Grey stones and Grey Skies

Sherryn and Tim, good friends from Oz, came and stayed for the weekend and we took the opportunity to show them some of Old England (in the rain). They also gave us the chance to test out our new car (actually older than the previous one but much much nicer). It 's a Vauxhall Omega (Aussie translation: Holden, something like a Berlina). Comes complete with seat warmers for those cold English mornings that we haven't really experienced yet! On Saturday after a late start we drove to Netley Abbey. It's the most complete Cistercian Abbey in Southern England and was built around 1239. It's also where we went to see A Midsummer Night's Dream performed several weeks ago.

We spent a good hour at the abbey experimenting with our new camera, a Canon EOS 400D. We can hardly put it down, although we have a LOT to learn. Perhaps there'll be a course we can do somewhere. We're hoping Jono will teach us some tips when he comes over to France in just 4 weeks!
This photo took a lot of work on Tim's behalf. He had to set the timer on the camera and then run 100 metres or so in 10 seconds whilst the camera counted down. We tried it 5 times with 2 different cameras before this photo happened.

On Sunday afternoon in the rain we visited Arundel Castle. The Keep is the oldest part of the castle (built starting 1067). It's full of all sorts of amazing funriture and decorations (a lion's pelt). The chapel was especially beautifully carved.
The current Duke and Earl of Norfolk live in one wing of the castle. It must be pretty chilly most of the time here. The stone walls are so thick I can't imagine what their heating bill would be like!

I promise I didn't write it!! But obviously a few other Jane's have added their score to the list (check out the lines below the name).

Last Saturday we finally went to visit Jane's great aunt, Aunty Betty (or AB as she's affectionately known). She has recently moved into a retirement home with a beautiful garden. We had a lovely picnic. She must have been expecting ten more people due to the amount of food that was produced from her TINY bar fridge. All her meals are supplied but she still ordered things from the grocer and made 3 different types of sandwiches on her bed (the only available bench space). Note greg's appearance in the next picture ("NO MORE FOOD!!")

Last weekend Rob, Bec and Sarah (friends from Melbourne) came to spend a day with us in Portsmouth. Portsmouth is about half an hour drive away from Southampton and its a maritime city. It's where the navy is largely based in the UK and it has an interesting Historical Dockyard Museum. We all realised we wouldn't cover all the sites in one visit so Greg and I will have to return some time.
Greg and I decided to dress as the locals do (well in Tudor times). Actually we were fascinated by the Mary Rose Exhibition. In the 1970's divers discovered the remains of a huge ship that had sunk in the 1500's during the time of King Henry the 8th (Tudor times). Over a decade they retrieved all sorts of artifacts from the sea bed inside the ship which had been really well preserved under the silt of the ocean bed. The things they collected gave real incite into the people of the time and day-to-day practises. Greg was especially excited by the massive bronze cannons and long bows brought to the surface. On 11th October 1982 the remains of the ship's hull were lifted from the ocean floor and now you can view the preserving of the ship in a big shed. Since then they've been working out how to dry out the ship without everything decaying. So they've been spraying her in this shed since 1994 with PVC (wax) so it penetrates into the wood fibres. next year they'll stop the spraying and begin to dry her out very gradually.

The dockyards also house The Victory, the flagship of Lord Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar. We were able to walk inside and see what life would have been like on board a battle ship. Rob had to crouch the whole tour and we decided he was lucky he was army, not navy trained.

Rob stayed 2 nights in Southampton to collect some data for work. Some of the CT's that Greg has been doing will be used for Rob's research on Thoracic stenting. It's a small world! So to make him feel at home we made Chicken Parmi (actually it was turkey because that was cheaper!)

We also invited a good friend Paula from work to our Aussie dinner. She's a Scottish radiographer working with us at Southampton General but worked in Australia last year. She was a locum in Geelong earlier this year!!

