Grand Turk- The Island is not so GRAND and can’t see a Turkish man with a FEZ anywhere!!

First of all I have been able to find a cheap way of publishing the Blog by not uploading photos which I will do once we get back to Fort Lauderdale in about a weeks time and then all will be updated but in the meantime, should anybody be following our adventures you would have something to see.#
After an overnight cruise from Half Moon Bay to Grand Turk and Caicos Islands the island was a bit of a disappointment really and not at all attractive. It could be that the recent Hurricanes has devastated it a bit and we did see several houses with part of the roof missing. I have taken a number of photos to demonstrate but cannot publish them for a moment, as per above comments earlier. The clocks changed overnight and so we had to add one hour and that meant we should have to get up one hour earlier, that's not good and s we ordered breakfast for the latest delivery time and he arrived at about 0930 and we sat on the balcony to enjoy same. We considered going ashore but all the paperwork from the ship suggested that most shops were selling jewellery and apart from a few Hotel there was little to see apart from feeding the sting rays, but we have seen that before in the Maldives. The ship berthed alongside a very small pier opposite two Hotels where the beaches had been loaded with deck chairs and umbrellas to try and lure the cruise passengers ashore and of course you would have to pay for the facility, as it happens we are not great sand hogs or sea swimmers and could not see the point of taking a bus or taxi ride around a flat island with slightly dilapidated buildings so we stayed on board and went to the pool and Jennifer had swim whilst Noel took personal care of a Stella beer, well somebody’s got to do it.
We decided to try the burger and fries bard and I must say the burger was very good and quite tasty and knocks McDonalds and similar in to a cocked hat. The rest of the afternoon was spent on the cabin balcony reading and listening to music.
Noel has been watching the Political news on the US TV channels and all the fun and games about the famous ‘Nunes’ memo about the political spying from the DNC and Hilary Clinton party on some Trump people it is alleged. The memo was released last Friday and so now the DNC want to publish their own memo which the President has to approve and so we have to wait will it be published complete or with redactions, time will tell. As I have said before the Clintons and DNC are bad losers and although perhaps Trump was not the best guy to be made president, the Democrats appear to have no one at all ??. I also seem to remember shortly after the election in November 2016 that the pro Democratic newspapers were talking about Trump not lasting six month and absolutely no chance to last a year and he would be impeached, well so far he is now in to his second year of Presidency and although his popularity started to drop after six months it now appears to be returning. All the famous film starts and pop singers who came out campaigning for the Democrats are getting quieter and not so visible. Even at the recent Grammy awards the viewing figures dropped dramatically as one star after another came on stage and had a go at Trump and so even the general public is getting peeved with all the bitching going on. If it carries on like this Trump will have another four years unless the FBI accidently knock him down with his own motorcade.
Oh well back to travel., We ll the sun is shining and we are due to leave this little desert island quite soon and with a full day at seas tomorrow before we reach our next port of call at Kralendijk in Bonaire, a Dutch West Indian Country.
Lets hope the dinner is Ok for Noel tonight, more reporting to follow. Good dinner tonight and we have resolved the garlic problem as the restaurant will give me the following days menu 24hours early so that I can chose what I want and they will ensure that there is no garlic or onion on board, lets wait and see.
After dinner we went to the forward bar and and tested some whisky, the first time for two of us for the last almost three years, and it was alright perhaps but perhaps so many years away from this drink Noel did not find it good as he remembered.
In the bar we sat next to a Canadian Couple on their first cruise it would seem and she commented on the previous nights time change which she said was due to us travelling SOUTH!!!!, dont they teach people at school about world time zones as even Canada has time zones. Oh well…… Tomorrow's another day

Half Moon Bay- The Bahamas and Caribbean Island with rain

We don't get up early any more unless we have to and prefer to wait for everybody else to leave the boat before we do however today we are not going to bother getting of for a lump of sand and trees with very little facilities unless you like being on a sandy beach and want to go swimming in the sea, neither of these appeal to us however.
So we had our breakfast on the balcony which was quite nice and watched as people got on the tenders to the island and shortly after they left the heavens opened and it bucketed down for about 20 minutes. About 20 minutes later one of the tender returned with a load of very wet looking passengers wrapped in towels and so for them it was not a pleasant experience. There are the usual expensive tours on a horse, maximum weight per horse is 250 pounds ?? and finally the weather improved but its not a sunny day but rather cloudy and not that warm really, Jennifer has a blanket around her knees, and sitting out of the wind. We had decided to hang around the ship as the last tender back is anyway at 2.30 pm and as mentioned earlier unless you like sea swimming and the sand there is not much point of visiting the Island. Now if it was the Maldives with lovely weather and beautiful coloured fish and a nice warm 35 Degrees C that would be a different matter.

