Year: 2012
Our Christmas Lights
We were doing very well with our humble little string of solar powered Christmas lights until the gardner snipped the wire from the solar panel today when trimming some of the bushes in the garden. Fortunately, he cut them on an angle, so even by torchlight I could work out which wire needed to be […]
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Wilson Christmas
In this week before Christmas, we are busy finishing our shopping, planning Christmas menus and looking forward to having our family with us for the festive season. A week or so ago, Jill and Audrey set up, and decorated, our Christmas tree on the coffee table (with little Violet’s help). Our tradition has been to put […]
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A Very Sad Statistic
Im sitting at my computer contemplating the terrible shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School In Newton, Connecticut in the USA.. The killing of so many innocent children and their teachers is unfathomnable. I think about my own kids and my grandchildren – little Audrey and Violet; sweet, energetic kids, full of personality and beautiful loving […]
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A Recommended Website
It's true that travel broadens the mind. What was once right or wrong, simply becomes different. Things that were once unknown, now become understandable. Narrow mindedness decreases and understanding alternatives is possible. Bigoted and biased opinions are replaced with a more sensitive understanding of other possibilities. That is until you get home from an overseas […]
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Pottering Around London
It’s rather nice having an apartment in a city as you can take it easy, sleep in and generally potter around at your leisure. Over our last few days in London, that’s just what we have been doing. One day, we caught the train along the Circle Line to Piccadilly and then walked through the […]
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A Really Old Tourist
It is very easy to get around London by bus and train. So far, I have preferred the Tube as its easier for me to work out where they go and stop. I’m not really sure how to learn the bus routes and their possibly unpredictable stops. Our nearest station is at Gloucester Road on […]
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Greenwich History
Greenwich has a number of places of great historical significance. Some are obvious such as the Royal Observatory and The Old Naval College. Less well known, for example, is the church of St Alfege who was canonised in 1011 and martyred on the same place as the church now stands. I believe that Henry VIII […]
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London
On our arrival into Heathrow, we had a very speedy passage through Immigration & Customs and were picked up by our driver who had us to our apartment at Kensington within 45 minutes. On our last trip here (staying in the same little apartment) we had landed just behind a full flight from Kenya and […]
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Our Last NIght in Munich
It has suddenly become much colder here. On Thursday in Munich, it snowed all day – just enough to make the gardens and rooftops look white, but not enough to settle on the footpaths and roads. We were very glad that we had chosen that day to visit the BMW factory and be out of […]
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Munich
Munich is right into the Christmas spirit, except that the big event here is Advent – the period leading up to Christmas. As in most other European countries, the big event for families is Christmas Eve – that’s when St Nicholas arrives and all the celebrations of the season take place. Yesterday, we spent most […]
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The Train to Munich
There’s nothing much better (apart from being upgraded on a plane flight) than travelling across Europe by train. These guys really know how to do it properly. What a way to travel! We caught an Austrian Railways train from Vienna yesterday. It had originated in Budapest and we reached its termination point in Munich 4 […]
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Memorials in Vienna
Vienna has many monuments in the shape of grand buildings and probably all of them are worthy of some form of description. We came across a significant one just a few hundred metres from our hotel – The Russian Memorial! Near the end of World War II, Soviet forces captured Vienna and freed it from Hitler’s […]
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