28th October 2007
Sunday - 6.25pm : I've been naughty this weekend. This lactose intolerant person has been indulging in food known to irritate her. I couldn't help myself, but it doesn't seem to have done myself any harm... yet.
Yesterday morning I polished off a bar of 'Chocolat blanc aux paillettes de noix de coco caramélisées' ('White chocolate with the caramelized coconut spangles', as translated by AltaVista's Babel Fish). I bought it in Calais just before catching the ferry back to Dover after my trip to Belgium a couple of weeks ago. I had some spare change (which can't be converted back into pounds), so thought I'd try this white chocolate bar with coconut, despite it being on my list of untouchables. I can't even use the excuse of not knowing what the ingredients were, because lactose seems to be exactly the same work in French! Still, I only had a square or two of it a day and oh, wasn't it delicious! If only I could find something similar over here... Not that I should be eating chocolate!
Today my parents and I went to Shrewsbury. I needed to replace my old DVD player and they needed some kitty litter and cat food. After braving the hectic shops (has everyone started their Christmas shopping already?) we decided to have a meal at the Horseshoes Inn in Dorrington. There looked to be butter on the vegetables (I had a roast turkey dinner), but I ate them anyway and then there was dessert. Dad wanted dessert and I didn't want to be left out as usual... So I went for chocolate fudge cake & ice cream. I fully expected it to be too sweet for my taste these days, but it wasn't. It was like heaven! I felt a little sick afterwards, but that was to be expected. I've also been expecting either a bad stomach or some kind of rash, but nothing so far.
I also have to own up to having half a Wispa on Friday evening and the other half last night. Cadbury's have brought back this wonderful bar of chocolate and I couldn't resist. I could never understand why they stopped selling them anyway!
Mum bought me a Carob bar yesterday. It's supposedly an alternative for chocolate. I tried a piece earlier. Ergh! What horrid stuff! I thought it tasted like cardboard with a vile aftertaste. I gave a bit each to Mum & Dad so they could understand the look on my face. They thought it was pretty horrible too. In my opinion there's no substitute for chocolate. It's either the real thing or nothing (torturous as that prospect may be!).
Anyway, now I finally have a working DVD player I'm off to watch a few episodes of The Dresden Files. Thanks to Gordon aka Gopher and Andrea for commenting on the last post.
27th October 2007
Saturday - 11.30am : I've been meaning to write before now, but what with being busy with work and having a headache over the past few days, I've not really felt like it. The headache feels like somebody is stabbing me in the side of my head. I used to get similar headaches when I was in college (a long time ago now), so I wonder if it's stress. I don't know, I just wish it would go away.
Mind you, I'm doing better than Howard Donald. The DJ and member of my favourite man band (you can't really call them a boy band when most of them have kids!) has landed himself in hospital (in Vienna)... right in the middle of the Beautiful World tour! He sustained a chest injury while performing on the tour and will have to sit it out until the doctors allow him to return. Howard insisted the other guys carry on without him. I wish him a speedy recovery and hope he's back on stage before I go to see Take That in November!
Talking of Take That....... They released their latest single on Monday and it should be heading to the top of the UK singles chart tomorrow evening. Rule The World was written specifically for the Stardust movie. Definitely worth checking out and buying!
I went to see Ardal O'Hanlon at Theatr Hafren last weekend. Ardal is a stand-up comedian who most will associate with the TV show Father Ted in which he played Father Dougal. Sarah & I made a bit of an evening of it, having a drink in the theatre bar before the show and heading to the village pub afterwards. We had a great evening and I would definitely go and see Ardal again.
Last week I discovered another part of my family tree and through Genes Reunited I have already made contact with one or two long lost cousins. I'm already aware that my Great Great Great Grandmother's brother emigrated to Australia, so I'm looking forward to seeing what I can discover about this part of the family.
Well, that's all from me for now. Thanks to Karen, Daystar, Andrea, Mike Davis, Rashbre, Cyberevolution, Miss M, Old Old Lady of the Hills and Bob-kat.
