Il neige! It snows!

It snowed last Thursday, 4 inches, and again last night and today on and off (another 4 or more I guess. I made and sold Christmas mince pies, sold fudge, flapjacks and Scottish tablet with Joan and others at a market yesterday and am going to a carol service tonight in the neighbouring village.

Been for a few walks, and a RUN in the snow (be impressed, be very impressed - the photo is of Penny in running gear). The bottom two are a similar spot, the first with snow, the second with frost the day before.

Life is very different and very cold. It made me laugh to see the street cleaner vacuuming the streets unpertubed at the snow falling, people walking their dogs (with little doggy jackets on), going to the shops, as if it's not -8 degrees and snowing. Cool.

Luxembourg und Deutschland!

Guten Tag meinen Damen und Herren! Ich bin am Montag aus meine Reise zuruckgekommt. Sie war ein schone Zeit, und mein unfliessig Deutsch war gut genug fur meistens meinen Sprachung. Ich habe hoflich Leute getreffen, viele alten Gebaude photographierten, zwei Weinachtsmarkts gebesuchen, und zu viele schmeckliche Essen gegessen! Die zwei Jugendherbergen waren nicht teuer und sehr gut. Sie haben grossen Fruhstucken und Abendessen gehabt...

Hello ladies and gents! I came back from my trip on Monday. It was a great time, and my less than perfect German proved fluent enough for most of my conversations. I met polite, friendly people, took lots of photos of old buildings, visited two Christmas markets and ate too much tasty food! The two youth hostels were not expensive and very good. They had big breakfasts and dinners...

In Luxembourg I got an all day pass on the buses and trains for €4, got snowed on, visited two castles, a monastery, an phenomenal photo exhibition and was treated to a hot chocolate by a Luxembourg gentleman. Caught the train to Trier (the oldest city in Europe, has an amphitheatre that was last used in 2 AD and a Roman bridge that has tarmac and traffic). I woke up on my last day in Germany and decided it would be rather cool to walk back to Luxembourg so I strolled 17km down a cycleway beside the Mosel river (yes, that's like Moselle where the wine comes from) and had some interesting chats to locals I met. How often do you get to walk to another country?

Am back in Belgium now, singing in a choir this weekend for 1000 people, helping Joan mark Geography exams, going out for dinner, shopping, went to Belgium's Museum of Things Stolen from the Congo with Joan yesterday and am generally having a delightful time. I am not missing the sunshine at all as it manages to appear once every few days - temperatures are round 2 or 3 degrees but I have lots of good warm clothes and houses and transport are warm.

Right, enough talk. The photos are of the amphitheatre and the Youth Hostel in Trier, Germany (by the Mosel), and the castle in Vianden, Luxembourg.

Birfdy

Ad a luvly birfdy fanks. Bit ovva shindig on Satdy noite wiv noice fokes, musik n game iv Picshunry in French n Anguish, den a spushil brekky wiv some of da noice fokes. Bit ovva trip t Brussils n I got ta play drumz fer noice chuch foke n it was a corker sunset n all. Spushil fanks ta Joans fer most iv the fun, n God fer allivit, incl va sunset.

SORRY EVERYONE!

I changed a setting inadvertently and made it hard for you to leave comments. It is all fixed now so comment away! I love them!

Te Reo in Belgium

Let's save ourselves 1000 words, eh? In case you can't make it out, the barge is called "Morena" and the cafe is called "De Kaai" (which I suspect means "Quay" but it's nice to dream).

Ants

All cities are not created equal. Antwerpen (Anvers to the rest of Belgium) for example, is full of chain stores, rain, wind and has a maritime museum which is excitingly inside a castle/fort and was... closed. Oh well. I did get a chocolate with my hot chocolate. And it does have a nice river and a very old zoo, with mosaic advertising of course.

Oh, and it has a WAY cool railway station...

FYI I woke up in the morning and decided to go to Antwerp, as you do. Spent the evening making scones, speaking German with Joan's French teacher and English with the landlady's granddaughter at a make-up selling party. As you do.

(In spite of the apparent sunshine in the last photo, it was the only bright spot in the day so my peanut butter sandwiches wouldn't go soggy (thanks God!). Christchurch would have been proud to call it a southerly.)

Paris!

Paree!Paree! Ah oui! Ah oui!
Baguettes and fromage
Pate and canard
Your effortless art
Your old but young heart
ThE Tower, the Dame
The well-deserved fame...
Paree! Paree! Ah oui! Ah oui!

Vendredi: Train 1hour 20, no stamp in passport, no checks, no security
Walked from station to lovely cousin's flat, then out to eat duck and frois gras (don't ask how they make it)

Samedi: Eiffel Tower (cool as! 677 steps to 2nd floor),
Arc de Triomphe (way bigger than I thought)
stroll down the Champs Elysees (shonseleesay) having Christmas markets (bought nothing of course),
Petit Palais (which is huge),
Notre Dame (impressive but WAY too many people),
Metro (superb and easy to use).

