Naked Piano Course

Just love doing different things.  I have many hobbies that I pursue, much to the sorrow, I’m sure, of my long suffering and patient husband.  Most of my hobbies are gadget intensive which is really appealing to an engineer (my husband) but can get up there in the price range.  Some of the things I do are:  scuba diving (he enjoys this with me), stained glass and fusing glass and occasionally glass blowing, (lots of glass and he enjoys this as well), mosaics (we are both just starting in this hobby so still have to get lots of tools and such – yea), jewellery making, reading, and travel.  All my life I have wanted to learn the piano as well.  AND we have a piano in storage back in the states so it’s not like I have to go get one.  Thus, several years ago, my family gave me a keyboard to pursue this.   While it is a long-time dream, it is still quite difficult to fit it into my schedule and practice and learn because I am an absolute beginner.   I tried taking lessons from a piano teacher and she loved me because I would actually go home and practice  – not like many of her young school students.  BUT because of travelling and school holidays (when she would not work), I wasn’t getting too far too fast.

So I am doing the self taught courses of which I have numerous books and two on line courses I am following.  Still very hard to find the time.  BUT I have found that after I do my exercises in the morning, (some pilates mat, walking on the treadmill, and my knee strengthening exercises), I seem to be in the very mood necessary to sit down and practice my keyboard.  My piano teacher told me once that if I wasn’t in the mood, don’t even waste the time.   The odd bit is the desire to practice hits me the minute I come out of the shower and walk into my bedroom, naked as can be, and right there is the keyboard.  If I stop to get dressed – which includes doing all the creams and lotions and such as I’m older now and the body needs the special treatment, the mood is gone.  So, it’s sit down to the keyboard, naked as a new baby, and practice!  Luckily, usually, everyone is gone to work or at the gym or elsewhere engaged so I don’t have to worry about anyone catching me except the cats and they don’t care.  Wonder if I could start a trend?

Spiders, Ugh

Spiders, ughNot a fan of spiders, any, really.  But I can manage to catch them and release them outside, if they are daddy long legs or something I recognize.  I am also not too squeamish about squashing them if they are in my house space but I do always feel bad about doing that since I know they are useful.  And I have been known to shriek and leave the room quickly and yell for my husband if it’s big and nasty and fast.  All gametes of spider phobias and dislike and acceptance all in one place so I can understand others being freaked by spiders.

Had to make an emergency run to the vet on Friday.  Not for any sick pets, thank you, but I was dangerously low on cat food.  Our fuzzy babies are all on special diets and while it wouldn’t hurt them to eat something else for a day or two, we’re trying to get our two big boys (one of ours and our daughter’s cat) to lose some weight and that’s what I needed.

Luckily they had about 5 bags of the food and I snatched up 3 of them.  I paid cash and the lone young lady working the desk had to go get the safe key from the vet and go get change from the safe.   As she is handing me my change, I notice a rather large daddy long legs close to the bottom of her shirt.  She is wearing a nurse-type of shirt – buttons down the front but does not tuck into her trousers.  I tell her she has a spider on her shirt.

She immediately goes totally rigid and says “I HATE spiders” and her voice is quivering.  I tell her to get close and I will brush it off.  But that dang spider with all it’s little spidey eyes saw me coming and started working it’s way down her shirt and the minute I reached for it, he went underneath her shirt.
“Opps” is my comment.

If it was possible, she got even more rigid and says in a squeaky and timorous voice “It went up inside, didn’t it.”
“Yep”.  She starts squealing because she’s still trying to hand me my change and has dropped a coin.  I tell her to forget my coin and run to the back and get help.  She manages to scoop up my coin and practically throws it at me as she is dashing to the door that leads to the back of the vets office.  Now she is yelling, “Spider, spider, spider, help, get it off me.”

Poor girl.  I can feel for her.  I think she had her shirt unbuttoned by the time she hit the door.

Go Golf Cart!

In order to avoid walking a lot, we had made arrangements to rent a golf cart for three of our days on Scilly.  Unfortunately, we did not have a place to charge the battery at the bed and breakfast so that meant we had to take the cart back to Scilly Carts every evening by 5:30.  OK, it’s doable and it means we can get around the island without walking as much.  We thought.

At our breakfast this morning, a boatman came in to tell us what boats were running today.  Everything is dependent on the weather and tides and such.  So some cruises around the islands or even to neighboring islands are not always possible.  Today he said there was a 10:15 cruise out to the Western Isles and to Bishop’s Lighthouse.  That had been one of my places I’d marked that we wanted to visit.   So we’ll have to get to the quay and get tickets.  But first, we have to go pick up our golf cart

Bishops lighthouse

 

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The golf cart people told me that we needed to be there well before 10 or they would give away our golf cart if they had a lot of people wanting them.  So we called and said we were on the way.  Looks to be about a mile from the BnB and we had to stop and ask for directions once.  Not sure how long it would take me to walk a mile so we left shortly after 9.  Down the hill, through the town, along the beach, back up another hill, down another hill, and there we were!  Lots of carts.  We both signed up to drive, paid our money, and he assured us that the charge on our battery would last approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes OR we could drive about 21 miles.  Since there are only 7 miles of road on St. Mary’s we could circle the island 3 times.  The biggest problem with the golf carts is finding a place to park.  There is no parking on the High Street.  You can’t park on the pavement and you can’t take the cart off the pavement onto any of the foot paths or dirt/gravel roads.  OK, we’ll manage.  He did show us some photos of people who have managed to park in ways to get themselves towed, such as up against the ATM machine so that no one could get to it, in the middle of a restaurant path so no one could pass, and so forth.  You can’t drive on the quay with them either as people don’t realize how fast they can back up and more than one person has ended up buying a golf cart after they’ve backed it into the harbor.

We drove back into Hugh Town and parked at the first beach where there was a car in front of us parking.  We checked with them to make sure it was OK to leave the cart there and then headed for the quay to get our tickets for Bishop’s Lighthouse

bishops lighthouse

 

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Not quite a full boat but enough that once we sat down on the right hand side of the boat (we were on the left last night for the gig races and thought we’d change to the right side today – mistake!), we wouldn’t be able to move back and forth to the other side.   The boat goes over to St. Agnes first and drops off some people going to the beach and such.  They all have beach umbrellas and chairs and buckets and all kinds of stuff for their day in the sand.  Then we head on out to the Western Isles to see seals and anything else and Bishop’s Lighthouse.

