape. At this point, I decided to let them have a go at fixing mine. Within 5 minutes, they had completely put them right and gave me a splendid new case to put them in too. I asked how much it would cost and I was told that they had a charity box if I would like to make a donation. I put 2 pounds in ($5.00) as I was immensely relieved with the outcome, and left the shop.

I had only walked a few yards when I realised that I really would like the frames I had seen and I can always use an extra pair of reading glasses (to have one always downstairs for instance), so I went back. They took particulars and I was taken upstairs for the eye-test which would also provide me with a printout of my prescription to carry for future. It was much like in Australia except that the glaucoma test seemed to consist of puffing a little burst of air at my eye - not coming at me with an object which would touch my eye-ball. So, the long of the short of it is that I have just been down to pick up the new glasses which I am currently wearing. They are great and I'm pleased that I did it even though the whole exercise was probably more expensive than back home. It is hard to tell as frames vary so much in price.

While the glasses were being made up I proceeded down Regent Street and Shaftesbury Avenue to Smiths (a tobacconist) via Bar Italia, where I had an excellent cup of coffee. After visiting a second tobacconist, I then did my usual London walk in reverse, going via Westminster to Hyde Park, ending up at the entrance to Kensington Gardens opposite Lancaster Gate tube station. I briefly went back to the hotel to drop things off before setting off again to pick up the glasses (back at Oxford Circus!!).

The weather today has been brilliant - England at its absolute best. The sun has shone all day, although it hasn't been too hot and there was no wind, so walking was very pleasurable. I am now exhausted however, having walked over 30,000 steps today.

Tonight Eliot visited me at the hotel and, for convenience we stayed here for dinner. We had a really nice meal and he eventually returned back to where he stays in London during the week just after 9.00pm. It was good to have the chance to catch up with each other, particularly since he wasn't even aware that I was coming to the UK.

Tomorrow, I am on the move again. I pick up a car in the early afternoon and drive to Bath where I am staying with Judy and Ian for the night before heading off to Birkenhead to see Uncle Jack.

Travelling to England

This morning, I decided to go for a walk a little later so that I could walk in the area around the Temple of Zeus (picture 1) which opens at 8.00am. It was a lovely sunny day again and I enjoyed wandering among the ruins and then returning to my hotel through Hadrian's Arch (picture 2).

I checked out of the hotel at noon and my taxi arrived a little early (I booked it for 12.30pm), because there was yet another protest in Athens and some of the roads were closed. We arrived at the airport via a roundabout route, but it took no longer and cost no more, so I'm not sure why they insist on ploughing through the centre of Athens usually.

Yesterday, I had gone onto the Internet to check-in online with British Airways and had printed my boarding pass. They do seem to have improved their online booking a bit. I went on at the first time it opened (24 hours before the flight) and was able to get 12F (a window seat over the wing), as opposed to the middle seat in the back row which is what I got travelling to Stockholm last year. I rang British Airways at the time if you remember to complain that it was obvious that they had pre-booked their frequent flyers and the like, and the rest of us were left with the remaining 20 seats.

Well, I was indeed in seat 12F which has much more legroom than the seats further back. When I got on board my seat was occupied by a very attractive little girl of just under two who was declaring in both Greek and English that there were many aeroplanes outside. Her mother had sensibly bought a seat (the middle one) for the little girl (rather than having her on her knee other than for takeoff and landing), but the window was a definite attraction. I became quite attached to Amelia and she to me. She was completely bilingual (what language she had) and immediately worked out that she needed to use English for me. For some of the journey she sat on my knee alternating between looking out of the window and putting the shutter down to a level that only she could see out. Her parents were obviously pretty wealthy - living in St John's Wood, having a nanny and driver etc., but only her mother was with her. Her mother was Greek, married to a British born Greek man, who is in stock-trading of some sort and travels the world a lot. They had all been to visit the grandparents in Greece, although the father had only stayed a few days and had then gone to China and Singapore before returning to the UK while the mother had stayed near Athens with her family. For the last part of the journey, Amelia's mother was desperately trying to get her to sleep, but Amelia was having none of it. In the end, she ended up landing sitting on my knee with the extension seat-belt and I carried her off the plane and into the baggage hall as her mother had much cabin luggage with Amelia's stuff and her own and the buggy was checked through. The upside of all this was that I got transported to the door of my hotel by Mercedes driven by the 'driver', so I didn't have either the expense or the hassle of the Paddington Express. I consider it a very good deal - the mother was immensely grateful to me for helping with a squirming toddler, and, in exchange, I had a luxury ride when it mattered to me.

