The festive season of last year came and went very quickly. To welcome the New Year 2025 I spent few days in Studley Castle, where I was able to chill out in beautiful swimming pool, sauna and steam bath.
The castle is in the county of Warwickshire surrounded by idyllic country farms with lots of wild birds and walking trails. The food at the restaurant was excellent.
Must make a note to visit the Studley Castle in January 2026 !
I have happy memories of growing up in seaside town of Mombasa (Kenya) and dreaming of similar seaside resorts when I moved to Midlands with my family in 1963. I finally made to the Cornish coastline numerous times during my early years of growing up and working in London.
Last week, I decided to go down the memory lane and visit some of the popular sites. Though the county of Cornwall is going through some rough times ( unemployment, drug addiction, closure of mines etc) the county is still very much alive for the tourists. Charlestown is popular with the film industry, Rick Stein with his famous restaurants has helped to put Padstow on the map of England and Newquay is haven for sea suffers. Little coastal town of Mevagissey welcomes everyone with car park where you are served by a car park attendant rather than by a machine!
I visited county Wicklow in Ireland last week in hope of finding some traces of my past during my first ever solo trip there 5O years ago! Nothing much I saw brought back any memories of my past experience. At the age of 24 I remember I was given a room for a night by complete Irish stranger in Dublin! I remember hitching a ride having lost myself and staying in B&B somewhere in County Wicklow with a family of visitors from Belgium.
Fifty years later I found the Emerald Island continues to look green however its green land has been broken up by massive network of highways which are mostly empty ! The food and goods are expensive and the ferries are bigger and modern than the ones I had sailed in before.
Huge amounts of investments by the big tech companies such as Microsoft, Apple , Google and Amazon over 20 years have helped drive the economic growth. Ireland is still a member of E.E.U. which brings in more European travellers than ever before!
Before returning home to England , my last stop was in Dublin. The city is known for its long literary tradition, its culture and I found lots of art etched on the streets of Dublin to make me feel very nostalgic about my whole short trip!
Experiencing the sea life around Britain has been on my wish list since I had seen the famous White Cliffs of Dover. In September 23 I finally took the plunge and embarked on eleven days cruise journey from port of Southampton.
The day after the ship sailed, we arrived at St. Peters ( Guernsey). It was hot and I couldn’t wait to go offshore to feel the earth underneath my feet! Very impressed with the welcome by the local people and as I walked through the town, it’s life unfolded infront of me like children’s pop up book! The journey continued to St. Mary’s ( Isles of Silly), Belfast ( Northern Ireland) and slowly through scenic Scottish Isles towards the port of Stornaway. Unfortunately due to very bad weather conditions, our trip to the most Northern destination, Lerwick ( Orkney ) was cancelled!
Disappointment for all of us, we all returned home to Southampton via Kirkwall and Invergorden.
The best experience of the whole journey was waking up at dawn to watch the sun rise and see the dolphins accompanying our ship. There were wildlife experts on board to help understand the bird and sea creatures. I was full of nostalgia when I returned back to all the ports where I have been before many moons ago. ( by road) There was some brilliant evening entertainers on the ship which I shall not forget for a long time. The journey was worth it even though I am not keen on cruising!
The visit to Newfoundland was inspired by a musical I had seen in London called COME FROM AWAY.. in 2019 . The play was based on the terrorist attach of 11th September 2001 when Gander and the surrounding communities welcomed, housed and fed nearly 6700 unexpected guests for upto 5 years when all North America air space was closed.
My trip to Newfoundland was booked in 2019 and due to lockdown in 2020 the earliest I was able to make the trip was in summer 2022. Despite the chaos at the airports from and to Newfoundland, I did have great experience while travelling in the vast landscape of Newfoundland where highways were traffic free , lots of wildlife and extremely friendly people seen in the musical mentioned above. Journey worth waiting for!
Arrived at the Heathrow airport on my 67th birthday to start my long journey all the way to see the icebergs around the bay of Alaska! The first leg of the journey was from Vancouver with a group of travellers to experience the Great Rocky Mountains by rail, visiting places which included Kamloops, Banff , Lake Louise and Whistler. The journey covered landscape areas with gigantic mountains, pristine emerald blue lakes and forests as far as my eyes could see! After two weeks I was back in Vancouver to join a cruise ship which took us all the way to Alaska ( USA ), stopping at places of interest such as Juneau, Skagway and the final destination was the Glacier Bay where icebergs were found to be melting away! Yes, I can’t help but agree that the climate change is real. All of us on board witnessed the thunderous sounds while the icebergs melted down infront of our eyes!
