Copenhagen

Well we are coming to the end of our first 24 hours in Copenhagen - a few surprises- some good some not so good. I may have told you about my close brush with a scam when I was booking accommodation in Copenhagen a few months back. I had emailed someone called 'Shelagh" back and forth and was about to send him/her a $150 deposit when out of the blue the money was to be sent to someone in Nigeria. I immediately emailed back to say "Goodbye Shelagh, I do not send money to unknown people in Nigeria" only to get a phone call a couple of nights later in the middle of the night asking why the money hadn't been sent - to say I was a bit spooked would be an understatement. A a result I booked what I thought was an ensuite B&B room with the Danish tourist office only to discover on arrival arouond 10 pm last night that we were sharing the bathroom with our landlady and there is no breakfast. Never mind - she is very nice and it is just for 3 nights. Phil doesn't do suprise very well but i took him to a very nice restaurant tonight with a good bootle of red and he seems MUCH happier. Enough of that. We have had a very pleasant day - weather could be better - it is mid-summer and just 15 deg????? But we wandered around the Royal Palace ( Phil refused to ask to see Princess Mary - her Mum, Henrietta, used to be his secretary in Uni of Tas so I thought that was worth an audience). Very pleasant city - millions of bikes and very eco. We had dinner at an organic restaurant - BioMio - lovely fresh food with an open kitchen - the Manager and barmen were both Aussies. So now just a few pictures to give you a feel for the city.

Royal Palace

Our corner store

This is for my Mum who likes knitting socks - an exhibit in the National Museum

I thought this painting in the Art Gallery was interesting - Holbech has painted his daughter with her African nanny

Clever design in the National Museum - they have put a glass roof over the courtyard and cantilevered timber walkways and staircases to create some really useful and pleasing spaces.


So many beautiful people!!!!

Canal near the Palace

Tivoli Gardens

Couldn't resist this one outside the City Hall. A couple cycled to the Registry Office on this bike to be married with their 2 little children in the carrier. Love the decorative touch.

Last of England

I had a day in Oxford with my best friend Margaret. She will be 80 soon so it was a lovely treat for us both. We had lunch at the Cherwell Boathouse and watched the punters in action - some more expert than others.

The South Downs Way is just sooooo green and lush.

Golfers - please note. If you miss the putt, it is 200m straight over the cliff at Seaford Head.


Note the wind turbine on the coast guard cottage - i am trying to pursuade Andy to put one on the side of their house where there is always a gale blowing.

Just to show I am here too


The coffee was good the cake was a bit ordinary but the company was first class.

We have only managed 2 lunches at Bill's in Lewes so far this summer - such yummy food. Some of you will know it well.

For Kimberley and Ginny - spot the moggie - on a leash!!!!!!!

Our last evening in Seaford - the ferry from France coming into port.

Bliss

Arriving at Seaford to stay with Andy and Christy must be one of the lovliest things that could happen to anyone - and we do it often. To be beside the sea listening to the waves as you drift off to sleep and wake in the morning is wonderful. And they are always so welcoming except that this time they left for Wales 2 days after we arrived. Are they trying to tell us something? Actually we were more than happy to have a quiet week on our own to get over the flight. We still have almost 3 weeks with them so plenty of time to do things together.


The van loaded for Wales

Last Sunday was the annual carnival in Seaford so we watched the parade from our balcony.

We never come to England without at least one visit to Sissinghurst - a beautiful garden

We climbed to the top of the tower for a birdseye view of the gardens

Looking down from the tower

The Vanguard Way along the top of the Seven Sisters chalk cliffs is so dramatic. If you have read our blog before you have seen more photos of this than you need but maybe there is someone out there who hasn't seen them before.

I haven't been able to find a cat for Kimberley and Ginny. Will this rabbit do instead? He was sitting on the edge of the cliff.
Nearing the end of the cliff walk with Cuckmere Haven and the coast guard cottages in sight.

Richie and Kimberley - I thought you would be interested in these vege beds at Alfriston Clergy House = a National Trust property near here.

This one is for Noah and Maddie - maybe Steve could build you a tree house like this one in your back garden.

I'm off to Oxford for the day tomorrow - my friend Margaret turns 80 next month so we are going out to lucnh at a posh restaurant to kick off the celebrations.

Hong Kong

Lovely stopover in Hong Kong. One unexpected event. We arrived at our hotel on Monday night to be greeted by a bevy of media photographers – we didn’t know who could have tipped them off about our visit. It turned out that a swine flu sufferer had stayed in the hotel last week so there was a lot of media interest in how the hotel was dealing with it. Hygiene measures were VERY evident – we had our temp taken 3 times before we got to our room. All the staff are wearing masks and gloves. There are alcohol handwash dispensers all over the place and all imaginable surfaces are disinfected numerous times a day. But every cloud has a silver lining – we were upgraded to an executive room on the 19th floor with access to the club facilities so, unless we catch H1N1 it will have been a bonus to have Mr *** staying here last week.