Realized we were on the wrong side again because the wheel is more towards the left on these boats so the skipper is looking to the left to find things.  He found a sunfish swimming near the surface.  I love sunfish!!!   They are so bizarre and I’ve only ever seen one in Dubai in the aquarium.  I so wanted to see it but there were too many people blocking my view.   The sunfish didn’t hang around long and then he spotted another one.  But again, I couldn’t get a view.  dang it.

He pulled up alongside some rocks where there were seals in the water and again they were on the left side and we were on the right side.  pooey.  But he did turn the boat several times for us to be able to see the seals and also a floating raft of shags (a lot of birds in the water together making it look almost solid).  Then we are passing out of the relative calm of being inside the Isles and out into the actual Atlantic

View from ancient ruins

 

.  The waves are definitely more choppy and it’s more windy and rougher riding.

Had we been out there too much longer, there might have been a few seasick people but it was a relative short trip.  You can see Bishop’s Lighthouse standing on the horizon and as you get close, it gets bigger and taller and bigger and taller.
Here is an entry from the Internet  http://www.trinityhouse.co.uk/lighthouses/lighthouse_list/bishop_rock.html

“”     HistoryBishop Rock Lighthouse stands on a rock ledge 46m long by 16m wide, 4 miles west of the Scilly Isles. The rocks rise sheer from a depth of 45m and are exposed to the full force of the Atlantic Ocean making this one of the most hazardous and difficult sites for the building of a lighthouse.

The rocks around the Scilly Isles caused the wreck of many ships over the years including the loss of Sir Cloudesley Shovel’s squadron of the British Fleet in 1707 in which 2,000 men died. The Elder Brethren of Trinity House decided that the lighting of the Scilly Isles, which at that time consisted of only the old lighthouse at St

Halangy Ancient ruins

 

. Agnes, was inadequate, and resolved to build a lighthouse on the most westerly danger, the Bishop Rock.

James Walker, Engineer in Chief to Trinity House, was against building a solid granite tower arguing that the rock ledge was too small and the elements too powerful, being exposed as it was to the full force of the Atlantic ocean. Walker demonstrated that the wind pressures at times exceeded 7,000 lb per sq.ft, and as many as 30 gales a year were not unusual in the area.

Thus in 1847, it was decided to erect a screw-pile lighthouse at a cost of £12,000. The first task was to sink cast iron legs into the solid granite, braced and stayed with wrought iron rods. The designer maintained that the waves would be able to roll freely among the piles instead of being obstructed by the solid mass of masonry tower. When work was suspended at the end of 1849 the building was complete all but the installation of the lighting apparatus. Before it could be completed the following season, a heavy gale swept away the whole structure on the evening of 5th February 1850.

Undismayed by the failure of the first lighthouse, James Walker once again turned to the idea of a granite tower based upon Smeaton’s Eddystone

Bant’s carn burial chamber

 

. After surveying the site, he finally chose a small but solid mass giving room for a base 10m in diameter. The surface waves constantly swept over the site, and indeed the lowest blocks had to be laid a third of a metre beneath low water mark. A heavy coffer dam was erected around the site and the water within pumped out, so that the masons might be able to work on a dry rock face. Each granite block, weighing from one to two tons, was set into its preselected position, and each course dovetailed and keyed into position at the sides, top and the bottom thus forming an immovable mass. The workmen were housed on a small nearby uninhabited islet, where living quarters and workshops were erected. The men were carried to and from the site as the weather permitted. Working spells were brief, as well as being few and far between, and after seven years labour the tower was finally completed. All the granite was despatched from the mainland to the island depot where it was shaped and numbered before being sent to the rock. In all the 35 m tower contained 2,500 tons of dressed granite and cost £34,560. The light was first exhibited on 1st September 1858. During one particularly powerful storm, waves rolled up on the side of the lighthouse and tore away the 550lb fog bell from its fastenings on the gallery.

In 1881 Sir James Douglass made a detailed inspection of the tower and reported extensive damage and weakness in the structure. It was decided to strengthen the tower and at the same time to increase the elevation of the light by 12m. The plans, though quite complex in nature essentially entailed the building of a new lighthouse around the old one, completely encasing it. The real weakness was the foundation and this Douglass proposed to strengthen and enlarge with massive blocks of granite sunk into the rock and held there by heavy bolts. It was an enormous cylindrical base, providing the lighthouse with an excellent buffer onto which the force of the waves could be spent before hitting the tower itself. The masonry casing, averaging a metre in thickness, was carried up as far as the new masonry required for the increased height of the light. The weight of the additional granite was 3,200 tons, making a total weight of 5,700 tons. Work was completed in October 1887 at a cost of £66,000.

Bishop Rock was converted to automatic operation during 1991 with the last keepers leaving the lighthouse on 21 December 1992.

The fog signal was discontinued on 13 June 2007.”””Our skipper told us that during rough seas, the water will wash over the top of the lighthouse.  amazing.  What’s great is we recognized the lighthouse!!!  We’ve seen it many times on BBC One during their open sequences where they have some fashion of a big O.  This is the lighthouse where the helicopter lands on it and takes off again.  sooooo cool.

There didn’t seem to really be a way to get into the lighthouse except climbing up a vertical ladder on the side to the door which had to be at least 20-30 feet up the side.  Lighthouses are just amazing and I am so glad we got to go see this one.

Back to St. Mary’s and we stopped for lunch and then made our reservation for dinner at Mr. B’s, a steakhouse in town.  Then back to our Scilly Cart and we were away for the north end of the island.  We’ve been told that the Isles of Scilly have the most burial cairns than anywhere else so we’re off to see some.   We have the map from the cart company and it shows how to get there which basically means go to the end of the road, park on the side off the road, and walk.  Can’t get lost.

Following the instructions we drove past a duck pond, past several lovely looking craft shops and came to the Coast Guard Tower on top of the hill at the north end of the island.  Here was a place to park so we did and walked to where we thought the path would be.  We made one slight error and ended up walking across the golf course for a bit before we decided we had missed a turn.   Yep, we had and once we followed it, came right out at the burial chamber and the ancient village ruins.

