Cooling off.
Dad, Alison, Paul, sophie, alan and I are near Salisbury at the maybe’s house in the country. We had a nice nature hunt in wellies. Then snooker, the oldies being smashed by the kids. A lovely home meal was followed by a crazy three a side familiy on on family ping pong match, which was pretty chaotic. Five balls at once is hard to follow.
So what better way than to have a sauna/swim session? So ultimatly I feel tired but freshhhh.
My walk Tuesday was great, I wrote a poemish thing. Then sweated a whole load and ate lots of free fruit.
Wednesday involved doing Very little. Dad alan and I saw district 9 in letchworth cinema, nice, comfy, cheap. I must say that the film I worth watching, it’s a new idea, with good morals. The basics are refugee treatment, and solidarity and freedom, see it, it’s wicked!
Yesterday we had a memorial for Ian/Nam, with some old family friends, families who we grew up with, nanny, some of his school friends, and family. It was emotional, but wonderful. Again yo hear such wonderful things, atop a hill under the sun was great. Being talked into taking part was definately worth it, it was cleansing, and left me feeling great.
Afterwards, some came back to dads for dinner, and it was the first time that us Home Farm kids were together in donkey’s years.
So to bed and a day of who knows what tomorrow.
Tag: ‘car’
Revitalismo
Saturday, September 12th, 2009Au revoir Suisse
Friday, September 4th, 2009So I’m on a bumpy easyjet flight to Manchester. It’s not bad, I’m sat by the wing exit so have plenty of leg room 
On the way through airport security I removed everything from my pockets, removed my belt, and still I beeped passing through the scanner. So while the security guard tried to pat me down, it got tricky as these shorts have no hope of staying up without my belt or hand to hold them, so all the security guards had a good joke on me.
On Wednesday, Nic and I headed down to Milan for the afternoon. The day started of with nic having a huge hangover and me a little worse for wear, but driving over the Saint Bernard pass was so stunning I felt great. So awesome that I had to keep stopping to take in the views. Driving across Italy was smooth and fast as usual. We chose to do the park and ride, thanks to wikitravel’s advice.
Milan is pretty cool, didn’t seem too touristy, but was pretty while modern also. I had liked to find some sunglasses, as I’d like some with prescription lenses. But like with current spec trends, I’m not a fan and never found anything, I’ll have a look in London, but may have to wait until LA.
Pizza and cocktails ended the day by the canal before heading back to Verbier.
Yesterday ian and I did some stuff, like cleaning the car, photographing it, then going for a joy ride up the mountain. It was super strange to be up there where I’ve spent so much time in the snow. It got a bit steep but nothing my car couldn’t handle, maybe a little something for the vertigo. We saw some marmots, odd creatures, take lots of photos, and made the car all dusty again.
The week I have been surrounded by Wii’s, but I prefer doing the real sports.
Oh and I’ve been having trouble with my ears, especially my right ear. They’ve been blocked, I’ve had trouble hearing, and it even got to the point where my ear was hurting. I’ve tried ear drop to see if I could clear them that way, but it on improved for a day. My toncils have been swollen and sore also, so I think I’ll have to try and see a GP when I find one. And my ears are having issues at altitude now.
So no more car now. It’s been great fun to have a comfortable, powerful, head turning car, but I’m not sad to lose it. I’ll certainly think twice before buying such a luxury toy in the future.
Maybe we can find something fun to drive in America.
So to the lake district with dad this evening, a nice walk tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll be nice and fit for it after exercising at altitude the past days.
A montagne
Tuesday, September 1st, 2009After the sleep lacked night, I woke up to a beautiful sunrise over the channel. Then off to the boat and I decided not to use the gps. I lost confidence in her, and prefer to find a more interesting route. Not to mention the fun of getting lost.
It was a beautiful drive to Belgium, Luxembourg, across to Germany, back to France along the Rhone, into Germany with some flower picking. There I got some speed up, but got a spot of trouble when I filled up the tank and my cards wouldn’t work, but thanks to martin I got away. I came into Switzerland just before sunset, which made for a stunning drive from Basel to Bern and Lausanne, a wonderful fun drive down, akin to watching Top Gear.
Sunday morning nic and I went for a dizzying walk, and even saw some marmots!
Monday I went to the gym, didn’t notice the time and left two and a half hours later aching and tired.
I went to see harriet and cedric, then back to nic and toto’s for a dinner party, yum yum, but couldn’t wait for sleep.
Now nic and I are doing errands, working on getting the car ready to sell.
Sic transit
Saturday, August 29th, 2009I’ve spent a rough night in my car. At first I slept in a car park overlooking Dover. I woke at 1am to a police van parked behind me. The didn’t see me asleep on the folded down rear seat, half in the boot, and were worried something horrible had happened. But the were off after a short background check.
