Celebrating the 70's - A chronicle of time and temperature

  Monday 26 February 2024 Planning is underway for our trip to Cornwall later this week. Apparently, not only are Lady P’s rellies from there but so are Jacki’s (the Kidd connection). And of course, there is supposed to be some good seafood as well. Not wanting to leave too much food in the fridge, we have a good fry up breakfast with Alyssa’s help. She mentioned Champagne. Flashy smiled. Lady P grimaced. But we are heading out at 1.30 pm for a wine tasting, so alas, no sparkling for breakfast. After lighting the fire and having another inspection, it was time to walk to Denbies Winery. Across from our driveway is a path up the hill, through the woods and down the other side, through the 265 acres of vines that is Denbies Estate. A short, 20 minute walk. Denbies, as a cool climate, loam over chalk, south facing terroir, is identical in that respect to the terroir of Champagne. So, they specialise in sparkling wine, mainly. According to the forced friendly receptionist, who ...

  Saturday/Sunday 24/25 February 2024 Saturday started with frost everywhere. The large back paddock was sparkling and the sun out with blue skies. It is however nudging 5c+. A bit like the old Albury winters, except I didn’t have to ride a bike five miles to school over frozen puddles. A trip to Kent to have lunch with Emma Louise and Johnny went smoothly, as we are now familiar with the exits and on-ramps to the M5 and A roads, so we were there in an hour. A pub lunch in a little 17thC village, with open fire, local lads and lasses and an assortment of dogs was pleasant, before the drive home to an open fire and the 5pm gin. Haven't felt cold since arriving in UK and you wouldn't believe how good an open fire is, particularly when you don't have to chop the wood. Just phone 'Rod the Log'  and it comes in bags. Sunday Alyssa arrived from Oxford to our little train station and we picked her up and headed home, all of two minutes away. On the drive up t...

  Friday 23 February 2024 Colder here today but still +8c. A bit of rain overnight but clear (hence cold) skies this morning, so nice behind glass, with a coffee. We went into Dorking today to shop for the weekend as our niece Alyssa is coming down from Oxford for the weekend. Hence, wine, spirits and a lump of beef is called for. Now here’s a strange thing and it hasn’t happened to us before, but for the fifth time in the week, we have had.. “Where are you from? “Australia, mate”. “Blimey, I thought you were South Africans.” I’m sure they don’t think we are bloody Jaapies, more like Laanies I’m sure. But, how do you get Seth Ayrfikan from ‘Stralia? Is it our smooth far north accent, perhaps?   Flashy is used to people thinking Lady P is Ukrainian, particularly when she speaks Italian to a Frenchman in a market in Nice. Trying to book an appointment with a doctor, today. How hard should that be in a country serviced by the NHS, speaking the King’s English, and loving...

  Thursday 22 February 2024 The MET’s prediction of “tornado” winds and super rain cells for Surrey were a fizzer. Nonetheless, there was rain and cold conditions today. Some might say a typical English winter’s day. So, after the usual pre inspection tidying, we headed to Horsham. About an hour away and a town of 50,000+, so a decent size and with a Thursday market. Lady P, being a bit tired I guess, forgot to bring her coat. Well, she’s going to be wet and cold says Flashy. Offers of a hat, scarf or even his coat were spurned as she hunted the charity shops for a cheap coat. Nothing worth a purchase, but she spots a Ralph Laurent dress for eight quid and there you go, another brightly coloured outfit for Bordeaux in May. Horsham is a delightful town, but we need to come back in better weather. Even the market stalls are closing down. So, in agreement for once, we head for home via a petrol stop - £1.49 per litre, gasp! Fill her up for £50. And here’s a little bit of Horsham gossi...

Wednesday 21 February 2024 We went down to Wherwell Wood, a small village near Andover, to have lunch with Laura Jane, the eldest Ogilvy of the four children that Lady P nannied in the 70’s. She’s 60 now and still lots of fun for a young woman. Lunch in the local pub with her four dogs, asleep on the floor, was great and the ladies had a good catch up. The weather has turned English winter. Well, you might say, it is mid February and you are in England, what do you expect? I would respond, that up till now we have had beautiful, mild and dry days, enabling us to ramble about the countryside. However, I think we are in for an Arctic blast in the next few days, if you can believe the Met. I might have mentioned before, that we are in the land of imperial measurement. Miles, yards, feet and inches, pounds and ounces pints and half pints (only for ladies!). It’s nearly 60 years since Australia went metric, but the old stuff never goes away. Flashy is constantly converting for Lady P....

