Bills Posts

There’s something about trains that I love. Pretty much any train is very photogenic (this is all my opinion of course). It doesn’t matter if they are in motion or stationary.

If I’m on a station platform, and there are no barriers in the way, I enjoy walking the length of the platform. It’s just interesting to explore. I feel sad that the days of the mechanically operated semaphore signals have nearly all gone. I enjoy watching them work.

Over the holiday, we travelled on the Eurostar which was a very smooth ride, Once we had transferred across a very busy Paris to board an SNCF train, which took us to Basel touching on occasion 300km/hr.

The DrachensfelBahn was an enjoyable experience, which I am really glad we did.

I’m reading an article about a chap called Paulo Freire. Paulo was a Brazilian educator. He developed a “philosophy of education” . Based on his experiences of working with people in Brazil who had very low literacy rates.

My very simple understanding is there there is conflict in conversation. Paulo talked in terms of oppressors and oppressed, and what needed to be done was to challenge the social order by getting the oppressed to think critically and ask questions.

Why am I talking about this? I was thinking about community media and the need for communities to have a voice. I think Gosport’s voice could be better. I have to say that I found the article to be quite interesting, and my attempt to paraphrase could be better.

OK, I hope this post isn’t too political. It is a little bit incoherent, but hopefully some of it does make sense.

Today’s picture bears no resemblance to the topic. It’s one from yesterday’s trip on a boat. As we were heading towards Old Harry, we were accompanied by a lot of small craft, all determined to get to see the lonely stack. The transit through the narrow straight covered by the Studland ferry is a bit of a free for all, and a race to get past the ferry, which has an absolute right of way.

By all accounts the transit through the entrance to the harbour. Notwithstanding the chances of collision with the ferry, the thing to avoid being sucked under which has apparently happened in the past.

Apologies, I’m having the occasional font issue, tonight’s post is a bit all over the place.

As per the title of today’s post, we had our first BBQ, and accompanying the meat was a very fine salad prepared by Elayne. Very nice it all was as well.

Well, most days do start like that, and each day in some subtle way is different, and this one was no different, in that it was different, look I’m beginning to confuse me, so let’s just get on with it.

We had a taxi booked for 0720, that took us to the Fort Blockhouse car park, where we boarded the coach for the Gosport WI (Women’s Institute) and Men’s Shed Day out. The trip took slightly longer than expected, we had to go an alternative route due to an accident on the A31. But we still arrived at Poole Quay in plenty of time.

To board the Fortuna a boat that runs pleasure trips around Poole harbour, and around to Swanage, which was where we were supposed to be heading today. Except we couldn’t as the sea was too rough. It wasn’t really that rough, but for some people on board the prospect of getting off a boat that was bouncing up and down by a couple of feet just wouldn’t work. So, we ended up getting as close to Old Harry as we could before turning around and heading back to Poole.

The outbound and inbound parts of the tour around the harbour were both very interesting. It would have been nice to have gone ashore at Brownsea Island, but it couldn’t happen. Seeing the Sandbanks ferry from the seaward end was fascinating and would I want to live on Sandbanks Millionaires row?

We returned to port and boarded the bus for the trip to Swanage. I think the highlight of the journey giving my sister, Meg, a wave as we went past. The travellers were well made up with it.

We had a good chunk of time in Swanage. The pasty for lunch was very nice, a bit of a walk around and shop browsing (yes, of course I bought a book – what would you expect)?

Boarding the train to Corfe Castle the journey only takes about 20 minutes, but it is always enjoyable,

We boarded the coach for the journey home. This time, the other side got to give Mag a wave, it was really lovely that every one got involved.

We got home just after 1900, have had a slightly tiring but really enjoyable day out.

St Pancras Station is very photogenic. We had a bit of time before processing through border control. I really quite like the colour and lines in the picture.

I’m starting to think about getting g back in to the normal swing of things, so that means what to consider for this blog, and also re-starting my Facebook entries. Luckily there are still a few things from the holiday that I can talk about.

I took a walk in to town today. The first time in about 10 or 12 days. Obviously, I wanted to find out what was going . I wasn’t surprised to see that McDonalds isn’t open yet. It was nice to see people working on site.

The high street, I must admit, looked quite bright and cheerful, as people went about their various activities.

I knew from Tuesday, that demolition of the old bus station hadn’t started. What really surprised me today, was that not only had demolition not started but the machines, the demolishers, have been taken away. Now, they had been sat there for several weeks and had not moved. I wonder how much that cost, and why they hadn’t started? Disappointingly, I take that to mean that the take-down is not due for quite a while, but you never know.

