Monday morning wisdom

Bus graffiti currently on display in Teignmouth, Devon. No more words needed really….

Cologne – holiday stop two

After a day ambling around Brussels we took an evening train across the border to Germany, our journey ending in Cologne. Wow, just wow.

The shared feeling we got when leaving the train station at Cologne was one of ‘….and relax’. I’m not sure whether it is the comfort of German efficiency, the slightly less chaotic sense to the station, the cold bight to the air, the beautiful Cathedral that hits you as soon as you walk out from the train station, or indeed the fact that we were inching ever further close to our end destination of Sweden, but something felt different to (and for me calmer than) Brussels.

Of course it could simply be a trick of the mind, in that now we were at a second destination, and one with snow, my brain no longer thought at a residual level that this was some sort of work trip with all the fun and games of British trains and missed deadlines.

In stark contrast to my experience in Brussels (which I fully acknowledge maybe a conclusion drawn too hastily), there was something that felt just right about Cologne. I know that I’ll return and I suspect that you could spend a decent period living or working there and still not get easily bored. There was some sort of character to it, a visceral one at that. This was only heightened when peeking out the window after a night’s sleep there had been about a foot of snow. We only had 24 hours in Cologne before one of the planned highlights of the whole trip (the sleeper train north) and so we decided to focus on the christmas festivities. We didn’t set foot inside the Cathedral or any of the museums or cultural activities, instead we ambled around the Christmas markets, soaking up the atmosphere, sampling the Glühwein and generally mooching.

We stumbled across a carol performance at the Cathedral Market by a choir called Art&Weise. Since coming back from holiday I’ve found their facebook page and website where you can get more info and listen to some samples, but I have something else to share with you – an audioboo of their performance of Halleluja. It was tingly good, in a snow covered temporary christmas market, on day two of a much needed holiday – spine tingly good.

I hope you enjoy it, the audioboo comes complete with the hustle and bustle of the sounds of people shopping, drinking and joining in. If you get the chance I’d recommend a visit next year, but for now you can listen to ‘Weinachtsmarkt Köln – Hallelujah’ on Audioboo by clicking that link. Enjoy.

Brussels – holiday stop one

It’s been a month since I’ve blogged about anything other than Dad, death or dying. So I thought it was time to share some other random experiences and some photos from my holiday.

In terms of context, I finished work shortly after Dad died (a month ago), and the overwhelming feeling was one of exhaustion. This quickly gave way to the realisation that I had a newfound freedom, a lack of responsibility, very few stressors, routines or preoccupations to worry about. We had been hoping for a holiday in October/November but once I’d resigned and knew that Dad’s health was on another decline any plans of travel were shelved. We decided to grab the opportunity of a commitment in Stockholm to build a holiday around and bought interrail tickets the same week as Dad’s funeral, which took place on a Thursday with us leaving the following Wednesday. The next few posts will document some of the highlights so far, but in a nutshell we’ve trained our way around Europe managing to sample the Eurostar, Belgium, German, Danish and Swedish trains. There’s been loads of snow, culture, christmas markets, hostels, adventures, and photos.

First stop was Brussels. I’ve wanted to travel on the Eurostar for years and it was quite exciting and completely seamless. Brussels itself was kind of meh! Don’t get me wrong it had some good bits, the Comic Strip Museum was well worth a look at and the waffle was super, but I wasn’t really feeling it. That could have been nothing to do with Brussels but it sort of added to my stress, didn’t remove it. It felt quite haphazard as a city, which is normally something I quite like, but it felt like it was missing a magical something. I suspect that Brussels would grow on me but it didn’t grab me.

There were a couple of highlights in our 24 hours, one was the restaurant we found out in the district were our hostel was and the other was a parade we stumbled across. The restaurant was really out of keeping with the area, it was a complete lucky discovery courtesy of a 4 square check in <the next time someone asks me what the point of #4sq is I’ll be offering this culinary example>. We’d been for a couple of beers and had been struck by how revolting bars are where people still smoke. One of the bars sold pot noodles as their food offering, the other peanuts – you get the culinary level we’re talking about, then out of nowhere there was this lovely French restaurant Chez Soje. We were the only customers, I don’t think Wednesday night would be their busiest but the food was amazing. If you’re ever in the area then it’s well worth a try.