Two kids had claimed the burial chamber as their play area for the afternoon.   We were trying to get some photos without them in the middle of the chamber.  The small girl went over to her grandmother and started crying that we were taking her chamber.  Luckily grandma knew just how to calm her down and we thanked her for letting us see “her chamber” and everyone was happy again.  Then we went down the hill to see the ancient village ruins.  very good sites and just incredible views out to sea.  We could recognize Tresco from where we stood and later learned that the other large island we were looking at was Samson.  Just magnificent scenery.

Back to our cart and we continued on around the road.  There was also a standing stone somewhere but I was pretty beat on my knees and so we just drove around the island and learned where everything was located.  Finally I get dropped off at our BnB and just have to navigate up the stairs rather than the hill as well and poor hubby has to go drop off the golf cart on his own and walk back by himself.  What a man!

Rest and relax time with the feet up then over to Mr. B’s for dinner.  What an odd place.  Our hostess at our BnB said it had just opened not long before and had been a variety of different eateries prior to Mr. B’s.  It’s odd in that you walk down to the cellar level to get to the bar and entrance.  They are happy to serve you a drink there and you wait for your table.  When your table is ready, you walk upstairs to street level again (but inside the restaurant) and carry your drink with you.  As my knees are really unhappy by now, they had to carry my drink for me so I could haul myself up the stairs.

Mr. B’s had some good steak but the sides that went with it were pretty miserable.  Who serves mashed potatoes with absolutely no seasoning and no butter and no anything?  Maybe that’s typical British but not from any mash we have had before here in England.  hmmm.  When we were finished, we had to go back downstairs to the cellar/bar and then climb back upstairs to leave.   Seemed a bit pretentious and oddly inefficient to me.     There was a street level door but it wasn’t being used.

So back up the hill, back up the stairs, and to our room for another good night’s sleep.  We are not in a sea view room because I asked too late so we don’t have much of a view.  The neighbors are quite yacky until about 9 p.m and then it gets blessedly quiet.  Never heard a noise all night and the windows were always open.   We are supposed to be able to see lovely stars and the Milky Way from here but the cloud cover never lifted the whole time we were on Scilly.  We saw one star one night and about 20 stars another night and that was it.

Rainy Day in Tresco

Our plans for Scilly was to spend a lot of time relaxing due to my bum knee.  That had not included the hike up the hill and stairs to reach our room every time we wanted to take a break but that’s pretty much what it was going to have to be.  We had also thought that we would just spend one day going to a different island.  Per our book, it looked like there was enough to do on St. Mary’s that we wouldn’t have to jaunt around to the different isles plus there are always the “round isles tours” that take you out to see sea birds and seals and such.  Of course, we had learned upon arrival that the puffins (my favorite bird of all times) had already left the isles and gone out to sea.  dang it.  I figure all the people who have gotten fantastic photos of puffins and put them into calendars have all left their calendars with the puffins so that the puffins know when the end of July is, when they are supposed to go to sea, and even though it was just the first week of August, the puffins have all followed the calendar and left.  Well, it’s either that or the sun and weather tells them to go

agapanthas on Tresco

.  I like my explanation better.

So we have our breakfast at our BnB and head down to the quay to sign up for a day trip to Tresco which is just “next door” as isles go.  Tresco has an abbey garden that is supposed to be wonderful and we like gardens so thought it would be a good stop and not too much walking.  The queue to get tickets for the boats wasn’t too bad but we decided we’d take the 12:30 trip over so that I wouldn’t be on my feet quite so much.  We got our tickets and have a couple of hours now to kill before going to Tresco.

We are looking at the various signs and see that there is a “gig race” tonight for 5 pounds.  Not sure what a gig is other than the vernacular for a musical engagement.  Pretty sure they are not talking about that.  We walk back to the High Street of Hugh Town (not very busy as there is the steady flow of people heading to the quay in the morning and empties out the town).  I’m a bit cold and see a couple of things in a store that look warmer than stuff I have so we go into the store and I end up with a really nice denim jacket.  I needed another coat like I need another umbrella but we always seem to buy umbrellas and jackets when we travel because we’ve mis-calculated the temperature or the rain

Garden arch at Tresco

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Into the Atlantic Hotel to make a booking for dinner.  We are lead into the area next door which is where the restaurant actually is and make our booking.  We ask him to explain what a gig race is.  it’s a boat race!  Officially it’s a “pilot gig boat”.  History:  when the Isles of Scilly were a major stopping point for ships coming and going from England and Cornwall, pilots were needed to get the ships into and out of harbors because of all the treacherous rocks around the Isles.  Gig boats would race out to the ships to get their pilot out there first because if you didn’t get your pilot there first, you would be out of a job and then no money.  So the gig races have continued into the modern day as a sports competition and the Isles now host world championships.  The gigs have a 6 person crew (there are female crews and male crews.  The females races are on Wed night and the male races on Fri night) and a coxswain.  it’s all rowing.  the boats are ocean going longboats like long dorys or tenders.  Anyway, it all sounded quite exciting so we thought we’d head out to go to the races tonight and made our dinner booking accordingly so we’d have time to make the boat.  Watchers go out in boats and follow the gigs back to shore.  The gigs row out 3 miles from St. Mary’s and race back to the harbor.

Figureheads

Getting ahead of myself a bit.  We still had a lot of time before our ride to Tresco so back up the hill, back up the steps and relax and read time in our room.   Then back down to the harbor for our 12:30 boat.  This is the first time we’ve actually seen the boats.  We are going with the St. Mary’s Boatmen Association which runs a good many of the boats between the Isles and on the tours around the Isles.  There are other organizations that have boats as well but we didn’t use any of them.   The boat is open, as in no top or shelter.  It holds some 80 people overall on all the benches and seats.  I am very glad I have purchased my denim jacket and also I got a plastic poncho as it continues to drizzle on us.