  Tuesday 20 February No inspections today, so a bit of a late start. Flashy is a bit stuffed up in the sinus and Lady P is not sure whether to call a doctor or drama critic. Nonetheless, he soldiers on. We decide to take a little road trip north to Henley-on-Thames. How do you get ‘Temes’ from Thames? A fairly good run, with the driver ignoring both the navigator and the GPS as usual. However, we manage to find a little bakery for a coffee and a cinnamon scroll, about half way, except it’s called a Chelsea Bun and nowhere near as good as the Scandi ones. But who is complaining eh? The little car park was bursting with locals, truckers, tradies and one soldier. Aldershot is nearby but he wasn’t a Para. Henley-on-Thames is a beautiful place and we found the very large ‘Catherine Wheel’ pub (founded in 1400 something!) as we needed a toilet break and Flashy always says, a pub is a s good as a service station or a Maccas- better in fact.  Then we did a little walk and fou...

  Monday 19 February 2024 More inspections today, so tidying up and lighting the atmospheric fire, before heading into Riegate for Lady P’s hair appointment. Three hours later, she finds Flashy in the public house and we head home to meet the previous owner’s daughter, Victoria. In his defense , he did move the car about seeking parking and explore the shops a bit. Had a snack and a diet coke as well, and only then, had a gin and tonic, as it was well past 11.00 am. Now, when there is not much happening and no good food photos to amuse all my readers, I look for interesting facts and strange occurrences about the area where we are living. Westhumble has been around a bit. They say 8,000 years BC there were “people” here. Stone axes etc, but the recorded stuff goes back to 1200’s. Now, I did discover that we had a couple of famous people living in this area. One, A. A. Gordon Clarke (1900 – 1958) better known as Cyril Hare, his pseudonym. Apparently, he was a very famous cri...

  Sunday 18 February 2024 After a full monty English breakfast and some washing of woolens , we headed off on a country drive, along the narrow, twisting and sometimes muddy, country lanes, for a little village about 20 minutes away called Albury. This particular Albury was recorder in the 1086 Doomsday Book, so it’s a bit old. The manor estate was owned by Roger d’Abernon. Appropriate eh? He was a frog from Calvados, who followed William the Conqueror over to do a spot of burning and pillaging. My Albury, in NSW, is said to be named after this Albury in Surrey, but no one is sure. They both are (were) picturesque villages on a river. Being a Sunday, I suppose, there were lots of people rambling and cycling along the roads. The car parks at the trail heads were full and it was a bit busy. Lady P managed to miss a couple of horse riders doing a right hand turn. So we then found the pub. The Drummond pub at Albury is a lovely place, all set up today for Sunday roast. We had...

  Saturday 17 February 2024 Three inspections are due today and the real estate agent has just turned up. A nice chap who feels confidant that the estate will sell. He’s a real estate agent. We leave the house with clean floors, a crackling open fire, fresh flowers and the best crockery and silver set on the dining table and head off to Epsom for a few hours. Epsom is an up market town. I think there is a horse race there sometime during the year. When we were in Dorking, the council car park only took cash for parking. Remarkable. Even worse, all the banks have closed and there are no ATM’s in the town. We parked in the supermarket and also found a one hour spot in the High Street but decided we should somehow get some cash. As it turned out, this situation is peculiar to some towns, Dorking being one of them. Epsom, on the other hand, had 10 banks in a stone’s throw from the market and more ATM’s than is good for a town. Go figure. Spying the market in the square and smel...

  Friday 16 February We have just about sorted out the house and are not wondering about opening doors to see where we are, quite so much. 'Oh, shit, that’s the nursery! Turn right and it’s the second door near the back stairs, I think.' No showers, just baths with one of them fitted with a hand held shower lead, so every Saturday, needed or not, we can have a soak and a spruce up. Flashy reckons we can use a saucepan or billy, filled with warm water to rinse off the shampoo, while floating in the bath. I’m sure nanna used to do this in the 60’s. And she used a kerosene rinse sometimes for any lice. Just in case. Lady P has booked a hair appointment on Monday in Riegate, just a short drive away and this will take about 2.5 hours. Flashy has found a cultural iconic place to spend the time waiting. It’s called the 'Market Stores' and public house means that it’s open to the public, yes? Got the fire lighting in the drawing room sorted now with a chisel and hammer ...

  Wednesday 14 and Thursday 15 February 2024 Flying to Gatwick at 9.15 am   today (Wed), so an early start, seamless check out and a cheap tram ride to Bergen Airport. Norwegian Air’s 737 is a comfortable 1.50 hr flight into a green and wet England. But, it’s 11c positive. We need to strip off more layers and as some of you blokes will appreciate, it’s great to be out of tights and into just trousers. Our 2-door, Kia hire car turns out to be 5 door Vauxhall, which while small, is a zippy little car. The drive to our digs in Westhumble (Dorking nearest town) takes about half an hour and we arrive to lunch prepared by Emma Louise and Johnny, the family selling this stately home on inheritance. We are on 10 acres, in the country, about 3.5 miles from Dorking. Just love the imperial measurements. Reminds me of 1960’s. Johnny grew up here and his parents have just passed away, so our job is to live here, in a seven bedroom five bathroom country home, for the next six weeks ...