Uni Friends in the Uni town of Oxford

This weekend we travelled to Oxford to catch up with 3 radiography girlfriends and their partners. The weather wasn't all that great but we did manage to visit a couple of colleges, museums and the Bodlian Libary and spend an afternoon punting on the river. Plenty of fun was had by all. Here we are in the Roman wall that surrounds the garden of New College (not so new: founded in 1379).

Everyone had a go at punting. Females must have designed these poles so they could just sit and enjoy the ride since they're too heavy to pick up, let alone push off the ground and use to actually move down stream.

Don't make it look so easy Paul!

This is a bridge that connects two parts of a college in Oxford. It is referred to as the Bridge of Sighs because it looks like a bridge in Venice which has the same name. It rained all day for us but we shouldn't complain. We've hardly had a rainy day since we arrived in the UK!
The previous day we'd climbed a 12th century tower in the town centre for a view over Oxford. It would have been a little disappointing if we hadn't arrived on the uppermost level to see the beginning of a plane stunt show, like the Aussie Roulettes (there was a big rowing regata on the river that day).

At the Natural History Museum in Oxford we saw some scary creatures. This isn't a real skeleton, but a plaster copy of the real thing. Very impressive! Wouldn't want to meet one on a sunny day, let alone a dark night!

This furry friend had a sign saying " Please Touch" which was a change to all the other displays. There were still plenty of kids squeeling with delight at the big dinosaurs, dispite not being able to touch.

Anyone recognise this building? Its the dinning room from the Harry Potter movies. And doubles as the Christchurch dinning room.
Christchurch College has a huge cathedral that's full of beautiful stained and painted glass windows. We learnt stain glass is made by mixing normal transparent glass with different minerals to give a colour and produce a pattern. Painted glass is just what it sounds like, transparent glass plates that have been painted. Light doesn't shine through painted glass nearly as well as stained glass though.

Ireland at last (PART 1)

We arrived in Dublin after a slightly Mitchell trip to the airport (Mitchell= running late, Altmann= being early). We slept through the alarm but made the plane in time.
Three nights were spent in a lovely hotel very close to all the action in Temple Bar. We went on a literary pub crawl taken by two actors who recited poetry and sketches from famous Irish writers. They reccommended a Walking History Tour of the city which we went along for the next morning. And we loved it. We had been extremely confused about Ireland's turbulent past and the Trinity University graduate who lead the tour explained everything very well. The walk included Trinity, The Bank of Ireland (where parliament was held), Dublin Castle, The City Hall, Christchurch Cathedral and finishing in Temple Bar. Highly reccommended by us too. These colourful buildings are part of Dublin Castle and are near the Chester Beatty Library. The library has a great exhibition of all sorts of religious documents. For example very early copies of the Bible and Koran.

Of course we had to go to the Guinness Factory. It has a very fancy and interesting display of how the black stuff is made. Greg particularly enjoyed the big section on Coopers whose trade is to make the wooden kegs. Nowadays the kegs are made of steel so coopers are no more but Greg thinks if he'd been born 100 years ago, that's what he'd have been. It's a real art.

On the 7th floor of the Brewery there is a bar where you sample your free pint of guinness. It has the best views of Dublin (360 degrees). There is a lot of building going on in this city. Every panel of glass showed at least one crane in action.

Meet DEZ the motorhome. We had the truck for a week and covered 700 miles in the South of Ireland. It really was pure luxury inside. We had a neat little bathroom with a shower and toilet that folded away with hidden panels and doors. The bed is above the driving cabin and there's also a big table setting, stovetop and fridge.Although we did really love being able to cook for ourselves and having a lot of freedom in where to go and when, we've decided motorhoming is not for us...yet. Everyone else in the campsite was over 50 and often the sites were a long way out of town. And by the time you've paid campsite fees and taxi rides to and from the town you may has well have stayed in a B & B right in town. Bikes on the back would have really helped. But we did really love the experience.

We stumbled upon this Abbey on the way down to south. It's name is Jerpiont Abbey, a Cistercain Abbey founded in the 12th century. The carvings remaining on the stone walls were beautiful. So many stories in this ancient place.

