Ventured off to the East coast for a few days.. just arrived in Great Yarmouth
We’ve taken a drive up the A47 today and are currently residing in Great Yarmouth for the night. Tomorrow we move next door for a few days to Hopton on sea for a little rest and recuperation.
We arrived here just as the sun was setting, so just the one picture to be cracking on with.
Hoping for a little stress free time away from it all as everything has been just a bit too full on lately.
Take care. Stay safe. Be happy 😆
Checking in after a little time away..
Apparently I’ve not posted anything for a few weeks so I’d better, provide a little update of life as it is at the moment.
We’ve just yesterday, arrived back from a lovely 8 days away on the beautiful island of Madeira. I’m not a good flyer, I hate it to be honest, I panic, I sweat and I prepare to meet my maker on every flight, to be honest I’m very hard on myself. To therefore choose to fly to an island, that notoriously has one of the most difficult landing strips on the planet was not probably one of my best decisions. That landing almost finished me, the brakes were on so hard I was almost in the seat ahead of me, how we even had rubber left on the tyres I’ll never know. But the holiday was lovely. Some pics below.
There are two individuals who seem to have had such an impact on the island, that their presence is seen at most places that you visit. Christiano Ronaldo, a son of Madeira and sporting legend owns massive swathes of the island and the locals won’t have a word said against him, rightly so as he is a local lad that has done good. Secondly is Sir Winston Churchill, he only visited the island twice with a fifty year gap in between, but he painted some local pictures and as a result there are statues and areas dedicated to him all around the island.
Then we came home.
A change in temperature drop of about 15 degrees is extremely noticeable, it’s cold at home, winter is starting to wrap its frosty tentacles around the UK.
The house move is stagnant, nothing is occurring at the moment and I suspect the money people are rubbing their hands as the bill increases with the time they are taking. We’ll just have to be patient, I’m still not confident of what will occur, as I’ve stated from the start my confidence is at an all time low and always has been. Incompetence reigns supreme. (Them not us)
So that’s about it, apart from some new health conditions that I won’t bother you with, I’ll save those for another day, just things that I’ve never experienced before, starting to occur on a more regular basis, growing pains if you like.
So I hope you are all well, being kind to whoever you meet, and most of all that you are all happy.
I couldn’t ask for more.
Take care.
No words or trying to speak “Proper” here. 13 of us have just arrived back from four most beautiful days on the east coast at Norfolk. Temperatures up into the high twenties, a phenomenon not often experienced on this coast in the UK. It made for a wonderful break away, and this family bond remains as strong as ever as a result. Here are some photos to chew on, all taken with my trusty iPhone 14.
Have a super day, stay safe and enjoy this wonderful weather.
Meaning just where the hell have the last six months gone. Sit back and blink and that’s half the year already gone. It’s amazing that once the better weather kicks in just how quick it just all seems to cascade by, if only you could put the brakes on time and just enjoy it a little bit longer.
The garden has bulked up after the perfect mix of rain and sunlight, and is about to abruptly burst into colour, some of them are impatiently exploding already and it’s starting to look lovely. But it will all be over too soon and that barren, bleak lack of colour will soon be on us. Oh for year round colour, if only.
The house is warming up, and as we are in quite an old house it’s the one time of the year when the environment isn’t controlled by the heating system, allowing a welcome break from the claws of the energy production companies. We now have the windows open.
That’s another issue. Opening windows. If like us you currently live near the intersection of two major road arteries then you will know what I’m on about. Opening the windows means you let every speeding, inconsiderate motoring manifestation into your home, like it or not. And the dirt and dust produced by vehicles throttling past your door 24hrs a day means no matter how much you dust, there will be more for you in a few minutes to remove. Maybe time goes so fast as the amount of toxicity we must be inhaling is controlling just how long we have left? Who knows?
Well the windows can’t stay open forever as you’d never get a good nights sleep if you wanted to, because of the boy racers and bike demons who constantly insist on revving their two and four wheeled steeds as they race off into the distant night.
We have a lovely family getaway coming up this month when about 18 of us are heading off to the East coast for a few days. The nice thing is that there is a great mix of ages from about 21 right up to the late 70s and that is wonderful, it’s great to know the youngsters want to spend time with us old farts, to be honest it’s pretty much down to them that this holiday is being arranged, oh and the usual organisational craft work of my dear wife.
On this holiday all the old fellahs, take a boat to float on the boating lake at Gorleston on the east coast. On the day we travel up, it’s always been a quick stopover and a tradition for two of the older members to float their radio controlled boats they have spent a lot of time and patience on. I’ve always jokingly threatened them that one day I’d build a submarine or military boat that would blow theirs out of the water. This year that veiled threat has been achieved and I will hopefully be joining the ranks of the family boating fraternity when I let my torpedo destroyer loose on the good folk of Gorleston. I’ve been building this boat since it was brought as a present for me by a very good family friend on my last birthday. Its construction has already been touched on, through my blog : PT109 wooden torpedo boat kit – construction and I’m hoping the build and testing of the boat will be completed and published within the next few days. It was always my goal to have it ready for this break. Let’s see what happens.