Unfortunately is still feeling some of the effects of whatever chemical was his dinner last night and so is a bit uncomfortable today so its a good thing we had nothing planned however tomorrow we are in the Turks and Cacos Islands and a walk around and perhaps some internet stuff would be goo, we shall see what happens. We have signed up for the minimum internet connection on board just for checking emails but of course its slow and not worth trying to upload the blog, that will have to wait until we get a proper fast connection so we can do photos as well and that most likely will be when we get back to Fort Lauderdale, we shall see.
There is a large PC presentation room for you to improve your learning skills with lectures on Windows 10 and about using digital cameras etc, Noel had thought of attending but actually he has been using windows 10 since it came out and his photos skills seem acceptable so will probably take a miss on this one. Besides certain flatulence matters might get in the way.
The captain weighed anchor or three at about 15.00 as as the ship turned there had been another Holland American Line ship also parked up, the ship was called the MV Vollendam and its quite a bit smaller, and older, than the Eurodam. So it might have been a bit more busier on the beach than we thought. So now we are off to Grand Turk Island where we should arrive tomorrow morning and we hope we can find some free Wi-Fi somewhere, we shall see.
The menu for the main restaurant tonight looked a bit difficult for Noel as there appeared to be an awful lot of Garlic or onions on everything and so we decided to go the the buffet instead where we  thought the food may be a different choice except No, the nine or so main courses available were pretty much the same as in the main restaurant, and only one dish did not have Garlic and that one had onions instead. Oh this was looking difficult until we spied the pasta counter with a choice of four sauces, three of which had Garlic and only one a white sauce did not so that's what he had.
A quick walk around the ship was followed by watching the film ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ with many familiar faces. And so to bed.

Nassau- Its a bit crowded with three big ships in town

We decided to have breakfast in the cabin, actually on the balcony overlooking Nassau Harbor which was great for about half and hour and the up turned the Carnival; Liberty and parked right across our view of the town, oh well nothing we can do.
Following breakfast and generally relaxing for about an hour we packed our backpack and left the ship, by this time all the organised tours had gone. Why would anybody go on a tour for 2.5 hours leaving at 0815 when the ship does not sail until 8 pm this evening is anybody’s guess. Much to early for us. Anyway we walked in to town the temperature was around 27 C so quite warm if n not a little humid and long the shopping streets filled with Gucci, etc. and lots of watch and jewelry stores. There were of course plenty of stores selling t-shirts and bags and all sorts of tourist things. We took quite a few photos on the walk around town and then stopped in a little square to have refreshing beer. Two beers fort 11 USD, perhaps a little steep. As previously mentioned we were not the only ship in town there was the Carnival and also the Royal Caribbean cruise ships so I guess about 5/7000 people descending on a small town but nobody seemed to be in the expensive shops only bags containing t[-shirts. Across the other side of the Harbor you could see the huge Atlantis Hotel and you could visit there by either boat or taxi, not for us. We had our beer in the only bar where the Wi-fi did not work, great but we didn't need another beer and so we said forget it, we are on holiday.
After about a couple of hours we returned to the ship for a latish lunch, Noel had Sushi and Jennifer tried some other Asian food, which we both enjoyed. Then back to the room to put one’s feet up, as they say, for a couple of hours and then we sat outside with a cuppa and watched the Carnival Liberty slowly getting ready to leave which included some of the crew bringing on to the dockside and large music box where they played pop music and then started dancing, well I say dancing more of a work-out really.  On U-Tube you can find videos of people who arrived back at the ship but minutes late and then they are stranded and so we watched to see if would happen. Well it did to a degree, a youngish woman with an older female in an electric invalid chair came along the quayside and saw the ship leaving and she cried out OH NO’ it can’t be??and then realized

