We left home to drive to Manchester at 5am to give us plenty of time for our 8am check in, flight went ok arriving in Funchal 3:40 hours later weather was warm but had just been raining. Through arrivals and at bus stop for bus in to Funchal watched two bus drivers arguing with each other about getting in line to pick up passengers, funny to watch. Arrived in Funchal and took taxi up to Monte above Funchal to the guest house we were staying at and was ripped off by taxi driver so not a good start. Anyway, got settled in to our room which was shown to us by a lady working there who was rather abrupt but it was in a funny way we christened her Mrs. Shoo Shoo as she waved her arms in front shooing us out of the breakfast room when we went in to early. We ended up getting on really well with each other.

After unpacking we took a bus back down in to Funchal for a walk around some food shopping and seeing what was on offer for trips around the island as we had decided not to hire a car this time. we found a small shopping centre which had a supermarket in the basement and it had a restaurant where you put your food on your plate then at checkout, they weighed it and you paid on the weight and there were several vegetarian options for me and at a good price. so, whenever we were in Funchal we went there till one day we went in and it had disappeared they had boarded the area off with boards painted the same colour as the walls it was quite the illusion made us think we had imagined it ha-ha.

We spent the following day walking and busing around Funchal area and booked two trips to go to West and North part of island and another day to go to East, then we took a bus up to Monte Palace to walk around the tropical gardens which was lovely they even had a Japanese garden, we then went back down and visited Funchal cathedral which still had all its Christmas decorations up the building of it was completed in 1517.

The next day we were picked up near the guest house at 8:15 in a small bus and after picking up other passengers we set off for the West and North of the island. We first called at the famous glass viewing platform near Cabo Girao nearly 2,000 feet above the beach which gave a spectacular view. Then we went to Ribeira Brava one of the island's oldest towns on the coast which experienced very heavy flooding a number of years ago, a really lovely place. We then climbed out of the valley up over the top and continued heading west reaching Rabacal unfortunately the clouds descended so we couldn't see the views or walks. we then continued on to Porto Moniz on the coast at the most north westerly point which is effectively split in two the top area being the main town with lots of agriculture businesses and down by the coast the seaside area with lots of restaurants, natural rock bathing pools we had a meal in the recommended place from the driver and Jun enjoyed a sea food meal and I had a nice vegetarian meal as well. Then we walked along the front with huge waves crashing over ( no one swimming today ). We then had a lovely scenic coastal journey to the town of Seixal which was another nice place vineyards clinging to the sides of hills and cliffs, from there we drove to Sao Vicente a very picturesque town with beautiful painted houses where we spent some time walking around before heading back to Funchal stopping off at a roadside shops/cafe where we had a walk along the river following one of the Levadas and then having a drink of the local Poncha  by the fire.

The next day we spent in and around Funchal, we took the cable car up to the top of the surrounding hills to visit the Jardim Botanical gardens and watched the tourists being steered down the hills on the local toboggans. Then later we visited the old sea fort as well as wandering around the old town area also took local buses along the coast just getting on and off before going back to Funchal and visiting the natural history museum.

The next day we were picked up by the mini bus to visit the East side of the island travelling up and along the coast then inland but lots of the views obscured by mist. We visited Santana where there are lots still of the traditional Madeiran houses one in particular was very interesting as the owner invited us all in gave each of us a drink they have lived in the house for generations but he now has a more modern one in the garden. One funny moment was when he pointed out the old bed and said to me "I was made and born in that bed". We then continued back down around the coast stopping at the cliffs at Ponta de Sao Lourenco and the port of Canical famous in that was where the film director John Huston went to film Moby Dick. Then down to the town of Machico and Santa Cruz before being dropped off back at the guest house.

The next day we spent visiting museums art galleries etc and also the Convent de Santa Clara, I visited the photography museum while Jun had a walk about. We then visited a local eating place we had been told about in which we queued down the stairs waiting for a table but it was worth it.

The following day we checked out of the guest house and moved to Santa Cruz and stayed in a beautiful hotel where we received a free upgrade. There was a festival on which marks the end of Christmas but for the first few hours we couldn't leave the hotel as the rain was torrential. Eventually it cleared and we went out for a nice long walk then returning to the centre visited all the local stalls set out for the festival and ate local traditional food, went in to the church for a service, then down to the beach are for a big concert that was being put on free but had to wait quite awhile as they were having problems setting up. When they did start there was a large crowd everyone singing and dancing all in all a great atmoshere. But we left fairly early as we had to be up for 4am for our taxi back to the airport. the hotel had put food out for us which was nice and we had a good flight back with no problems.        

