This is home. Living in Limehouse, gives us easy access to all of London and its great restaurants, theatres, bars and sights. We got rid of our car in 2001 which makes us walk a lot more, so we actually see some of our own capital city. Canary Wharf has really got a head of steam going in eating & drinking.
Tower Bridge from the west side. The building on the left hand side is the Tower Thistle Hotel, probably the ugliest building in the area. The bridge is used a lot more than people think, so you stand a good chance of seeing it opened. Tower of London also good. Best view is from the south bank.
Up to 2005 or so we went to Henley with Karen & AJ. This picture is from 2002 where the sun shone brightly (well on Saturday anyway). This is the Fawley Bar in the Steward's enclosure. Pimms was £7 a pint this year!! AJ won medals at Henley in 83 and 87 stroking 4s.
Unusually, 2006 found us holidaying in the UK, specifically Scotland. All geared up with wet weather gear we headed to Glasgow by air, picked up a hire car and headed to Mull. Eagles, boat trips and otters livened up the trip. This is Jonna on Staffa. We fished for trout near Oban and visited Loch Ness and the Cairngorms. Some good bird sightings livened up the trip.
We went for a walk around London the day after the turn of the century party at the end of 1999. It was chaos with literally tons of empties. This particular sight took my fancy.
Favourite parts of Britain
Norfolk/Suffolk. The flat east of the country with good walking in the interior and on the coast. We often camp on the coast and once swam in the North Sea in May. Absolutely freezing.
Devon/Cornwall. Rugged coastline and moors inland again offer great walking. I have walked across Dartmoor from South (Ivybridge) to North (Okehampton) in one day. 20+ miles of very difficult terrain with the chance of falling into a bog ever present.
Dorset. One of my favourite places in the UK with a coastline full of fossils that even I could find.
Yorkshire. A wild, rugged and large county with something for everybody.
Olympics 2012.
London is building up to the Olympic spectacular so I will post some interesting pictures as I find them. This is a floating set of giant Olympic rings which are parked outside my flat today. In the background is The Shard, soon to be the tallest building in Europe. More here
March 2012 and a heatwave hits the UK with temperatures of over 20 degrees. I am on a pre-planned walk of 42 miles on the North Yorkshire moors the beginning of my training for Peru later in the year. Tough but satisfying, and the chance to eat some massive Yorkshire meals. The Middlesborough Parmo was especially filling.
Being an avid birdwatcher, and having missed many of the Scottish specialities on previous trip I booked a short 5 day break with an excellent birder to try and remedy the situation. I travelled to Aviemore by train and teamed up with the guide, driver and the 6 other people on the tour. The weather went through every possible option, from blazing sunshine, rain, hail, wind and finally 8 inches of snow on the Cairngorms. The birding was fantastic and I saw 9 new species and took my UK list to 249.
