Pam’s Notable Loos!!

Now, a loo when you’re travelling, takes on a whole new importance in your life.  “Don’t go when you need to, go when you see one” becomes a sort of mantra in your head, especially when you get to a certain age/stage in your life when winging it just doesn’t cut the mustard.

So not only have I been become acutely aware of availability of conveniences, but I am also finely tuned into their various good and bad points.  To wit, I started a rating system.  To be fair there have been many average and ok loos, but one or two made the game of rating them very entertaining.

Admittedly we have not been travelling in third world countries, so this is quite a sanitised, excuse the pun, personal account.

We have used a variety of accommodation styles on this trip – hotels (high end hotels, middle of the road, airport hotels), sleeper train, self -catering accommodation, cruise ship. And we have travelled by ferry, plane, bus, train, and ship. Of course, or should I say thankfully, these have all had loos! But the variety and style and cleanliness has varied.  And as for the public loos we have used, well that’s where the rating system really comes into its own. 

There has been the “really? How long is this queue” loo, the no seat loo, the” where do I flush”, the no toilet paper, the very popular slow closing lids, the self-flushing ( quite disconcerting but brilliant idea), the pay as you use, the “try and keep your balance as you hurtle along a train track” loo, the very compact loos, the row of loos with one cubicle closed off with the sign “ this cubicle closed for the winter”, the “how do I even open the door” loo, the “please only use this loo in an absolute emergency” loo, the foot pedal flush loo (another great idea), the unexpectedly delightful loo, and the special award winners, which I will detail.

Our first encounter with a troublesome loo was on the first leg of our journey on The Canadian train– not an auspicious start.  The loo in our sleeper cabin was not working (they were not working in the whole carriage actually), a problem only detected once the train had left Vancouver station.  This could not be fixed until the first scheduled stop at Jasper many hours away.  Our cabin steward kindly provided us with a large black plastic bag – haha, not to use, but to encase the whole toilet in, just in case the rolling motion of the train caused any backflow – sorry, perhaps I should have put an “Indelicate material” warning on this!!! Anyway, we were able to use the other toilets not too far away, and the situation was rectified as promised. Phew!

By and large the Canadian and American loos were fine, as we mainly used ones in restaurants or information areas. And like all good savvy travellers we have pretended to be guests just to use the loos.

I guess I should also state the obvious that men do not face the issues that we ladies do, when it comes to finding and using a suitable loo.  That said, it was wonderful in Italy to find the men queueing alongside the women as there were no specifically designated “mens” or “ladies”.  Equality at last!

So….. onto some of my awards……..

Best loo (to date) – the restaurant loos at the Baltic Centre, Newcastle – Loo with a view – Fantastic!!!  Looking out over the Tyne.  5 star.

The view when you first enter the toilet.

Hand basins

Taken from the loo! Fantastic!

Worst loo (to date) – the public loos in Mourne(Northern Ireland) car park – scores a minus 4 – disgusting health hazard.

Most Quirky – the Lighthouse in Glasgow – brilliant signs. 3 star

Scottish sense of being "un PC" which appealed to me immensely

Brought a smile – Virgin Trains – their recorded message in the loo goes something like “please don’t flush nappies, sanitary products, your unpaid bills, goldfish, that extra sweater or your hopes and dreams down this loo”  Love it! 3 star.

Most unexpected – Pizza restaurant in mountain town in Sicily. In behind the pizza oven in the kitchen. Clean, gracious owners. Molto Bene!

Sicilian pizza place provides good pizzas and loos!

Made an effort – public loos in Thirsk (north Yorkshire) – pretty 3+ star.

Nice baskets make a difference in a small market town

Tolerable cos we had no choice – planes, boats, trains, ferries, railway stations.......

And just to finish off ...... a loo with a political view - Houses Of Parliament, Westminster.

Travelling, they say, broadens the mind. It also allows you to have a bit of fun.

Cheers folks

Pam xx

London calling...

Our last few days have been filled with many things London. Ten days to spend here seemed a luxury at the beginning, but as our travels draw to a close we are trying to pack in as much as possible, hopefully this is apparent from the photos below!
Barbara



It feels as if London has wrapped its arms around us once again and welcomed us back. Yes, the list of "Things to do'' here has included the familiar, the new, the eclectic, family, fireworks and the realisation that our trip is all but culminating in this wonderful city. The magic of Christmas is alive and well, with the street lights and decorations easily seen before 5pm. And throngs of people everywhere. We will leave them to their ways, when we fly out on Monday morning.

