We apologise for the interruption …..

10 April 10, 2015

All was going exceptionally well in my Last Hurrah tour at the point of my last post …… just not enough hours in the day to be having such a brilliant time, plus the occasional internet access and computer issues. I decided it would be best to get back to writing and photos once I got home.

So I got home in the middle of October 2014, and had to immediately organise all the financial, pension, etc side of my retirement.

Then I got sick.

Very sick.

You know all those DVT warnings that you ignore when you get on a plane?

Don’t!

Do whatever it takes to avoid DVT!

I was in hospital for 10 days, totally flattened. To give themselves something to do, doctors found other things wrong with me. Now, thankfully and miraculously, I’m back on track to getting on with retirement. But it has taken quite a while.

Just for the record, there are a whole list of symptoms for DVT. Until I couldn’t actually breathe (the clot in my calf broke up and lodged as “lots” of smaller clots in my lungs), I only had one symptom, a slight ache in my leg. That was it.

If in doubt, go to your doctor sooner rather than later.

I’m a bit of a bore about DVT prevention these days, so for now I’d better get back to my much more enjoyable travel tales 🙂

A London miscellany

16-25 August, 2014

I’m pretty sure one experience I had in London is going to take some beating for being a total delight. Currently there are 50 books turned into park benches dotted about London. I spotted one in Gordon Square.

Virginia Woolf's "Mrs Dalloway" book bench
- Gordon Square

I was about to move on when four young ladies came into the square. They were so alive with fun and happiness. It was written all over them and unbelievably infectious. It turned out to be a “hen’s ‘do’ ” for one who is getting married in September. Instead of the usual tacky pub crawl, they were having a day out trying to find as many of these book benches as they could. One gave me a sheet so I could go spotting in the immediate vicinity. It was sad that they were almost apologetic about it: they said they did like pub crawls too, but seemed 100% unconvinced, that they had to say that so they wouldn’t be thought to be whatever today’s equivalent of “square” is. I just thought it inspiring that they were having so much fun, they’d remember it, and they wouldn’t be ashamed to remember it, wishing they hadn’t done it. Wonderful young women.

Paddington Bear book bench

I did a “fan” thing – went and looked at the building that was home and office to Poirot in one of the earlier series.

Poirot lived here!

Nearby I was lucky enough to find what must be the perfect example of one of my favourite treats, usually hard to find – Eccles cakes!

It was hard not to see London’s latest supposedly iconic building, the Shard.

The Shard

I wonder if Londoners will come to rue the day they started allowing skyscrapers to be built. To me, the Shard has none of the “wow” impact factor of the Gherkin which I vividly remember seeing first during the latter stages of its construction.

The “walkie-talkie” has more impact than the Shard, even if some of that impact is unwanted – the curved surface concentrating and reflecting the sun so that it was burning or melting things and one wall has been covered in some sort of fabric to avoid that not-so-little architectural stuff-up!

Walkie-Talkie building -
with anti-sun-glare curtain

I went off my beaten track again, this time north to Hoxton and the Geffrye Museum. This has been housed for 100 years in almshouses that were built 300 years ago. It’s main display is of what we now call the living- or lounge-rooms of the “urban middle classes”, from about 1600 to the 1960s. All fascinating but you wouldn’t want to live in most of them – too dark, too cold, too ‘busy’ with too much decoration.

Geffrye Museum - former almshouses

I followed this up with a trip to Kew Gardens.

Kew Gardens - mind the gap

This time I got on the wrong branch train. It was jam-packed. I had no idea what it was about, maybe football but no football gear, but it sure was a noisy party. Many squashed stations later, just about everyone got out. “What’s up?” I asked one of the few remaining passengers. “Notting Hill Carnival”. Goodness knows where the people on the train were going to fit in the already jam-packed street I saw as the train clickety-clacked over a street bridge.

Another train – the Gardens tourist train. It’s a huge place and very nice but apart from scale it wasn’t a whole lot better than Melbourne’s Botanical Gardens. But just as I was about to give up looking for the bonsai (a very small display) and go home ….

…. I found a really WOW! section of the gardens – the student plots, and plots planted with “like” plants, i.e. from related plant families. These were great! Like the allotments I saw earlier in the Fens area but ever so much more up-market. (No offence Sue!!!)

Allotments ... Kew style!

I did the tree-top walk – and felt really ill at the height. But I only saw one person turning back. She had more sense than the rest of us! The whole visit was accompanied by the sound, and sight if you looked up, of planes coming in to land at Heathrow. That was OK. I love the sight and sound of planes 🙂

Prepare for landing

Travelling – Five sectors ….. so far!

7 & 11 August, 2014

Aaahhhh …. 7th August 2014, Business Class – where it’s civilised and you’re treated like a human being! It was so lovely from Melbourne to NYC. It was full. I had ex-SBS newsreader Mary Kostikidis sitting next to me from Sydney. We made a few comments to each other at various points along the way. An excellent travelling neighbour. And she looked as elegant as always, even in casual travelling clothes. The neighbours across the aisle were not so good. Children! Their mother (or was it a nanny?) slept right through their games and racket which kept a lot of us awake. Who can afford to travel Business with children. They shouldn’t be allowed!! Takes away from the civilised bit.

The Flying Kangaroo

But then, back to the real world – cattle class from JFK to Boston Logan. Thankfully such a short flight that only half the aircraft got served drinks.

That was four sectors: Melbourne > Sydney > LAX > JFK > Logan. Cleared Customs and Immigration in Los Angeles – a lot easier than last trip when I went into San Francisco. Boarding flights was a different matter: all suitably US-fashion paranoid, including full body scan.

The Nevada Desert ...
Not called a desert without reason!

But the fifth sector, Boston Logan to Keflavik in Iceland. The usual nonsense with security checks on boarding but as casual as you like on disembarking. What a relief! Only to be one of about 20 whose luggage didn’t appear, didn’t appear ….. until 30-40 minutes after everyone else. Already tired from lack of sleep (9.30pm departure, 5¼ hour flight, landed at 6.30am), it was a scratchy start to the day. But things looked up later.

Manhattan ...
The glimpse from the air that I didn't get last time
 - because in 2011 I arrived in NYC by train!