Had a good night's sleep then we had breakfast on the balcony before driving to the Monastery of Arkadhi one of the most famous in Crete where in 1866 Monks and some lay people blew themselves up along with Turkish invaders when they breached the walls of the Monastery. We had a very interesting conversation with two other visitors from mainland Greece about our life in England and theirs in Greece and that one of their sons lives in London and they have visited a couple of times but want to spend time visiting other areas of the country.

Later we drove to Rethimon and parked down by the port and had a few hours wandering the streets of the old quarter had a meal and tried Goats milk ice cream which was delicious.

The next day we set off to travel over to the south coast first stopping off at Marion Botanical gardens which was beautiful and the shop itself contained every tea,herb,oils,ointments that you could think of, Jun bought a few Aromatherapy oils, teas and herbs we also had something to eat in there cafe with all home grown food and the food was delivered to our table by a robot that spoke to you and you almost caught yourself about to talk back. We then drove up to the cliffs on the coast to the Monastery of Plevia with wonderful views the Monks did a lot to save allied soldiers to evacuate Crete during the second world war and received medals and written commendations from allied countries. We then drove to Plakias by way of extremely narrow winding roads had lunch then left and drove back by way of Kotsifou Gorge and visited the chapel in the rock face, very impressive then we stopped off at the bottom of the hills and had a nice walk before heading back to Bali.

The next day we set off in the other direction East towards the capital Heraklion firstly taking a road south to the 13^th Century Convent Paliani, it was one of the most tranquil serene places we have visited and it was difficult to leave it had a Myrtle tree in the center supposedly famous for healing and over a 1,000 years old, we were made very welcome by the sisters and some lay people. We then carried on to the village named Zaros stopping for something to eat at a local taverna after Jun observed them cooking over an open fire on waste ground opposite. We then drove to the outskirts of Heraklion to see the 3,500 year old palace/temples of Knossos. It was very interesting but a lot of it had been rebuilt on how they think it was, and it was expensive E15 each, mine should have been E8 but when I asked for the elderly concession she asked where I was from and when I said the UK she said the concession doesn't apply for those outside the European market, I jokingly said I never wanted to leave but it fell on deaf ears.

Woke up the next day to grey skies and some rain so decided to drive up in to the hills to do some walking, we made our way to the ancient Greco-Roman village of Argiroupolis had a lovely coffee then walked around the village before picking up the trail from a map one of the locals gave us that led down to The Place of the 5 Holy Virgins ( the sign said The Place of the 5 Holly Virgins ) with its 11^th century chapel and 5 caves where the young women were interred after being executed by the Romans for practicing Christianity. Alongside it is the oldest tree in Crete reckoned to be at least 2,000 years old. We stopped at a restaurant on the way back and the guy said you had better eat now as it is going to get very busy soon, he wasn't kidding within half hour it was packed apparently 1^st of May is a big holiday there everyone goes out and people also collect wild flowers. We also passed the remains of an ancient villa that bore the inscription above the portal "Omnia Mundi Fumus et Umbra" All things in this world are smoke and shadows. It relates to a massacre of 300 rebels who were invited to a wedding and plied with drink by the hosts and later set upon by his army. We then drove further up into the mountains visiting a place that has hardly changed in centuries called Asigonia the men still dress in black with long hair and mustaches looking like Greek brigands. 

After breakfast we drove to the village of Margaritas which is famous for its pottery while walking around, we found a small monastery there so went in and the gardens were beautifully maintained with a lovely courtyard I spoke with a monk and asked him how many of them lived there and he said only me I complimented him on the gardens and church which really pleased him and he offered us homemade biscuits which were delicious. We bought a couple of things from one of the potteries then drove on to Arhea Eleftharna and visited a church which was being renovated by one local man and a small acropolis close by. after this we drove further up the mountain and felt it becoming much cooler arriving at the small town called Axos where we stopped for a late lunch at a local taverna owned by a very friendly man and his wife who after we had a meal gave us free desserts and Raki.

We decided this day to visit some villages and Monasteries over the other side of one of the mountains, it was quite a climb on very steep narrow roads with spectacular views but not for the fainthearted. One of the places was the coastal village of Panormos and we walked down the pier looking at the fishing boats, Jun asked one fisherman if he had a fish to sell her for a few euros and he took one from the net and gave it to her saying" no euros free,free" Jun said " Thank you and God bless you" which seemed to please him very much. When we arrived back at the apartment it became very,very windy a real storm got up but standing on the balcony watching it was great.