We haven’t done a whole lot. We took a bus to Aberdeen – a former fishing village on the other side of the island. Caught the Star ferry across the harbour and back. Spent a couple of hours in the Art Gallery – fabulous exhibitions of extremely intricately ancient gold filigree and wonderful ceramics – Jane Barr would love it. And wlked quite a bit – sometimes more than we planned – got a bit lost a couple of times.

We had our friends Alan and Andrea Walker over for drinks last night – it was lovely catching up again. Then we strolled through the Ladies Market at FaYuen St. I used to be able to spot heaps of bargains there on previous visits but it all looked too tacky – I think I’m over buying cheap designer fakes – not too sure about the ethics of it either.

We are off in the morning to London – we warned Christy and Andy of our near-miss with Mr **** and offered to stay away from them for a few days till make sure we weren’t contagious. Andy says we are welcome as long as we don’t kiss him too much – I’ll have to restrain Phil – you know what he’s like.

PS Kimberley and Ginny = I tried to take a photo of a cat for you but I think they've all been eaten. Sorry!
Star Ferry across to the island
























Contrasting the old and the new at Central



























The junks at Aberdeen still act as ferries across to the island which is now covered with high rise. The old photos of just 60 years ago have just a few low level homes and store houses.
I took this photo for Jeff who has bought Noah and Maddie fishing rods and is trying to teach them to fish - I thought this might be a timely reminder.



The exterior of the Museum of Art had been tranformed by these posters - it used to look like this. I think it's a big improvement but Phil isn't so sure.




































A fruit stall in Fa Yuen Street

Well done Christy

Just a couple of hours ago Christy heard that she had passed her exams to become a Consultant in Emergency Medicine - and at the first sitting!!!!!! . We are so happy for her. She has worked so hard for the past five years to get to this point.

Kimberley, Richie and friends creat a vege garden

On May 2, with the help of new freinds from the permaculture group they made a vege garden on their front lawn in Maroubra. Have a look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIvxKjBjR4k It is just fabulous.

Travel plans

On May 18 we are off again - this time on an around the world ticket - home again August 1. This is provided swine flu doesn't catch up with us. We heard on the news this morning that everyone in a Hong Kong hotel has been locked in for 7 days because one person has swine flu - makes you realise that the best laid plans can easily go awry. I'm not soo sure what we would do in a hotel for 7 days - watch a lot of TV and read all our books in one go I guess. Anyway, here are the plans:

May 18 Canb - Syd
May 18 Syd to HK

May 18/19/20 HK Royal Plaza Hotel, Mong Kok

May 21 HK to London

May 21 to June 2 Seaford with Christy and Andy

June 2,3, 4 Oxford
June 5,6,7,8 Seaford

June 9 Gatwick to Copenhagen
June 9/10/11 Copenhagen

June 12 Cruise
Copenhagen, Berlin, Tallinn, St Petersburg, Helsinki, Stockholm, Oslo

June 24/25/26 Brugges
June 27/28/29/30/ London
July 1 Seaford – Andy and Christy

July 7 London to Toronto

July 7/8/9/10 Mussoka Lakes

Niagra 11/7 to 18/7
July 19/20/21 Toronto

July 21 Toronto to LA

July 23 LA to Hawaii staying with Mel and Mim Lang

July 31 Hawaii to Syd QF 4 leaving 10.45am arrive 17.30 Aug 1

This Thursday I am off to Queensland to spend Mothers' Day with my Mum; home monday night then a quick spring clean of the house before we jet off early the next monday morning.

Geneva, Prague and other places

It's taken me a while to get these photos up on the blog - mostly because we got home 10 days before Christmas, a bit jetlagged and keen to prepare for the family coming to Canberra from all corners of the country. We then had a week down at Mollymook over New Year then a week at Noosa with my parents so now I am trying to catch up.

Our time in Europe was wonderful. Cold but fine and no wind so we managed the temps without any problem. The presenation of Phil's UNESCO medal was part of a big international education conference and this is the Australian delegation.





















There were nine medalists from countries as varied as Ethiopia, Finland, Mexico, Argentina and Bangladesh. Phil was the only one from an english speaking country. It was so good to meet up with educators from so many places who had all done really interesting things.



















Phil's daughter Jenny and her husband John are both teachers and came to Switzerland for the ceremony and stayed on for a holiday.


While we were in Geneva we spent a few
hours at the Red Cross Museum -
very sobering and confronting but you
have to admire the workers who go into
these dreadful situations and risk their
lives and wellbeing to help.



















