Carpet news

Guess what? The carpet fitter came and fitted the stair carpet on the day he said he would! No fuss, intelligible French, and no radio ( he just hummed classical music quietly to himself).  So the carpet looks great..............

However, it wasn't quite the end of the story.  The observant among you may notice something lacking.

Yes, the last organisation, who gave us the runaround for weeks and then went bust, even managed to measure up wrongly so we're two steps short of a staircase!

Back home

We had one of those bizarre experiences in Kuala Lumpur, where we had factored in a 24 hour stopover. In the queue to check in, hot off the flight from Melbourne, I recognised but was unable to place a face further down the counter. When I'd stared long enough he noticed and we realised that we knew each other through singing and he lived in Old, a village about 5 miles from Orton. Quelle coincidence!
We spent the afternoon in KL walking the streets,
taking frequent drink stops, it being warm and incredibly humid. Most impressed by the Petronas Twin Towers,


even more impressive seen illuminated later in the evening.


Anyway, back to our homecoming and an unbelievably cold house. Considering it was spring, not winter, it was strange how very long it took to warm up. We had the heating on throughout that evening and all next day and still had to wear thick sweaters or jackets in the house. I soon got warm in bed the first night but when I turned over in the night the bed was ice-cold everywhere but where I was lying.
What has been amusing is that everyone I've met who has followed the blog has mentioned my being lost at the Octopus. It's like I didn't write anything else. Everyone's shocked or amused at Chris' response (as indeed I was!) but I have to say that you reap what you sow - I was never one to worry about Chris, though you might say he gave me cause on occasion.
Our first week back was hectic with a two day stay in a cottage near Conwy mid week to reunite with 4 school friends, some of whom had not met for 50 years. What a fascinating time that was.


Then at the weekend Jon and I took the grandchildren to Liverpool, staying in the once-grand Adelphi hotel, to see the Giant Spectacular, which was.......spectacular......and gigantic.
Thank goodness I didn't notice any jet-lag or it would have been hard to cope.

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Location:,Kettering,United Kingdom

Ballarat

We followed our week in Castelmaine by staying with friends in Ballarat.
Like Castlemaine, it is a town which grew and prospered in the second half of the 19th century due to the huge amounts of gold found there. Consequently,it is impossible to visit the town without learning some of its gold mining history. In Castlemaine we made good use of the self-guided audio tours. In Ballarat, on the other hand, we spent most of a day looking round a splendid reconstruction of a goldfield.



We even panned for gold in the creek.







If you are persistent enough you can find tiny particles of gold in the silt.

A gold nugget in the gold museum


This is how the first (alluvial) gold was extracted from 1851 onwards, mostly by individuals who staked their claim to a parcel of land. As this source was gradually exhausted, in the 1860's mining became more industrialised, as rock was removed from underground and crushed, the gold then being separated out with the aid of mercury. The main gold rush in the area was over surprisingly quickly, by 1870, and finally the last mine closed in 1918. The value of the total recorded yield from the Ballarat Goldfield was $10,000,000,000, and much was unrecorded.
As new techniques became available, periodically there were revivals of the mine workings, and today gold is once more being extracted, as the price has risen to a level which makes mining it economically worthwhile again.

I have to admit that for me the best way to absorb history is through these sites which bring the period to life. Childish maybe, but it works. I managed to come through school unscathed by any elements of history, which I found excruciatingly boring.

Another excellent experience we had in this second week was a couple of days driving along the Great Ocean Road along the S coast of Victoria, in a car kindly lent to us by our hosts.


The scenery here is spectacular and we saw our one and only koala in the wild on this route.
Lots of swamp wallabies staring at us on Griffith Island too.



And cars. Of course there had to be cars. Jon's Castlemaine friend repairs and restores vintage and veteran cars for a living, from workshops on his premises so we were steeped in cars and car talk there, even riding round in an Austin Chummy for our sight-seeing.


Ballarat was also a visit to a car friend and resulted in other car inspections and a visit to another enthusiast.



So car talk, lots of outdoor sight-seeing, the company of lovely hospitable friends, seeing Chris, wildlife galore, cities and backwoods. Altogether we have both been well-catered for and the time has just flown by.


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Pokies and hot coffee

A couple of things which we couldn't help noticing in Australia which you probably won't find in the guidebooks.
We kept seeing protesting posters saying things like "No More Pokies". What??
Well it seems Pokies are gaming machines and there is felt to be an epidemic of them.



The picture is typical. It's of a historic hotel in the centre of Ballarat which has this in the lobby. I've not researched the background to their growth but it is clear there is a groundswell of popular opposition to many applications for installations.

Incidentally, as our hosts pointed out to us, the hotel made a rather big bloomer when ordering their custom-printed carpet, which says Dieu et mon Driot.



Another tip for the traveller is how to order your coffee, something we did lots of!
If you like your coffee hot, you have to say so. The default is "not hot". How odd. And how many lukewarm coffees we consumed before making this discovery. I blame McD, or rather the idiot who sued them for scalding her. If anyone knows otherwise I'd like to hear from you.


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Location:Kettering,United Kingdom