New Zealand

For Christmas 2014, I was planning a visit to my son Simon and his family in Australia. I often liked to take a short stay stopover on the way to Australia and this time thought I'd go to New Zealand. Never been there before. So I did. And these are some of the pictures illustrating the trip (and bringing back memories for me).

I chose Auckland for a week's stay, for no other reason than that was where the flight went (Air New Zealand the best Premium Economy seating I have ever had, by the way). Skipping over the awful inconveniences of transiting San Francisco.

I took a trip to a Maori village at Whakarewarewa (try saying that quickly). With geothermal springs. Who knew New Zealand had sheep? 

 

A trip to the Waitangi Treaty Ground, where New Zealand's founding document was signed in 1840.

  

On to the Bay of Islands. Some whale hunting (that's hunting in the sense of looking for them, not...you know).

Oh look, there's a whale. Really. Look carefully. 👀 

And a haka to say welcome back.

Another day, to the Waitomo Glowworms Cave.

Sorry you can't see the glowworms! You try photographing them.

Ah the good old days of steam railways

Do you like trains? I do. My preferred mode of travel from St Austell to Whitstable is by very comfortable Great Western Railway train, pretty uncomfortable underground across London and moderately comfortable South Eastern Railway Javelin train from St Pancras to Whitstable. I'm not convinced that's a safe way to travel at the moment so I'll be spewing diesel on the motorways.

I've always loved railways and I though you might like to share these pictures of a trip I made to Delhi in July 2016. I had some Virgin air miles which needed using before they expired so I had a look at their schedules; where shall I go? Delhi? That sounds different; I'll go.

It was different. Noisy, crowded, dusty, hot, humid, uncomfortable. I loved it. Just browsing the streets and observing city life, learning (with some trial and error and close shadowing of locals) how to cross the road in the face of a million threatening vehicles of all kinds. Window shopping, stall shopping. Figuring out what and where to eat. The occasional retreat to Starbucks for air con, relaxation and more familiar coffee - and pastry.

On this day, I visited the 

In case you think I spent my whole  two weeks trainspotting, keep an eye on the blog for more of Delhi, Agra, Jaipur and more.

Three remarkable days

Monday July 13th, 2020. Wembley Stadium, London.

Wycombe Wanderers, a club with no reserve team, no under 23 team, no money. A team of loanees, free transfers and journeymen. Fleetwood Town, silky purveyors of possession football. The Final of the League One play offs. Winner gets promoted to the Championship. Loser slinks away gutted.

Do Wycombe have a chance? They have a charismatic rock star manager, Gareth Ainsworth. The longest serving manager in the top four tiers of English professional football. Previously a Wycombe player. Known as Wild Thing.

 

And Adebayo Akinfenwa, a 38 year old weight lifting centre forward. Known as The Beast.

9th minute: Wycombe score from a Joe Jacobsen deadly corner. 1-0.

57th minute: Fleetwood score. 1-1.

79th minute: Wycombe score with a Joe Jacobsen penalty. It couldn't happen, could it?

11 minutes of intense pressure from Fleetwood.

Full time: Wycombe, with 24% possession, are the winners. Remarkable. Spirit counts.

Wednesday July 15th, 2020. Emirates Stadium, London.

Arsenal, languishing in 10th place in the Premier League. A team of kids and has-beens. Liverpool, newly crowned champions of the Premier League, 20 points ahead of the rest, proud purveyors of heavy metal football. Winner gets pride, loser slinks away gutted.

Do Arsenal have a chance? They have a young manager in his first managerial job, Mikel Arteta. Previously an Arsenal player.

20th minute: Liverpool score, as expected. 1-0

32nd minute: chaos in the Liverpool defence, Arsenal score. Alex Lacazette. 1-1

44th minute: more Liverpool chaos, Arsenal score. Reiss Nelson. 2-1.

46 minutes of intense pressure from Liverpool.

Full time: Arsenal, with 31% possession, are the winners. Remarkable. Spirit counts.

Saturday July 18th, 2020. Wembley Stadium, London.

Arsenal, languishing in 10th place in the Premier League. A team of kids and has-beens. Manchester City, FA Cup holders, silky purveyors of possession football. FA Cup Semi Final. Winner gets to the Final of the FA Cup, loser slinks away gutted.

Do Arsenal have a chance? They have a young manager in his first managerial job, Mikel Arteta. Previously an Arsenal player.

And a deadly striker from Gabon, Pierre Emerick Aubameyang.

19th minute: Arsenal breakaway. Aubameyang scores. 1-0

71st minute: Arsenal breakaway again. Aubameyang scores. 2-0

19 minutes of intense pressure from Manchester City.

Full time: Arsenal, with 29% possession, are the winners. Remarkable. Spirit counts.

Cornish goats cheese, poached pear and walnut salad with a balsamic glaze

Enough of "one hour of exercise a day". That's the Old Normal. The New Normal is a light lunch at the pub, followed by coffee at home and a snooze. Ready for the footy in the evening.

