Arcticterntalk.org

The blog of a travelling psychiatrist and football lover. Who happens to be a halfway decent photographer. Takes a cynical view of the world

Archive for the tag “holiday”

18 May 2013

Reflections from Portugal


Portugal is not a country that UK folks travel widely to. Maybe a trip to the Algarve or a cruising stop in Lisbon. After a short trip there I must report that this is a great country to visit and remarkably cheap. Arriving at Lisbon airport one is greeted by a slightly run down airport that is undergoing some sort of renovation but this is not Terminal 5. The facilities are a little jaded. Drving out of the airport one is in an industrial hinterland where some familiar and some unfamiliar names can be seen. But it is when one gets 30 kms outside Lisbon that the scenery becomes  green and old castles can start to be seen. There are mainly toll roads so driving 130 kms from Lisbon to Batalha will cost around 9 euros. The Portuegese in fact have invented the technology that allows a little electronic tag on the car windscreen that means that queueing at toll booths can be a thing of the past. The striking observations are what a hilly and mountainous country Portugal is. Just all up and down. Everywhere. The people are friendly but not all speak English. Some understand a lot but cannot speak much, but most smile a lot. Most things seem cheap. Around £1 buys you a bottle of water in a hotel room that would be double that in UK. Generally everywhere is more relaxed. On arrival at the hotel there is no interrogation about credit card etc, in fact no-one asked. Another quaint difference is that food is often served lukewarm rather than hot. Scrambled eggs and bacon at breakfast were if I were kind warm. I only got to stay in one hotel Villa Batalha hotel in Batalha. An incredibly good hotel, friendly, comfortable and with nice chairs and furniture all around, so no need to sit in a reception area such as is the norm in UK. The most striking observation however is that there are so few people around, now to put this into context this was 130 kms from Lisbon. But few cars, few people, little noise, nice looking sports facilities and so on. A place that is well worth coming, however one night in Batalha would be enough. Finally back at Lisbon airport, the airport lounges are distinctly not UK. A moany sort of woman asked for some healthy food, the stern girl said  “you can have an apple”, and meant it! A woman in Batalha was either dead or sleeping soundly outside presumably her souvenir shop, now that something we do not see in Primark or Costa!

Batalha

Batalha

Woman Sleeping outside a shop. Presumably not dead
Woman Sleeping outside a shop. Presumably not dead

 

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24 Apr 2013

The price of Ice Cream


Walking along the small high street of a surrey town I happened to glance in at a cafe shop that recently started up, selling mainly coffee, cake and a few other items. Few tables outside on the pavement and looks overall quite nice. What however caught my eye was the price of a single scoop of ice cream or ” italian gelato” as it was described, a single scoop was £2.21.  When did this happen? Recently Iceland were selling huge packs of white Magnums for 4£ and that got you I recall at least 8. A huge 2 litre tub of a nice ice cream like Kelly’s cornish can often be got on special offer for as little as 2£. Crazy pricing. Let me know the most expensive scoop of ice cream that you know of, outside of central London or other touristy areas.

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31 Mar 2013

Winkworth Arboretum


Winkworth Arboretum is a National trust property about 5 miles from Guildford in a quaint town called Godalming. The most striking thing about Godalming is that the houses are massive and the Waitrose in the centre of town even larger. The impression given is that a huge crater was created into which Waitrose slotted to fill the hole, and the road then re-built to bypass said Waitrose. But I digress. The Arboretum is a decent place to walk but sadly the extensed winter meant that few plants were visible today other than the occasional daffodil or snowdrop. No evidence of the Magnolias coming to life.

The walk is also not an easy one, many steps and slopes means that the walk  might not be suitable for all. Can it be recommended? Maybe. One needs to return when spring has made an appearance to be decisive but I suspect it will become a nice place to walk. The Boathouse, is what it sounds, an old hut by the lake, but with chairs and old books in it gives the impression of a real old room. A sign on the door mentions that the NT have applied for permission essentially to have music and alcohol in here. Sounds good.

