Isle of Wight

Or Peter's story...

Well after over a week of being stuck in the house due to the bad weather we decided it was time to do something. Back in October last year Peter and his brother Huw went by Hovercraft over to the Isle of Wight so Peter thought we should do the same.

The Hovercraft left from Portsmouth a large town to the east of Southampton. We had about a twenty-five minute walk to the train station and as we were getting close we saw the train pull in. With the next one not being for another hour we had no choice but to run to get there. It almost killed Jules but we made it onto the train!

Once in Portsmouth we walked into the city so Peter could buy a walk book for Isle of Wight (just in case we decided to go for a walk) and then we headed down to the historic dockyards for a pub lunch and to catch the Hovercraft. Incidentally the Hovercraft was apparently the first one ever to go into regular commercial operation back in the sixties and I must say it was pretty cool.

We docked at Ryde on the Isle of Wight which was a pretty grim looking place. After walking up the high street, stopping at a dire place for a cup of tea we realised that there was no real point in sticking around. Apparently there are far nicer places on the Isle of Wight to go so next time we will have to aim for one of those.

After getting the Hovercraft back (which involved another run) we stuck around to take a few pictures and video of it taking off again, but it broke down! So we were pretty lucky to get back.

We then walked along the beach (or what the Brits call a beach) for a while over to a pier. It was bloody freezing and Jules and I did a fair bit of complaining along the way. Although he denies it I think the only reason Peter made us do it was so he could tell a story about how he and Huw did the same walk and wanted to buy a drink at the end but the machine ate their money!!

Anyway from the pier we caught a bus back to Gunwharf Quays which is a big shopping centre (and also a train station). After looking around the shops for a bit (and convincing Peter that he did not need to see a movie) we jumped on the train and headed back to Southampton.



The first fleet was launched from Portsmouth, this commemorates the event!



A spire they are building at Gunwharf Quays



A topless church!



Ryde High Street



Ryde High Street from another angle



Sunset back at Portsmouth



Nice way to keep warm!



I think I can see Australia from here!

Fiona's Birthday

Or the week of nothing...

Well it has pretty much been a week of nothing. It started snowing through the week which pretty much limited our activities (it was too cold to do anything) so I spent the week applying for jobs and fielding calls from agents!

The good news is that I had an interview this afternoon. It was for a company called Kingston Telecommunications based in Wakefield which means I would have to move up north for it. It was a phone interview with one of their project managers. The bad news is I think I stuffed it. It was the first time I have done a phone interview which is a strange sensation! But I guess time will tell.

It was also Fiona's birthday yesterday. Fiona is Jules' sister who is also over here working. So tonight we all went out to a Mexican restaurant for dinner. There were about 25 people there but the restaurant took forever to get us seated and serve food. Nevertheless is was still okay.



Post dinner photo!

Queen Elizabeth Country Park

Or cor blimey it is cold!

It was a sunny day. From inside it looked rather lovely actually. The English weather has a way of deceiving you like that. It pretends that it is nice outside and convinces you it is nice until WHAM! you go out and it is freezing....

Peter and Jules had their eye on a walk up the highest hill in the South Downs area. Because it was a nice clear day and the views from the top were supposed to be pretty good we all jumped in the car and headed over near Petersfield.

Naturally the first stop was a country pub for lunch. Peter had purchased a pub guide the day before as there are so many pubs around the place choosing one can be a little tricky. The pub we chose however, was not in the guide, Peter and Jules had been there before in summer and enjoyed it. So the first stop was the Seven Stars pub in Stroud for a fantastic Steak and Longfoot Ale pie and a beer of course (in this case Hofbrau Premium). After that we had dessert and then headed off to Queen Elizabeth Country Park to do the walk.

At just over 230m high to say that Buster Hill was a tough climb would be exaggerating, but it was bloody cold which made the trek up and down all the more difficult. Once at the top you could see a number of little villages all around and to the south the English Channel and, if you had xray vision, France. Being windy made it perfect weather for kite flying and kite boarding which, despite the cold, a lot of people were taking advantage of. We even saw a glider fly over.

The walk back down was uneventful as was the short drive back to Southampton via Tesco. All in all it was a fun, but cold, day.




The pub lunch.



Up the hill....



Close the gate!



Vistas.



Step over the gate! Remember that Sheep Worrying is an offense.



Good one Peter.



Some weird brazier thingy.



I'm King of the world!



Worshipping??



Peter trying to be artistic.



Down the hill....

Winchester

Or the long walk....

I applied for a job today! Got a call and I may have an interview sometime next week (but we all know what recruitment agents are like).