I bought lunch in Greggs, and went and sat on the waterfront. Very nice to see the Mon St Michell come in, haven’t seen her for a while. The temperature on my phone was saying 23C, it felt comfortable,

The comment in the title of tonights post about Facebook; I am asking myself the question as to why I was blogging here about our holiday, but not on FB. I can’t really answer that. It’s not that i didn’t have time for both, in fact I even took my paper journal with me, and didn’t use that at all. I think the main thing from the blog point of view was to make sure I recorded at least some of the memories, and of course the post-count.

I also need to do a bit of planning for the upcoming camera club walk.

Last night, I sold that I would comment on the holiday, and river cruising in general. I think one very simple question is would we do another, and the answer to that is equally simple; Oh Yes!

The whole travel arrangement, From Baggageman, through the tour manager meeting us at St Pancras, train transfers both out and home went very smoothly (one minor episode on the return, more down to the imaptience of the mob than the tour managers fault) and of course there is no accounting of traffic in Paris or Brussels. I liked it, thought it went very well.

The ship, the Amadeus Star a new-ish boat, built in 2019, Accommodation was excellent, the cabin itself may have been slighty smaller than it’s equivalent on on a sea cruise ship, but the bathroom was quite a bit bigger, and the shower was lovely;. Absolutely no complaints at all. Our cabin was on the same level as the restaurant, which was nice.

Oh yes, let’s talk about food. Breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner and late night snack. The quality if the food was outstanding. The approach was simple with some basic choices, but the quality of the cooking and the delivery were superb.

One thing we very much appreciated was the absolute lack of pressure to buy services or things on board ship, which made things very nice.

The trips, which were all included were well organised, time was a bit tight on occasion, but IU had no issues with that.

Like at the beginning of this pose, if anyone were to ask me if I would recommend a river cruise, my answer would be a very simple and emphatic Yes.

Our Canal Tour Boat, about to go under the skinny bridge in Amsterdam.

Although I talked yesterday about having a massage, I didn’t mention how effective it was. I think it might have worked better, but circumstances were beyond my control.

Today though, was our voyage home. Our Tour Manager had returned to escort us back to the UK. Our bags were sorted and taken to loading point, all we had to do was see them stowed away and get on the coach. Yes, for us the rail strike went ahead, and we were coached to Eurostar, Brussels. The journey took about three hours, and like France, Belgium likes to put its important stations in the most awkward spots they can think of. This all went very smoothly though.

There was a brief moment of confusion when The Tour Manager had to retrace steps to recover a slow-walking member of the group. We quickly recovered though and had very smooth trip through The Chunnel.

Not after 5:30 pm we were sat having a nice cup of tea and letting all and sundry that were safely home.

I think I’ll save any thoughts I have on the holiday; river cruising in general and this trip in particular to tomorrow’s post.

After a night and a mornings sailing, we have moved from Köln to Amsterdam. Two things are a bit of a blight on the cruise today both, I hasten to add, absolutely outside the control of Great Rail Journeys.

Firstly Dutch railways are on strike tomorrow. Not all trains are affected, but guess whose is. Yep. The second really annoying thing is I woke up with a massively ricked neck, down the left hand side. Agony to move. I started popping paracetamol, that helped a little. Everyone suggested I get a massage.

I booked one before we went on the canal river cruise, which even though I was in pain, I thoroughly enjoyed. Unfortunately no slots available until 1600. Those of you with a certain frame of mind can get back in your cage. The Massage was on board ship.

The tour was very interesting, taking in the delights and issues of canal-culture. We ended up at the grand central,station which is only about ten minutes walk from the boat’s mooring.

Firstly, Thank You to Mark for last nights guest appearance on the blog, his occasional contributions are always welcome (Clive, if you ever wanted to do one, I’d love it).

So today saw us moving further up the Rhine to Königswinter where we visited and took a ride on The DrachenfelsBahn one of only four surviving rack (a cog wheel on the train engages with a rack between the rails to haul itself up the 1-in-5 slope). Because time was limited We only stayed at the top for about 30 minutes.

Back on the boat for a midday is departure, and we were on our way to Cologne (Köln) where I had not been since the early 1980’s. Obviously, things were different to what I recall them. It was nice though to revisit the magnificent Cathedral, and with the help of our guide learn a few more things about the city.