I found a few great eco shops in Geneva - this florist had these tubs made out of tyres from Columbian buses turned inside out.































After a week in Geneva which included a lot of embassy receptions and meals out with family and friends we went to Prague with 5 of the other medallists for a 5 day study tour. The Czech government are co-sponsor of the medal which is named after one of their C17 educators.

Phil never misses an opportunity to chat up a pretty girl and he doesn't let his lack of proficiency in Czech language stop him.




















We spent an exceedingly cold day at the UNESCO heritage town of Kutna Hora - these Russian tourists had the right clothes for the conditions.
























The meals in the Czech Republic were wonderful - extremely varied and our
only criticism was that there was more food than we could manage most days.

We had some very sophisticated meals as well as a typical pub lunch of hearty soup and dumplings here.





















Prior to this trip we had only been to Prague in Summer when it was packed with tourists and the temps hovered around 38 deg so it was a change to see it in mid winter.
The Christmas markets in the Old Town Square were just beautiful . The sun set around 4pm but the christmas lights were fabulous. I think people in the northern hemisphere take a lot more trouble with decorations at Christmas - i guess they aren't thinking about holidays at the beach the way we are at that time.

A classic shot of Prague Castle from Charles Bridge



We had been planning to have a meal with our friends Thorwald and Jill from our Canberra church for ages so what better place to get around to it than Zurick. They were there for about 6 weeks at a church and we just stayed 2 nights. We had a lovely day with them - it is always great to be shown around a city by locals ( they lived there for about 20 years when Thorwald was teaching at Ruschlikon Seminary) - they know all the good places that tourists would easily miss. they also knew the best restaurant for lunch.

T

They took us to a beautiful shop full of Swiss made goods. I loved this hand made nativity set - i decided it was too fragile to bring home before Phil had time to work out whether our bank balance could stretch that far. There were so many beautiful things - lots of wooden toys and beutiful clothes but the prices were astronomical.

Zurich is a very elegant city and lots of the shop displays were just gorgeous.

This is a very clever coat. It has a zip down the front and the back -you can just make out the zipped in panel at the front - the panel can be turned upside down when you are pregnant or zipped into the back if you want to put the baby behind.

We even managed a few days back at Seaford before flying home. We never miss a chance to walk along the Seven Sisters and they looked their best on this cold but sunny afternoon










We even got to help put up the Christmas tree with a warm fire at out backs. Andy, how do you survive in shorts when the rest of us are thermally challenged?

I can't believe we are back in Seaford

it's just like being home. We arrived on Wednesday morning after an uneventful flight - just the way I like it!! Our luggage was waiting on the carousel when we came through immigration - a great relief after our arrival back in May when it took 3 days for the cases to catch up with us.

Christy is as lovely as ever - Andy has been home since we arrived with VVVV nasty flu so we are keeping our distance and hope we don't catch it. He's on the mend now and should be right for work on Monday.

Weather has been blissful since we arrived - bright blue skies and no wind - short days though - the sun has set by 4 pm so makes a long evening. We are in for a change today - snow is coming down from the north and the weather man said last night that by Sunday, taking into account the windchill factor the max will feel like -4deg - that's nippy. By then we will be in Geneva where it will be 2 deg to -5 with a 30% chance of snow - well at least it will justify all the themals I've packed.

Nothing of great note to report - we are relaxing, sleeping well, talking heaps, eating great food and doing a couple of moderate walks each day = a good way to recover from the flight. Off to Geneva tomorrow.

Well done, Alex

Phil's grandson Alex has just started a guitar course in Los Angeles and we heard today that he has won a scholarship - http://www.mi.edu/NewsDetail/599.aspx Not only does he get help with his tuition fees but a fabulous new guitar. We are so pleased for him and hope he has a great time living in LA and studying with some of the best guitarists in the world.

UNESCO's Jan Comenius Medal

Congratulations to Phil on recognition for a lifetime devoted to education - http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/global-recognition-for-educator/1283543.aspx

We are still having a great time

Just a short blog to let you know we are in Seaford. Andy is back form Africa having had a wonderful time and has some fabulous photos to prove it. We had a week away - Wales, Salisbury and Winchester and have had lots of visitors this week, Alan and Bronwyn - Phil's neice, Margaret and David Beniston an old London work colleague of mine, Phil and Naomi Beak from my old church in London. It has been great catching up with them all and having some delicious meals out but hasn't left much time for blogging. Will remedy that soon.

Today we have Phil's grandson Kerrin coming down from London for the day - the weather is fine and some sun - not the wet day as predicted - hope it stays that way. Watch this space.

We leave on Wednesday and will be home Friday.