Decided not to waste the day so we went for a walk around Winchester. As the former capital of England, Winchester is famous for its old and rather lovely cathedral! The walk started just out of the city at an old small hospital known as St. Cross. We then walked along a river into the city and to the cathedral. Having already been inside on a previous visit two years ago we continued walking up a hill to get to the St. Giles lookout. From here we got a pretty fantastic view of the city and what's even more impressive was that the sun was out! It was still absolutely freezing (that is why I am wearing a lovely scarf) but it was nice to see sun.

A short stroll back down the hill and into a pub for a refresher before we continued into the high street to see the Great Hall. As one of the oldest examples of an English drinking hall it was pretty cool. On one of the walls they had hanging what they thought was the round table. But at only 700 years old it is far to young to be the actual one!

It was getting dark and we had about 2kms to walk to get back to the car. This time it was along a rather scary path with hedges either side. Having just watched a couple of Miss Marple and Midsomer Murder movies it was easy to imagine how something bad could befall us.

Luckily we made it back to the car without trouble for the short drive back to Southampton!



Water water everywhere!



Keep off the grass!!



Winchester's most famous citizen, King Alfred



The view from St. Giles' lookout



Duckies!



The lovely river



If you go into the woods tonight you are in for a big surprise!

Incidentally, it appears I have started a trend here in the house. My mate Jules has started a blog as well so head on over to her site and check it out!

Home Time

Or no more salami and cheese!

Well it was time to head back to Southampton. We had an early bus to Geneva for our midday flight to London. After picking up some Pain au Chocolat from the patisserie for breakfast we walked to the bus. It had stopped snowing and it was raining! To be honest I was glad to be heading home.

The bus trip was uneventful and we got to Geneva around 10am. After checking in we walked around the departures terminal for a while, ate some fruit and then headed through security to our departure gate.

It was packed but we found a seat and waited for boarding. Then all of a sudden the screen changed to say the plane was delayed and would not arrive until 1:20pm (which means we would not take off until at least 1:45pm). Jules had a 3pm flight from Gatwick to Dublin to catch up with a friend but it still looked like she would be fine (considering the one hour time difference). We started boarding around 1:30 but then the plane sat at the terminal for ages. Finally the captain announced that they had been given the wrong manifest printout by the Swiss Authorities and they had to get the correct one.

We finally left the gate but there were about six planes in front of us so we did not take off until around 2:30. Jules was (to borrow a famous Aussie phrase) gropable! She had no chance of making her flight to Dublin now. It turned out the plane was initially late for mechanical reasons so I thought perhaps Britannia would pay for Jules to catch a later flight.

After we landed around 3pm we were walking through the terminal to passport control and saw Jules' Ryanair flight taking off! We went to the Britannia counter but they said they did not have to do anything because Jules did not leave 3.5 hours between flights. It would have cost her £150 to get on the next flight which was not worth it.

So we jumped in the car and headed home. It was an unfortunate ending to an otherwise pretty good week.


Jules' Ryanair Flight

Skiing (Day Six)

Or it's snowing!

What an awful night. I think I slept for about two hours. I woke up with a sore throat, pounding head, sinus and generally feeling crap. To top this off it was snowing! I decided that I was not gonna ski but Jules and Peter were gonna give it a bash.

They left while I washed up and had a shower. I was just climbing back into bed when they returned (they had been gone a couple of hours). The conditions outside were horrible. You could not see anything and the snow was very thick.

Realising that we could not ski anymore we returned the hire gear and headed back to the apartment. For lunch we polished off the rest of the food we had bought (more cheese and salami) and then settled in for another game of cards (which Peter won this time!!).

After cards Peter went out to buy some postcards (and Day & Night tablets for me) while I had a nap and Jules read her book. On his return we headed to the bar next door to write out our postcards and have a drink.

We then headed back to the room and after having french onion soup (or should it be just onion soup in France?). We then had to clean the apartment (otherwise they would charge us a €100 cleaning fee) and headed to bed. Our bus to Geneva was leaving at 7:45 tomorrow morning.


Weather coming in



The view from the top of Crystal



From our balcony



More from the balcony



Postcard writing



It is snowing!



More snow...



Even more snow...

Skiing (Day Five)

Or let's try something new....

We decided the night before to get up early and ski over to Morillon and Les Carroz to see what the runs are like over there. Jules was still in too much pain to ski, so Peter and I headed off to catch the first lift at 9am.