The next day we went for an amble around Brussels, visiting our first Christmas market of the trip, spotting an impressive Christmas installation in the beautiful square:

Then we had to swing by the peeing man, Mannekin Pis, who was dressed as Santa – a tiny bit surreal:

and it just got a little more random as we walked past what google suggests was the St Nicolas/Sinterklaas parade – which to all intents and purposes looked like a bunch of students having a carnival and drinking in the street, while the police closed the traffic down and ensured they did so safely:

and the main man himself:

Next stop was Cologne so keep your eyes and ears peeled!

Technology for living Pt2

Earlier this week I wrote a short post about the benefits of a baby monitor in supporting life with my Dad who is terminally ill. It allows him to be in bed but still remain connected to my Mum, myself or anyone else who is at home looking out for him. There were a few downsides that I’ve discovered since – notably the constant requests for cups of tea that make you jump as they emanate into the atmosphere; some interference with the wifi when I was trying to use Skype; and it also has the risk of fuelling my own paranoia. Any of my mates who have had me babysit (especially when they are uber little) know that I doubt the tech, and if I dont hear anything for a while I end up going and watching their precious bundle of newbornness to see if their chests are rising – this week I ended up doing the same with Dad; stood in his doorway staring at his chest. I guess the reality is that this is nothing to do with technology, it is to do with the fragility of life and my own need to watch over it.

Anyhow I digress….the other downside of the baby monitor is that it is one-way, it helps us connect to Dad but it doesn’t keep him connected with us, but this does:

Take a bow the wifi enabled photo frame. This thing is amazing, it allows my folks to get photos of their grandchildren, granddogs and of course grandcat; their kids, scenery, cake, whatever. We just take a photo, email it to an email address and hey presto it arrives, usually immediately although sometimes it takes an hour or two. This device is amazing, it has been a brilliant connection for my folks to keep in touch with the everyday existence that goes on, especially when yours isn’t so normal. The last few weeks it has come into its own, Dad has been home from the hospice a week and has barely made it out of bed, but this little gem allows the outside world to come to him. It gives Dad something to look forward to (the symbol on the front lets him know there are new photos waiting), the photos arrive and loop constantly, you can sort by sender or most recent and when all else fails it’s a great, ever changing talking point.

Reverse road trip

More years ago than I care to remember I went to Cardiff to university. No-one in my family had been to university before and I had no idea what to expect. I had some messed up mental image that the Halls of Residence I’d been allocated through clearing would be like some perfect combination of a boarding school mixed with an army camp (neither of which I’d ever stayed at – what can I say I had a vivid imagination). The upshot of not really knowing, and deciding at very short notice to goto university, was that as I travelled to Wales in the back of my parent’s car for the first time I was a mix of anticipation, nerves and excitement.

My parents also had no idea of what it would be like. I remember my Mum talking non stop as we travelled over the Severn Bridge, I think she was filling the silence in an attempt to mask her own nerves. My parents dropped me off and returned home, and years later my Dad told me that my Mum cried all the way home. We used to joke that my poor Mum suffered from a severe case of ‘empty nest syndrome’, our house had always been full and suddenly myself and my big bruv both left home within weeks of each other, with very little notice leaving just my little sister at home to fill the silence. Except of course in the holidays, and for some bizarre reason that I still don’t understand now, in the holidays of my first year at uni, I had to empty my room of all my belongings and take them home (and no they didn’t use the rooms for conferences, I truly have no idea why they did it) but it meant that my Dad would come and collect me and all my stuff.