  London, UK, Scotland, Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Med Cruise, Malta, USA, Canada  - its been a fantastic journey. I have felt enriched, challenged, enthralled, and excited by each and every place. And I have been blessed with a patient, (Oh, so patient!) Barbara by my side to share these precious times.
A couple of days in Singapore for us to let our minds & bodies and (feet) recover, then homeward bound.
Pam

Westminster - Houses of Parliament. The colours in the windows change with the rise and fall of the Thames

Big Ben needs a lift for the disabled, hence all this scaffolding

Guy Fawkes night - view of fireworks in Battersea Park

Pam's extended family - Linda, John, Pam, Duncan, Lynne

Barbara hoofing it down The Mall

"It's all right" in Trafalgar Square - 4th plinth artwork

Pam reflecting on the actor, the late John Thaw in the gardens of the actors' church

Fortnum and Mason in Christmas finery

On the i360 in Brighton. Over 130 metres looking out over Brighton and the south coast

The Natural History Museum - blue whale

Restoration work in one of the rooms of the Victoria & Albert Museum

Synchronising watches at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich

She goes east, I go west but we are still hanging on!. The meridian line at the Royal Observatory which is where GMT is calculated from

View towards Canary Wharf in background and the Old Royal Naval College from Royal Observatory Hill, Greenwich

Paddington is in town to promote his new movie. Pam caught up with him to share his marmalade sandwich!

Carnaby Street

Carnaby Street Christmas lights - we were there for the switching on of the lights

Pam and George relaxing - Madame Tussauds sadly!

If Dame Judi ever needed a double ...

Queen Mum looking suitably impressed with her new friend

Family photo

WTF Donald!

Seasons of Mellow Fruitfulness (and Lakes)

I am no poet but being in the Lakes District for a week has seen me waxing lyrical on more than one occasion, much to Barbara’s dismay.  So here are just one or two of my observations – leaves falling like gentle snow; a glow of golden colours; wind-rustles in the hedgerows; leaves piled up on steps like a bubble bath of foam (that one is truly awful I know, sorry). One of the more unexpected noises/sights that we discovered is that Lake Windermere is on nearby RAF Spadeadam’s training ground and the jets come out of nowhere with a noise and verocity that is both alarming and thrilling at the same time.  RAF, NATO, Royal Navy and British Army all practise here. We probably surprised ourselves by choosing to spend our “free week” in the Lakes. We bandied around all sorts of ideas & locations both in the UK and offshore, but very happy with our decision to unwind & enjoy this lovely region. We went to the local movie theatre and saw Stalin (interesting choice but it was ok), and also to the local professional theatre (Old Laundry Theatre) to see and thoroughly enjoy “By Jeeves”, a Lloyd Webber/Alan Ayckbourn collaboration. We have negotiated narrow and intriguing lanes (searching for farm shops, visiting Beatrix Potter’s Hill Top house, and stopping at other National Trust properties to make the most of our NZ Historic Places reciprocal membership). We have loved staying so close to local walkways and the Windermere Ferry.  Bowness is a busy tourist spot, even at this time of the year, but thankfully we chose a self-catering cottage just far enough away (15 min walk) to make it feel less hectic.  Although it is right on the road to the ferry! But this was so interesting, as there is also a boat building yard across the road, so plenty to keep us amused. This week has given me (us) time to reflect on our travels. But more on that later….

Meanwhile dear friends, I will leave you with one more reflection (thanks to Beatrix……..”…I walk step by step on the fells and rough lands seeing every stone and flower and patch of bog and cotton grass where my old legs will never take me again”. If that be the case, then I am still a lucky lass.

Pam

Truly a lovely spot, and when you get away from the crowds it is a time to relax, take in the sights and take things rather more slowly! The luxury of a rental car for a week has given us the freedom to move further afield and we have explored both ends of Lake Windermere and lots in between. It also meant we could take our time travelling from York to the Lake District and explore the Yorkshire Dales – a beautiful part of the country.

We have also seen the lake from a cruise on same and have been fortunate to enjoy stunning vistas as we have had several days of sunshine although with temperatures around 12 degrees so jackets are a requirement on outings.

Daylight saving ended here last weekend, we are now plunged into darkness about 5 pm! But with that, the festive season is starting to take a life of its own as shops gear up for Christmas. It is just as well we have limited capacity to bring purchases home!