This time the Dolomie run was fine. Being one of the first people on it meant it was still nice and groomed and not too busy. We then caught a lift over to Morillon and skied there for a while. It was all in shade and because we had no recent snow falls it was pretty icy. But it was quiet so we stayed around for a while. The initial plan was to ski for the morning there and then head back before the Dolomie run became too crap. But we were not all that impressed with the runs on offer at Morillon (more snow and sunshine would have made them pretty good though) so we headed back early. Dolomie was looking pretty bad already and then we had to brave Tourmaline before getting to the bottom.

Deciding that we could not end the day like that we headed back up the hill to Crystal but the bad weather was coming in so we did two quick runs before heading back to the apartment.

We spent the afternoon drinking, eating cheese and salami and playing cards (which Jules won of course). We decided to go our for dinner and headed down to the Forum for a fantastic pizza. Earlier in the day we picked up some yummy pastries from the patisserie so we headed home to eat those.


Scenery



More Scenery



The walk up the hill to get to Crystal

Skiing (Day Four)

Or the same old....

Jules woke up in agony. She could not move her legs and her throat hurt! So she decided not to ski.

After the previous days events Peter and I decided to head back to the slope we liked (Crystal) and practice our turns. We arranged to meet Jules for lunch before we left and headed up the hill. 45 minutes later we were at the top and ready to go.

The first part of Crystal is quite steep before levelling off and then going steep again. Instead of doing nice wide turns we decided to do quick turns (to go faster) and to get more practice at it. It was pretty good fun. We were actually flying down the mountain but it was hard work on the thighs. Anyway we took it in turns skiing down while the other would watch and offer tips. We usually stopped on the level part after the first bit and then continued on. At one point however Peter was going so fast he could not stop! He flew down the mountain in record time.

We then went and met Jules for lunch. She had tried to do a green run that morning but it was just too painful for her.

We were all pretty stuffed after lunch so decided to just head home have a couple of drinks and play some cards (Jules won of course). After a great omelette for dinner we continued drinking and playing cards before heading off to bed!


Scenery



The Grand Platieres Gondola



A tough day....



The view from the room

Skiing (Day Three)

Or the 14km run...

One of the supposedly good things about Flaine was that it had links to close by resorts which doubled the number of runs available to skiers. Called the Grand Massif it linked Flaine with Sixt, Samoens, Morillon and Les Carroz. Starting in Flaine there was a 14 kilometre run called Cascades which was described as a 'beautiful tree-lined run'. Thinking this might be a goer we decided to do a couple of runs on the old faithful Crystal and then spend the rest of the day (apparently it would take that long to ski the 14km and make your way back) doing Cascades.

The first part of the run was awful. Most of it was uphill which involved a lot of pushing or taking skis off and walking. But it was pretty scenic so we got a number of photos. The middle part was quite fun for all involved. However the last 2km were pretty horrible. It consisted of steep thin runs with very tight (180 degree) turns. But we all made it to the bottom. We were now in the Sixt resort. From here we had to catch a bus to Samoens where we planned on having lunch.

The resort was packed with people and the restaurants were no different. We finally found a table at one place but after waiting for ages just to have our orders taken I cracked it and left (they were not gonna get any of my money). So we decided just to ski back to the apartment (it was about 2:30 at this point) have a light snack and then go out for dinner.

There was only one link between Samoens and Flaine and because it was getting towards the end of the day so it was pretty busy. First off we had to get on this ancient chairlift. The queue was huge and it involved going down hill (so it was just chaos). About 45 minutes later we made it to the top and had to ski down a blue run before catching another chairlift to Flaine (and our feared Tourmaline run). Anyway the run (called Dolomie) was horrible. Because it was a link run it was packed with people and it was full of moguls. Jules, having lost her confidence on the last part of the Cascades run, took a while to get down and was pretty annoyed, tired and hungry (as we all were) when she got to the bottom.

We then had another long wait for the chairlift to the top of Tourmaline. Peter and I had agreed with Jules to ski ahead and prepare some food cause she thought she would take a while. As expected it was pretty awful going down but we made it to the bottom and headed back to the apartment. After a couple of beers we were still waiting for Jules. She finally showed up about an hour after us. Someone had run into her and hurt her pretty badly. So she was upset and in pain. A cup of tea and a game of cards (which she won of course) calmed her nerves.

After showering we headed out to find somewhere for dinner. After a few days of bread, cheese and salami we wanted a change. We found a pretty nice place and ate up big (had a great hot chocolate crepe for dessert).

Back home to get ready for another day of skiing.


Sick of Walking




Almost got it!




Cascades




Race Time!




The Valley




More Scenery




A nice place to stay!




The horrible last part of Cascades (the run follows the orange fencing)




Cascades Waterfall




Top of Samoens




Bottom of Dolomie Run




Dinner (with a crazy waiter...)