Bubbles Goes East

Bubbles goes East.

Wednesday March 22^nd to Saturday April 22^nd 2017

5.30 am - It was a very early start as we set out by taxi travelling to Manchester airport. I was very excited. From Manchester to Amsterdam and Amsterdam to Taipei in Taiwan. I had lots of sleeps and watched the film ‘Passengers'

We then caught the bullet train to Kaohsiung travelling at 308km per hour. A very smooth ride and felt like being on an aeroplane. Four hours from one end of Taiwan to the other! Must keep hydrated

The Hotel Kindness lived up to its name and was home for 4 days. Free ice cream, drinks and cakes all day and night! For those of us with jetlag! And big, big beds!

Saturday 25^th March - I went to Matt and Grace’s 4th wedding celebration and was allowed a drink of Red Bull to keep me awake!

Drinking with the Groom and Best Man Haha …….

 I took this picture of the two families.

Sightseeing tour:

I really enjoyed the high buildings we visited. Great view of Taipei

With my new friend

Delicious Chinese Dumplings with the Chen Family

The fruit was good and kept me going

There wasn’t a t-shirt my size sadly!

Harbour light show

Flight to Beijing

Saturday 1st April- Off to Beijing in China

To the most awful hotel in a dodgy area!! The taxi got stuck down a back ally and there was a broken down lorry. Lots of public toilets because a lot of the old traditional houses built around a courtyard don’t have a bathroom. Just one night and then to a Novatel the next morning – 3* Luxury!

Visited the Ming Tombs

What a way to travel!

and The Great Wall of China

 

Wednesday 5^th April - A 6 hour bullet train journey to Xi An to the Hotel Grand Mecure and to see the The Terracotta Warriors

My mates down to size at the Terracotta Warriors. Very friendly really – they just look fierce!

Here's a distant Chinese relative –

Can you see me?

 

Saturday 8^th April – off to Miri in Borneo to stay at the Marriott Hotel.

Loved it – Sunbathing, swimming, shoe boating and dolphins

 

Off to Brunei on Sunday 9^th April to see some more friends. George the Gecko, Prakriti and Marcel Monkey.

I also went to Hornbill School – that was a good day

Friday 14^th April - Had a lovely Easter weekend at the Empire Hotel in Brunei

 

Afternoon tea at the Empire Hotel. Even these tiny cakes were too big for me! Followed by a beautiful sunset

18th April – Flew to Kuala Lumpur for four days

 

King Kong Bubbles on The K Tower.  Petronas Towers at night        

Next trip the moon maybe?.......

Around the Acres in Allestree

25^th April 2017

With weather forecasts set for a continuation of winter, intrepid explorers Alison, Maggie and Helen J arrived at Allestree Nature Reserve bang on time. We were sadly missing Pam, Jo, Helen M and Charlotte, who had the cutest reason for not being able to attend….

 

Woodstock looking after poorly lamb…

In glorious sunshine, but with a biting wind, we soon headed off to the comfort of the bar.

‘Why am I surrounded by all these men?’

 

We learned that there is not much history to the house itself other than the building was once owned by several wealthy landowners and it was rebuilt at one point to become a Grade II listed building. Courtesy of a bit of scaffolding it is now not listing but it is on the Heritage At Risk Register… probably the equivalent of Ofsted for buildings.   But it was with incredible foresight, that the original landowner bought enough land to ensure a future playground for grown-ups

 

 

 

The trophy hunters… Ding! Dong!

 

When the last owner was killed by lightning strike in the grounds, the hall was sold to Derby City Council for a mere £23,000. It is just such a pity that the babes hadn’t even been a twinkle in their parents’ eyes at the time, because it would have made a marvellous retirement home for us all.  Although, we would have had to cope with a right hoi-polloi of Nordic walkers and dog walkers on our doorstep.

 

With glorious views of a rabbit,  we caught up with Maggie’s latest breakfast outing to Tebay Services and Alison’s views on young, alpine chamber-boys, whose advantage of a private education appears to be lashings of confidence. Their only disappointment seemed to be that they were expecting to be catering for a rather famous comedian, but we are sure that Pete didn’t disappoint.  Thoughts also turned to our own levels of fitness and we were not sure whether it is our age, but high level mountain-walking does seem to be a bit more daunting than it used to be.  Unless of course, you chair-lift up and ski down.

Keen to prove to ourselves that we were reasonably fit for a quick walk around Derby’s largest nature reserve, we set off under blue skies, keeping an eye on the threatening clouds to the east. Skies are wonderful things to behold, unless of course, one is stranded with a broken-down hire car on the top of Mount Teide as night time approached. Clearly the latest holiday car adventure from yours truly, but towing trucks lit up in glory do not mix with stargazers anxiously attempting to identify every galaxy before the moon made a full appearance.

Stargazing could become a potential GB activity, but that is for the future as we had more pressing identifications to make. Whilst being reasonably confident about our bird knowledge, we felt a little lost without Jo, Lynn and Helen M’s plant expertise, but we had a good crack at it.

Bluebells in the wood

 

Dandelions in the field

Red campion in the hedgerows

 

But only one oak leaf...

We also saw celandine, a few nettles and an escaped narcissi, but we are not sure whether that counts or not.

 

Whilst crossing the road from the woods to the fields, we played ‘guess which footballer lives here’ but sadly there were no viewings of Cloughie Jnr this time; he’s probably found a new place to play pokemon.

Views across the fields in Quarndon were stunning

As were the views in the edge of the field…

 

 

With time pressing we tested our ability to gear up to the next level and set off at a brisker pace back down through the woods

 

More bluebells…..

But just as we got out into the open we were caught in a bit of wintry weather pretending to be cherry blossom and it was cold. We felt lucky it wasn’t lightning.

Tee, hee!

Lunch was a full-on-flavour soup of garlic, mushroom and white wine complete with garlicky croutons and iced buns plus a croque-madame for Lynn with lashings of award winning lemon oil.  Sorry Lynn… was it the award winning lemon oil you wanted on your garnish? And a few minutes later, with full apologies from the chef, the hot-not-cross buns arrived.  

A belated birthday gift for Maggie ….

Behold a thing of beauty….

What was that about a small, aged, rust bucket?

 

She can’t resist another peek…

 

 

Whilst Lynn is waiting for the tooth fairy to arrive tonight, Helen’s ongoing saga with her dentists and now depleting bank balance continued to amuse.  There will be another instalment soon, one is sure of it….

A bit of forgetfulness also seems par for the course with getting older.  But the best tip of the day is: take photos of the inside of your cupboards and stick the photo on the outside!  Being a super domestic goddess, Maggie will, of course, have beautifully neat photos to reflect the state of her cupboards, whilst some of us…. Ooops, there is a downside to this tip!

When talking about how we all ended up at Gell, and with her ‘salad days’ not yet over,  Lynn won the award for the most interesting story of her career. However, it was all too soon before we need to say cheerio to Lynn. Hugs later, the rest of us strolled down the lane for a bit of animal therapy.

 

The horse whisperer gets to work…

 

Two legs good...

Four legs.. a bit better...

 

Bird list for the day…

Blackbird

blue tit

buzzard*

canada goose

chiffchaff*

crow

dunnock

great tit

jackdaw

magpie

mallard

pied wagtail

robin

swallow*

wood pigeon

 

15 for the day… and considering how cold it was, not bad.  Starred are the new for this year.  And in the drive back down, Helen J saw  a greater spotted woodpecker, a lapwing and a pheasant. But, unfortunately no garganey….as Maggie had used up our allocation of rarely seen birds in Leighton Moss!