breakfast and beyond.......

Morning in Bognor; cloudy but dry. Our very nice hotel included a full breakfast which was just as well because it's the most expensive one we've stayed in, including all the one's we used in 2009 when we were here for 4 weeks. Now it hasn't been mentioned that this hotel caters strongly for  people who are blind. Guide dogs are welcome everywhere and bedding and food is supplied to the rooms. Awesome huh? The problem that seems to be associated with this; they burn the toast. I don't know if it's an old toaster and they don't want to replace it or if the cook was having a bad day or if, in their experience, people who are blind like their toast burnt because without the sense of sight they are not sure if it's in their mouth yet, but then I was under the impression (although I've never asked) that people without one sense develop stronger other senses, so I am amazed that toast wasn't flying left right and centre. Anyway, enough about the toast. We ate well enough and set off on our way to Old Sarum.

 Old Sarum has been a defensive site for over three thousand years and is impressive indeed. It is set on a hill, about 2 miles from Stonehenge and a lot of work has at different stages, gone into piling up more and more earth and carting a good deal of stones up said hill to be artfully placed together to form yet more massive walls.

It was  an  iron age fort so there would have been much discussion about arrow heads and axes. I don't know how they would have kept warm, I had to go into the toilet and add another layer plus a hat. It was used by the Romans, and the Saxons to keep out the vikings... not sure how they got the boats that far inland. But, it seems to be mainly renowned for the Norman invasion of William the Conquerer, who built his first motte and bailey castle here and then proceeded to build more all over the country to consolidate his successful invasion. He basically gathered all the incredibly wealthy landowners to this spot and said 'Guess what boys, it's all mine now.' Then he ordered the Domesday Book and recorded everything that was owned by everyone, after deciding who he wanted to have what, including even the smallest number of livestock. It's a fascinating book that the experts still heartily debate the purpose of today.

Anyway,good old Willy left it all to his youngest son Henry the 1st and so on and so forth until Henry the 8th was in charge and gave permission for all the stones to be sold off. So now it is but a ruin, albeit it a magnificent one. The wind was the iciest we have encountered and even I found myself needing to control my runny nose. Also not previously mentioned, Glenn seems to have some kind of nose dysfunction in England and requires great numbers of hankies and orders to stop sniffing. Thankfully, this condition does not result in snoring. I seem to have gotten a bit off track there but, all in all it was a fantastic weekend!

 The weekend finished with us grabbing a cuppa tea and lunch from the Marlborough Church.

The sunniest place in Britain - Bognor (Sat)

Sorry slow in blogging this...

Its Sat the 23rd and off we go to Bognor. Nic's 1 act play "Chinese Whispers" had won 3rd prize in the Bognor Regis playwiting competition. In my opinion yet another stunning acheivement, to think that in such a short time Nic has had so much success. We discovered on the night that the Judge was a well respected local author Beryl Kingston, not someone i was aware of but as she has sold over 1 million books and has in excess of half a million library borrowings every year,  i guess ill accept her decision to give Nic 3rd instead the obvious first i would have given.

We set out at a reasonable around 8.30, for the 3.5 hour trip to Bognor, which apparently has the most sunshine of anywhere in Britain... we can hardly wait for that :) I have put a pic i took of Nic as we drove unfortunately it doesnt quite show the 2 rugs etc that she has to put round her to suvive the non heated Rover on the early starts... however you can see the jacket, gloves and just assume the 4 layers beneath.

Our first stop was to have a look at one of the Lilliput lane houses (Best Friends) that Nic has in her collection, we had looked online and seen where it was and thought why not lets have look, when we got there it was most interesting to see the difference between reality and Lilliputia, in fact we saw half a dozen houses along the beautiful country lanes that could have easily been used as models for LL, its no wonder they use this area to get inspiration..however, the house itself was surrounded by cars and wasnt quite as the model would make you think.

From here it was onto the giant White Horse carving into the hillside and the Uffington castle and fort (fear not, the castle doesnt exist and the fort is mostly earthworks etc, so no raving about thick walls, or what were they talking about). It was a beautiful sunny morning and the pleasure of driving along the country lanes as the blossoms begin to pop out reminds us how lucky we are to be experiencing all of this

And so the giant horse... well.. we think it was, lol, it wasnt quite as clear as perhaps the photographs we had seen would suggest... well, that or we desperately need a Helicopter. We then took the long walk up the hill to the castle and around the horse, the views were breathtaking... or, we were just out of breath, either way..fantastic.

and so onto the Bognor, we can hardly wait to stroll the sunny beach, feel the sand between our toes, dip our feet in the ocean. Of course no trip can happen without James playing his regular joke with us, so when we program the hotel in.. he doesnt recognise it and cant tell us where to go, fortunately Fanny remians in my pocket and a little fiddly with her and we are in the hotel without too much trouble and a lovely hotel it was, clean, large room and just across the road from the beach, we moved in.. had a cuppa and headed out...

The sunny beach... tick...

The sand between our toes... umm...maybe not.....

Feet in the ocean... well, will shoes do?

But it was a beautiful sunny afternoon walk...

So back to the room and then off for the performance at the Bognor Regis Recital Hall, As it was to be a rehearsed reading, rather than a full performance we werent expecting too much but fortunately as Chinese whispers  is very simply set they didnt ned to much in the way of props or staging etc.

The three performance were fabulous (obviously Nics was the best but i may be biased) The performance was brilliant, particularly the femaile lead who played the part almost flawlessly and really brought the words to life. The crowd obviously enjoyed it, laughed appropriatley and applauded enthusiastically at the end. We were treated like visiting royalty as we had "come all the way from Birmingham". At the end Nic was presented with a certificate by The judge who was fabulously complimentary about Nic's writing, the meanings and challenges posed within the play, all in all a brilliant night.