The boat is pretty full and we head to Tresco which takes about 15 minutes.  There are two landings on most of the Isles, one for high tide and one for low tide.  I had thought we would go into the landing that is at the town on Tresco and we would then slowly walk down the Isle through the town and to the gardens BUT we landed instead at the far end of the island.  I am messing around with my plastic poncho and umbrella to keep the camera dry and we are the very last ones to walk up the hill and around the sand dunes and by the time we got to the long walkway that takes you towards the town and the gardens, there are only about 6 people left on the walkway in front of us

Tresco beach

.  Very eerie to be almost the only ones in sight.  As we stopped to take some photos of the dunes and the tors (large rock formations on the Isles), we were then by ourselves amongst the aggapanthas and the tors and dunes.

Luckily it was super easy to find the gardens as there is no way to go anywhere from that landing without passing them.   We paid our money and headed into the gardens.    This is what the Abbey Gardens website (  https://www.tresco.co.uk/enjoying/abbey-garden/  )   has to say about themselves:

“”   The sub-tropical Abbey Garden is a glorious exception – a perennial Kew without the glass – shrugging off salt spray and Atlantic gales to host thousands of exotic plants.
Many of these tender floral gems would stand no chance on the Cornish mainland, less than 30 miles away. Yet even at the winter solstice more than 300 plants will be in flower. All in all, the tropical garden is home to species from 80 countries, ranging from Brazil to New Zealand and Burma to South Africa.

By building tall wind-breaks, Augustus Smith channelled the weather up and over the network of walled enclosures that he built around the Priory ruins and the three terraces he carved from the rocky, south facing slope looking towards St Mary’s

gig race finishing

. You can learn more about the history of the garden here. The hotter, drier terraces at the top of the garden suit South African and Australian plants; those lower down provide the humidity that favours flora from New Zealand and South America.

EXTRAORDINARY DIVERSITY
The diversity of plant life to be found within the Abbey Garden is extraordinary. Fringing the lush grid of paths which criss-cross the gardens are a host of succulents, towering palm trees and giant, lipstick-red flame trees. Here you can find flowers of the King Protea and the handsome Lobster Claw. Walk amongst the great blue spires of Echium, brilliant Furcraea, Strelitzia and shocking-pink drifts of Pelargonium.

The treasures to be found within the Abbey Garden are not limited to the floral kind. The garden is also home to a collection of shipwrecked figureheads, which are displayed at the Valhalla Museum.

At the entrance to the garden is the Garden Visitor Centre with a well-stocked gift shop, a large cafeteria and a history room.””

We wandered the gardens in the rain, sometimes very hard rain where we would stop to stand in a shelter of any kind (man-made, natural), and sometimes just a drizzle.  There were other people about enjoying the gardens but not many.  Just when we had decided we had seen almost all the trees and flowers we could stand, we saw the sign pointing to the Valhalla Museum of figureheads and headed in that direction.  A very good museum of figureheads and signs from shipwreaks.  It was all an open air museum so a good many of the figureheads were on the walls in the rain, as well.  My favorite was a fish.  If they had just figured out how to make the rain appear to be coming out of its mouth, it would have been the pinnacle of the figureheads.

To the gift shop and then a sandwich for lunch but no places to sit so we went out to the entryway courtyard and found some benches under shelter to eat.   We had a little over an hour for the next ferry back or two hours for the last ferry back.  Debating whether to go to Old Grimsby, the town or not, but decided that my knee would not hold up to going in both directions and there was a large beach that could use some beach combing if we wanted to spend an hour doing that before the ferry.  so the beach it was.

Nice walking along the beach and finding limpet shells, mostly.  Not much sea glass but limpet shells are cool.  One other couple only on the beach.  Luckily we could find a way off the beach and to the sidewalk to the ferry pick up point.  And it is now raining hard again.   And not quite time for the ferry.  And a line of people already waiting.  And a boat unloading some stuff so we can’t even get on the quay yet.  But we did get on the boat back to St. Mary’s and got back in time to go back to the room for another spot of feet up and knee pampering before back down the hill for dinner.

Good dinner at Atlantic Inn and then back to the quay for the gig races.  The gig races are popular as there were three boats being filled.  We picked the closest one and sat on the left side.   Once all three boats were filled and there didn’t appear to be anyone else coming, we all left and headed out to the gig race spot which is west of St. Agnes (the Isle on the other side of St. Mary’s) and starts close to three rocks sticking out of the sea.  There was a lot of maneuvering around before the boats started racing.  There were 6 gigs.  Couldn’t really tell where the starting point was or exactly who was starting them.  The three boats that had come out from St. Mary’s were not alone to watch the races.  All together, about 7 large boats full of people and half dozen smaller private boats.  Some of the boats had cheering crews for one or another of the gigs.

We are sort of drifting along with the motor at idle.  The rowers are almost ready to go and most of the men who are rowing take off their shirts.  My hubby and I are bundled up in most of the warm clothes we have brought with hats and zipped up to the chin.  It’s not raining now but it is very chilly.   Suddenly, somehow, all the rowers heard the start and we are off.  Our chase boat revved up the motors and we are going lickety split now!  I never realized people could row that fast but we seem to be going quite a good pace to keep up with them.  Our boat is on the left side of the gigs so we are sitting on the further side away from the gigs.  dang.  Wish we’d sat on the right side of the boat.

Of the six gigs, two gigs are left behind quickly.  Three are keeping neck and neck for a mile or more.  One is kind of trailing the three leaders but they slowly fall behind.  It’s a three nautical mile race (I think that is slightly less than three land miles).  People in other boats are chanting and cheering.  People in our boat are cheering for Bonnet (one of the boats).  Two of the gigs pull ahead at about 2 miles finished mark.  One of the leaders is Bonnet.  We are getting close to St. Mary’s now and people are lined up around the Garrison (the old fort on top of the hill) to watch the races come home.  This is really exciting!

As we get closer to the harbor, Bonnet is slowly pulling ahead.  Our boat is keeping pace and we haven’t slowed down once so these men have been rowing fast for almost 3 miles now.  No wonder they took off their shirts before starting.  They must be really sweating by now.  We head into the harbor and as they pass a certain point, a horn goes off signaling that they have reached the finish.  Bonnet wins by more than a boat length but not much more than that.  Second place comes in and third place isn’t too far behind.  We sit in our boat and wait for all six gigs to finish even though it is several minutes before the last two boats come past the finish line.  When every boat passes the line, everyone in the chase and watch boats all cheer and applaud.  It’s cool that everyone is doing that because even the last boat over the line worked hard and rowed hard.  my gosh, this is a very, very hard race.