Up at 6am on our last day set off early to drive to Chania before taking the car back, parked up and spent 2 hours around the old town and port area a very lovely place. took car back and everything was ok then to the airport arriving nice and early but with very dark clouds appearing. Check in went fine we were all in the departure lounge when the thunder and lightning hit with torrential rain. We saw our plane landing and everything seemed to be ok as the passengers disembarked then we were told there was a delay with an electrical problem and we could see engineers around the nose of the aircraft, eventually they towed it away and we were told another plane was coming for us which arrived after a 5 hour delay. Talking to the cabin crew when we boarded one of them said it was the worst experience of her life bad weather encountered after leaving the UK then approaching Crete, there was a really loud bang they were struck by lightning which knocked out some electrics, all the oxygen masks dropped down and there was a hole in the nose of the aircraft. Thankfully our flight back was very smooth and we arrived back at Newcastle very late but safe.               

The next day was Jun's birthday and after breakfast we firstly visited the Basilica Notre Dame and I attended Mass with Jun, the priest spoke to Jun at the end in perfect Mandarin. We then set off to walk around Lyon firstly through all the markets stopping off for Jun to sample Oysters and Frogs legs. After walking a few miles following the River Rhone we started back visiting exhibitions, art galleries and museum, as we approached the main square there was a very large police presence and the start of a demonstration, we then went in to the Museum of Fine Arts and at the end we finished on the third floor at which point a group of men and women suddenly started shouting and singing producing banners opening the windows and waving. The security was caught completely unawares and at this time there was a large crowd in the square shouting, singing, playing musical instruments so we went to the ground floor and were let out of a side door by security as we couldn't exit the main doors, we then walked around to the front so I could video and photograph some of it.

The next day we packed and had a quick visit to the Cathedral again to take some photographs then made our way back to the bus station to take the coach to Chamonix a 4-hour journey which cost us the equivalent of five pounds each. It was a lovely drive down there surrounded by the Alps and Chamonix was beautiful as was the small hotel we stayed at all wood construction with views from the balcony of Mont Blanc. After unpacking we went for a walk stopping off to buy tickets for the next day to go up to Aiguille Du Midi the highest cable car in the world, I believe, also tickets to travel on the Glacier train.

The next morning after breakfast we walked over to the cable car as we had a 9:30 slot, it took two cable cars to reach the summit at a height of 12,602 feet and what magnificent views all around and Mont Blanc so close, we climbed up the last part on a staircase and I started to feel light headed, dizzy and a little sick so obviously the altitude got to me, but I soon settled down then me and Jun went in to the sky box completely made of glass, amazing! we went back down after 3 hours and made our way to the station for the Montenven train to the Mer De Glace a 7km long 200-metre-deep glacier beautiful scenery all the way up and there. After this we had a late meal packed and caught the 5pm bus to our next stop at Annecy arriving at 6:45 and after booking in to the hotel we had a walk around the old town and had something to eat.

The next day after breakfast we set off to walk around the Annecy lake which Annecy sits upon, it is Frances third largest lake and supposed to be the cleanest in Europe it was a lovely sunny day and we walked quite a way then decided to catch a local bus to travel further down the far side to Tallores after which we bused back up to the picturesque town of Menthon St-Bernard and had a lovely walk around the town and lake and after a meal we set off to visit the Chateau de Menthon famous for being the birthplace of Saint Bernard but it was closed so we just viewed it from outside. We then took another bus back to Annecy and spent the evening walking around the town and visiting the famous lovers bridge and old prison. The next day we spent the whole morning exploring Annecy further we visited the ex-prison set in the canal that runs through Annecy giving it a kind of Venice feel, the prison was last used to house French resistance fighters then later the German soldiers at the end of the war. we visited some nice churches and the Cathedral and Jun bought a really beautiful teapot as her birthday present to herself. We then boarded the bus at 12:45 back up to Grenoble arriving at 2:30 and while we were at the bus station, we checked for buses up to Le Grand Chartreus the Carthusian Monastery for the next day and booked the tickets.

There were more demonstrations going on in Grenoble but we managed to avoid them and booked a table for the evening at a French farm style restaurant. I couldn't see much on the menu for vegetarian so I choose a veggie burger and was really surprised when they brought it, it was huge and a plate full of salad and French fries I struggled to finish it, Jun had Calf's head.