I woke later to two cars parked near me, 10 or so young guys with torches checking over my car. When one came up close I climbed to the front, switched on the engine, and drove off, blinding them.
I found a much more pleasant place to sleep up the coast, and enjoyed a beautiful sunrise over the sea.
Martin and I now qualify to dive
We did some dives in an old quarry, flooded with sunken boats, cars, airplane ad newts. It’s pretty fun, and I can’t wait to do it in warmer waters.
I’ve spent a couple of lovely evenings with ammy, ron and louise. (Martin’s boat neighbours until he got floating). They are all awesome people and have surprised me, and given me some ideas and thinkings for my journeys. They also had a connection to Nam that I didn’t know of, and was great to converse with them.
So now I’m on the boat to France, swaying here and there, it’s fun to watch people wobbling down the boat. I’m going to take a long, but hopefully scenic route down to swissland.
Bon journée.
Oh and it’s colllllddd, welcome to autumn!
whole again
Thursday, August 6th, 2009so back in the uk, missing budapest.
the night before, i met jackie, bobby and leslie, and we went with the aussies to deak ter for a couple of beers. it’s worrying how some many young giurls easily look mid twenties, best to nt talk to girls, nahhh.
all evening we were entertained with lightening all around us, with pre storm winds, but no rain, which was lovely. the best part of the storm, minus the wet stuff is great outside in the park. so the aussies and headed off to szimpla. we arrived just in time before the rain, and had a long pint.
it was interesting that we came upon long in depth spiritual conversations, when the previous night none of us probably thought the others were even of such thoughts.
so the thought not necessary now, doesn’t mean that the same will be in the future thought.
so to yesterday morning and tired again i went to the dentist. this timeall went well, lots of chatting, no pain, a bit of dental cement, and i have a new tooth, so all my pearlies look great! (must remember to floss, and not eat trees!!!)
having seen a biker being squished between 2 german cars kinda puts a damper on my ideas of learning to ride a motorbike.
i had a great time couch surfing this past weekend, all in all staying in four places over 5 days, tiring, but great to meet some great people, and just have fun with others, travlling is wonderful
so i flew back, read the newspaper, boring, a car magazine, expensive and unproductive, but had some good music to listen to. wizzair isn’t a bad airline, pretty basic, but not unpleasant like ryanair!
i had a few pints with alan in downtown cambridge, watching posh chavs abuse the punting kids, ate burritos, mmm, and loving the cider.
so today we visited the garage to see my car. it’s in bits, but the guy says wont cost too much to fix. however it wont be ready before monday. so time to chill here at dad’s and get things done.
off to gym with alan now.
i will miss budapest. it was great, beatiful girls, fun parties, cool bars and parks, so sunny. well the sun just makes life so nice, it’s a shame living in the uk people don’t get enough sun, as it makes such a great difference to the happiness you have in life. maybe some pictures later
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite Airborne
Thursday, July 30th, 2009I’m on a wizzair flight from Luton to Budapest. Super tired, I had to wake at half four to take a bus to the airport, which I almost missed. I find myself cutting things quite fine thes days.
Yesterday was pretty depressing.
To start off I saw the mess that was the front end of my car, after hitting the animal, destroyed bumper, broken windscreen/headlamp washer system. Great so that needs fixing as well as the exhaust and windscreen.
It was raining most of the day.
I went to the hair dresser to get a hair cut and was told by a hair dresser of thirty years to wait for somebody else to cut my hair. He couldn’t get his mind around cutting my hair in a non-classic, unconventional fashion. Well now I have shorter, more normal hair, than I can remember having. I like it.
So on the up dad alan and I went to the cinema to see Pelham 1-2-3. It was very Hollywood and predictable, and fairly entertaining, but not something that I’d usually pay to watch.
To heat up the damp day we went for an Indian, so the day was not the worst ever.
This seems to be the trend when I return to the uk, damp, dark, drab, dull. But that’s only because I just came from the beach. I still love the place, just probably couldn’t enjoy living there.
Off to the sun, dentist and fun I go.
Thunder n lightening, very very frightening
Friday, July 17th, 2009I’m soaked through, have been for hours.
I took today to learn to change the engine oil in a car, my car. Well to start with I had to make a repairation to the exhaust, easy as pie. Just picked up. Kit from halfords and stuck it all together. Draining the oil involved a quick google to get instructions, jack the front up onto blocks, but then came trouble as the previous person to do it tightened the sump valve and oil filter too much. Well with some violence this was solved.