Dimanche: Le Louvre! Five hours and several times getting lost - I didn't know it was the biggest palace in the world - the ceilings are fantastic and that's without the official art. Typical moment was, "Oh that's a cool sculpture! ...Oh, it's by Michelangelo" and then, wandering through a long hall, "Those are stunning!... oh, Leonardo da Vinci " (The Mona Lisa is good, not mindboggling. Others I liked more). "The colours in that one are brilliant... oh, Brueghel... Botticelli... Veronese... Rembrandt etc"
My absolute favourites though were the French sculptures - huge, detailed, rearing horses, beautiful women, gorgeous men, some very clever political statements obvious even to the non-Francophone.

It reminded me that humans are capable of beautiful things.

Walked home and got a weensy bit lost, bumped into the Opera house, a big column and eventually some food. The sun comes from the south here, Penelope, the south...

Lundi: Breakfast then back to Brussels via some drama because I couldn't find my seat - eventually crammed into the excess luggage section with the rest of the plebs just as the train started moving. Got given a proper seat after a while through kind French men translating for me but the officials were not helpful at all. C'est la vie!
Tour round a Romanesque collegiale in Nivelles in the afternoon, weather so wild the guide was too scared to take us to the top. Have to go and buy a baguette for lunch now - au revoir!

Broooooge

Bruge ist mein cutestisch ville in alle die Belgique (apart von Nivelles where mein freund Joan ist). Zey all dere speeky die Englisches und smeile at die touristen trippin ofa die cobbelled straats und peerin at die alt hooses. Efry seccond cutesisch shop sells die wicked shokolade und die fein bier, und die builtings haf die golt carfings und die fansisch tings to machen dem look efen alter. Ich liked die fery quiet confents (vere dere are still nuns liffing appily, machen die lace) und die vindmillen und die kanals.

Mainly visuals

Been to Bouillon:

with Kendra the Canadian and Joan the Scot

The proud and noble... rooster. The inscription underneath says something like: "I too sacrificed my children for the war" Belgians are a little odd.













Sausages (we bought a figue - figure it out :-)

Castle (first mentioned in 968, so reasonably old)

River diverted in 15th century for a mill long gone.

Tomorrow and Sunday back to Brussels, Monday to Bruge so Joan can get some work done, next weekend to gay Paris to stay with Cousin Jill. La vie est bon! (in semi-French spelling)

Battle of the Belge...

Ah tis a sad thing. The pack was underweight when I left the UK, and the Penny was...not.
Enough of a fright to kickstart renewed interest in fat content and exercise levels - and it turned out to be a false alarm from pessimistic scales so all is well. Had a lovely and hilarious time with the Annie type Blinman and Joan on Saturday morning involving a full breakfast, castles, and jelly dinosaurs. I have good friends.

So, here I am in the land of Tintin, Poirot, Bruegel, chocolate and beer. Friend Joan lives at the top of 33 rickety wooden stairs in a cute wee apartment near the centre of Nivelles. (Actually, everything is near the centre of Nivelle because it is so wee and cute). We wandered round Brussels for a while looking at things and avoiding chocolateries (no mean feat) before going to eat roasted chestnuts at someone's house and going to a big old Anglican church full of smaller, younger Anglicans all gloriously speaking English. Incidentally, there was a juggling semi-festival in the Grand Plas. Foolish Penny was so distracted she forgot to video any of it. The photo is of a museum in the Grand Plas (which is quite grand actually).

Had my first taste of language regret yesterday, when a chatty lady let rip with a torrent of French in the supermarket. I said, "I'm sorry, I don't speak French", and I truly was. Today, slightly better educated, I sallied forth armed with (forgive the spelling, Emily), "Desolet, je ne parle pas le francais," but sadly had no chance to show my ignorance so eruditely.

It is conveniently a national holiday tomorrow so Joan and I and a Canadian friend of hers are off somewhere, possibly Ypres (pronounced ' Eep' I think) where there is a lot of WW1 sadness, or maybe I'm hoping, a working monastery or two. It is GREAT to see Joan and we are having a lot of fun even though she has to work and I have been a little under the weather.

Right, better stop before I get accused of falsely advertising brief blog entries. Later!

Och aye the noo

I've seen some castles ancient
And wandered by the sea
I've heard the seagulls plaintive
And watched them flying free

I've wrestled with pronunciation
Of lochs and rivers and touns
Have changed my own enunciation
So understanding can aboond




My correspondence staggers (sorry!)
Am feeling colder daily
Tonight I'm promised haggis
At a genuine Scottish ceilidh

The countryside surrounding
Is quite like the South Island
The hospitality is astounding
And the people here are grand

It's nice to know my tipuna
Came from this warming place
I should have come here sooner
And found my own wee space :-)

Scotland the gorgeous

Hello loyal fans
I am here in Scotland, about to venture north with my friend Joan to Inverness and Loch Ness (named after Nessie) and Loch Lochy (some Scots lack imagination) but wanted to show you the gorgeous ness (no pun intended) of the landscape up in the highlands. This is my best photo I think...
Happy days,
Love Penny.