When the last boat is in, our boat goes back to the docks as well and everyone piles off and leaves.  good night.  we head back up to our hotel, back up the hill, back up the stairs.  We haven’t done that much, overall, but my knees are saying enough.  thank goodness you’ve decided to go to bed.  lovely day in spite of the rain.  exciting race.  a very good day in Scilly.

First Day in Scilly

Ask a Brit about the Isles of Scilly and you get (or at least we did), “I hear they are lovely but I’ve never been there”.  We got this from about 25 people that we surveyed.  Not once did we find anyone among our acquaintances that had actually been there but they all knew they were lovely.  So either the Isles of Scilly (I was warned NOT to call them the Scilly Isles) have been doing a bang up job of promotion or they really are lovely.

Idiot that I can be, I’d been housebound for several months due to a bad knee and had surgery on July 15.  Of course I was thinking that by Aug 6 I’d be fine and ready to go plus I really had to get out of the house.  I was going bonkers just sitting and reading every day.  My kindle bill on Amazon has been quite high.   I knew that one of the major things to do on the various Isles was walking and hiking but I had also found on line that you could rent a golf cart to get around so I happily set up a trip and rented the cart in advance, found the BnB and got flights from Gatwick to Newquay and then the Skybus from Newquay to St

Hugh Town harbour – low tide

. Mary’s.  Our BnB hosts advised us to get the travel insurance from Skybus as there are times when they cannot fly due to the weather.,  ummm, right.

We’re off in the morning.  I’ve got my walking stick for my dodgy knee and have made arrangements with Flybe to scooter me down from the the terminal waiting area to the gate.  I’ve done this once before and it’s a bit nervy as they never seem to take you down until the last minute when the departure signs are all flashing – Last Call.

Another lady was in the cart with me.  She was flying home to Newquay.  They told her she would have to walk down the stairs at the gate.  She was barely able to do that.  I could do it with a bit of gimping and going slow but she was struggling.  Oddly, the wheelchair was able to go down an elevator BUT supposedly the elevator was out of the secure area so she would have had to go through security again!  How strange and what an odd way to do it.  So she struggled down the stairs and then got back in the wheelchair to wheel to the plane where they had a lift to get her to the plane.  Seems like they could figure that out a bit better for people who can’t walk at all!

Usually we try to get an exit row but when you have asked for assistance, they aren’t gonna let you do that

Old Town Harbour

.  Yep, the ride to the gate was nice but believe me, I could throw out the window and climb out the door just as well as the next person so our seats weren’t the best but the ride from Gatwick to Newquay isn’t too long.

Newquay airport is small.  You land, wait for your bags on the single belt, walk outside and down the sidewalk to go back into the departure area.  This is also the only airport we’ve been in the U.K. where you have to pay a 5 pound fee to get into the departure area.  Kids under 16 don’t need it and when we went to get ours, a woman had just accidentally purchased one for her under 16 child so we bought hers and got a second one for us.  This woman looked like she really needed to save all her pounds when possible as she had on the oddest skirt that was ripped to shreds in various places.  I know that jeans are considered fashionable when ripped at the knees and such  but pretty sure her skirt wasn’t supposed to be.  Maybe that’s just her traveling clothes in case of accident so she doesn’t lose anything nice.

Through security and into the departure lounge and we picked up a few snacks.  Flybe has drinks and snacks on board but you must purchase them and the flight on Skybus is only 1/2 hour plus it’s a really small plane so no flight attendant

Harbour view from Juliette’s restaurant

.  Also, the luggage weight is only 15kg.  very hard for us to fly with such a low limit – LOL.  we’ve really gotten bad about taking so much crap with us everywhere.

Off to one side of the lounge is a sign which says “Skybus departure area for safety briefing” or something like that.  We gathered over there and before too long, a Skybus employee came and put on the safety video which is like every safety video everywhere except telling you how small this plane is.  Then we head out to the tarmac to load up and since I am stumping along with my walking stick we are almost the last people on board the plane and therefore unable to get through the aisle to a good seat up front.  We end up sitting behind a rather large, covered, table type thing which gave us no where to put our small carry on bags nor our feet.  I stretched mine out into the aisle.

The co pilot gets on board and tells the people in the last row how to open the door in an emergency and then closes and locks the door/stairs combo.  he goes to the front of the plane and reminds us of the safety areas and then sits next to the pilot in the cockpit where there is no door between us and them

High Street Hugh Town

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.  lovely little plane.

We’re on the wrong side of the plane to see much of the coast but I’m thinking I’ll be able to get some good photos on the way back then because it’s 2 seats on our side and only one seat on the other side.  So we have views of the ocean and not much else.  But as I mentioned, it’s only 1/2 hour flight so we just relaxed and watched the ocean and the propellers and each other.

Landing on St. Mary’s island, doesn’t take long to get off the plane, wait for our bags, and hop into the bus.  They have a regular crew of people running the shuttles from the airport into town to drop you at your hotel or BnB.  They meet you right in the luggage area and have you sorted and ready to go before you’re quite sure what’s happening.  They do it so much that it flows quite nicely.  We’re in a van with two other couples who are all repeat visitors so we’re the “newbies” and he drove us through a couple of places to point out sites to us which the other people didn’t seem to mind.  We’re the last to be dropped at our BnB.  Each other couple made arrangements for pick up for the return to the airport so we did likewise when he dropped us at our BnB

Hugh Town Harbour when the tide is in

.

Santa Maria Guest House looked to be a lovely place but as we drove there, we see that it is on a hill and it is up a long flight of stairs to get to the front door.  Great.  my knee is not happy now at all.  The shuttle driver kindly carries my suitcase up to the front door as I am pulling myself up the handrail.      We walk into the BnB and are greeted by our hostess who had gotten confused somehow that we were coming over by ship and had called me but because we were flying, I had my phone on flight mode and never got the call so she was a bit distressed but not at me since I’d sent her all the info and she just had forgotten.  We go into the lounge to sign in and get information on the house and what to do and such.  They point out places in Hugh Town and Old Town – we can see both from the front window – and I’m looking and thinking – dang, a lot of walking.   Then we get our key to room #5 (didn’t get a sea view room because didn’t ask for it in time) and have to go up another long flight of stairs to get to the room.  My hubby hauls up my suitcase for me this time.