And so to the last leg of our trip –

Barbara

Some of these Yorkshire Dale bridges are quite high! Spot Pammy

On the way through the Dales

Askrigg Village - setting for All Creatures Great and Small

View from our accommodation in Bowness-on-Windermere

Hill Top House where Beatrix Potter wrote many of her works Her hat and gardening clogs just as she might have left them

Hill Top House garden and Pammy

Claife viewing station on the shore of Lake Windermere looking south. This was built by the Victorians. The building windows tinted with coloured glass were designed to re-create the landscape under different seasonal conditions. Yellow = summer, orange = autumn, light green = spring, dark blue = moonlight

Old phone boxes put to good use! Good idea

View from Biskey Howe looking north

Autumn colours

Treated ourselves to a cream tea at The Belsfield Hotel, Bowness. Not a bad view looking out onto the lake. A Laura Ashley themed hotel apparently

Antiques, Bakewell and Moor

Two Antiques attend a Roadshow! – starting this account of what we did today (26/10/17) and then will backtrack over the last few days in York.  So yes, we went to the Antiques Roadshow in Newcastle, a mere hour away by train.  We planned our day pretty well, arriving at the venue at 8.50am, to join a queue of about 150. Doors opened at 9.15 (earlier than the advertised time of 9.30). The whole process of getting people in, assessing which expert to see, and then finally seeing that person was like a well-oiled machine. B and I went our separate ways – me to miscellaneous, and B to books.  I had a one on one with Paul Atterbury (I knew him from watching the tv show).  He was quite delightful and looked at my small brass thread counter saying it most probably one used by a buyer of material to check the quality. He said it could fetch maybe 40 quid (more than I was expecting, but not hoping for obviously!!).  I also had a strange button type object that he decided was a semi-precious stone set in brass and would have been part of a stud worn on a shirt or similar.  He hoped I had not come all the way from NZ to get these valued (ie make a fortune!) I reassured him that that was not the case and that we were just taking advantage of the fact that the programme coincided with our trip. A look of relief came across his face.  We chatted about NZ, I shook his hand and went on my way. I will let B tell you about her own valuation.  We met up again and planted ourselves as close to the action on a couple of segments being filmed for TV.  One was on the Mauritania, with pictures, ship’s plans, contracts, log books and local to the area. They film about 25 segments, of which not all will make the final cut. We saw Fiona Bruce (current presenter, very tall, she kept on taking her shoes off for filming).  After a while we found a rather nice sofa at the end of the room next to the armoury expert, to rest and lo and behold the local council press officer spied us and asked if he could take our photo, and then if we would each do a piece to camera about our day so far.  Naturally we were delighted to oblige!  It was on the council facebook page within about an hour!  So if you want a laugh just go onto Newcastle City Council facebook page and there we are!  After that excitement we needed some lunch so grabbed a cup of soup and sausage roll and made our way to an area that had another nice sofa to sit on, and relaxed out there.  We got the odd strange look from some others sitting there, but ignored those until we realised that we were actually in the “special holding pen” for people waiting to be called to speak with a producer and then go to the make up room for their spruce up before filming. We didn’t let this faze us, taking our time to sup & eat before finally with great grace leaving the area and wishing them all the best!  Such fun!  I would love to say that we learnt lots about antiques, and the history of them, but alas that is not the case because you can’t hear a thing – there are so many people, it is very noisy, The experts speak quite intimately to the hopeful attendee, and so all that nodding you see on TV is just because that’s all you can do really.  Two exceptions were the delightfully brash, entertaining and un PC appraisals of glass expert Andy McConnell, who asks people to put items on his table and then he talks about them all.  If a piece catches an expert’s eye, they fill out a form which then gets passed onto a producer, who then decides if it will make good tv viewing. From there, another producer checks out the backstory, the variety of scenes already shot etc etc, and then it may make it to the filming stage.  The other exception to learning about something came from when I did finally get close enough to hear an evaluation and historical account from expert Hilary Kay (she was lovely) about an object that was a sail press (valued at  £350 to-£400) and a snuff box painted with a whaling theme (£1500- £2000).  I was standing right next to the couple who owned it, but fear I won’t make the cut haha.  For me one of the biggest delights was people watching – they came with their hopes and dreams in shopping trollies, suitcases,  plastic bags, lolly tins, and they all bought heaps with them!!  The well-heeled, the op shoppers, the dignitaries, the slightly odd, the young, the Kiwi girls out for a day of fun!  (Carol, there has to be a play in this somewhere!!) I loved watching the technical aspects of filming – from the props people dressing the scenes, to the sound men wiring then up for sound, to the multitude of cameras and angles, to the last minute make up for the presenters and then how many “takes” before  “that’s a wrap”.  All very interesting and intriguing.  We spent the whole day there before catching our train back early evening.  The byline to the show is “Behind every treasure there’s a priceless story”.  We had a great day, it had its priceless moments and we are so pleased we made the effort to include this gem in our itinerary.