 she was on our ship and not the one just leaving.
In the early evening around 6.30 pm Jennifer went to check out the swimming pool as out visit there lunchtime it was pretty packed and would not be good so Jennifer went off and Noel caught up with some blogging and importing photos from the new camera. The camera is a lot lighter and smaller ( its a Sony a6000) and seems to operate much quicker than the other one and has lots of extra features like uploading via Wi-Fi which I can’t use on this cruise as internet connection via Wi-Fi is hugely expensive on cruise ships. For example the packages range from 100 minutes for $55.00 or 25 minutes from $ 100.00 and the most expensive being 1000 minutes for     $ 250.00 so we shall have to think about what to do. I am not really worried if I don't upload the blog on a regular basis but it would be nice to check emails from time to time.
Anyway we had another nice dinner in the main restaurant although I think there was a small amount of garlic on the steak based on the effects later that evening, Oh well just hang in there.
After dinner we wandered around the ship and their was apparently a comedian on that night but we both preferred to listen to music and read which is what we did..
I forgot to mention that we haver about a 50 inch LCD TV in the room with a very good system, somebody has given this a lot of thought.

We are Cruise’in today

Following a expensive continental breakfast we finished repacking and then waited in the lobby for the 12.00 shuttle to take us over to the Port. There were about six or seven people on the shuttle all going to different cruise lines and out drop was the last. The first drop there appeared to be chaos everywhere with hundred’s or people all queuing in the sun whilst cars and taxis and buses were buzzing everywhere and so we were a little worried about how our ship reception would be. The second drop looked a little more organised and then we got to our Holland America Line ship called the MV Eurodam and it was so efficient, we dropped of suitcases, went thro security and within about 25 minutes were in our suite.

We went to the Lido buffet style restaurant for a light lunch, Noel a beef sandwich and Jennifer a Turkey sandwich whilst all around us people were loading their plates to the gunnels. At least the ship staff does the serving and not allowing passengers to help themselves for health reasons, or is it because it stops food wastage, this is the most likely explanation. we waited in the cabin for the ‘muster’ call for us to learn the emergency drill and down to the deck 3 where we had to check in and be given instruction by the crew how to let go the lifeboats and steer it away from the ship, sorry just kidding, and a demonstration on how to use life jackets and then back to the room to await the arrival of the suitcases which they did about 3.15 and so b y about 1615 we were petty much unpacked and watched the ship leave the harbour.
Lots of people on the side of the port exit and in the blocks of apartments took great pleasure in waving and cheering the hip leaving, but of course it is Super Bowl today and they were probably gathering to watch the match.

We had requested a table for two and so we went to the restaurant to check and found we are on a table for four, Umm lets wait and see before we do some foot stamping and crying to see if we can get our own table. Tonight we shall eat in the main restaurant and it looks quite nice and lets hope the food is suitable for Noel delicate pallet but we will of course have a pre-dinner drink in the bar first, we shall see.
Yes we did have a pre-dinner drink in the oceans bar, and it was quiet for about ten minutes and then a small group turned up and started playing not what we would call relaxing music however after about half an hour they packed up and moved on to somewhere else. We then headed for the restaurant expecting to see another couple but thankfully we woz wrong, in fact there was a line of tables for four people but only filled by two so we were happy. The first nights food was really quite good with roast pork from Berkshire, we presumed UK unless there is a Berkshire somewhere else, as the main dish and that was very tasty.

After dinner we both decided that we were tired and returned to the room fort some reading and music and then off to sleep.