While martin went off to give blood, I closed up, refilled the oil, and then lost half of the new oil due to a minor mistake. So finally seal up the underside of the car, while the heavens opened, hot covered in oil, went up to the boat to find the laptop soaked, along with lots of other stuff, oh well!
So martin and I went driving around to find more oil, and Chichester is flooded, seems they can’t build roads, or even roofs!
Well I’m all ready to leave for Switzerland, actually can’t wait, with this bloody weather, even if all this lightening is awesome.
Yesterday involved specs shopping around bristol due to a two hour queue for the Bristol museum to see the bansky exhibit. No we won’t come back tomorrow an hour before the museum opens.
And for something positive, martin and I signed up for our PADI 1 course
See ya in swissland.
Capability is not acceptability
Saturday, July 11th, 2009Today I’m couch surfing in Kerry.
Last night, agota, sebastien and I went out. Being that we started after midnight, we weren’t so drunk to dance to the cheese in the club until it was time to leave, so we had our own wake the house mates party, until seven am.
So today has been a little rough.
I said my goodbyes and drove off. It’s slow going on Irish roads, but I got to the gap of dunloe. It’s beauterific! I worry that I got a bit excited and damaged the underside of the car when we flew through the mountains, however much fun was had.
So now it’s rainy, foggy but not too cold, in cahersiveen. I’m staying with ciaran, a couch surfer, not like other couch surfers that I’ve met. He’s mid life, his wife and kids have just left him, he’s Irish, well travelled and has a huge beautiful house by the sea, and grows his own veg. We had great home made dinner, red wine, cool chats, then went to his sister’s pub. Even better, the next pub had an impromptu gathering of music, guitars, harmonica, fiddle…singing. Awesome.
Finally we did the responsible thing and cycled home in the rain, gees, I don’t know whether it was the booze but the km uphill almost killed me.
Well off to sleep to await the next adventures.
Rough seas
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009i spent yesterday evening with izzi n her boyfriend mark. we had a nicish dinner by the canal in sardo. nice food, but poor value for money, and one rude waiter. but the guys were fun, and i spent some time with fronk, izzi’s baby puppy pug. it is insane, and pugly and cute and wierd!
i picked up a new pair of yen jeans. i love the design of these jeans. they aren’t cheap, but i guarentee that i will wear the life out of them. i haven’t really worn much in the way of other trousers, apart from yen’s, in the past 4 years. independant small designers beat the highstreet in my opinion.
i then met agota up in turnpike lane and we set off for fishguard. so this journey was slow due to traffic, and to make the long day worse, we arrived 40 minutes after a ferry left, leaving us with a two and a half hour wait before the next departure. also i had a couple of words from the local constabulary due to an overtaking i made earlier in the county, but all fine. it shows how different a world that i have been living in to that which is so close by.
so the ferry wasn’t without incident. agota and i sat upstairs to avoid the crowds of kids, to get some peace. once we left, she made a little joke about sea sickness. but this soon turned into a nightmare, for agota, and the whole ship. we were on a smallish catamaran ferry and so the small swells caused a lot of rolling. after 15 minutes agota ran to the toilets, and i didn’t see her for an hour and a half. for the rest of the ship, i have never seen so many sick people in my life. 80% of the passengers were regularly using the sick bags. piles of them dissappeared from the stocks. i didn’t have the slightest problem, but it was pretty disturbing to watch it, like watching a school that has just been poisoned. well you should have seen the passenger’s faces pick up colour when the captain announced that we were 10 minutes from land.
the drive to dublin was peaceful and slow. the government here really pushes the lower speed limit, and with shock signs it is very effective.
agota and i went out for a pint, some greasy food and came home for a bit more drinking, and a french chat with her flatmates. so it’s time for bed, it’s been a long day.
but first you have to watch the best ever topgear road test:
ever. jeremy clarkson at his best, in a ford fiesta!!!
Hangin
Saturday, July 4th, 2009Euggg hung over. I just had to drive across central London feeling like crap.
I’m going to o and see portabello road.
I’m looking for an old chunky gold watch, preferably not in working order, I don’t care to know the time too much.
Yesterday I dropped by camden to see the guys in Cyberdog and popped by izzi’s and met her baby pug. It’s cute but sooo weird.
Then I headed to the squat in crouch end to meet with bertrand. We drank cider. There were lots of puppies available, I’d have loved to take one, but i’m far from capable of looking after one at the present time.
Matt came along and we and others went to Camden to go out. I that the first time that I actually went to Camden to go out like that?
Well the purple turtle was strange, like being in the five Years ago life, seeing mates and colleagues from before. Then we went to Dublin castle where we danced. I was so drunk that a girl I was getting with gave up. Oops!
So now I need breakfast to cure my self inflicted ails.
Oh and the iPod having Bluetooth, about bloody time, I love it.
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