The next morning we caught the local bus at 8:40 up to the mountains and had the driver drop us off at the road that led up to Chartreus then followed a long hard climb for one and a half hours to reach it, but was it worth it, it was beautiful and so very quiet and of course we could not go inside they are the strictest and most secluded Christian order in the West but we just loved being there. We then walked back down to get the bus back to Grenoble and after having a late afternoon walk around the city centre  we went back to the French Farmhouse restaurant, this time I ordered cheese fries in salad and again struggled to eat it all Jun had a speciality chicken dish I also tried a drink of Chartreus liquor which took my breath away and made my eyes water it was so strong. 

The next morning we were up at 5am to catch the 6am bus to the airport as we decided to get there early because of the long delays and there certainly was some as French air traffic controllers were causing disruptions our flights were being changed all the time as well as the boarding gates. There was one funny moment when Jun and I had gone outside for air when I heard over the loudspeaker Jun's name with a message saying urgent come to information desk, when we got there, they examined Jun's passport then held up a credit card and said to Jun I think this is yours. We both looked at it and said no it isn't as it was another Chinese name with the Li surname the man couldn't pronounce the name so I asked him if he would like Jun to speak over the loudspeaker, he said yes please so Jun spoke in Mandarin and the guy managed to get his credit card back.

Eventually we got on to the plane after 1pm followed by another hour sat there while it waited for clearence till eventually we set off on the return to Newcastle.             

The next coach trip was to the Scottish Lochs staying at a hotel on the shore of Loch Long which we spent some time walking around as well as having a boat trip on Loch Lomond. The following day we drove to Edinburgh for the day as we all had tickets for The Edinburgh Tattoo. I had last been to the Tattoo as a 13-year-old boy in the Army cadets when we were at annual camp. During the day we had a good walk around Edinburgh and again had lunch at the Muslim Centre, food as good as ever. The evening show was extraordinary even Jun loved every bit of it.

The next day we drove to Oban and spent a couple of hours in this lovely seaport where ferries go out too many of the Islands. We then drove to Inverrary another famous town in Scotland and I was so pleased to see one of I think only two or three remaining Clyde Puffer ships left. After another night at the hotel, we set off home and called on the way to Scotland's Gretna Green the famous blacksmiths forge where people fled to get married, many from England and often being pursued by families trying to stop them.

We did another short weekend one going to Lincoln and York staying over one night in a hotel in Doncaster, Lincoln was very nice with many of its ancient buildings still intact, we also spent time in the Cathedral very impressive as well as seeing some Turners and Lowery paintings in the museum. The next day in York we did some shopping to find some Art deco prints for the house, had a nice Thai meal then went to the Jorvik Viking Centre as it had all been modernised since I was last there after the floods. It was well worth going we were very impressed with it all as you went through the reconstructed Viking village on a mono pod you had all the sights, sounds,  smells along with the automated villagers.

The next one was a longer and bigger coach trip which lasted five days, we travelled down to the port of Hull and boarded a P&O ferry for Rotterdam, we actually stayed on the ferry the whole time as each night at dinner time it would sail out 12 miles to an anchorage and stay there overnight then sailing back in at 6am while we were at breakfast. The ferry was having repairs done during the day so after breakfast there were four coaches of us that would set off each day to a different destination. The first day was to the Hague which was better than I thought it would be although on the morning it was torrential rain it had cleared within an hour of arriving. We set off to explore the city and visited the famous Mauritshuis Art gallery where we got the opportunity to see Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring. The next day we drove to Brugge in Belgium a place I had not been to before and which really impressed us both with all its beautiful streets, buildings and canals the Rozenhoedkaai Quay of the Rosary, the Belfry tower which unfortunately was closed, the market square which was cleaned up spotlessly as soon as the morning traders left. The Groeninger Museum with its Flemish painters and ancient as well as modern works of art, The Church of Our Lady with its Michelangelo's sculpture of The Madonna and Child, the Basilica of The Holy Blood where we were able to go up to and look  ( with a priest observing everyone from the other side ) the purportedly vial containing a cloth with the blood of Jesus Christ on it, one thing for sure there was a very strong atmosphere in the place. And of course, we had to try Belgian waffles with the many extras you could put on them.

