Mei and John: Latest from David and Lee and their journeys - Goodbye Greece, Hello Britain (Again)

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Goodbye Greece, Hello Britain (Again)

Where was I? I think we were cruising around some of Greece's finest and there certainly is some terrific places to visit here, but we have decided that the big cruise ships are not for us, too many queues and too much food and drinks, not good for my waist line. I no longer have a waist line so what am I worrying about?.
Next in line to be visited was Crete and the highlight here was a visit to a vineyard and a bit of a knees up for those that like knees ups, not I , no I never have, so I am afraid that Crete was a bit of a disappointment for me. Well not really, they actually put on quite a good show and no pressure on me to make a fool of myself.

My worst nightmare.

The good ship Louis Olympia.

The ever ready lifeboat number 13, not a good sign for Mrs Currin.

Now as can be seen we ended up assigned to lifeboat number 13 which if you are superstitious could be just a little unnerving , but this was good, ours was the only lifeboat with two engines and it was fully enclosed so no cold nights on the high seas for us, no sir, it was almost worth having to take to the boats so one could be a little smug. No, this was the lifeboat that the captain and navigator were sure to be in.

The cruise we were on was perhaps a little bit of a pressurised affair with only three to four days to fit it all in. This meant we had to "Do" Crete in the morning and Santorini in the late afternoon, the ship cruising whilst we ate once more. Around three in the afternoon the P.A. announced that we should all assemble on the upper deck to witness the approach to Santorini and thence to the tenders to be taken ashore. Buses had been laid on to take us up the cliff, these were to be sadly lacking when the cliff needed descending later that evening.The highlight of the excursion was to Oia, a small town on the rim of the volcano, and a worthy highlight it is.

Oia, Santorini.

This is a place that needs a good walking around and in the couple of hours that we had available to us I think that we did it justice. Back on the bus and we were then deposited in Megalochori, the town above the old harbour and given cable car tickets with which to make our descent and then catch the tender back to the ship. Neither Mrs Currin nor I are great cable car enthusiasts but managed to keep it together and not showing ourselves up in front of our fellow cruisers. Actually it was rather gentle in the cable car scheme of things.

Your car awaits sir.

This was our last shore excursion and all that remained was to return on board and eat once more and sleep some more and eat some more and then we are back in Athens and another flight back to England.

We had booked a cottage in a small village near Marlborough in Wiltshire called Ogbourne St. George, not to be confused with its neighbour Ogbourne St. Andrew nor another neighbour Ogbourne Maizey. This is a little like being in Midsumer Murder country and I am sure it is only done to confuse the Postman. Mmmm just had some fresh raspberries and meringue, YUM. Marlborough is the nearest large town and has provided worthy of two evening means since our arrival, not that we eat out o. a regular basis, no it's just we were late home and, well you know how it is.

This cottage is up there on our three best cottage list, very nice with a bathroom you can swing several cats in, the most delightful sunroom and even a smart T V. induction looking hob and all the bells and whistles.

Since being here no grass has been allowed to grow beneath our feet and we have clocked up an impressive amount of miles in our wee Peugeot 2008, visiting Winchester, Fareham, Chichester, Castle Combe, Lacock, Avebury and others that have temporarily slipped my mind. These have all been first rate places to visit and very informative.

As you will be aware it is coming up to All Hallows eve and it seems it is very big business here in Britain, also it is half term break and so everywhere you go there are a host of children. The British seem very good at this sort of thing and where ever you go there are activities arranged for the kids, usually with a halloween flavour. I went to a museum of heavy guns at Fort Nelson on the Portsdown hills above Portsmouth and true to from lots of kids were there. There was a room, actually several as this was the guardhouse cells from yesteryear, where said children could make Halloween costumes and decorate themselves before being taken down into the old tunnels which form a honeycomb under the fort. The children were delighted and I must admit to a little buzz myself as they came along towards me.

Some children in the tunnels beneath Fort Nelson.

This monster weighs in at 200 tons and can throw a 1 ton shell some 20 miles.

(needs a railway track to move along so is a little limited)

We went to Avebury today and it was great to see so many families out amongst the stones and sheep even though the day was not the best.

Great to see the kids out and about.

In the Manor house everything can be touched, sat on, worn or whatever else you do with it and everyone was having a great old time of it.

Earlier we had been to Lacock, which is again a National Trust property and together with one of the best kept and pretty villages in Britain is not to be missed. Here we noticed several of the villagers had left vegitables, plants , produce and baking out with the simple instruction "Put money in letter box". I couldn't but wonder what would happen to said money at home.

Honesty box sales.

The jar on the left of the produce in the top picture is for you to leave your money in and had several pounds in it when we made our purchase.

One of Britain's best villages.

The Abbey in Lacock was for five hundred years the home of the Talbot family and their most famous son, one Henry Talbot was the one most responsible for modern photography when in the 1830s he developed ( excuse the pun ) the process involving negative imagery in the photographic process thus enabling many many copies to be made of the original.

Talbot's study.

"The idea occured to me" he wrote " how charming it would be if it were possible to cause these natural images to imprint themselves durably, and remain fixed upon the paper. And why should it not be possible I asked myself ."

And so it was possible as Talbot had believed and we have millions upon millions of photographs to prove it so.

Talbot seems to be my sort of guy and was surrounded by many scientists of the day, Babbage, Whetstone and Herschell amongst them, they would enjoy great diners as they discussed matters of science and physical discovery current in the day.

Another visit of great interest was to Winchester one of the great cities along with the likes of Salisbury which are so prominent in Britain's past . It is full of historic and interesting buildings along with the "Odd" interesting fellow. We were privileged to have one of these eccentrics introduce himself to us. In the ensuing 10 to 15 minutes we had heard his opinions on most everything and put the world well and truly to rights.