We did this trip to Cardiff and back together four times during my first year, Mum came that first time but then it was just Dad and I. Dad and I are very similar, not in every regard but I have some traits I have definitely inherited or learnt from him – depending on whether I’m viewing them favourably or not they would be tenacity or stubbornness, determination and commitment or wilfulness, and passion or an argumentative streak. These shared traits meant that as a teenager Dad and I didn’t always see eye to eye and I really couldn’t wait to leave home, to leave behind dreary Torbados and move to the bright lights of a city. As soon as I left home I found that my relationship with Dad got better and better. It got to the stage when I really looked forward to those road trips, the time that Dad and I would share together to or from Cardiff. Don’t let me lull you into a false sense of security, it wasn’t all like a scene from The Waltons, as soon as we got home we’d regress into old habits, but those trips together became something I looked forward to. We would catch up, talk about what we’d been up to, I’d share news of my studies and the social, he’d fill me in on the local scandal or news and what was going on at Cadets. On more than one of those trips Dad arrived to find me in a state of disarray, never starting packing early enough, always distracted by a final night out, and Dad would swoop into action, skillfully packing boxes while I made tea and went looking for paracetamol. This all done on top of a full day’s work as a postman. He never once complained either.

This week I attended the wedding of one of my closest mates from university, in Cardiff and got to meet my new niece on the way home on Wednesday (she was born on Sunday night). When I was away Mum told me that Dad had been quite poorly, his haemoglobin level was down to 7.6 which I think is the lowest measure he’s ever had. He was given three units of blood and it felt a bit like an egg timer had been turned, once Dad gets a transfusion it has an almost instant effect on his energy levels, but it doesn’t last long. It didn’t seem fair that I’d got to meet Phoebe and he hadn’t when he’d been waiting for that moment for so long and had fought to stay alive for it.

I asked for Friday off on annual leave and decided that a reverse road trip was in order – instead of Dad taking me to Wales I would take him and the reward at the end, getting to meet his new granddaughter, would hopefully go some way towards repaying all the lifts and road trips and packing he did for me all those years ago. So Thursday evening Bobby and I set off on the path we took all those years before. We even ended up going over the old bridge because my sister and her husband live near Chepstow. We couldn’t have asked for a better trip, there was next to no traffic and we got up there in record time and Grandad got to meet Phoebe, something none of us had confidently thought was likely to happen:

Thursday night we spent under the uprights of the Severn Bridge in the Welfare House at camp and Friday morning we got to spend a couple hours with Phoebe and Libbie, her big sister. Libbie was beyond excited when her Mum told her we were coming and when we arrived she was in the doorway shouting ‘Grandad, come and meet my sister Grandad’. It has been a couple of months since she’s seen Dad, he hasn’t been more than half an hour from the hospital in months, but she was so proud of her baby sister and so delighted to see Dad. We all had breakfast together and then her and Bobby J had a full on session of Peppa Pig Sticker Album sticking.

An hour or so later we took a trip to the park (which is behind their house). Dad didn’t have his walking stick with him and so got to push Phoebe’s pram for support, and we got some fresh air and I got some great photos and memories. We got back to my sis’s for a cuppa and Dad was whacked. He was so pale and slightly breathless, nothing that a brew didn’t sort out though and we soon got on our way. I didn’t want to get stuck in traffic and I wanted Dad to get home if he was going to be ill. Luckily the bank holiday traffic wasn’t as bad as it could have been, although it still took us twice as long to get home as it had to get up there. Dad has been exhausted ever since but Friday was the best day’s annual leave I’ve ever taken. I’m so glad he got to meet Phoebe and we got to spend some time together on our reverse road trip.

It takes time

A couple weeks ago I had the pleasure of being on holiday in Beitostølen in Norway. I’ll do a post holiday reflection blog another time, but suspect it’ll be broadly similar to last year’s – which you can read here if you’re interested.

In this post I wanted to share some sage advice that I was generously given by the man in the photos. On Tuesday of my holiday, feeling somewhat bruised (physically and psychologically having tried my skis on for the first time the day before), I decided to go for a walk after lunch – following the cross country route I wanted to ski the next day. This had two advantages, firstly I could see where I was going so I knew what to expect the next day, and secondly if I followed the tracks I couldn’t get lost.

I was on my way down to have a nose at the hut in the first picture when I saw a sight I’ve never seen before, a man skiing with a sausage dog under his arm. I smiled, took a couple of photos and marvelled to myself at his ability to ski and carry a dog. Seriously impressive stuff. The man and his dogs made their way off down the track and I went to have a nose around the hut, before making my way in the general direction of Beitostølen Stadium.

