Tag: photos
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Diamond Head and more
I’m day four in Hawaii and I’m having a really nice time. There have been no earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, or tsunamis so far and Ben and the children seem to be managing well without me. A bit too well in fact 🙂 Yesterday we hired cars and drove around part of the island. There was…
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Browns Bay, Auckland
Today we took Dad to Browns Bay, a beach suburb on Auckland’s North Shore. Once upon a time it was a summer holiday destination for Aucklanders wanting to get away from the city, but as the city expanded geographically, it engulfed this pocket and turned it into another suburb of Auckland. Now it’s very popular…
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Auckland’s Sky Tower
I thought I should give Dad a break from doing chores around our house so today we took him to the top of Auckland’s Sky Tower, a 328m structure in central Auckland. It took two years and nine months to build and cost NZ$85 million. There are some impressive views from the top, a couple of…
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LOOK: a pic of me in a bikini!
Don’t be daft! As if I’d post a photograph of myself in a bikini on the web for all to see. I just wanted to see how many perverts there are out there and whether my stats increase with this title. We did go to the beach today though – to Takapuna beach – where…
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Musn’t grumble
We are back in Auckland and I am down and teary about that but I’m going to try hard not to complain so will leave it at this. Our last couple of days in Thailand were not without drama. We were taken to see some wild monkeys on Friday and fed them a bag filled…
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The Cairngorms
Today we left the city for the country and visited the majestic Cairngorms, the highest mountain range in Britain. It was spectacular and my wish for snow finally came true. The scenery was a mix of woodland, mountains, castles, villages, rivers and fields but I’ll let my photos tell the story. The rest of…
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The Silver City
We are in Aberdeen, a city known for its extensive use of granite as a building material and because of this it is also sometimes called the granite city or the silver city. On the train here from York, I tweeted that I was heading north in Scotland. Someone responded to my tweet with, “Ooh,…
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A beautiful frosty morning
I have been longing for some snow but there has been none. We haven’t even had a proper frost, that is, not until this morning and the first real frost did not disappoint me. I used to love frosty mornings when we lived in Christchurch with the sound and the sensation of crunchy grass beneath…
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The Yorkshire Dales from the Settle-Carlisle Railway
Yesterday we finally made the trip to Carlisle through the Yorkshire Dales on the Settle-Carlisle railway. I have been wanting to take this train journey ever since we arrived and I have Bill Bryson largely to blame. Here’s what he said about it in his book, Notes from a Small Island: The Settle-to-Carlisle line is…
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A day out in Nottingham
We had a superb day yesterday. Our hosts took us to see some of the sights in Nottingham the first of which was Wollaton Hall – an Elizabethan mansion completed in 1588 and since 1926, home to the city’s natural history museum. Natural history museums are always interesting places to visit, especially for children, but…
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Winter sports are the best
We went to Newcastle for the afternoon. It started off badly: there was rain, the children wanted to go home and we had nothing planned other than to walk around in the rain for a couple of hours before going back to York. But then things changed. First we ran into someone famous: Then I…
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Clifford’s Tower
Finally, after almost all of November on my own, I have my husband back and I’m very happy about that. I have a lot of respect for single parents and for parents where one of the couple spends much of their time travelling. I will only be on my own for about a week this…
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Cycling the Solar System part 2
Daniel was home sick from school today and so what better thing to do with a sick child than take him on a bicycle ride through the York Solar System. I visited the Solar System back in early September, just after taking possession of Busby the bakfiets, but I only made it as far as…
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Bristol
We have come to Bristol for the weekend to see some friends. Bristol is a very cool city. Where Edinburgh is perhaps a little too perfect, Bristol is a little rough around the edges in an endearing sort of way. A bit like Glasgow. There’s some good cycling infrastructure here too. Bristol is famous for…
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Edinburgh
Our last stop before returning to York is Edinburgh. Edinburgh is magnificent. Bill Bryson wrote about it in his book, Notes from a Small Island, but he painted it in a slightly unfavourable light. His objection, if I recall correctly, was that Edinburgh is full of all the same high street shops that plague most…
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Geneva
Another day, another city, another sister. This time we’re in Geneva visiting Ben’s sister. I have never been all that fond of Geneva because it has somewhat of an exclusive feeling to it. It also seems to be full of banks and shops selling expensive watches. Something that they do very well here though is…
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How the richest 1% live
Global wealth has risen considerably over the last 10 years but this wealth is spread unevenly. The richest 1% have more than 46% of all global assets and the richest 10% have more than 86% of wealth. Here’s a neat youtube video which graphically illustrates this inequality. So what do the 1% spend all they…
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Where am I?
I am here. Why is there a shower on the beach? Is this not the strangest sight ever? It’s not the presence of a shower that I find odd – I like to be able to rinse the sand off as much as the next person – it’s the placement of the shower. After you’ve…
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York Minster with kids
We finally got around to venturing inside York Minster today with two small children in tow. Yes, it is beautiful and magnificent, but unlike other cathedrals we’ve been in, York Minster has hands-on activities for adults and children. There was this thing inside (called an orb apparently) that looks a bit like a cancerous growth,…
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