About now, is probably my favourite part of the year as I have discussed on here before, May & June, that period when spring kicks in and is a precursor to the oncoming summer. But as I’ve said earlier it is all over too soon.
And what a perfect canvas is currently in place for the ongoing sale of this property, yes that is in full swing now and the footprints of strangers should start being witnessed around this property very shortly….but in a way I’m not really bothered if it sells or not. I love this place apart from the negatives I’ve stated above, and as you can see they are few.
No doubt the Christmas stock is already sailing the oceans of the world to be in all our supermarkets very shortly. As if summer is not already short enough.
Whatever the season is wherever you are on this little ball of rock floating around in space, enjoy it, have fun and always spare a friendly outlook to those looking in. It doesn’t last long, so enjoy it whilst you can.
Thanks for popping by.
Been looking through some old photos and this one instantly hit me as beautiful.
This was our little Alf back in 2013 at Camber sands in Sussex. We had a family day out there on a beautiful sunny, but wind swept day where we were all suitably sandblasted. It was Alfs first ever visit to a beach as he was only about five months old here. To me I see a young creature just starting his life looking out into a big old world of adventure and learning. To me it’s beautiful as it has a wonderful story connected to it.
We are all mortal and one day our time will be done. All we have in the end are cherished memories and they can never be taken away.
Peace.
Today will be consumed by just the one activity, we are heading down to the south coast of the island, somewhere we have never visited before. So today will be Black beaches, Volcanoes, Glaciers and Waterfalls. We’ve been looking forward to this one.
On our way we passed the volcano Nick named by those who struggle with the Icelandic language as E15. Why E15? Well it began with the letter “E” and has 15 other letters after it that’s why! Its proper name is Eyjafjallajökull, you will know of it, as it was the one the erupted in 2010 causing all the disruption to European airspace as its massive cloud blanketed Europe. It looked so serene from the bus as we passed by on our journey south.
Leaving early from the city centre we were heading out on Route 1, the island circular road that encompasses the island, we will be heading south for approx 2.5hrs towards Reynisfjara beach just outside the town of Vik.
From this point on I’m going to post some pictures as written text does not do these places justice.
Reynisfjara beach
And this video at the black beach sums it all up. It was shot in normal full colour mode but all you can see is black and white, maybe the odd colourful coat or two on passing tourists.
After some time at the beach just drinking in its mystical majesty and getting some fantastic pictures we moved on to the town of Vik, about 20 minutes away to have some lunch. A very pleasant Lamb Stroganoff later we moved on to our next point of interest.
Sólheimajökull Glacier
Sólheimajökull glacier is a perfect example of how global warming is effecting the last remaining glaciers in Iceland, that are retreating year on year at quite an alarming rate. However, it is a beautiful site, what is left. They say that within 150 years there will be no remaining Glaciers on this island.
From here we went on to visit our first of two waterfalls we would be seeing today and this first one has always been one I have wanted to visit.
Skógafoss falls
Skogafoss falls are purely wonderful. With a four hundred plus step climb up to its top you can look down onto the river as it makes its descent to the ground below. It is a magical and most beautiful site surrounded by volcanoes and lush green land. (As the snow has all gone)
From here we moved on to our second waterfall and last point on today’s trip. This waterfall has a uniquely individual twist to it, you can actually walk behind it if the weather is good enough, and today it was fine. Just be prepared to get wet as it’s a constant mist of water all the way around.
Seljandfoss waterfall
Seljandfoss waterfall is unique. Come take a walk around it.
It’s been a day of pure majesty and scenes of some of natures finest displays of grandeur and beauty. We haven’t even began to scratch the surface of some of the places we can visit here, there is so much more to see and do. And I’m certainly hoping we are back here again soon as we are both still very much in love with this island.
I won’t be posting a day 5 post as that will be a day of recovery from all the walking, some packing and dinner at the Hard Rock Reykjavik. All pretty boring stuff. I will however do a little recap post with some other pictures when we arrive back in the Uk. So thanks for looking in, it’s always appreciated. Back to boring old fixing stuff next week.
Stay safe, peace to all 🙏
Anyone who’s been to this part of the world has probably been on the golden circle tour, which is a great introduction to what this area has to offer.
However we are not, as we’ve been here before and done that, so the next couple of days will be spent doing variations of that trip to our own agenda. Today was one of those days. We’ve spent the morning after breakfast browsing the area. I always look for an item to take home that will remind me of our visit and today I think I have found the item I would like. It’s a piece of art on glass painted by a superb glass artist named Ella Rosinkrans. Ella is one of only a few glass artists on the island and has been designing and creating these art forms for about the last 25 yrs. it also helps living near the Eyjafjallajökull volcano as all the black portions of her art contain ash from this volcano that caused so much disruption back in 2010 when its eruption closed airspace over Europe for a number of weeks.
Anyway I will be purchasing one of her items as a memento of this visit. We will be back to her studio on day 5 to collect it.
Whilst browsing the shops we came across this one. the shop name loosely translates as “The Golden Cat” it hadn’t opened yet, however patiently waiting at the door for opening time was….a black cat.