16th October 2007
Tuesday - 9.45pm : I'm home! Do you ever get that feeling when you reach home that you've never even left? I felt that as soon as we got to Dover yesterday. Anyway, here goes.......
Friday : A very early start! My alarm was due to go off at 4.30am (which was early enough), but Leo (the cat) decided to wake me up at 4am! When we arrived at Shrewsbury (our departure point for the coach), Dad decided to take a trip all of his own... He tripped over a bollard and fell over! Thankfully, he didn't do any damage as that wouldn't have been the best start to a trip abroad!
It was a long journey down to Dover, but the coach was comfortable (apart from when the couple in front of us reclined their seats and my knees were jammed into the back of the seat). It was a nice smooth ride on the ferry over to Calais and it didn't seem to take long to get there. After a late lunch on board, look looked around the shop before sitting down and watching the sea and other boats go by (The English Channel seems to be the M1 of seas, it's that busy!).
From Calais (France) we headed to the hotel in Tournai (Belgium), making a quick stop in Ypres (Ieper) to pick up our tour guide for the weekend (he'd only just finished another tour).
Once at the hotel, Dad & I took a walk around the nearby streets. The hotel was just down the street from the Cathedral of Notre-Dame (which looked like it was in the middle of being restored). We had a few drinks in the hotel bar before heading to bed.
Saturday : Once everyone was on the coach we headed to our first destination - Tyne Cot Cemetery (the largest cemetery for Commonwealth forces in the world). It has changed slightly since I was last there (14 years ago). There is now a visitor centre and car/coach park at the back, with a path leading down to the front entrance of the cemetery (this is just one of many examples of how these places have changed in the past decade due to the large numbers of people now visiting the former battlefields). Our tour guide provided us with plenty of information about Tyne Cot (as with every other place we visited) as well as letting us wander around by ourselves. One thing I noticed was a Belgian couple having their photos taken at the cemetery having just got married! Us Brits thought that was slightly odd in a war cemetery, but our tour guide told us it was quite common for Belgians to do that.
Our next stop was Hill 62 and Sanctuary Wood. The museum there holds many articfacts (most of which looked so dusty I don't think the place had been cleaned since I was last there!) and at the back of the museum are preserved British trenches (a crowd-puller). Another popular part of the museum are the 3D images (in viewing boxes). Some are quite gory, but interesting.
Next up was our lunch stop at Hooge Crater cafe and museum. We had a sandwich and drink before taking a look around the museum as well as the cemetery across the road. The tour guide came and had chat with Dad & I, which happened to be an ideal place. We were stood in the same area where Joe Groom had won the Distinguished Conduct Medal.
After lunch, we were given a couple of hours in Ypres to do what we wanted to. Dad & I spent some time looking around the In Flanders Fields museum in the famous Cloth Hall. We also looked around the Menin Gate memorial before getting back on the coach.
We then made a quick stop at The Yorkshire Trench near Boezinge. It's a small excavated part of a trench system, now surrounded by an industrial estate.
Our next destination was Poperinghe to see 2 death cells and an execution pole in the town hall courtyard. We also visited Poperinghe Military Cemetery where the executed soldiers lie.
Our final stop on Saturday (before heading back to the hotel in Tournai) was back at Ypres. We had a meal & drinks at The Viper restaurant and then went back to the Menin Gate for the Last Post. The local fire brigade played the last post, a bagpipe player played and a choir sang beautifully. The Last Post is always very moving.
The hotel bar wasn't very peaceful that night. The England Rugby team beat France and our lot were celebrating.
Sunday : Obviously some people must have celebrated a bit too much as 2 or 3 people were missing for this day and 1 only just made it before the coach left. He then slept all morning and even missed his lunch!
After about an hour & a half on the coach we made our way to the Somme and to Historial de la Grande Guerre (The Museum of the Great War) in Péronne, France. The museum shows several sides of the story and explains the war, its origins and its consequences. It's situated in a beautiful area, as are most of the places we visited. Its odd, just 90 years ago these places had been ravaged by war.