Clearwater to Fort Lauderdale

An early start and we finished a light breakfast and left the Hotel at about 0900 and collected some ‘gas’ for the car. Paying for petrol in USA has often been a problem in the past and mentioned in these blogs, that the card reader on the pump does not recognise the UK post code as a zip code which is only 5 numbers rather than letters and numbers mixed up. We have now found that if you use say and AMEX card and only user the numbers from our address, in our case KT13 8HN, we use therefore 138 then add two zeros making 13800 Zip Code and for some reason the card is accepted and it saves a lot of hassle going inside to leave a card, fill the car up, then return for your card etc, so this was good news.
There were three routes offered by Google to get to our destination, one was via Highway (motorway) going south via Fort Myers and then crossing to FL, or go straight west near Lakeland and then South using the Florida Turnpike which is what we did and we were glad we did this as it was more interesting than using motorway all the way. We missed our junction which delayed us by about ten minutes whilst a lady pulled up behind us at a traffic light and got out of her card to there is something wrong with your rear wheel? was this a trick to catch and rob us , but No she was a single lady in a car. We stopped a few minutes later to check and believe she may have been deceived by some dried mud on the tire and with the shape of the rear of the car over the tires, this mud could give the wrong impression. Anyway the car was performing well and not vibrations which would suggest a problem.
We stopped at a Pub-lix store for some sandwiches and then carried and stopped in a PLAZA (Motorway Service Station) and ate our sandwiches and then departed again this time on the Toll road which is a lot cheaper than the toll roads in France until we reached our Hotel Gallery One by Double tree ( a Hilton Brand) , and it was a nice Hotel but we then dumped all the suitcases and all the other stuff in the car, had a cup of tea in the room and then took the car back to the rental company finally getting back to the Hotel by Taxi at around 17.45. I think we had driven about 289 miles that day and the car had covered over 1200 miles during our stay.

We were considering where to go for dinner but had not realized the Hotel had a restaurant and room service so we availed our self of the room service and glugged down some Kirkland Malbec for an enjoyable relaxing evening whilst watching some TV.
Outside the hotel there is a main road going over a lift bridge , the bridge part was made in metal and so when the cars went over the bridge it was quite noisy and the windows were not double  glazed and we were worried we would not sleep  because of the noise but perhaps we were so tired after the journey it was not problem. Tomorrow we have to repack our bags to accommodate some wine we want to take on the ship and then we are booked on the 12.00 shuttle to the cruise port.

Currently travelling

We are currently travelling from Clearwater to Fort Lauderdale and then on to Cruise on Sunday. This is the last published blog for a while unless I find cheap internet on a Caribbean Island somewhere, however will be documenting trip for later publishing.
We took the BLUE route
See you soon

So no camera- its the end of the world

So we have to solve the camera problem soon, and so we decided to leaver the Hotel early and forego breakfast and head of to St Petersburg to find the Camera repair shop and see what they can do.
We arrived at the shop, not easy to find, just after ten AM believing that arriving with a camera might help resolve the issue rather than a phone call where we can get the old’ push off’ treatment .Finally we found the office and went in and explained the matter the best we could and he asked about the age of the camera, eight years we said, and he looked and said basically NO it could not be fixed and your choice is to get another one, which is not what we wanted to here but on the other hand expected this response. So time was required for thinking this matter through and so we departed for a late breakfast in a café nearby where Jennifer said she enjoyed the best Eggs Benedict she had ever encountered, so could not have been that bad then.. Then on to Macy’s Department store where we have been looking for an additional case as we are running short of luggage space and wanted something to resolve the problem. We found a nice bag in the sale and then they said do we have a Macy;s card and of course we said No and then you could have another ten per cent but alternately is you donate   3 US to a Macy’s Charity we can also give you another ten per cent and so having saved about 65 Dollars we left satisfied with our purchase. Then on to Best Buy to look at cameras.

Camera Problem and only half a photo and colour all wrong

Of course the sales are on, and after looking at a number of alternatives and what camera to by, a Canon or Nikon we ended up with another Sony which had an offer if you traded up one level you got included a extra long lens and saving overall about 180 Dollars and so we did this but spending this sort of money because of a broken camera was not planned and left a hole in out wallet. It was now time to head back to Clearwater and look for our Hotel and hope that we could check in early which we succeeded in doing and spent the first part of the afternoon sorting out our suitcases from the rushed packing in the house and then Jen took a trip to the lower levels of the Hotel to explore whilst Noel started trying to work out how the new camera worked. Playing with the old camera Noel got a shock when it sprang to life and surely three fully charged batteries cannot be empty but suddenly it started to work again so did we buy the new expensive camera for nothing??. Although later in the evening when Noel started looking at the old Micro SD disc se he find that all the photos taken when traversing the Skyline bridge and another movies did not appear on the disc and so something is seriously wrong . Oh well lets just move on.
So no photos today only the bad ones from yesterday evening when the camera was playing up and so where to go for dinner, there was a good Pizza joint across the road but first we checked out the Hotel which had a nice area with a bar and limited menu overlooking the harbour with gas heating the air and so it was very nice and we sat a table with a couple from Nebraska, I think that's what they said, who were in town for a family get together. We enjoyed the gulf shrimps and the flatbread, basically its a thin based pizza and very good but with a few glasses of Chardonnay was not so cheap, the place across the road would have been cheaper.
Then back to the room for Noel to do some blogging and Jennifer to sort out her suitcase and catch up with some reading.