The eponymous salad followed by three scoops of ice cream - strawberry, vanilla and salted caramel - and accompanied by two bottles of Heineken Zero (without a glass). Pure bliss.

By the way (not the abbreviation BTW, which should be used for text messaging rather than grown-up and serious writing), for those of you of a pedantic mind, my reasons for excluding an apostrophe in the name of the salad are twofold: (1) that's what the menu at the Britannia Inn says (2) I don't know whether the cheese comes from one Cornish goat or more than  one.

Two things arise from this menu. One is that I did not know there were goats in Cornwall; the other is the rise and rise of Salted Caramel. Who invented it? And when? I certainly don't recall being aware of salted caramel in my childhood, or even until fairly recently. I learn the answer from the wonderful world of the internet: "salted caramel was first created by a chocolatier called Henri Le Roux more than three decades ago." My sophisticated readers (i.e. all of you) probably knew that. No-one has ever called me sophisticated; I'd bite their head off.

Salted caramel is apparently highly addictive. Is it really? If that were the case, I'd have had three scoops all of that variety. It seems to me that it's the stuff that are flavoured with salted caramel that are addictive, like chocolate (got some in my fridge). And yoghurt (got some of that in my fridge too - maybe I am addicted to it). One tablespoon of salted caramel sauce contains 23 calories and 6 grams of carbohydrates, of which 5.5 is sugar. I suppose my ice cream scoop contains perhaps half of that in sauce, so not so bad. As opposed to my salted caramel chocolate which weights in at 532 calories and 41g carbs per 100g (one bar is 125g so a couple of squares are perhaps 1/4 of that). So I think I can have a bit now...hang on, I'll be back...

OK I'm back. On to Cornish goats.

Polmarkyn Dairy has its own goat herd. Their website doesn't say what breed of goat they are; maybe there is either goat or...goat, no sub species (I do know that species isn't the same as breed; don't quibble). They sell milk, cheese, yoghurt and...soap! I'm intrigued by the soap so I started to order some for myself, family and friends. £3.50 per bar, which seems reasonable. But they wanted to charge me £9.99 for Fedex. Fedex? Can't you just put them in the post? OK I guess they really only want to sell to wholesale. So no pressies for you guys. This time.

I found another supplier selling "Cornish Grey Goats Cheese ash coated" (see? still no apostrophe). I don't know which Cornish volcano they have exposed the cheese to but their picture looks remarkably like what I ate at lunch. I'd like to share a photo but their site disables right click on images. Instead, for all you picture lovers, here are some pictures of Cornish goats:

Serious Goat, Family of Goats, Hairy Goat and Welly Goat.

Twinning

I live in St Austell, Cornwall in the far south west of the UK. I have conducted extensive research and cannot find any town or city with which St Austell is twinned.

St Austell is famous for its china clay so you might imagine the town councillors would have made overtures to Shanghai or Beijing. Perhaps they did and were rebuffed. You could understand that: Beijing has a population of around 21.5 million (and Nine Million Bicycles according to Katie Melua); we are small beer at 20,000.

Nevertheless we feel left out. There are 35 Cornish towns that are twinned with towns in Brittany, but not us. Oh no, we stand alone and defiant. And isolationist. No wonder we voted .... (no, I'm not going there)

Xian, the ancient capital of Chinese dynasties, is twinned with more than 30 towns including Edinburgh and Pau. But surely they have room for one more? I volunteer as ambassador! Give me a plane ticket and a china pot and I'll go and seal the  deal.

Did you know that the town of Dull in Scotland is twinned with Boring, Oregon and Bland, New South Wales? 

Dresden and Coventry are twinned; I get that. But Luton and Spandau?

In 2012 the UK's Wikipedia twin, aka the BBC, reported that some UK (actually English) towns were embarking on "un-twinning". Apparently Bishop's Stortford no longer felt close to Friedberg or Villiers-sur-Marne. Take that, Eurotrash! Wallingford in Oxfordshire complained that Luxeiul-les-Bains was not pulling its weight. Who did they complain to? Obviously, the European Municipalities and Regions - who else? Maybe St Austell could twin with the EMAR.

You'd imagine there is plenty of scope for political virtue signalling - in 1980 Dundee twinned with the West Bank town of Nablus and flew the PLO flag in City Hall

- and arrangements which are simply weird - Swindon and Walt Disney World.

In an effort to be positive, I researched places in the world that, like us, mine china clay, otherwise known as kaolin. And here's a truly weird thing: the aforementioned Wikipedia has a section entitled "is kaolin safe to eat?" What? You want to eat china clay? According to the text, it is "possibly safe when taken by mouth" but they note that it "can cause constipation and lung problems, particularly for children and the elderly". So exactly how safe is that? Any kids reading this, don't eat china clay! (or Grannies)

Whatever, what's going on with St Austell? Get out there and make friends, people!

Reader demands for pictures

You want pictures, MiceElf and Unknown (get your act together, Dan)? Well never let it be said that this blog doesn't listen to its readers' wishes.

Seahorses:

Football:

Drinks break:

Now for today's quiz

Question 1:

Question 2:

Question 3:

And that's probably a good way to end this madness.