Behind the Mystical Curtain

So leaving day had arrived. Our flight was at 10pm but the owner of the cottage kindly allowed us to stay as long as we wanted. Nice and very handy.

Got the packing out of the way and went for a last walk around the village and went to the Blue Anchor for lunch (and to try out my new darts!)

The snow that fell 4 days ago is still thick on the ground. I shovelled off the path which had become very icy. Now I know why people are so quick off the mark to shovel their paths and drives. If you don't it freezes and is very hard to break up.

Bundled out suitcases into the car and set off for the 90 minute drive along the M20/M25 to Heathrow on the other side of London. Still had time up our sleeves so we had a quick game of tenpin bowls near the airport (much more respectable 186!). Dropped the car back and the shuttle took us to terminal 3. Unfortunately the flight was delayed for what turned into about an hour forty which was not ideal for Ben but at least he could sleep on the plane. We were last flight for the night. At least the snowy/icy weather hadn't disrupted our journey (not long after we left it bucketed down another 8 inces of snow!)

On the upside was British Airways chose to upgrade us to World Traveller Plus, their version of Premium Economy. I asked if it was random and she said it was most likely due to my Qantas Frequent Flyer card. Funny actually because we both dislike Qanta$ and much prefer the normally cheaper Asian Airlines or Virgin domestically. Last time I flew Qantas they left my bag behind and it was wrecked when I got it. I only have a frequent flyer card because it was free and linked to my woolworths reward card. This time we flew BA/Qantas because it was a super deal. After convert to AUD it was $1299 return (we have an essentially free leg Bne/London to use within 12 months and plan on having 4 weeks in December school holidays and then bumming a one way back somehow).

So the first leg to Singapore was BA in WTP and the 2nd leg to Brisbane was Qantas in normal economy. We googled WTP on the iPad so we had an idea of what it would be like - big comfortable seats with leg and foot rests and lumbar adjustment, noise cancelling headphones, heaps of leg room, double luggage allowance and a curtain to separate us from the unwashed masses. I'm sure I could smell them when I poked my head through..only downside was that the fancy seats had fixed arm rests so we couldn't put them up to let Ben lie on our laps to sleep. Oh well you can't have it all.

We picked up all of the lost time when we changed planes in Singapore as the Qantas flight left as scheduled meaning less waiting time, barely enough to transfer. Passengers to Perth weren't so lucky and the delay meant they missed their connection.

So back in with the plebs! Actually is was good. We were in the 2nd row after business class and everything was fine except for the lack of drinks services. Nice meals and you ask for drinks if you wanted to buzz them but they didn't bring a cart round apart from with the supper when it came. Not complaining greatly, just contrast that with the Asian airlines who are falling over themselves to give you drinks. Malaysian had a few drink runs and must have brought round trays of all manner of juices 20 times.

We ended up arriving in Brisbane 40 mins ahead of schedule and had to wait for our pre booked shuttle.

Thus endith the holiday! Hope you enjoyed reading about our travels! That's if there is anyone out there...

Mr Meticulous

Friday we drove over to Hastings, famous for the battle in 1066 but we just had a wander.

Parked in the Old Town and went into a cafe/restaurant for lunch. The food was beautiful and owner was excellent, joking around with Ben. Well until the small bowl that my side of chips came in slipped out of my fingers and broke the large bowl my meal came in. Up popped the owners head to see what had happened, I apologised and it was as if I hadn't spoken. The head popped down and the atmosphere went from convivial to frosty faster than you can say Mr Meticulous. Unbeknownst to me, Carole had overheard snatches of conversation between him and one of the locals. She heard him say "everyday they seem to be breaking a bowl or a plate and you know how meticulous I am". Enter Tony who 10 minutes later breaks something! A couple of minutes later he leaves and tells th chef he's off to see so and so. Turns out so and so is the lady who runs the Shipwreck Museum who he had been chatting to earlier. We found that out when we walked into the museum, and Mr Meticulous's head snaps round to look at us and then return to what is obviously a conversation about us!.

It was all so funny but in an awkward way.

Le Blanc Éléphant

More Calais Photos

Frosty the Snowman

Things we did in Calais

- Go to a patisserie to buy French cakes/torts
- Climb to the top of the lighthouse to take in the view
- Have a snowball fight
- Have dinner at a French cafe/brasserie.
- Build and decorate a snowman
- Ride the free bus from end to end
- Buy a French handbag (sounds dead posh innit but it cost €3)
- have a French beer in one of those large goblet glasses

Attention au fossé s'il vous plaît

On the ferry to France for the day. Better be a good trip since it cost £1 per person return and no child discount. Scandalous.

Snowy Village

Snow by the Cubic Tonne

We woke up Sunday morning to 6 or 8 inches of snow which might not seem a lot but that 6-8 inches was everywhere.  On the car, the roof, the patio, the tennis court, the swings, the fields the paths, you name it, it was bathed in snow.  It was Ike we went to bed in England and woke up in Lapland or Switzerland or some other alpine country.

We had nowhere we needed to go so it was a day of fun and frolicking about in it.