I know you will probably need a cuppa before reading further, but I will carry on anyway.

York is tale of two cities – First day – first city – we arrived on a Saturday – couldn’t believe how many people had come out to meet & greet us ………. Oh no hang on ……. They couldn’t have cared less about us – they were there on a hen do, or a stag do, any do as long as they could wear next to nothing, wear skyscraper heels, yell loudly & then stagger back on the mini coach, or train at the end of the night.  Second day – second city….. a different place, people going about their normal lives, a calm, ancient city readjusting after being bombarded on what the locals call “mad Saturday”.  Loved the Jorvik Viking centre.  Attended Evensong at York Minster on Sunday – a time to sit and reflect & revel in beautiful singing in one of the best settings in the world, then home to our central city pad for roast beef & Yorkshire puddings.

A day trip to Whitby, crossing the Yorkshire moors was fun. Fog so thick on the moors, and wind pretty brisk later that it was all very “Bronte-esque”. Whitby is a typical English seaside town (and in the middle of a mid term school break), very busy with folk eating fish n chips out of a box with a wee fork, or eating ice-creams, or candy floss, or Whitby rock.  We opted for a ride out of the harbour on a replica Endeavour.  Back to York via a trip on the NYR (North Yorkshire Railway) which passed through the village of Goathland (where the TV series Heartbeat was set).  Yesterday we walked the walls of this ancient city, and indulged in some good old-fashioned service and delicious “fancies” at the famous Bettys Tea Shop.

I want to make mention of again and to thank our good friends Di & Pete, Raewyn & Ron and Chris for looking after the house etc, and to all of you who are following the blog and responding, and to those of you who are sending us good and welcome messages of support.

Pam

So back to the beginning – after we left Paris, we had a night in London before we caught a train to Manchester and a coach to the small village of Bakewell in the Peak District. A delightful spot famed for its Bakewell puddings and tarts of which we sampled a few! Delicious. Loved the village, and we spent sometime walking around the various alleys and lanes exploring the area. We also spent a day at Chatsworth House and gardens. Loved strolling through the gardens in particular.

So, on to York and Pam has pretty much covered this. AR yesterday was great and I took along two classic novels written in shorthand and dating back to the 1930s. Alas of no great value, but not unexpected – who uses shorthand these days!

Today we picked up a car and have travelled to Bowness-on-Windermere in the Lakes District through the beautiful Yorkshire Dales. Lovely to have a fine sunny day for this. Then our final 10 days in London – where has the time gone!

Barbara

A tart standing outside the pudding shop, Bakewell

Art installation at Chatsworth House, Derbyshire

Chatsworth Gardens

The Golden Fleece pub, York

Our view from our pew at Evensong, York Minster

Where's a horse when you need one! Pam trying to see if there are any pennies in the pilgrim's post on the Yorkshire Moors

Fog lifted but still a blustery day on the Moors

On the replica Endeavour heading out of Whitby Harbour into the North Sea

Part of the York City Wall

At Goathland Station - also known as the Harry Potter Station. Carriages on the left are holiday accommodation carriages

Teak carriages, only ones left in the country on the North Yorkshire Railway. We travelled in this as part of our day out on the Moors

View of York Minster from City Wall

Queueing for the Antiques Roadshow in Newcastle. Barbara towards front. Approximately 100 in front of us. It only took 10 minutes for the ones to join the queue behind us!

Pam with expert Paul Atterbury on the Miscellaneous table. Got his name wrong on the Facebook clip - shame!

Two classic antiques - priceless!

Lord Mayor of Newcastle looking hobbit-like beside presenter Fiona Bruce

Experts Ronnie Archer-Morgan and Andy McConnell on the glassware table - very entertaining

A thoroughly enjoyable day out