Saturday 17 May 2008

No Yellow Lines.......

..... loads of history, Nature in it's finest, coastlines a -plenty, fine food..... Need I go on? If you've ever been to the Channels Islands and visited Guernsey then you know it has it all! And some.

I had to work there for a few days after a short break from our honeymoon. So, two honeymoons in four weeks! Ok, we weren't together all the time each day - Marianne had to entertain herself for a few hours each day. The sun shone, so it wasn't that difficult. I did feel sorry for her though. Too many aircraft flights with a possible ear infection left her feeling quite poorly at times and in a fair bit of pain. Not only that, the Hotel Beauty-Parlour was too well booked. She never got the full pampering a wonderful lady should receive. Anyway, she doesn't need any more to make her look as beautiful as she is!

St. Peter Port on a Sunday morning..... the only shops open were those that had licenses to receive the cruise ships when they arrive. Could we learn something from this? Life was so calm and peaceful. I'd forgotten what 'trade free' Sundays were like!

Pembroke Bay..... so many beautiful flowers. I love the idea that the hedgerows are left to run wild, they have to go to seed before they are cut back to preserve the wild flowers. Everybody is responsible for their own hedgerows. Makes for a very pretty place this time of year.


Fort Marchant (I think). A defensive fort dating back to the middle 1800's. Those prison cells looked pretty bleak and desperate and that was with the sun out.


A couple of birds I was fascinated by.... as usual. Bit windy on the cliff tops but these birds loved it!





A very pensive Marianne, totally engrossed in her new Swallowtail shawl. It helped take her mind off that mischievous, painful ear.... :^(

How can you fail to be unmoved with such beautiful coastline such as this. All that remains to do is return and not have to work! Anybody have some decent lottery numbers...... any gains over £100,000 and we'll share 5% .... LoL

Monday 5 May 2008

We're Back!

Wow...... so many lovely things! So many lovely places! Such a lovely time.

First of all.... thanks to all of you who have supported Marianne and myself. We have each other and we hold each other dear but, we've needed all of you - you have been a tower of strength to us both. You came from both near and far..... Spain, Northern Ireland, Holland .... even Cambridgeshire!

Marianne is busy putting together a blog post of the wedding part so, I won't bore you with all of that - not that any of it was boring, just didn't want you to read about it twice!

Our Honeymoon started with taking Mavis (Marianne's mum) back to Gatwick Airport and making sure she wasn't stowed away in our luggage on our way to Venice and Tuscany! She still hasn't forgiven us! So we had a day to catch our breath before a VERY early flight the next morning. We stayed in a Hotel and spent the day at the nearby Bluebell Railway. Nostalgia and Romance in a cloud of steam .... so much ..... US.




The other side of us is the fact that nothing ever seems to go just right first time. You'd think that booking into a hotel so you can leave our car safely for a fortnight's break would be straight forward. Not us! We got into the room and I laid back on the bed. I said to Marianne, "I can smell coffee". A long story short. Somebody had spilled coffee onto the bed spread. We made a complaint, and the staff said they would get it changed. Fine. We needed a bite to eat so we entertained ourselves for an hour or so in the bar/restaurant. Bear in mind we booked this hotel so we could make an easy, very early start in the morning (4:00am) so we needed to get to bed early!

Well, after 1.5 hours nothing had happened to the bed. Another minor, irritated complaint. This time I said to save time, give us another room. They only had one spare - the Honeymoon Suite at about three times the price! They let us stay there for free! .....Too many bubbles in the Jacuzzi......!




That, (along with British Airways) eventually brought us to Venice. (Photo by Marianne)



More to follow.......