About an hour later I came across the same man, and his dogs, on their way back from their ski (it really is a novel way to walk a dog). This time we stopped to have a chat, he asked if I was pleased with my photos, I explained I was, we commented on what a beautiful day it was and I admired his skiing ability – sharing with him that I’d been incredibly impressed to see him skiing and carrying his dog. He explained that the doggy was getting on, and too slow, to walk the whole lot – I laughed and made a joke about my poor skiing ability and how I hoped one day to be able to ski and carry a dog, or perhaps more helpfully carry a camera without fear of damaging it. He looked me right in the eye and simply said, ‘Don’t worry, it takes time’.

I’m not sure whether he meant learning and perfecting skiing ability takes time, or whether he meant stopping to take photos takes time. Either way it became a mantra for me throughout the rest of the week as I struggled to give myself permission to make mistakes, to need to take time to improve my ability to stand upright, and harder still to bring myself to a dignified stop.

I thought I’d share it with you guys, I think it’s a great lesson for life, especially if you’re getting impatient with the lack of progress in a situation, as a wise man on skis carrying a dog once said ‘It takes time’.

Favourite photo I’ve taken in 2011

Over on flickr there is a group for Your Best Shot 2011 and it got me thinking about which my best shot would be. I guess there are loads of criteria for deciding, whether it’s best composition/light/fancy camera terms, whether it’s about the people or subjects in it, the memory or occasion it reminds you of, I’m not really sure so I had a look through my Highlights set where I add my fave pics and came up with the following shortlist:

So, which (if any) do you like? Or are there other photos in my stream that you think are better? Would really love to hear your thoughts.

The ‘true’ North East

Growing up in the Westcountry my geographical knowledge is probably at best described as ropey! I never really felt like I had to learn where anything was (with the exception of the Kingdoms of Devonshire and Cornwall) because everything was ‘up north’. Well last weekend I ventured to the proper North East and spent the weekend exploring the delights of the Cairngorms, the Balmoral Estate, the Highlands and Stonehaven which has to be one of the jewels of Aberdeenshire.It was a great weekend, there was a tiny flurry of snow, proper cold wind, winter sun and bright blue skies. I thought I’d share a few of my fave pics:

Sheep in the snow at Mar Lodge

Loch Muick with the mist coming in

Midday sun at St Cyrus Beach

Dunnottar Castle

Stonehaven War Memorial

If only canteen food always tasted this good

This weekend I headed to River Cafe Canteen at Axminster. I’ve been a couple of times now and keep coming back – so something must be good. I thought I’d blog this time, mostly because I’ve got some piccies of the food that I thought you might enjoy.

First up the actual canteen space. I love it, the perfect mix between a proper nasty old school canteen, and a fabulous nice cafe; blackboards, bunting, wooden tables, can’t go wrong.

Next up starters, we had one Pork and Bacon Terrine:

Cornish Blue and Roast Butternut Squash:

River Cafe Ham and Shredded Red Cabbage:

and one Crab on Toast:

In a party of six, we had four people tempted by the Sausage, Lentils and Salsa Verde:

Mussels cooked with Bacon and Cider:

Cottage Pie with Greens:

with a side order of Chips:

The two desserts that proved popular were, Apple Crumble with Vanilla Custard:

and Chocolate Mousse with Brandy Cream:

All of this was accompanied by a couple drinks and coffee and a trip to buy some coronary clogging delicious cheese and bread on the way home. So, what’s the verdict, well I’ve been to the canteen three times and will definitely be back again. That said I thought they were understaffed in the canteen, which meant that service wasn’t as attentive as it could be. For example, I really don’t mind standing in a queue, but when I get to the front of it I’d like to be acknowledged and told how long I will be waiting for a table. Again, there was gorgeous looking bread up near the counter, we weren’t offered any (maybe we should have asked) but if our waitress had a little more time I can’t help but think she’d have offered some or explained whether bread was or wasn’t included. So, the food was fantastic, the atmosphere was great, the wait was bearable (and well worth it), the service was good but it felt like they could have done with another pair of hands on the canteen floor.

That said, I’d definitely recommend a trip if you’ve not already been – you can judge for yourself then.

Seagull safety

Snapped this at the weekend and enjoyed it so much thought I’d share it on here.

I particularly like the dash to add suspense between please and do.