On our way to our lunch stop we visited Guillemont Road Cemetery. Our tour guide gave us the history of the war in this area and gave us time to look around. I found the grave of a KSLI soldier who could me a member of my extended family tree, so took a photo of his grave so I could check it out when I got home.
Back on the coach we headed to Cafe Calypso in Longueval for lunch. After a baguette and drink some of us headed down to Delville Wood by foot. We walked around the museum, wood and cemetery before meeting up with the coach at the visitor centre.
Our next destination was Lochnagar Crater, then on to Sunken Lane and the memorial to the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders. While the coach was parked at the bottom of the Sunken Lane it was invaded by ladybirds! It took us the rest of the afternoon and evening to get rid of them and there was still one or two on the coach the next morning!
Newfoundland Memorial Park was next on our itinerary. When I was last here there was more freedom. We were able to re-enact climbing out of the trenches and running towards the Germans, but the ability to do that is now long gone. Due to the amount of visitors to the park access is now limited and electric fences stop visitors roaming where they shouldn't.
Our last visit of the day was to Thiepval Memorial to the Missing. Another place that has changed since my last visit. A visitor centre now stands before the entrance to the memorial. As the sun was setting on Thiepval it was setting on our tour.
Back at the hotel the restaurant was closed for the evening, so we headed out to find something to eat. The language barrier presented a slight problem. Neither of us can speak French and the people at the local eatery didn't seem to understand English. We ended up ordering our food by pointing at the menu! Still, despite the language barrier we managed to order our food and pay for it, though I did leave feeling a little stupid! After a walk around some of the streets of Tournai, I fell asleep in front of the hotel room TV. I had planned on watching Michael Palin on BBC1 (who knew they recieved that in Belgium?!).
Monday : The morning saw us packing our bags and loading them on the coach. We stopped off in Ypres on the way abck to Calais for some last minute shopping. Half of the shops seemed to be closed and there was a chill in the air, but we did find a wonderful chocolate shop - Peter de Groote (where I bought Mum her present). We also made a visit to the "cash & carry" for those who wanted to stock up on cheap beer etc. Dad stocked up on yet more chocolate!
We had another fine sailing back across the English Channel to Dover. Once on British shores the trip was over, just a (long) coach ride home.
It was an interesting trip and definitely one I'd recommend. We had beautiful weather (unlike when I went years ago and it snowed!).
More photos can be found at Flickr.
Back to work tomorrow!
Thanks to Utenzi, Daystar, Bob-kat, Andrea, SNiP, Apple, footnoteMaven and Rashbre for commenting on the last post.
11th October 2007
Thursday - 9.25pm : I'm not doing too well with keeping up these journal entries, am I? Nearly half the month has gone by and this is my first entry of the month. I'm blaming work as it's keeping me busy during the day and half asleep in the evenings! Also, there won't be another entry from me until at least the middle of next week.
I'm off to Belgium at some ungodly hour in the morning and won't be back until the very early hours of Tuesday morning. Mum is cat-siting (and working) while Dad & I go on a World War I Battlefields trip. Dad has wanted to go for years as his father had fought over there in the war. I'm taking my camera so there should be plenty of photos when I get back.
I've not even gone yet and I'm already thinking about where to go on my next trip... whenever I'll be able to afford another trip! My last one abroad was Canada in February/March 2001.
I went to see Uncle Stanley (who is really my Granddad's cousin!) last weekend. He'd asked me to show him what I'd got on that part of the family tree. So I ended up getting a big piece of paper and drawing up his part of the family tree, from me right up to my Great Great Great Grandfather. I also took him a copy of the Family Tree magazine article which mentioned that side of the family. Uncle Stanley was fascinated and also helped up clear up 2 mystery brothers within the family which my Granddad had mentioned... the brothers (to my Great Grandfather) turned out to be cousins!
Anyway, that's all from me. I'll be getting up at 4.30am, so I should be in bed already!
Thanks to Craziequeen, Sara, Thumper, Yellojkt, Andrea, Utenzi, Bob-kat and Leslie for commenting.
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