A verrrry big file of a bit of the performance...

Sunday bloody Sunday ( Ireland day 3 )

The third and final day was to be a different one to most of our trips. We were off to Bogside in Free Derry, this is the heart of the "Troubles" in Ireland. The word "troubles" seems to be the standard euphemism for what was effectively a war.

We were going to the Museum of Free Derry and then on a walking tour of the area with a local guide, i wont go into the details, but this was without doubt and incredibly interesting and informative time, we certainly learnt an amazing amount about the history of ireland and an area that had been subjugated and oppressed for a long long time before "The Troubles"



Once again we are left speechless by our British experience... this time a very very different speechless. To be standing in places where people have been killed in cold blood such a short time ago... To walk where people with murderous intent, built bombs that were taken, literally... just a few minutes drive to be placed with the aim to kill, maim and cause as much pain and suffering to people who were no different... sigh, it is a place that should teach the whole world so much.

And so it was time to head home and leave Ireland, probably our favourite trip away, we discussed why we liked it so much... in the end we came up with the basic theory that Ireland and Australia are similar places, with people of a similar mindset and that was what made it even better.

 ... and so back in Birmingham... lol as the pic shows, clouds and traffic are par for the course, we climbed off the plane... which was parked about 600 metres from the terminal.. so.. after being last off the plane, we crammed last onto a bus to take us to the terminal... off that bus.. and we ring the next bus to take us back to the car park... a few minutes of waiting at the bus stop left us with no option but to test our recently learnt Moonwalking skills... the bus driver was apparently most entertained and enjoyed Nics dancing.






Thats all for Ireland... couple of days break.. then off to Bognor.

When you were sweet sixteen (Ireland day 2 afternoon)

Off we head from the bridge, the sun had begun to break through and whilst there was a chill in the air it was simply a beautiful day. We stopped off for lunch and again managed to find oursoelves one of the terrific British cafe's, so once again i am given a huge mound of breakfast and leave filled to overflowing.

We are of to Dunluce castle, it looked quite nice in the pics we had seen online, unfortunately it was not Heritage or Nat Trust so we didnt know too much about it but hoped it would be good.. and for a 2 pound entrance fee.. by god it had better be good!! :)

I am pleased to say it was more than good. The sunshine, the steep cliffs, the sparkling seas and the fabulous rolling hills just made this possibly the most spectacular castle we have seen. First built in the 13th century and continually built and rebuilt. It was built right on the edge of the cliffs, and i mean right on the edge so much so, that in the 1600's the kitchen collapsed into the sea taking a number of servants to their death, it is said that the lady of the castle then refused to ever live in the castle agian after that.

I was also able to climb all the way down to the base of the castle which again was incredible as you stand at the base and see the overwhelming size of the structure, there is also a cave/passage through the rock cliff which is straight through to the sea... all very famous five and smugglers :)

As i understand it... "no access" ... is Latin or Roman or gaelic for "please go wherever you like" what with my manners, i felt it would be rude to ignore such a pleasant suggestion and immediately went into the cavey bit.. it was very.. Cavey  :)  and  a little nerve racking as a couple of little stones fell on my head and the water rushed in a litle further than i expected.

Having spent much longer than we imaginned at this superb location, it was back into the car and home to the hotel, a rest and a few minutes of pure excitment watching family Fued on telly and its out to grab some dinner and have a quick look at beuatiful Derry by night. Such a pretty city.

The pipes, the pipes are calling... ( Ireland day 2 (Morning) )

A busy day planned ahead so we were out the door by 8am on our way to the Giants Causeway which is pretty much the northern tip of Ireland about an hours drive away. The causeway is a stuning area of natural beauty formed when a volcano cooled thousands of years ago and left this incredible landscape. This was something Nic had particualrly looked forward to seeing since we had seen it on a TV show here (the show is called Coast and is also responsible for our trip to "the wash" which you may remember wasnt a roaring success, much as we enjoyed it, the lack of a helicopter etc made it slightly less awe inspiring than the TV showed so we feared that this might be a similar letdown) how wrong we were!!

Unfortunately i probably canniot even begin to describe the beauty, the spectacular patterns and just the ...

...breathtaking beauty of the area, the pics (to me) dont do it justice, but ill put a few up just because its so fabulous...

If you would like more info about it.. click here
a Lonnnnnnnnnnnnngggg video of the  causeway too...

another kilometre walk along the coast are the "giants boot" and "organ pipes" 

again something we were looing forward to seeing, however, after climbing up a verrrrry steep and verrrry long pathway to the pipes, about 100 metres before reaching them was a sign....

these signs were obviously ignored!

and so we drag ourselves away from the causeway, try to catch our breath and head off to the next spot, which is Carrick-a Rede. this is a rope bridge that spans across a 20 metre wide chasm, some 30 metres above the water, as we approach it the sun breaks through, the colours of the water are incredible a million shades of green and blue and every mixture from there, i always assumed the Emerald isle referrred to the green fields etc.. and im sure it does, but you could equally say it about the beuatiful waters that surround it.

The bridge walk was fabulous and exciting and the views again simply incredible, oncew again we have been lucky to be anywhere when hardly anyone else is there these attractions would be wall to wall people in summer and to have it almost to ourselves is without doubt something we are very lucky to have had.

Well thats the morning done... i think ill do another post for the afternoon....coz it takes a lonng time ti write and load pics and vids :)