I should also say that I did indeed split my luggage, but put the packed conference backpack inside the case. I decided that if they complained that the case was over the 23 kilos limit, I would simply remove the backpack and check it through. In the end, they just put a tag onto the case and made no comment at all about the weight!

After I checked into the Corus Hotel, Hyde Park, I needed to get some cash, so I walked up to Oxford Street. I noticed that Selfridges Food Hall was still open (7.00pm) (probably the main shop was as well, I didn't check), and I also noticed some amazing looking cold rare roast beef with yellow fat. I decided to buy some and sat at one of the tables to eat it. They had little packets of salt available which I also used on it. I must take back my comments about English roast beef, although this probably isn't typical I acknowledge - I had forgotten how good good beef tastes. It was delicious!

I also ventured into M & S to buy my staple - humbugs. I hope to have several packets to send or bring home with me. On my way back to the hotel, I walked through Marble Arch to complete the day (having started it with Hadrian's Arch!

As the time in Greece was two hours later than that in London, I was pretty tired by 10.00pm and decided to get an early night. I had also found out though that sunrise was at 4.50am and chose to wear my Emirates eye-shades to help me sleep through.

Last Day in Athens

Today I needed to get going on the day early today so that I could mail the Conference Proceedings home as soon as the Post Offices opened. There is a smallish Post Office near the hotel and I decided to take it there. This was probably a mistake as it was like going to Little Baddow Post Office instead of Chelmsford. Nevertheless, in I went with my book. There were 5 counters, 4 said 'no parcels' and the 5th said a number of things including parcels. I approached the 5th desk and asked the rather gruff looking lady if she spoke English. She replied with an emphatic 'no', and turned to the next customer. I stood my ground and after she had served the man in question, she said 'envelope' to me. I said 'yes' and she produced an enormous padded envelope. I put the book into it, wrote my name and address on the outside and then stood there 'like a chapel hat peg' while she served the rest of the line. Eventually, I just put the envelope onto the scales. From then on the process became a bit of a mystery. She showed me a table with various Greek headings and pointed to 32.50 Euros and then pointed to her calculator which said 24.50 Euros. She kept repeating a stream of Greek and I kept shrugging my shoulders. I tried to make sure that she was quoting for surface mail and not airmail and I wondered if that was distinguishing the two amounts. Eventually, she enlisted the help of someone nearby and it was explained to me that it could go for 24.50 as printed materials. Since she had seen me put the book into the envelope, I don't know why I was being shown the other amount. In any event, I paid 24.50 Euros and it went. Heaven knows if it will arrive, but there are plenty of spares if it gets lost. Apparently I should have gone to the main Post Office in Syntagma Square.

You might wonder why I didn't wait until I arrived in England to mail the proceedings and the answer is that my case weighed 26 kilos leaving Melbourne and the British Airways rules allow you 3 bags but none must be over 23 kilos. This means that I need to put some things into the conference backpack to check through. The book weighed another 3 kilos and would have taken up most of the backpack.

I went into the university once I had finished the Post Office business. Stella called in sick (I think it is just the result of the conference being over - it was a tremendously big thing to organise and she had such top people from around the world to look after), so Konstantinos, Xenia and I met to discuss our work. This was actually fine as I had been able to discuss things with Stella on our walks. I suggested to them that I treat them both to a very late lunch after we have met - to thank Konstantinos for transporting me from Delphi (he would accept no money for petrol) and to finally acknowledge Xenia's birthday. We discussed our work until 3.00pm and then went to a local seafood restaurant where we had small deep-fried squid and marinated octopus to share and an individual grilled fish each. We naturally also had Greek salad, tzatziki, bread and a sweet semolina-based desert. It was very good food and I was a bit peckish by the time we ate.

After a brief visit back to the lab for coffee, Xenia and Konstantinos had a meeting to attend and I went back to the hotel for an early night as I was, by now very tired.