We then popped around to the original Reykjavik cathedral just down by the old government building.
As with a lot of Reykjavik this cathedral had a big connection to Denmark. it was built by the Danish king at the time, built for the people around a time of great hardship as a place where they could all congregate for safety.
We then moved on to our next activity.
The Blue lagoon here in Iceland is on the to do list for many. Based near the town of Grindavik the scene of recent volcanic activity, this is a geo thermal spa where the water is pumped from the local power station. The area has been subject to emergency closures and is still under such an order due to the unpredictability of the seismic activity in the area. We’ve visited before so this year we have decided to try another lagoon closer to the city centre. We have found one just 15min drive out side of Reykjavik called the Sky Lagoon.
Only opened in recent years this is a custom built lagoon / Spa where the order of the day is to take in the Skjól bathing ritual a seven stage experience that relaxes and invigorates you inside and out. I was sceptical but I must admit it’s a worthwhile experience although the cold sessions were quite horrendous seeing the outside temperature was -6. As I said it was a worthwhile experience.
The day finished with us all feeling refreshed, we then headed back to the city where we convened at a bar for some dinner. One of our party is a football fan whose team were playing and fortunately they won so the day came to a pleasant happy ending.
The Twister cocktail was a nice way to finish the evening, I believe it consisted of Rum. Peach schnapps and other bits. Oh, and an ice lolly on the top. Good stuff!
Have a great day.
Well we are actually on day three but I’m writing this in past tense. I’m struggling to find the time to be honest, we’ve kept ourselves very busy.
Day two has been a quieter day, it’s Sunday and we had a late night last night, so today we are relaxing as we have a couple of busy days ahead. The plan today was just to saunter around, stay local and chill, and that is quite easy when wind chill is taking temperatures down to minus eight degrees Celsius.
So we did chill we went to a local museum/exhibition centre called Perlan
Perlan is an all exhibition of all that has made Iceland, its natural wonders, its wildlife and its people. It’s a fantastic place to spend a few hours learning something of the history of this island. It’s an immersive exhibition with a number of shows about auroras, volcanoes and glaciers, it also looks into global warming and the issues of protecting this fragile environment. There is also a 100mtr ice tunnel at minus 15 degrees that replicates an ice tunnel found in a glacier. The 360 degrees view from the observation deck are superb.
And another thing, the Icelanders love their signage, no messing about, straight to the point they say what they mean. Here are two examples, one is found on a sealed off door to a shop, the other is in a bar.
And here is the one in the pub. No messing.
So we finished the night at a new bar called Skor that we found, based on darts where you play different games. You hire the board in a way similar to how you hire a lane in ten pin bowling. This was a nice way to finish the day.
After that we wandered back to our hotel, look what came out to greet us for the second night on the trot.
And what a way to finish the night. Two nights in a row, we were truly blessed.
Happy day all.
I know this sounds like a stupid title for a post, it is really, it’s one of those impatient child like statements that we, so called adults make from time to time.
We’re off to Iceland again this weekend and it’s always been one of my dreams to be able to witness an erupting volcano. However not a massive one, a small inconspicuous non invasive one would do just fine.
At the moment the weather in Iceland is actually warmer and better than it is here in the East Midlands, and that always confuses me due to their proximity to the arctic circle. I lay money on it, what usually happens is we head on home and then the land blisters and there is a new eruption for a few months. But when we plan to return the land seals up like a small surface cut and then scabs over.
It’s quite frustrating
I constantly check in with the local news streams, as well as looking at the large amount of Volcano cams that are online and providing live coverage of the most susceptible areas.
That said we are really looking forward to our break in the land of ice and fire, however at the moment there doesn’t seem to be much of either.
Happy days.
What’s the thing you’re most scared to do? What would it take to get you to do it?
This kind of ties in nicely with a post I wrote a short while back, Just another reason to not go wandering. In that post I wrote about some of my relatives and their constant attempts to get me to travel to the opposite side of the earth and visit them in Australia.
But why am I scared to do it? Quite simply I’m a nervous, trembling Arachnophobic. I don’t like those little eight legged freaks. And they probably feel the same about me.
I can pretty much trace my fears back to my childhood, when my parents in their ultimate wisdom used to force my elder brother to take me out to play with him and his mates and he was never too happy with that. However he and his friends had their fun by stuffing creatures such as spiders down my neck, and it is that point, the fear was born.
If I even see the smallest of critters in my house now, my wife will tell you I go up the wall and won’t settle until the invader is found and removed from the house. This can usually involve hours of furniture moving and me running about like a banshee until the issue is sorted.
I’m not just scared I’m bloody petrified.
So, to get me to Australia I’d have to wear something like a flamethrower, not particularly a very PC piece of equipment in a hot and dry environment where fire spreads so freely, however in a country where every animal and creature wants to kill you I see no other alternative.
Probably just easier that I stay away. Yes that’s it I’ll do just that. Problem solved.
Have a lovely day.
(Flame thrower pic courtesy of Misadventure Lab)
Foxes Den 
You must be logged in to post a comment.