Stratford-on-Avon

I should have found a cheap bed
Where to rest my poor head
But the hostel was miles
And the man was all smiles
So I took a b&b instead

I should have early sallied forth
And my way further north
But I woke feeling old
With an overdue cold
Substantially less than a penny'sworth

I should say something witty
About William's wee city
But I've frittered away
The whole of the day
In a castle both medieval and pretty (Warwick)

It's been a visit here of 'shoulds'
Instead of the usual 'coulds'
But holiday patter
Doesn't really matter
And in spite of it all, it's been good!

Hello dears!

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, creeps in this petty bus from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time...
Actually, it's going to Stratford-on-Avon where I can beg Bill's forgiveness for that poetic liberty, and the other place near there that begins with C.

Stayed another night here in the Bath cos I like it and it's too much of a rush going from one place to another in one day. I am old after all...

It did rain a bit today, oh but then the sun came out, oh and then it rained again, and if it hadn't been for the plethora of old stone buildings and the long skinny boats on the (original) Avon River, I could have been in NZ.

This is the original River Avon, in Bath.

Present position

Got a bit unHenged this morning... stoned? Anyway, I was a little underwhelmed in truth. Although it IS jolly old (5000 years, give or take), it is smaller than the pictures make it appear and they really don't have a clue why it's there or how they did it.

Caught the train to Bath today and I almost have a new favourite church in Bath Abbey. (FYI, a cathedral is where a bishop runs his patch (diocese) from and an abbey is the church that is attached to a monastery (though it's not here any more)).

Have met some nice people with various accents (Italian, French, German, copious various English) and will probably stay here tomorrow night too as it is only £13 and they give me a free towel and breakfast!

You can tell it's late, and I need my bed... Incidentally, where are you all? Must I rhyme all the time to get replies to my cries? Still love you though...

No wonder English is so messy...

Covent Garden is a market, not a garden in sight
The famous Tower of London is a castle
Elephant and Castle is a place
- I'm too scared to think about Hackney Wick...

In other news, Joan and I went to Westminster Abbey this morning for sung Eucharist with boy sopranos and incense swingers, a real bells and smells experience. However I found it way easier to talk to God in Hyde Park (which is just Hagley Park with squirrels). The building itself is a little ott for me (that's 'over the top', Mum), and I amused Joan by telling her how I would improve it).

Off to Oxford tomorrow or maybe Bath... Anyone think I'll miss out if I don't go to Stonehenge?

This is the cathedral at Salisbury which was my eventual destination. My favourite - much less ott than Westminster

Inc ase ther hyming isg ettingt edious...
I'm having issues with photos so all you visual arty types will have to wait a little longer. Here are a couple of pictures for you...


Dubai airport - A large sign which says :`Ablution available in the prayer room` Clearly it's not so great being a Muslim, because you don't quite get absolution...

And for all you optometrists out there - there's a place down the road called:
`the kings cross eye clinic` I ask, would you go there?

Love to you all. Am having a lovely time thanks :-)

Arrival! (pictures tomorrow)

I'm here
it's not cold
But it's clear
I AM old

I'm staying
At 'Clink'
Where the main thing
Is drink

There are girls here
And boys
At in the wee hours
There's noise!

(Jet lag)
Before fleeing
To to Tower
I slept
Thirteen hours

(London)
There are millions
Of steeples
And zillions
of peoples

And on me
It's all growing
Though on Tuesday
I'm going!

Details, schmetails...

Some of yo', will want to know
Which way the wind is blowing
For details mates, a list of dates
Of places I'll be going:

Oct 14 London
Oct 30 Edinburgh
Nov 7 Belgium, then Denmark, Germany, France, maybe Netherlands and Czech Republic too
Dec 18 Scotland
Jan 14 Dubai
Jan 20 Auckland

Progress

So little time, so much to do
I think you catch my meaning
Things to buy and folk to see,
Interminable cleaning

I'll get it done, I think I might
But this much I'm believing
October 13th, Tuesday night
Ready or not, I'm leaving!

Welcome! Watch this space...

Welcome to my blog! It's nice to have you here
I hope you'll stay, and make my day
(And lit'rary career...)

On this modest site, in the day and in the night
I'll write some stuff that's short enough
For reading in one bite

When from NZ I'm ejected, on this page I have erected
Then we can chat, of this and that
To help me stay connected

I'll try to be succinct, when I write in virtual ink
Please reply, and don't be shy
Let me know just what you think!