All posts by bpheasant

food, friends, London, UK

Catch up

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It was yet another trip up to London last, New Year’s, weekend. This time to drop Mum off at Heathrow for her return to NZ & see if I could find something to do for my completely unplanned New Year’s. For some reason, Levi & Marki didn’t make it to Krakow to see in the New Year. Actually that reason was it was too difficult to get from where ever they were skiing near Salzburg to Poland. But that worked out in my favour as they had a little gathering at theirs, so I braved the trains into the city. As always with Marki & Levi’s hospitality, I was extremely well fed & it was a good evening – even if I didn’t understand any of the multitude of eastern-European languages (but then no-one but Levi & I understood the Te Puke stories). We wandered up to the building’s roof to get a view of many of the various fireworks displays dotted around London as we opened champagne that kept multiplying.

Some sort of Czech food that was very tasty

Levi & Marki – on the remote chance any TP people are interested

Sunday I made the trek back home to Sidcup & generally sifted around seeing if a) Mum would fit all her things in her suitcase & b) how late we would be leaving for the airport. She did, & it was only 45 minutes – which I was quite impressed with. But we had plenty of time up our sleeves for a trying wet drive around the M25 before a tearful goodbye as Mum flew back to the other side of the world. As it turns out, it was well timed as a couple of days after Mum arrived home I got the sad news that my much-loved Grandma passed away after a prolonged slide into dementia. For me, I had about three years of being far removed to deal with the fact that I wouldn’t be seeing Grandma again. Still, as I said during all those earthquakes, it’s times like these that make one feel the furtherest from home.

On a note that will cut closer to the bone, I have a date for my shoulder op – February 21. It will be so nice to get it much more stable – although I’m sure it will come with a lot of sacrifices. Driving, riding & generally being armless come to mind.

bikes, Canada, family, friends, MTB, national park, roadtrip, snow, travel, USA

A little on the late side

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So, I never quite made the time to compose a Christmas letter. This will have to do as some sort of missive for me to sum up the year & wish you all happy holidays. 2011 was separated into distinct thirds for me. The first of those was the end of my year living & working in the Canadian Rockies. That spur of the moment decision to go & bike & ski in the mountains for twelve months still rates as one of the best of my life – I had a great time with fantastic friends; the snow was good too & my skiing could do nothing but improve with all those consecutive weekends on the hill.

The middle of the year – the end of a long winter & the first of summer – saw the completion of a long held dream. That was, a roadtrip around the West (USA) with a bike in the trunk/boot visiting many of the famous riding spots & national parks. My aunt, Valerie, joined me from Australia & we managed 22000 km (almost 14000 miles), 13 states & 2 provinces and an awful lot of quality mountain-biking (for me). Scenically, the highlights were Bryce Canyon & Crater Lake National Parks. As always when I visit the States, spending time with old friends & making new ones stays on top of the many memories.

Naturally, it was tough to leave close friends & the beauty of the Bow Valley; the last part of the year sees me finally starting to get around to what I left home for two and a half years ago. That is, to get a job & settle in the UK for a while and take full advantage of the proximity to Europe. I’m back process engineering for the first time in four years at a small rubber factory on the edge of the New Forest (not far from Southampton at the south of England). Mum’s been over here for the last three months at university, so it’s been great to see her every so often. The hospitality of extended family (some of whom I’m still only meeting now) helps to lessen the distance from home – as does Skype & 1p/min phone calls.

That’s this year – 2012 will not be nearly as well planned out or active for that matter. I’m down to have surgery sometime on my shoulder (to tighten it all up – two dislocations this year), so that will curtail the biking & skiing a lot. That will just mean I have more free time to explore this part of the world. I’ve finally got an invite to a wedding (first since leaving), so I’ll be back in NZ for a couple of weeks near the start of September for what will be a flurry of visiting much-missed family & friends.

Best wishes for the new year.

city, family, friends, London, UK

London trips

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For the first time in my life, I’ve finally been able to start biking to work. But a five kilometre round trip is not all that much & is especially helped by it being a lot flatter than it seems in the car – which is quite the reverse of what I was expecting. So it may be closing in on the longest day of the year, but if it’s not raining & I get up early enough to get organised, a ride to work (even if it just one or two degrees above freezing – thanks Canada for not making me avoid the “cold”) is a nice little start to the day.