Match day 8 - Millwall Home

English football has a reputation for violence.  When you speak to people from Oz about it you realize they think it's still like it used to be.   They think the segregation of fans is a pointer to how bad things are.  But in the vast vast majority of cases there are no issues.  The segregation is integral to the atmosphere, where singing songs aimed at winding up the opposition is what makes English football the experience that it is.

But there are still a few rivalries where past violence is never far from the surface.  And one of those is West Ham Millwall.  The last time West Ham played Millwall at home in 2009 there were ugly scenes and a pitch invasion.  Someone was stabbed down the road.  

So when West Ham were relegated to the same division as Millwall it meant a home and an away clash would be a headache that had to be handled.  The Millwall home game passed it hour incident and it was back to scene of the 2009 troubles that would be our last game for the trip.

Pre game preventative measures included, an early kick off at 12.30 to minimize drinking time,  no alcohol sales from pubs within a 9 mile radius until well after the game was over, pleas from both clubs for good behavior, ticket sakes restricted to those with existing club memberships and or a history of purchases and about a gazillion police.  They also moved all West Ham season ticket holders ou of the Trevor Brooking stand and restricted it to just the scum. The lower was empty to stop them invading the pitch and throwing stuff down from the upper.

We went incognito until we were off the tube and on Green St.  While having lunch at the Chippie we got our 1st taste of the underlying venom.  A large group of Millwall supporters were held in the middle of the street corralled inside cordons of foot and mounted police.  We stood and watched as the police set cordon set up frog marching them along.  They let out this guttural menacing roar, that was quite confronting if I'm honest.  I had started recording it on my phone but one of the scum (i'll refer to them using the West Ham vernacular for Millwall) pointed at me and hollered something so I stopped.  They turned them up a side street and we didn't see them again until inside the ground.

As I said they had the Trevor Brooking upper to themselves and they just looked evil, many with hoodies and scarves coving their faces.  The whole ground was devoid of collar as everyone turned up in plain dark clothes which fitted the atmosphere.

To the game itself.  An experienced Premier League ref had been appointed to help keep things under control but he didn't help thing when he brandished a straight red card to the West Ham captain in the 9th minute for a two footed lunging tackle.  35000 heads dropped and 1400 celebrated and taunted.

But as sometimes happens when a team goes down to 10 men everybody lifts.  It takes discipline and a rigid gameplay to stretch and tire the 10 men but Millwall didn't exploit their advantage and West Ham bossed the rest of the game.  Scoring just before halftime allowed the Eastenders to stick it to their south London enemies.  Ben, Carole and I jumped around and Ben chanted who are ya, who are ya even before the rest of the ground launched into it.

The 2nd half was again all us but against the run of play the scum scored to make it 1-1 and we got it back from their supporters with interest perhaps sensing we might tire from all the 10 man heroics.  But we rolled our sleeves up scored a cracking goal albeit there was some controversy over a challenge on their keeper leading up to Winston Reid's super strike.

It was by far the best performance we had seen out of the 8 games this trip and made the stats 4/4 home wins and 3 losses and a draw from the 4 away games.  But you get the feeling that things are back on track now, 4 pts clear at the top with 3 new players to lift the team.

We hung around to make sure the scum were well and truly gone.  While we waited some o the players filtered out to the car park and Ben got his program signed by Matt Taylor, Papa Diop, Gary O'Neil and new boy Nicky Maynard.

As it was an early kickoff and our train back to Kent wasn't until 7 we headed into the centre of London one more time.  Caught the tube to Leicester Square, tea at the Brewmaster, wandered through china town and just as we were heading to Charing Cross to catch the train it started to snow as had been forecast.

Back in Kent there was no sign of it tho.  Maybe the morning would be different?

There'll Be Bluebirds Over

The White Cliffs of Dover...

Had a look round the Ashford Designer Outlet, another massive DFO style factory outlet shopping centre.  Huge range of stuff at incredibly cheap prices especially with the strong AUS$.  Grabbed some stuff to take back...it was part of the plan, travel light to enable us to buy stuff with attractive exchange rate.

Then we jumped in the car and drove down to Dover to have a look at the cliffs.  I asked Carole to try and find the best vantage point for photos of the cliffs on the iPad and we eventually worked out if you went past the port and up the hill you could park at the top of the cliffs and wander about.  Turns out the best vantage point is on the beach at the base of the cliffs, as long as you are feeling energetic first to walk along the top to get there and then for the descent down.  Well more accurately for the ascent back up I guess.

Ben gritted his teeth and said he was keen.  Carole was going to wimp out but she was glad she got with the program as it was well worth the effort and looked a lot worse than it was - the climb I mean, the cliffs were amazing and it was a beautiful blue sky with the sun reflecting off them as it started to sink.

Just before you climb down the very long step ladder there are a few caves and tunnels that were presumably part of the smuggling industry at some point.

Brrrrr, it's so cold!

Went for a drive to the nearby coast to have a look about. First stop was Dymchurch. We got out of the car and ruggd up. I commentet to Carole that this was probably the coldest I had felt the entire trip. Colder than Lapland even (obviously not in terms of the actual temp but how cold it felt). When I took my gloves off to take photos my fingers were freezing, bitterly cold and I don't get bothered by cold. Ever. The bizarre part was that it was a beautiful day with blue skies and we were walking along and on the beach!

