Stocking the Bunker for the Euro Crisis

There was a good offer on dog food so I loaded up 6 months supply. Next door at Sainsbury's I saw an offer of 10p off petrol for a £60 spend and so I loaded up with tinned stuff that will last me a while. I ended up with a full car load, full petrol tank and empty wallet - £350 all told.

The Star Wars Painting

Here's the painting in all its glory.

A friend asked my parents to bring it back to the UK when they left Washington DC in 1978 and look after it until she also returned. My parents never heard from her again and the painting has lain in their loft ever since.

It is said to have been painted by the actor who played Darth Vader - David Prowse AKA the Green Cross Code man - although I have no idea why it has the initials "NG" in the top corner.

I'm not sure whether it's meant to be a medieval warrior or a psychotic green cross code man perhaps.

With that provenance, it must be worth a fortune! Make me an offer - otherwise it's going straight into my loft.

Removals

Here are some photo's of Mum's house move this weekend. The move was complicated by the hire van coming with 5 slashed tyres. They had slow punctures which we only noticed once they had deflated with a full load of furniture. Consequently the whole of Saturday was wasted while Stuart and an AA man scoured SE London looking for some new tyres of the right size.

The "Marshmallow suite" sadly won't make it to the new house.

The "deflatomobile" -


The dogs were a bit neglected, here they are surveying the school's extension next door



Trying to squeeze an azalea into the boot without success

Foremark Reservoir

I watched one of my favourite movies, "Deliverance" this morning for the first time in years. Coincidentally, I headed straight out to a reservoir after watching it (in the movie the group of friends are on a canoe trip on a stretch of river that is about to be turned into a reservoir, but find that the locals aren't very friendly).

Fortunately, Derbyshire's hillbillies were more interested with fishing than with interfering with this cityboy.

It was a beautiful morning and the dogs were romping around like puppies.



I intended to do a circuit of the reservoir, ending up back at the car park, but when I got to the dam wall, right next to the car park, I found signs saying it was forbidden to use the road or dam banks. There was a friendly troll on guard duty who wouldn't let me pass and so I had to retrace my steps.

On the way back I decided to ignore the signs warning about soft mud and take a shortcut. I ended up on all fours crawling up a muddy bank, I didn't like to think too hard about the origins of the mud.


It reminded me of the infamous scene in Deliverance although, fortunately, I didn't have a hillbilly behind me trying to make me squeal!

I spent the afternoon washing myself and the dogs but still have the smell of the mud up my nose.

Not long until Halloween

Oslo- Day 7 - 12/10/11

Sarah had to be out at the airport bright and early for her flight to Stavanger, while I had the day in Oslo, with my flight to London leaving at 9pm.

I drove out to the airport with Sarah to see her off and hand back the car to the rental company. The airport is about 50 km north of Oslo but there is a very fast train service which takes only 20 minutes to get back to the hotel in the city centre.

After breakfast and a shower, I set off on a circular walk around the city stopping at the Munch museum:-

Then to the graveyard where Edvard Munch and Henrik Ibsen lie buried:-

Next stop was the National Gallery which had some more paintings by Munch, including "The Scream".

In the afternoon I went down to the port area intending to get a ferry across to the viking ship museum. The ferry had shut down for the winter and, as the bus to the island meant backtracking to the National Gallery for the bus stop, I decided instead to have a look around the nearby castle and fort and the Resistance museum:-

I managed to fit in a look around the Astrup Fearnley Contemporary art museum (I was a bit disappointed that the Michael Jackson and Bubbles sculpture was not on display though) and a look around the Opera house in the daylight before heading out to the airport for my flight:-

State of the art design, including the urinals:-

Frederikstad, Halden, Oslo - Day 6 - 11/10/11

I was feeling the after effects of last nights wine, we had been taken out for a delicious meal by one of Sarah's work contact's. I don't normally drink wine so had a sore head, wah!

I did my chauffering duties, dropping Sarah off for her meeting, then crawling into the back of the Volvo for a nap before going to the towns fort and sitting in the sun on the rampart's to read a bit more of the Stieg Larsson book.

Once Sarah had finished her meeting, we drove to Oslo. We arrived at about 5pm and were due to meet some friends of Sarah's for dinner at 7.30pm. As this was the only chance for Sarah to see something of Oslo, and the last day of car hire, we did a couple of sights on the outskirts of the city.

The downhill ski ramp which, unfortunately, was shut so we could not go up it for the view over the city:-

And the Vigeland sculpture park, one of the sights on my must see list :-

We arrived at the hotel just in time to meet up with Sarah's friends who took us out for a very tasty Vietnamese meal and showed us around the centre of Oslo. We ended the evening with a walk around the roof of the Oslo Opera house:-

Frederikstad and Sarpsborg - Day 5 - 10/10/11

Monday - another meeting at an industrial estate for Sarah, another day of sight seeing for me. Sarah's meeting was at Sarpsborg, a few miles away from our hotel in Frederikstad.

I realised that we were in Norway when I stopped at a petrol station to get a few snacks - crisps, coke and biscuits - and got no change from £10!

After dropping Sarah off I had a look around the sleepy town centre then went around another, less impressive open air museum and had a look at a bronze age (500bc) rock carving of a longboat, just outside Sarpsborg. I took Sarah to have a look once she'd finished her meeting:-

We headed back to Frederikstad and had a look around the historic old town:-

Gothenburg - Day 4 - 9/10/11

We stayed at the funky, modern, Hotel Avalon in Gothenburg. It has a glass bottomed swimming pool that overhangs the 8th floor of the building.

We had a walk around the town, going through a park and stopping for a look inside the palm house, a miniature version of the Crystal Palace:-

We followed this with a tour by boat of the cities canals and harbour and then did a bit of window shopping before heading off on the drive to Frederikstad, which took up the rest of afternoon apart from a stop for lunch.

Lunch was at Vatten, a gourmet cafe attached to the Nordic Watercolour Museum at Skarhamn, on the Balhus coast, a scenic area of coastline north of Gothenberg.

I had the fish stew, which was delicious:-

Stockholm - Day 3 - 8/10/11

Saturday, so no meetings for Sarah. We drove to Stockholm where we arrived just in time for the, once daily, 11.30 am Stieg Larsson tour. A 90 minute walking tour of Stockholm, yakking about the sites mentioned in the author's millenium trilogy

Here is Michael Blomquist outside his flat:-

And Lisbeth Salander outside her secret apartment:-

The view of Stockholm from near Michael Blomquist's flat:-

After the tour we took a ferry over to the Vasa museum. The Vasa was a ship that sank in the Stockholm harbour on her maiden voyage in 1623 - they had put the incorrect amount of ballast in the ship which meant that it went straight down to the bottom shortly after it's launch. It was dredged up in 1959 and has been put on display in an impressive building. It is remarkably well preserved.

The Vasa:-

Some of the sailors on shore leave, and a model showing how it looked in all it's glory:-

We had a fairly rushed tour of the Vasa as our parking was running out and we had a long drive ahead to our next hotel in Gothenburg. We ended up doing about 8 hours of driving on this day, arriving at Gothenburg at midnight.