Oh boy its today

The sun was shining through the window as we lay in bed as as I , Noel, was the first to notice, it was my time to make tea and so out of bed I trotted and whilst the kettle boiled thought it must be  a good idea to check what date we are due to leave the house.
OH MY GOD, its this morning the 31st January we are due to leave, not tomorrow the 1st, by latest 10.00, and so having made the tea I headed back toward the bedroom with two cups and said Jen I think I have made a mistake , we don't leave tomorrow its today, I am so sorry if messed up!!! or something along these lines. So all hell let loose as we ran about packing suitcases and cleaning the place as we went along thinking all the time we only now have an hour left  but somehow we made it and we left the house at about 10.10 , the cases were packed, not brilliantly, but all was in the car. Next problem was where do we spend the night as as we are booked only for two nights in the Hampton at Clearwater and so communication was made with them and they said they were fully booked for tonight but they had a sister Hotel, within the Hilton Group, at the Hilton Clearwater where they had a room for just one night and so rather then mess around we accepted the booking, rather expensive mind you, and so we left Rotonda West in a bit of a hurry and headed north.

We decided to use the more quieter side roads rather than the US highways and headed North to Sarasota and then on to Whole foods where we purchased two rather excellent beef sandwiches and the headed over to the beach Dido beach area to eat them  where we sat in the sun and enjoyed the sandwich. Then North we headed mostly on highways to reduce the time spent travelling and we arrived at the Hilton Hotel around 15.30 and checked in and we had  nice room overlooking the Hotel expansion and car park, and also to be fair the beach and sea. Although nobody had informed us of the Hotel woks which started at 0800 in the morning which we discovered the next day. I failed to mention that on Tuesday I had found out by chance that my payment to HMRC although made was to the wrong HMRC bank account, how could this haver happened as I though I had checked it multiple time??must be getting old and now messing up the departure date. This is not good Groves’y’

The view from the window of the Hotel was quite nice and it was at this time suddenly my nice Sony DSLR camera decided to play up and stopped working, Oh NO, why as I need it for the cruise next week and why what's wrong with it. So I changed the batteries three times and the last time the camera started showing a battery level of 89% and the halfway through a panoramic shot it shut down never to reopen, Oh bloody hell I don't need this.. So I changed batteries 2 or three times more and nothing would make it start up. Now what to do???. So over the next hour I researched on the web what could be done, who could mend it etc and finally found a place about 35 minutes from here in St Petersburg who did Sony camera repairs but by the time I had found it they had closed. So nothing to do tonight except be unhappy with the camera and so we left the Hotel seeking some food and a glass or two of wine. Just across the road from the Hotel there several joints from pizza to most everything else and so we found a bar  and went inside and said lets look at the menu, for me a Hamburger should be O.K. and how about a bottle of wine?? The waiter looked a little surprised but not as much as us when they presented us with a 1.5 litres bottle of Chardonnay and is this Ok??? well how much we said and actually the price was not to bad and so we went ahead, Jennifer having a Greek salad with shrimps and Noel with a burger and fries, got to watch the stomach problems, and it was quite good really. Then back to the room and sit on the balcony taking in the lights and reflection from the sea.

Oh dear what to do about the camera as that is vital for Noels blogs etc, lets see what the Camera shop can suggest.
Tomorrow should be interesting
.

More of the same

Well its Tuesday and we are due to leave the house on February Ist  I believe , must check the actual booking slip me thinks, anyway we spend most of the day sitting alongside the pool and enjoying the occasional swim , really tough you might think but then again somebody has to do it.

Tonight we finished off the last of the pork chops and together with some nice veggies and a glass of of Chardonnay and then some TV, Not a great deal to report however had a couple of good emails from a friend with some humorous stuff which is worth a laugh.
Anyway must check that departure date he say??? oh well will do tomorrow.