Quick pint of Courage Best Bitter in a pub called the Ocean to warm up in front of the fire and tick my O pub for this trip. Hopped back in the car and headed further south along the coast to the remote Dungeness. It's a headland that is formed out of a vast expanse of shingle. There is a conservation area and the bird society have a large reserve and observatory. It's hard to explain but when you drive in it feels bleak and as I described it to Carole, like you are driving into the setting of American Werewolf in London. A few people live there but we saw no signs of life. The RSPB put up daily bird sightings on their website.

Actually I might just let wikipedia describe it for me :-

Dungeness is one of the largest expanses of shingle in the world. It is of international conservation importance for its geomorphology, plant and invertebrate communities and birdlife. This is recognised and protected mostly through its conservation designations as a National Nature Reserve (NNR), a Special Protection Area (SPA), a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and part of the Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) known as Dungeness, Romney Marsh and Rye Bay.
There is a remarkable and unique variety of wildlife living at Dungeness, with over 600 different types of plant (a third of all those found in Britain). It is one of the best places in Britain to find insects such as moths, bees and beetles, and spiders; many of these are very rare, some found nowhere else in Britain.
The short-haired bumblebee, Bombus subterraneus, declared extinct in the UK nearly a decade ago, but which has survived in New Zealand after being shipped there more than 100 years ago, is to be reintroduced at Dungeness. It is planned that the first bees will be introduced in the spring of 2010.
The flooded gravel pits, both brackish and fresh water, provide an important refuge for many migratory and coastal bird species. The RSPB has a bird sanctuary there and every year thousands of bird watchers descend on the peninsula to catch a glimpse of a rare bird from the bird observatory.
One of the most remarkable features of the site is an area known as 'the patch' or, by anglers, as 'the boil'. The waste hot water and sewage from the Dungeness nuclear power stations are pumped into the sea through two outfall pipes, enriching the biological productivity of the sea bed and attracting seabirds from miles around.

Well that's different, a positive spin on a nuclear power plant!

I don't actually have any photos of Dungeness worth posting. The two below are from Dymchurch.

Village Life

Checked out of the Ipswich Novatel and entered Ruckinge into the sat-nav (otherwise known as my iPhone).  Ruckinge is the village in Kent where Carole (otherwise known as my travel agent) had found a cottage to stay in.  £200 for the week.  So we again hit the road .  

Kent is in the South East and our village was not far from the coast, the channel tunnel and also Dover where the ferries cross the English channel.  And close enough to get back to London for the football on Saturday.

The cottage looked very nice on the net but £200 isn't that much (though we had seen the same cottage on different letting websites for significantly more) so it was fingers crossed as we rolled up.  The owner showed us through and it was indeed as nice as it appeared on the net.  Two bedrooms upstairs with Ben's looking at the stars through a very large glass skylight type thing-a-me.  We also had the use of a tennis court, swings, trampoline (not sounding much like a cottage in a small village but it is, trust me).  Ben couldn't wait to try out all three within the first hour and it's a good job we did as the weather would change to white soon enough.  

Match day 7 - Ipswich Away

Another tick for list of football grounds when we venture down to Tractor Boy territory in Suffolk and Portman Rd, home of Ipswich Town for a Tue say night game. Jim had warned me to allow 4 hours and that the trip isn't a great one but We have a charmed run with my cruise control set on 70 and only the occasional interruption when one of the Euro bound semi's pulls out to overtake another Euro bound semi of which there are plenty. 3.5 hours later we're checking into the Ipswich Novatel using Amex reward points.

Set off to the ground in search of somewhere to eat on the way. Happy to find a Harvester restaurant that has great clue food and the opportunity to get in a couple of thirsty quenching pre game stellas...seem to be more West Ham fans in there than tractor boys.

Short walk to the ground and we're soon in our seats in the family section this time. Stingy bastards only allocated us 2200 seats but the traveling faithful are in good voice. Unfortunately despite sitting top of the league and playing against the team sitting in 21'st we've soon got that sinking feeling as we concede early and again play poorly going in 3-1 down at half time..after the restart there is 15 min non stop we re West Ham's Claret & Blue army trying to lift the team but alas they concede again. And again.

What is it with us and away games. That's 4 away matches against crappy sides for 3 losses and a draw. And this from the team who had the best away form in the league this season before we got arrived. Good job they are 3 from 3 at home games for us and our last game is at home.

Its the last day of the January transfer window and I sit up till midnight following all the comings and goings. West Ham end up with 3 attacking players all signed on the final day. Many pundits suggesting pound for pound we have done the best business of anyone in the country. Time will tell. For the record we signed Nicky Maynard, Ricardo Vaz Te and badboy wonder kid Ravel Morrison from Manchester United after they gave up on him after too many indiscretions. People in the know say he is potentially the best kid to come through the United youth system since Scholes of Giggs. Hopefully Big Sam can get him on the straight and narrow. I mean what could possibly get up to in London!