After resting for awhile, we head into town to find a place for dinner and to look around.  They’ve told us we should make dinner reservations most nights because it is holiday season.  We find Kavorna, first place we hit, and make reservations for around 6 because I don’t want to walk around too much.  We walk to the wharf/quay and see that the tide is out because half the boats in the harbor are grounded.  Love the tides in these places.  Lots of choices on different isles to visit and lots to do but most of it is walking.  So we are probably going to do one thing a day and just rest and read the rest of the time.  Not the best way to spend time on the Isles of Scilly but gonna have to do it that way.

One thing surprised us that there were more cars than we thought.  For some reason, we had thought that there weren’t any cars except for the shuttle buses for the airports, some delivery people and some taxis.  But people have and own cars there.  Not many and as such the roads are quite narrow and most people walk in the streets but still, are plenty of cars.  Guess I should have realized that when the Skybus site had a link to renting a car.  We will manage without.

A nice dinner at Kavorna then stumping up the hill and up the double flight of stairs and our first afternoon in the lovely Isles of Scilly is at an end.

Helicopters Buzzing the House

Our lovely English house has been a wonderful place for us.  We have tons of wildlife around although the bigger birds have slowly chased away some of the smaller songbirds.  We have foxes and badgers, deer and feral cats.  No dogs about and no hedgehogs – to my sorrow.  We have a wonderful view out the back garden of the first hole of a golf course with rolling hills and majestic trees.  But we also live fairly close to a whole plethora of different military ranges, grenade ranges, Sandhurst Military College, gunnery ranges and so forth.  So some days there is the distant rumble of artillery shells or gunfire.  Took a bit of getting used to at first and every time someone opened up on their course, we’d all come up in our seats – alert – to identify the sounds and how far away.  This is not because we’ve ever lived in an area where we were in danger from any such thing but just more of a really unusual experience for us and it took a bit of adjustment.

Part of the normal scenario of being close to military areas are also some helicopters that fly fairly regularly over the golf course and our small bit of woods and the neighbourhood houses.  When I’m outside, I always stop to watch them pass.  They are huge ‘copters, usually with front and rear rotors.  They look like workhorses of the military and while I have no clue on what they are doing, where they came from or where they are going, I do like to watch them because they are so impressive.  And you can hear them coming a from a good distance which gives me time to finish my chore and look up to watch them pass.

Lately, they have been passing by more often and seems like the helicopters have either gotten much bigger or they are flying a lot closer to the tree tops.  The other day, I was inside when I heard one coming and really had to go outside to see if it was landing – it was so loud!  Then last night, after we had gone to bed, we heard one coming.  Didn’t feel like jumping up to run outside and see if we could spot it in the dark but as we were sitting there, reading in bed, the helicopter flew overhead and vibrated the entire bed!  That seems like it’s flying awfully close to vibrate you and shake you.  Next time one comes by at night, I’m going to have to go outside and see if it is flying with lots of lights or if indeed, it is just buzzing by the house in the dark.  Rather exciting – sort of, maybe, well, hmm, not sure!

Facebook quizes

We probably all do them, the Facebook quizzes that pop up in your timeline when a friend shares it.   Looks like fun to see “what city you should live in”, “guess your age”, “which Star Trek character are you”, “Which Star Wars character are you”, “What kind of dog would you be”, “Which Disney princess are you”, “Do You Know Your British Slang”, “Are you a Redneck”and on and on and on – quizzes only limited by someone’s imagination and the time it takes to put it together.  People take them and then share their answers, OR like me, they just take them for the heck of it, mild curiosity to raging “gotta know!” curiosity, and then never share.  There are some that drive me crazy in that they have gross misspellings or incorrect grammar usage.  OH wait!  There was a grammar quiz just today and it was correct in its grammar.  That was kind of nice.  Some others are so bad that I just leave them mid-quiz.  Come on, quiz-makers, police your work and at least make it correct grammatically and with your facts!

When you think about it, it’s ludicrous that you could answer 10 or 15 totally meaningless and random seeming questions and come up with an iron clad opinion on where you should live or what 60’s screen siren you most closely resemble.  Plus, if you’re like me, you take some quizzes multiple times.  The same ones pop up as other friends “share” them so it gives you the opportunity to take them multiple times.  Usually my answers are different each time too.  A different time of day, a different day, different state of mind, different physical feelings, etc., make different answers and hence different answers.  Countries I should live in range from: New Zealand, England, France, USA, Spain, and China.  wow, how did China get in there?  Must have really been feeling a bit odd when I answered it that day, although I wouldn’t mind living in China for a period of time.  When I have taken a quiz multiple times, I have never, ever gotten the same answer twice.

Let us Guess Your Age made me realize that everything is connected because no matter how I answered those questions, they always got my age correct – Oh hey, my age is listed in my profile!  What a surprise – NOT.     It often says you can “make your own quiz”.  I haven’t tried this because haven’t been interested enough.  Some of the quizzes must really do some extensive research though as in finding the most popular dogs so that everyone always gets a popular breed as the “dog you would be”.  Same with the Disney Princesses.  I must have missed seeing the “What Disney Villain do you most resemble” quiz.

Facebook does not claim that these are scientific quizzes or absolute answers or even accurate depictions of your opinions and likes and dislikes.  They are fun to do though and so an excellent marketing tool for them.  And that’s what we must remember – they are fun and they are marketing so there’s the possibility that they can sell you something somewhere down the line.  My friends that take them and share and post are hopefully like me, doing it for fun.  Although I have seen a few posts where they are sooooo very, very happy that they are like a certain movie star or should live in a certain location that I am wondering if everyone realizes the silliness of the quizzes and the fickle nature of them.  Oh well, they can be enjoyable just to see what questions they will ask.  I will continue to take them as I am sure will most everyone else.  When they disappear from Facebook, I will know they have lost their popularity and their ability to give the marketing agents any useful information about us.