Last weekend was a trip up to London for Levi & Marki’s Christmas party. Always good catching up with them & there was plenty of food too. Also pretty fun catching up with a buddy from high school who I hadn’t seen about twelve years – I thought I’d got away from Canadians telling me to watch Trailerpark Boys, but it turns out Jeff is a bit of a fan too. There was no playing football on the deck with an offcut from the woodwork shop, but then the deck at the apartment is a little small & had more important duties as the beer fridge. Somehow I managed to walk out (just managed to walk onto the last train too, thus avoiding my first ever night-bus) with a huge ham – apparently I was the most worthy cause as Levi & Marki weren’t going to get the chance to eat it with travelling on the cards.

Around Sidcup on the weekend was pretty relaxing, on the way to visit Ray & Jill on Saturday morning Trish & I paid a visit to Rudolph’s buddies & their spindly looking antlers.  I’m sure they would still do a bit of damage.

Even after a big sleep in, Sunday was looking pretty grey so Trish & I decided to head out to another little Kentish village – Westerham – to check out Quebec House. After a nice lunch in one of those great English pubs that look like they’re doing a commendable impression of a drunk trying to stand up, we strolled through the village to check out the house. It was the birthplace of General Wolfe – who was apparently the first English military figure to be a popular hero. The name of the house comes from the name of the victorious battle that won him his fame & took his life. All very Nelsonesque – except Wolfe pre-dated him. I’d learnt a little about the battle that saw the British defeat the French in the war for control of Quebec City & Canada when I was at Buckler’s Hard a couple of weeks ago – some of the ships built there sailed to Quebec before the battle. Always interested to get a bit more Canadian history, the museum above the coachhouse had great displays & was very informative. The house was pretty dark inside, but had some interesting period pieces – muskets are pretty heavy it turns out.

I was back in London three days later for yet another appointment about my bung shoulder. So I’ll get keyhole surgery sometime next year – I asked for after-February so I can go skiing at least once this winter. As it’s been three months to get this far, I’m hoping that’s a safe request. I’ll be out of action for a while (six weeks in a sling) with no driving & definitely not biking – but it’ll be nice to get it fixed up & hopefully avoid the agony of the last dislocation repeating. So 2012 doesn’t look like it’ll be so active – but perhaps I’ll finally get around to seeing some more of Europe, which I think was the whole idea of leaving NZ two & a half years ago. Oops.

around home, history, UK

Buckler’s Hard

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With a couple of days to recover from my last rotation of shift work for some time, yesterday was spent lazily resting & watching DVDs. Today wasn’t a lot more productive, but I did pop out this afternoon down the road in the wind & rain to Buckler’s Hard. It’s just down the river from Beaulieu (where I visited various museums last week). The Beaulieu River is one of the few privately owned ones in the world, something dating back centuries to when the King gave the area to the monks of Beaulieu Abbey. Buckler’s Hard gains its fame from its time as a shipbuilding centre from the mid-eighteenth century until iron ships took over from wooden ones – being close to the sea, a large supply of oak & elm in the New Forest and the enemy, France.  The strange name comes from there being a natural hard side to the river even at low tide – the Buckler’s part is a family name.  I also found that the Inclosures dotted around the New Forest (there are two close to my home – Dibden & Fawley) were planted to provided lumber for building a navy that ruled the world.

There’s a great little museum that does an excellent job detailing the village’s history, shipbuilding & touches on the great naval battles of the Napoleonic wars. Nelson’s favourite ship, Agamemnon, was built here; as was ‘Nelson’s Watchdog’ Euryalus – which reported the position of the French fleet at Trafalgar to Nelson, as well as relaying his famous signal “England expects…”. After Collingwood lost the masts of his ship in the battle, he assumed control of the fleet from Euryalus & sent news of the victory & Nelson’s death from her. Another ship of note in naval fiction, Indefatigable, was also laid down here.

Timing my exit from the museum with the end of a tremendous downpour, I wandered out in to the small hamlet. The main thoroughfare was closed to traffic decades ago & it really did feel like I was strolling through a village in an Austen or Gaskell novel (there was no one else around this late in the afternoon).

I proceeded down to the river & looked over the outlines of the historic slipways, imagined the hulks of ships of the line being released in to the river to be towed to Portsmouth for fitting & told myself I must come back in the summer on my bike & picnic in the quaint setting – or just go to the Master Builder’s House Hotel for a pint.

As the evening closed in (and I had my first Ordnance Survey map in hand), I went for a little tikitour west down skinny country lanes. I got a little bit of a surprise as I went over a rise & almost drove into the Solent – the lane just ended & the Isle of Wight & Yarmouth sat opposite me.

It may be flat around here, but the area is going to be a delight to explore on a bike during long summer evenings.