Uncle Albert

 'Can anybody smell carrots?' No, actually it's burning and at 35000ft over the Arctic that's not what you want to smell..  Follow that with 'Captaimn to the flight deck and, apart from who's flying the thing, you know there is a problem. So do we land on an ice flow surrounded by Polar bears and Ocra's all looking for an early tea, or is there an airstrip which can take us, nearby?

So Baffin island to the rescue. Top most tip of Canada and just closer than backtracking to Greenland, we landed in Iqaluit, formally known as Frobisher Bay. He,of course, was a seafarer and supporter of the Green Army like Sir Francis Drake, although neither knew it at the time.

So 250 passangers offloaded. No hotel rooms as the pesky Eskimo's were holding a conference. So main conversation in the departures hal was whether First and Business class get first dibs over Economy if cannibalism rears its head

To be continued

GOAT

 

May Be

....or maybe not, was it an interesting month?

Well it started off really well with a busy weekend involving the golf clan, The Visionaries, having Sunday lunch at The Red Fox in Thornton Hough. This village was built by Lord Leverholme for his management while he build the Port Sunlight village close to his soap factory for the blue collar and other ranks. I then played in a charity golf day organised by Rob Palmer of Sky TV fame. He raised over £20,000 for Stick'n Step a Cerebal Palsey charity. well done Rob.

House viewings were scattered throughout the month, but nothing is jumping out at us, and the stock level seems very poor at the moment with people sitting on their hands as they wait to see how the World energy crisis resolves itself.

SWMBO and I did attend A Question of Sport , the stage show, and while Matt Dawson and Phil Tuffnell were good value, the four local football players they had were a bit sub. 

I did manage to plan out another Cultural Tour of Liverpool for the golf gang but we will probably have to wait until September to explore the hostelries as the year gets busy from here on in.

Nothing much else to report except I got food poisoning which precluded me embracing our French golf colleagues who were over to play for the Roberts Cup. I will have to wait until next year but the England team did win for a change....maybe because...... 

April flowers

Ooops a bit behind here as it will soon be time for May Be. Still quite a lot to get through.

 With Easter week always comes the Port Sunlight beer festival, a four day extravaganza sponsored by oe of the big real ale pubs in Liverpool. I always plan to go on the first day, a Thursday, and meet up with fellow golfers and some of their mates.This year was particularly good for me as the selection of Amber bitter was extensive and most of them were very drinkable.

Sociability seemed the theme during the month as there was the first Red Jacket event of the year at the golf club followed by  another very enjoyable lunch with my ex-work colleagues in the Wreck Bistro. That was followed by another trip to the Institution Club which you will have read about during February. The Liverpool Society of Golf Club Captains then had their annual dinner at which 300 Red Jacket clad individuals dine out and listen to the Captain of the R & A, and England golf .

I am not really allowed to say this, but the Captains of the R & A can be fairly dull, although this year he was quite amusing.  In previous years we have had a sheep farmer from North Wales and a low land sheep farmer from Fife, neither entertained the audience with amusing and risqué stories of sheep and Wellington boots if you get my drift. Within the Society however we have several rectal oncologists who think of nothing better than to tell a few 'stories' of their own professions if you know what I mean. Everyone to their own.

 The month was rounded off with a day trip to London to see the oldest member of  The S Club, namely Stanley, who we had not seen for ages. Seamus travelled from Huddersfield and 'off the record' Dick from Nether Wallop. we visited Soho and ate in L' Escargot  which was an excellent choice.

So a very sociable month all round, however, two major events also occurred in April and they deserve their own entry so stay tuned.  

Back to the Future

10th May 2007 to be precise, the day I made my first venture into the world of Blog, and the topic?

Well I had just put Silver Crescent on the market and planned to use the social media platform to chart my progress to completion. Little did I know that almost 19 years to the day I would be publishing the same story.

Yes we are looking to down size and have started to look at possible homes to move into. We will not however put Weathers Towers on the market until we are confident we have somewhere we like to move into.

There are some scary parallels. The house next door is for sale as was the case in 2007, but they have a buyer, only trouble is they have sold for considerably less than we would expect to ask .  19 years ago  there was a financial crash which affected real estate prices in the same way as the Ukrainian and Middle |East conflicts are doing so now. Add the fact that every time Kier Starmer opens his mouth it somehow costs me money, and there could be a bumpy road ahead.

So lets see what sort of journey we embark on. Initial impressions indicate there is low stock available as people bide their time, and the houses which SWMBO does like tend to be in areas we would not wish to live. So we search the perfect (or 80%) property and then lets see who wants ours.

On that front, the pool has sprung a leek so we need to fix that first, it never rains but it pours!!   

How far?

26 miles and a few yards actually, yes, as alluded to during March, No 2 son was running the London Marathon, so SWMBO and I went down to the smoke to support him.

We went down the Saturday afternoon and caught up with some old rugby friends before a reasonably early night in Lensbury. It was under refurbishment so a bit disappointing that we had not been told, but hopefully it will be finished when we next go down and stay. 

Never mind that, we were off bright and early  on the Sunday to hopefully catch up with him three or four times during the race. It all started so well with parking purchased near Gunnersbury station and a short 30 minute tube ride to Westminster. As it turned out this was my only chance to sit down all day!!

A couple of stops later we were at the 8 mile mark and managed to catch him there but hen our plans all went out of the window, stations were closed due to volume of people, there were extensive queue's and standing only on rush hour packed tubes and DLR trains,

So, we were lucky to catch him again after about 17miles and then headed to the finish to meet up with him. What a joke that was as everybody was piling off at St James to meet up near Pall Mall, only to find there was no way of crossing the track into the park. Big logistical error by the marathon organisation team as it took an hour to walk around the park up to Piccadilly and back to Pall Mall, only to then get bounced from the building he was supposedly meeting us in.

Anyway all ended well as we met up, he showed off his medal and did a respectable time of just under 4 hours. Longer than his target but it was very hot and most people were below their PB when they finished

.

All except the elite winners that is who broke the World record.

The escape from London worked well though as from Gunnersbury we were on the motorway home in 5 minutes and another adventure got ticked off. 

March hare

 Bit of frustration this month as far as rugby concerned. No not the form of England more the opportunity SWMBO and I lost as a couple.

Firstly we appeared to be jibbed by our regular travel companions who went to Rome with a different crew, but more dramatically, a bucket list item was potentially lost forever.

So what would that be?

Well, in the 26 years of the revamped 6 Nations championship, when Italy were introduced, England have never played away in Rome one week and Paris the next. Until this year that is, and that's where the bucket list kicked in.

It was always a dream to go to Rome then take a road/train trip from there to Paris in the intervening week. Bordeaux? Province? La Rochelle? who knows where else, but we missed out and wonder whether the opportunity will present itself again. Hey ho.

We did manage a long weekend to Harrogate for my birthday which was very jolly, a friends 70th and a bash for no1 daughter.

We contributed to no2 sons London marathon campaign by arranging the house treadmill to be used at his school where he spent the day teaching on it. It made the local press and allowed him to burst through his £2000 sponsorship target which is good.

The month ended  with a very enjoyable pre-match lunch at the Birkenhead Park v Waterloo rugby matcgh with 280 people sitting down. An excellent  climax, to  a hectic month.