T-shirts and flip flops weather

All the Brits I know love to talk about the weather.  It is one of the main questions I get asked whenever I met a new person who is British or English, or Scottish, or Welsh, or whatever they are calling themselves this week.   Most of them think I will comment about how nasty it is or how cold and wet or something along those lines.  Truth be told – I love the British weather, possibly much more than they do!  So it is common for them to complain about the weather and grumble about it, grouse about it, swear at it, and leave it whenever possible.   I am happy to be in it where there are actual seasons: spring, summer, fall, winter.  And each season has its own charm and characteristics and accompanying weather.

 

A very common British past-time is to head to Spain or Italy or Greece during any break they have (from school or work) whenever the weather dips below 20C (around 70F – roughly).   A good status symbol is to show up at work during the winter with a tan!  Obviously it means you are rich and lucky enough to have gone somewhere warm enough to sit out in the sun for a few days.

 

I personally have a very small comfortable temperature range.  It is a joke in my family that I am most comfortable when the temperature is around 68F to 72F.  Anything different and I start complaining about being too hot or too cold.  The thermostat gets twisted around, clothes come on, clothes come off, blankets on or off the beds, whatever.  All this is probably going to cause problems when we retire to Florida!  But I have gotten much better at being out of doors in England in a much wider variety of temperatures.  As such, I can run around outside when the weather is in the teens (10-16C) with just a hoodie and stay fairly OK.  Any colder, and I am reaching for a good coat, good gloves and scarf or hat as well.

 

It is amazing that when I am bundled up, there are still many Brits who are so used to their cold winter weather that I am passing them on the street where they are wearing just their t-shirt, jeans, and flip flops!  I’ve seen so many Brits dressed in this standard “uniform” at 10C or even 5C.  I feel quite proud of myself that I have extended my range of comfortable temperatures but I don’t think I’ll ever get that comfortable.

 

Yesterday I went out with a friend and it was cold enough for it to snow on us briefly and for me to have a very warm coat and gloves.  She had on a sweater and that was it!  No fleece, no gloves, no coat, no hat.   We had to even stand outside for about 10 minutes and I didn’t see her shiver once!  When asked, she said she was used to it because they don’t have central heating in their house!  No heating!   OMG.  I definitely would have a hard time with that.  The few times our boiler has broken in the middle of cold weather, I’ve not been able to function without so many layers that I couldn’t function anyway because I couldn’t move!

 

So my husband and I now joke about whether the weather is T-shirt and flip flop weather or fleece weather or heavy coat weather.  In all instances – we’re talking winter weather!

 

 

Boilers/Furnaces/Icy Windows

When we were first moving to England, now over 3 years ago (yes, wow!), they asked us what we wanted in our house.  Having been in and out of Houston, Texas for many years, the first thing we asked for was air conditioning.  That request drew many a laugh from the various real estate agents, leasing agents, and human resources people dealing with our move “across the pond”.  We did know, through years of television and movie conditioning, that England was probably cold and damp and rainy but we just assumed it would be hot on occasion too.  The cold and damp far outweighs the warm and sunny or hot.

So obviously we didn’t get a house with air conditioning.  There are some available but well beyond our price means and few and far between.  We actually found our house by ourselves.  We got three days with an agent who drove us furiously around burrow and dale and roundabouts to various houses in one village or town or another with us usually having no clue where we were in relation to my husband’s job or in relation to anything.  We found a house on a hill in a lovely neighborhood and a great back garden and fantastic master bedroom and said we wanted this house.  Well, took two weeks with the owner putting more and more obstacles in our way until we said forget it and had about 2 weeks left on our allotted time (before our furniture and household goods arrived via sea) to now find a house.  We found this one in the paper and fell in love with it immediately.  It backs up to a golf course down a long driveway and few neighbors.  Not the best kitchen I wanted but private and enough room, we thought, no air conditioner – ha ha – but nice, really, really nice.  And luckily, the owner was willing to get out in time for our shipment to arrive.

So we moved into the house and we are still here.  Some winters we have been dealing with a really flaky boiler which we have learned is the British equivalent of a furnace.  In the states, furnaces are huge things that take up an entire closet and lots of tubing and duct work to take the heat through the house and blow hot air out grates in the floor or wall or ceiling.  Here the boiler is this small box that sits on the wall and runs furiously in the winter.  I’m sure there must be other parts to it in various walls or the attic (loft) but my focus is on this small box and the blinking lights.  When the lights are on, we have heat and when they are blinking, we are in trouble.

Two winters we have been in trouble.  Last winter, during the coldest part of the winter, we had blinking lights and the blasted thing was out for several days.  Odd – to us – the automotive rescue service – their automobile association – AA – came by to bring us 4 small electric heaters which work amazingly well and could heat up a whole room to unbearable levels in a couple of hours.  The boiler worked for a few weeks and then, in another very cold week, it started the blinking lights again.  This time, my husband was able to look inside and attach the small hose that had come undone.  Now we automatically check this hose whenever we get the blinky lights and it seems to fix it most of the time.

This winter the fan went out.  We had a few days of awful whirling noises and then blinking lights and no heat.  Luckily we have those 4 electric heaters.  I just have to watch them to ensure the cats don’t sit too close to them.  Only took a couple of days to fix it this time but we didn’t get cold due to the electric heaters.  Our electric bill was sky high for that month but we were warm.

So we have gotten used to this radiator/boiler system which works quite well.  In most of our rooms, there is at least one radiator and we have to turn it down considerably to keep the room warm but not overly hot.  The cats know which radiators are running and that’s usually where we can find them, curled up in front of one of the working radiators.

I was talking to some English friends about the various differences between heating and air conditioning between here and the states and learned, to my amazement, that there are still many homes in England that exist without a boiler, furnace, radiator, or any means of heating other than the stove.  I’d heard of “cold water flats” and suddenly it made sense.  I didn’t know they still existed but apparently they do and aren’t that uncommon.  I know of at least 4 families with no source of heat other than a fireplace in one or two rooms and a stove in the kitchen.  One family I know uses electric heaters exclusively.  My friend complains about their electric bill – but they haven’t taken any steps to put in radiators or a boiler so I guess they are happy enough with their circumstances.