Kilkenny castle, pictured below, has been fully restored. We couldn't take pictures on our tour of the inside but there was a fascinating room called the Long Room. Its 50m long and held 200 paintings on the walls in the past. In the 1930's the Butler family who'd lived in the castle for hundreds of years got sick of the weather and moved, selling all the furniture and paintings. They've been able to recover 50 or so from old photographs and the rooms have also been recreated based on pictures.

Greg climbed this 9th centruy tower in Kilkenny for great views all over the county.

Blarney Castle was next on the tourist route. When you kiss the stone right at the top of the ramparts, hanging upside down with only the irish man to hold to you're supposed to become more eloquent in speech (ie. not get tongue tied and always know the right thing to say). We haven't noticed any major changes yet.

Note Greg wearing Birenstocks and a T-shirt in the Hot weather. Whoever said Ireland only rains twice a year: Once for 300 days and once for 65?

Kinsale is a small fishing village on the South coast of Ireland. We spent one of our best nights in the car park opposite a great pub called Bulmans. Apparently when you don't camp at a proper site its called "Wild Camping". There was nothing wild about this. Originally we drove out of town 15km down many small winding roads to the only nearby campsite. After much deliberation we decided to risk being fined or asked to move in the middle of the night and camp in a carpark. In fact the owner of the pub was more than happy for us to stay. Probably especially because it enabled us to share a bottle of wine at his pub over dinner and then enjoy spending more money at his bar whilst listening to the great music from the band. The next day we woke up to the sound of water lapping at the rocks right besde the van and sunshine gleaming off the bay.
Greg insisted on buying a proper Irish old man hat. I did tell him both my grandpy and dad love wearing these things but the hats aren't really high fashion. He wore it as his driving hat but only for a few minutes each time because its TOO HOT!

On our first day in Killarney we wandered in to town trying to decide whether we should risk the cloudy skies, hire bikes and ride 30km around the lakes or take a bus tour. As it happened we sort of did both. Minus bikes. Our day trip included a bus ride to the Gap of Dunloe (2 huge mountains you can walk between - in the Gap), either a walk or pony trap ride through the gap (11km) and a boat trip through the lakes back to meet buses and then home. The weather was patchy with lovely sunshine and our heaviest rainfall experienced in Ireland. And did I mention the wind?!!! Maybe 80km/hr winds too. But scenery on the hike was spectacular. We'd have been drier swimming through the lakes though. Riding the waves on the lake was exhilarating but VERY wet.

The Gap on Dunloe.
Here's the view from our campsite. This is the first in a series of pictures showing the hills rolling in and the storm that followed. However, it was brief. The blog's too big already to show you.

Ireland at last (PART 2)

The Ring of Kerry is 179km of road that circles through absolutely stunning mountains on the West Coast of Ireland. Our camera let us down a little with the long distance mountain shots but heres a couple of pictures of the coastline (its the Atlantic Ocean!). In the distance you can see the Skellig Islands where a community of monks settled in 600AD. The ruins of their monestry remain but we had no time to catch the boat to see it.
Traffic jam Ireland style.
On a beautiful sunny day we thought we were back in Lorne on the Great Ocean Road when we bumped into a beach full of people. And there were Surfing lessons.

Another few curves in the road and we arrvied at the manificent Cliffs of Moher. The photos don't do it justice but 12 Apostles don't even come close to this place for spectacular. The tourist office is built right into the hill and has a great exhibition that shows how the Cliffs developed over millions of years, the wildlife, weather patterns and human life on the Cliffs. The place was teeming with tourists but the car park is massive and nicely positioned out of view.

We were thrilled with the pub music in Ireland. Every pub had a collection of musicians, sometimes planned and sometimes travellers who'd walked off the street to play. We bought several CD's and a book of music for Jane to learn on her fiddle!!

This jam session is situated in a large room that is a cobbler's shop by day and pub by night. His tools are all just there on the shelf.

We've both had enough Guinness for a while now. But boy, it does taste good with oysters (we had to try it once!).