Winkworth Arboretum IMG_0144 IMG_0148 IMG_0150 IMG_0154 Winkworth Arboretum

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04 Mar 2013

Clacton in Essex


Clacton is a place I visit once a year. Around 120 miles from IMG_9411 IMG_9416 IMG_9421 IMG_9422London. ImageImageImageIf Iam lucky the sun shines, there is no rain and the few hours I am there I can spend walking the promenade and eating chips on the pier. Today I had maybe more than a few hours and the cracks are starting to show in this quintessential seaside town. Firstly there are few people around, secondly those people had a median age of maybe 70 years and lastly places are starting to close down. Gone is the Comfort hotel. Closed was the restaurant at the end of the pier ( it will open but last year was open this time). The wooden pier looked not only ramshackle but in parts unsafe. Some of the cracks between the wooden planks were maybe a touch too large, and should the planks have moved as much as they did?

For 5£ Sausages and chips were mine, although the interpretation of the server as to what constiuted a ” little milk” in my tea did not match my own view. The day was cold, sunny and hazy. The wind farms could not be seen out at sea. The shops all looked a little jaded. I enjoyed my day but would I go back in the summer? Probably not.

A few things did stand out though. The Graffiti was good!Image

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23 Feb 2013

The Spooky View of Lindisfarne Castle taken from the Graveyard of Lindisfarne Priory


Sometimes places have atmospheres. Lindisfarne or Holy Island has always been a holy place since St Aidan arrived here in something like 700AD to try and preach christianity to the heathen masses at that time. That holy atmosphere prevails. The castle can be seen in the distance with gravestones in the foreground. In the church the ghosts seem to be carrying actively the coffin out. Many of the gravestones in the graveyard have almost disappeared back into the earth and recount the lives of many who have died over the last 300 years. A holy atmosphere prevails still on a lovely islandImageImageImageImage

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03 Feb 2013
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Candidates for the Most Ridiculous Lampshade in the world


This is a new annual competition I am running. Here is the first entry from Barcelo Raval Hotel Foyer in Barcelona. A life size horse, with the lamp coming out of its head. This one gets 7/10 for nonsense factor. Image 

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18 Nov 2012

Ice Dancing on Navigator of the Seas


Ice Dancing was not actually what I had expected to see on a short cruise aboard Navigator of the Seas, but there was an ice rink and there was a show. A real challenge to get photographs essentially almost in the dark, but working with high ISO speed and trwating the skaters as though they were Formula 1 racing cars helped. Anyway a few shots from what was truly a brilliant spectacle that was enthralling.

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06 Apr 2012

A visit to The Menagerie or maybe a Private Zoo


All days have things which were not planned, but today there were long odds against visiting a house in Croydon crowded with animals. The story goes like this. A close relative was asked to house sit and then invited us around to sit in the garden on a nice sunny day. In fact a very nice sunny day. The house though cannot be described as average. A large house on four floors, including a basement that functioned as a room.

Around 7 cats roamed the house and the environs, all that i viewed being ginger or marmalade coloured. Some friendly and some not. What our relative had not been fully briefed on was that one of the cats was pregnant. So today when the cat was missing, she went searching for it and found it plus one kitten under the duvet in an upper floor room on the top of a bunk bed. The kitten and mother were doing just fine. I am not an expert on ageing kittens but guessed that this one was around 12 hours old, looked well, did some squeaking and was feeding from mother, so all was well. Photographs below. Mother did not object to the paparazzi there.

In the actual garden there was a rabbit run with two rabbits, each allowing folks to pick them up for 10 seconds before they engaged in a kind of rodeo effort to remove themselves from your arms. All fine, until they managed to escape. Now luckily a pair of Crocodile Dundee like 11 year olds were in attendance and caught the two miscreants before they run out of or burrow out of the garden and make a rapid escape from Croydon environs. Next entertainment was the chickens in a huge run who were making desperate attempts to escape, around 6 of them and not stupid either. Lastly, there were 3 hamster cages. One contained a tiny hamster that looked more like a field mouse , and was apparently a Chinese Crested Hamster/ Russian Dwarf. Another contained a hamster without exaggeration as large as a guinea pig, and the final cage seemed to contain nothing……….worrying. All good fun on a sunny afternoon.

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