Already planning for next year

Well we have really enjoyed our time in this house in Rotonda West and as always it takes you a little while to get in to the swing of it but overall its been a pleasant experience although the weather has not been to bad, the locals are complaining that its  not to good.
Noel knees were bit achy this morning and as there was also a high chance of a brief heavy shower we decided to forgo the morning walk and caught up on some paperwork, yes we still have to pay HMRC to allow the politicians to have their heavily subsidised food and booze in the houses of Westminster, Yuk.
The weather improved during the late morning and so we headed of to Public Supermarket to by some food and bits and pieces to cover us until we leave here for Clearwater bay area where restaurant life will take over for a while until we get home in mid-February. Decided to finish up the rest of the frozen prawns in sandwiches for lunch and then an afternoon sit by the pool which was quite high following the previous nights heavy rain. At 16.00 hrs, Catherine from the Houser Rental company came to collect us and take us to see a house in Roundwood Golf & Country Club, called Villa White Wash Pearl and apparently it is owned by a Chicago based neurosurgeon and immediately you walk in you can see its been decorated for somebody to live in rather than the current house which has been decorated for rental. The house is of a similar size to the current one but much better furnished and instead overlooking a river with alligators this one overlooks a lake.

The added benefits if you rent this house is free admission to the Country Club which has a very large pool and Gym and also access to a seafront club at Manisota Key so overall a much better proposition if we can get it. see link for more info
Villa White Wash Pearl
After the visit we returned home and discussed and other potential travel plans. We are still waiting to find out if we can get on the Silver sea Cruise from Vancouver all the way to Japan in September this year and so we are unable to make other travel plans around it until this is resolved.
Watched an old BRITISH film on Amazon TV last night called Ladies in Lavender with Judi Dench and it was a nice little film with a happy ending, so worth a view.

Sunday BBQ day-no wonder it rained

We had one large rib eye steak left in the freezer which we need to eat up before we leave here Thursday morning and so we decided as its Sunday , that can be BBQ Day.

Well as the title suggests it rained, in fact it rained cats & dogs both in the late afternoon, early and late evening and then overnight so now the swimming pool is close to overflowing and no doubt the heating system will have a struggle to catch up with the temperature change. So after a very successful bibs lunch so rib eye steak, one easily feeds two of us and one huge Idaho potato, even that defeated both of us, and with a glass or two of nice Malbec we were set for the evening. Due to the heavy rain it was quite dark at about 4.30 pm so we decided to watch a film to pass the time of day. Our one month free Amazon Prime and Netflix free trials are coming to an end in a couple of days so we will try to watch what e can if its any good but as with Sky Moving, one film is good and the 85 or so are rubbish.  We stared watching a fil with an intriguing title which the write up said was banned in France?? only to find it was a black & white move that was banned in 1966, could not see why but we stopped watching after ten minutes or so. 
We are now getting to the point of finishing up all the food stocks we had built up as we shall be leaving the house on Thursday morning and heading ‘up north’ to Clearwater area where we shall spend two nights and visit a great crab restaurant called Crabby Bill’s which we had visited several times when staying with Adrian & Joyce, and so we are looking forward to visiting again. Tomorr4ow we are going to look at another house which we might consider for next year should we decide to return to Florida, we shall as we have also thought of South Africa or even stay poss for a few days with friends who are currently building a house by the sea at a place called SEASIDE. Oh well to many choices whilst Florida is easy to get around and its cheaper getting here than to South Africa.
Glad to see Chelsea beat Newcastle yesterday after the disappointment of losing to Arsenal and what with rumours about the Manager Mr Conte and possible new players we shall have to see, somebody started a rumour that Ronaldo wants to leave Real Madrid and would/could play for Chelsea, but let us see as it could be more of Mr Trumps fake news.
The stay in Florida has been good for us both what with regular walking and swimming and Jennifer has lost a little bit of weight whilst Noel refuses to stand on the scales for the moment. Well that's it for the moment and now looking forward tyo rest of the day relaxing in the sun and swimming.

Not much really, just relaxing, walking and swimming

Well the last two day, Friday and Saturday were spent relaxing and taking in the sun and with our early morning walk, well almost early, and then take it easy whilst Noel does his Blogs and other financial stuff and then a light lunch followed by more hard work lying in the sun and then an evening meal and TV.
On Friday were of course quite sad about the loss of two good friends and that tempered the day a bit and then on Saturday we were able to speak to Joanne who experienced not the best situation where the lady in charge asked her to move to the back of the building because Christopher was chucking along, as a baby does, and for some reason somebody took offence., All very annoying and upsetting for Joanne and it was handled very badly. Many people came up to Joanne afterward to commiserate but then the damage was done. Joanne and Sue were very close and for this to happen was not acceptable.