  Tuesday 13 February 2024 It’s raining, so it can’t be too cold or it would be snowing. It is actually +3c, so more layers come off and we head into the shopping centre for coffee because the machine in the hotel is broken. Our hotel is part of the City Box group of old buildings, redeveloped as a ‘no human’ hotel. I’m sure I have mentioned this before, but as a concept they have really got something. So, you check in and out via a booth, use apps for everything and have a very clean room with a brilliant bathroom and rain head shower and unlimited hot water. But, there are no other facilities in the room at all, apart from a very comfortable bed and lots of power outlets and great heating.  If you want a cup of tea of coffee, a snack perhaps, or a comfy lounge chair and TV – well, they’re all down stairs in the lobby. Drop in. Enjoy.   Put the kettle on. You can even do your laundry and go into the café attached for snacks and beverages, where there is a lone human ...

  Monday 12 February 2024 Not much today. Went for a walk looking for secure wifi to make a bank transfer, then realised that we have VPN, so it doesn’t matter. Lightning fast internet here, I should add. We walked to the fish market in spitting rain, more like a mist really and not so cold, 0c to +1c. While waiting for the bars to open at 3pm, we visited the Bregen Military Museum, which was OK, sort of, then across the road to a bar with country and western music. Surprisingly, our two Swiss friends were sitting at the bar too. Amazing. I also saw the two Germans who were sitting next to us on our bus/train/bus/bus/boat etc trip a couple of days ago, walking the Bergen streets. A curt nod of the head and a whispered ‘guten tag’, is about as excited as they get. Last day tomorrow and a trip to the airport heading for the UK, so some last minute washing and admin.

  Sunday 11 February My actual birthday today and Lady P has managed to secrete a present of a China egg cup and a book on the thoughts on life of 100 Chefs, in her suitcase for my presents. Now that will be perspicacious and informative reading. I shall share some of the good ones with you. We had a really good breakfast in the hotel’s café, which is not always the case. The full monty! Then down to the dock to get on our ferry ride on the fjord. The original intention was to take this to Gudvangen, then bus to Vossenvagen then train into Bergen. As the fjord was iced over in part, we cruised up one arm then back to another village for a bus ride to a bus ride to the train at Vos and hence to Bergen. Complicated, but it worked smoothly with friendly Norse blokes with long blonde hair about the place. Wouldn’t call them pussies! Saw the little tour guide telling all the rest of the mob to go find another bus. Little prick. On board the ferry, at precisely 10.01 am, we sha...

  Saturday 10 February 2024 An early walk to the station for the train to Flam. The train departed silently exactly on time. It’s full of Australians and they sound like farmers  from Woomera, but not so much in our carriage. Their tour guide irritates Flashy from the start and he works out ways of tipping his backpack out of the train. We finish the war chest of food, have a beer and gin in the Kafe Car and then just out of Myrdal, at Fisa, we stop because another train in front of us has derailed. We have to wait here until the track is cleared. Finally make Flam at the bottom of the valley and head of the fjord. And the scenery is stunning with massive snow covered mountains and the nearly freezing fjord. Photos turn out black and white as the glacier carved its way through basalt. Winter has stripped all the leaves from the stunted trees and the snow is everywhere. Flashy explains the lateral morains formed through metamorphosed basaltic lavas is the exposed black ro...

  Friday 9 February 2024 Our economy City Box Hotel is actually OK. Comfortable, warm and clean and I like the bed. Today we went for a guided tour of the Opera House, built in 2018 for 500 million Euro. It is next door to the City Library. Both buildings were spectacular and right on the seafront. If you are a designer or architect, you will love this precinct. If you are married to one, you might still like it. Really good photos are on the Penguin blog.  An interesting Nordic fact for those waiting. We were told we should have a sowna. Eventually, I figured they meant sawner. Speaking of which, we noticed a number of floating (just) houseboats in the harbour. Then we saw a number of semi-naked men and women emerge and immerse themselves in the icy Baltic, some actually moving sheets of ice to get wet. Ah so, they were public saunas. It was -13c today and you can’t take that for granted and forget a second pair of thermal undies and a second scarf or decide not to do up ...

  Wednesday 7 February 2024 Getting ready to go to Oslo tomorrow, so a packing up day. Lady P wanted to go to Ikea back in the new town. We did. It was a small Ikea. What can you say…it’s Ikea. The Swedish Meatballs in the caf were average, plain, under seasoned and well, I’m sure they just call them meatballs here, but I guess you got to do it once. Flashy’s idea of buying sone goodies for tomorrow’s train trip lunch to Oslo got the tick of approval, so we went to get cheese, olives, salami, jamon, that good brown bread that is a heavy as concrete and some cooked chook. We took these back to the apartment via ‘The Liffey,’ an Irish pub, for a pint of Guinness. As an observation, the old town has a lot of Italian restaurants and a few British/Irish pubs. So Scandi eh? Flashy reckons there are more Italian restaurants here than Thai restaurants in Cairns and that’s saying something. Lady P decides she does not require dinner and picks on half the chicken. Flashy decides to g...