The old English standard stove – the Aga – was made for running constantly, year in and year out, and kept the kitchen boiling hot in summer and toasty warm in winter.  That stove makes sense if it is your only source of heat.  My friends were telling me how they gauge what clothes to wear by whether there is ice on the inside of their windows in the morning.  Ice on the inside!!!  My gosh.  I don’t think I’ve lived anywhere quite so cold since I was a child and actually had an outhouse for use rather than indoor plumbing.  I hated to go to the bathroom in the winter.

So all the progress in the world and there are still people with no heat – and they live just fine that way and have adapted to it.  My one set of friends would no sooner leave their home than they would fly to the moon.  They love it – heat-less and all.  I have other British friends who were just as amazed as I was that such homes still were around.   The world has many wonders – both modern and “old fashioned”.  I am lucky enough to be able to see both ends of the spectrum.

Climbing Big Ben

If you are a legal resident of England (and right now, luckily, we are!), you can write to your local MP (Member of Parliament) and ask for an invitation to climb Elizabeth Tower – the tower which houses the omnipresent clock faces overlooking Parliament and the Thames River and the massive bell known as Big Ben.  It takes a long time to get onto the list and get the invitation back but I have been fortunate enough to do it twice now.  What’s remarkable is most of my British friends have no idea that they can do this and are always amazed when I tell them I have done it!  So easy to get the invite, just takes awhile.

Anyway, I did it a couple of summers ago but my husband was unable to go with me at the time so I signed us up for another visit last summer and finally got our invite for Jan 23, yes, it does take a long time because in spite of most of my friends having no clue, a lot of Brits do know about it so it is very popular.  Elizabeth Tower is 344 steps to the top!  That’s a heck of a long climb for an old lady with arthritis!   But it is doable because there are several stops along the way – thank goodness.

The day starts by meeting in Portcullis House which is across the street from the tower where you prove you are who you say and you do live in England.  You are checked off the list and you must lock away your bags and cameras and phones.  Unfortunately, no photos allowed which is a shame because such great views from there.  Then you walk under the street to the tower and begin the climb.   You have a guide in front who opens the doors and leads the way up the stairs and a minder in back in case of claustrophobia or fear of heights or stragglers.

Don’t know how many steps is the climb to the first stop but it seems forever and just when I am at the point where I am going to have to embarrass myself but stopping on the stairs for a few minutes, I can see the door open for the first stop and I am able to stagger up the last 10 steps and pant my way inside and sit heavily on the bench.   Must have looked a bit done in because both guides asked if I was OK.   And this was my second time!!  The mind never remembers how far it is and how hard because if it did, I certainly would have declined going with my husband this time!

The first stop has a display where you get some of the information about how Big Ben – the bell- came about, and the building of the tower, and the controversy and the broken first bell.  All good stuff.  We started the climb around 11 a.m. so our guide is closely watching his time.  We want to be at the top for the 12 noon strike.   So all too soon we are leaving this room and climbing again.  I thought I remembered 4 stops on the way up and the first climb being the worst.  I guess my body was really unhappy that I was doing this again plus we only had 3 stops on the way up and the next climb seemed just as miserable with a moment when I thought I would need to stop again to rest.  But I made it to the next room where we sat for some more information on the tower and the clock and the bells.

But again, all too soon, we are back in the tower and climbing  to the clock faces where we walk behind the faces and can see where the hands are.  There are these huge light bulbs behind them now but in the old days, all the clock faces were lit by gas jets behind them and some poor sod had to climb up there every day to light all the gas jets from the top of each clock face to the bottom.  What a miserable job that must have been and dangerous!   Now there is a constant problem from birds wanting to sit on the hands.  Way back when, a bunch of starlings sat on the hand and messed up the time.  Now there is a man with a hawk that flies regularly around the tower to scare off the pigeons.  Wish we could have seen him.

Finally up just a few more flights to the mechanical room where the clock mechanism actually is and we watch it work for the 11:45 chime of the clock.  Such a magnificent piece of work and such precision from the late 1800’s.  To this day, the timing is controlled by adding pennies or taking away pennies from the mechanism to make it a tiny bit faster or slower so that it is exact and doesn’t lose or gain any time.  It is quite noisy to watch the “trains” work (the bells and clock mechanisms and weight mechanisms are called trains) but so amazing too.  I don’t understand the making of watches and clocks but this is truly a work of wonder and art to make something as large as the clock faces in the tower and have them be so precise.

Last year, they abseiled down from the bell room to clean the clock faces.  they only do that about every 7 years and I forgot it was that rare so forgot to go to London to watch them.  poo on me for missing that.  Used to, the wouldn’t stop the clock and the men cleaning would have to be careful to watch out for the hands moving as they cleaned the faces.  Now they stop one side for one day and the men are able to clean the clock faces in four days.

Finally to the top bell room.  What a view from all sides and how lovely inside too with the massive bells.  Big Ben is 13 1/2 tons.  The other bells are chime bells and all smaller but still nothing one could have in your home!  We get ear plugs to put in and a few words on the bells and told where to watch as the chimes start in a couple of minutes.  The guides count down for us and we hear the grinding of the mechanism start and see the first bell hammer clang down for the chimes.  It plays the bells in the familiar chimes and then the huge hammer of Big Ben falls for the first ring of twelve.  it is a massive hammer and a massive bell and it reverberates the entire platform and up through your shoes and you can feel the power of the bell and hammer.  As the last tone strikes and starts to die away, you can put your hands on the girders and still feel them vibrating.   It was such a wondrous experience and so marvelous.   We have a few minutes to look out the sides and I notice a couple standing off by themselves and he is presenting her with a ring!  WOW!  They got engaged at the top of Big Ben Tower!  Bet there are not many who can say that.

Going down is so much easier with just one stop at the room where we stopped first for some final information and a brochure that says we have climbed.  Then down to the bottom, back under the street, back to Portcullis House and get our bags and turn in our lanyards and done now with the brilliant experience that comes from patience with your MP and knowing that you can do this.  Our legs are wobbly and like jelly for most of the rest of the day but we still manage to spend a bit of time just wandering around the Thames and appreciating that we have had such a wonderful opportunity to live in England for awhile.  Yowzer, Yowzer but we are one lucky and amazing couple!