The papers have been full of the sexual misadventures naming just about every bloke in the world for sexual harassment to about every up and coming starlet who wants to get stardom or at very least the name in the paper.TI presume you have now seen the bad news abouty

his matter has got completely out of hand and it about time some of the boys talk about the female harassment they have experience. It does happen a lot, it happened to me when I was just 15 and started work in the account department of a company in Hounslow and whenever I did the filing, yes daily, the comptometer would come up behind me and press her boobs in to my back for several minutes to pretend she was trying to reach in to the drawer. I was a bity innocent in those days and it was a strange experience, but did I complain….
You usually find that the newspapers always make so much stuff up, like the Daily Mail saying that Scotland would not use the Union Jack anymore?? or that Trump’s wife would not go to Davos because of his so called entanglement with a Porn star who just so happens is on hard times and trying to get back in to the business and so any publicity might help her cause. To be honest, nobody takes their wife , of husband in the case of female politicians to this place as its designed for workshop meetings only and not a holiday destination. But do the papers mentions this???? of course not, anything to get at TRUMP.

I cannot say whether Trump is a good or bad President but the American people do themselves no favours by slagging him off all the time and overseas other voters around the world feel he should be respected because he was appointed President of the USA by the people of the USA and if you side lost, tough-live with it and have a go next time.
That's enough of politics and now back to sitting in the sun and later on Sunday for a BBQ.

Two old friends-Rest in Peace

Well its a a sad day for the the family today and we are thinking of all those who have been affected by the following people who have now passed on.

1- Sue Pettinger-RIP

We first met Sue together with her husband Ed when we  first returned to the UK from Hong Kong in 1990 and moved back in to our house in Wey Road, and at that time  Joanne our daughter was approaching 15 years of age, and had done babysitting in Hong Kong, and was of course anxious to earn a little money and Jennifer met a lady called Sue who had recently given birth to their first child, actually eighteen months earlier, Emma and was looking for the occasional baby sitter and so Joanne obliged. Over the years the relationship and friendship developed and then a new child by the name of Ben appeared on the scene and so Joanne went back to her baby sitting tasks. Of course during this period we all got to know the family well and we would meet up for the occasional BBQ in Piplin House and they would attend Joanne wedding and birthday parties etc. Both Ed & Sue worked for British Airways and that was also a lovely contact for Joanne as Sue could perhaps help her with seating when she you was able to fly off and see her friend in Canada.
Over the past few years Sue has been in ill health with the dreaded big C and it finally is caught up with her and she passed away on January 15th peacefully at home with her family with the funeral taking place today in Beaconsfield. Unfortunately  we could not attend as we are in Florida but Joanne and family of course attended this sad occasion.
Sue will be very much missed by family and friends alike and she left this earth a better place for being here.

Charles (Charlie) Woodhatch
I first met Charles when I joined a company in London called ASA Aeroservices Ltd as an aircraft cargo charter broker in the Jardine Matheson  Head office in the Minories, London EC3. My days in this office were long and strenuous and you never knew when you would get home or even get to bed when trying to finalise some charter or another. I spent two years doing this job and one day was called in to Charlie who together with my direct boss were sitting there looking very serious and I thought , Boy this does not look to good. Only I was wrong, as they said, was I happy in my job and how would I like the idea of working in Hong Kong?.Well as you know we moved there on 13 th September 1975 and the rest is history. We cannot forget this date as the BOAC flight departed at 13.00 hrs from Gate 13 on 13th September, luckily it was a Saturday.
Over the years Charlie visited Hong Kong and he had amazing energy after a 24 hour flight would say lets hit the bars, and after several hours I would have to say Charlie I have had enough and need to get some rest and the next morning I might struggle but he was on the ball. After Charlie’s retirement many years ago we only saw each other occasionally but sadly he passed away within the last week aged 96 so clearly the late nights and booze did not hamper his long life.
A great loss to the Industry and a man with always a tale to tell. Charlie Rest in Piece.