The next day we drove to Amsterdam which as we had last visited in March and saw all the big galleries, gardens and museums we decided to firstly take a canal boat around the city which was very enjoyable then just have a good walk around, we visited St Nichola's Church off the square then all around Jordaan which was like stepping back in time, we spent time around the China town and Jun enjoyed a traditional meal from her hometown area. After this we wandered in to the red-light area which gave Jun a bit of a shock, we then went down to the cycle rental, repair vegetarian cafe we had visited last time I asked the couple who run the place what was the soup of the day, he said ( I thought ) spinach, I said great I'll have that, he then said no, finish all gone that gave us all a great laugh.Then it was back to the ship for our overnight crossing to Hull arriving the next morning with the only hitch being the passenger walkway broke down so we couldn't disembark, eventually we all had to down to the cargo deck and be bussed around to the customs and security gates.

We arrived home Friday evening and spent Saturday unpacking and repacking as on the Sunday we were driving up to Glasgow with other local Stella Maris ship visitors for its 25^th World Congress and its 102-year anniversary of its founding. There were delegates from the Vatican and all over the world for the 4-day event which was packed from start to finish starting early on a morning till late at night. There were some really good talks and opportunities to meet and talk with many people as well as attending church services and functions like dinner at the Chamber of Commerce with the Glasgow Lord Provost and other dignitaries.

And finally the following weekend we took another coach trip to Manchester to see The Cirque Du Soleil performance at the arena that was to say the least increduble I was enthralled watching it. The next day we drove to Liverpool for 4 hours so managed to go to the Catholic Cathedral with the most beautiful stained glass and light, then we went to the Walker Art Gallery saw some more Lowerys then down to Albert dock for a walk around finishing off at the Museum of Liverpool before heading back home.      

The next morning, we walked around the marina and saw the famous statue of the woman with a fish head visited the old church and up to the top of its tower with lovely views across the wetlands. After lunch we made our way to the train station and took the train to Lisbon a nearly 4-hour journey then took a uber to Sarahs apartment where we were staying through Airbnb, she made us very welcome and shared all her knowledge of Portugal and Lisbon with us, as well as giving us two travel cards that we could just top up for travel on trams, buses, ferries, metro so that was a great help. We walked quite a distance to the nearest metro and topped up the cards then just kept walking right down in to the Alfama district where we had an Indian meal for my birthday and we were entertained by some incredible street performers, after which we walked to a famous Fardo restaurant and bar and asked them if we could just have a drink at the table and watch the show and they said yes no problem and fitted us in to a very lively busy room where we felt we were gate crashing a party, but it was a great experience., we then caught the last tram of the evening back to the apartment.

We arose early the next morning and decided to go straight out have breakfast then we took a tram to end of terminus then another to Santos then another tram out to the district of Belem visiting all the waterfront attractions like the prow of the Padrao dos Descobrimentos and the Tower of Belem as well as going around the botanical gardens of Jarden and of course visiting the famous Antiga Confeitaria for coffee and custard tarts followed by visiting the church at the Mosteiro dos Jeronimos. We then took a train back to Sintra and walked around the square I had last walked across in 1968 when I was on a ship there loading cork for the USA, after this we took a ferry ride across to another area called Almada and back and then went to a recommended local family run restaurant used by locals for which we had to wait over an hour to get in but it was certainly worth it, a very nice friendly family.

The next day same itinerary up early breakfast then a tram down to the large flea market, Jun bought a lovely hand stitched piece of art that the woman said had been done by her grandmother and we also bought a very strange looking bottle fixed tightly inside a metal frame with a winding mechanism and lever on the bottom for our garden. We then made our way to a local train station and took the train out to the town of Sintra which is a part of the UNESCO world heritage area, a really beautiful town and surrounding National Park, we visited the stunning Quinta da Regaleira a huge villa set in fantastic grounds including the Initiation well. After all this we walked back in to town and paid a visit to another famous place specialising in custard tarts where we ate some with coffee then as we were leaving we decided to stand in the line for take aways at which point the young girl who had served us came running up with Jun's bag that we had left, we couldn't thank her enough and although she refused I insisted we give her some money. we then discovered that in the 1930's/40's a tram line had been built that ran from Sintra to the Atlantic Coast and it had been restored so we couldn't miss that opportunity and managed to get the last one of the day out there and stayed on it to come back, a really old screeching rattling ride that at times I swear went through peoples gardens, great fun.

The next day we took a tram in to Lisbon centre and found the old Funicular which we rode up and down then visited the Elevator which wasn't open but we had great views from the top. We then went to the main Catholic Church in Lisbon for Jun to take Mass and it was beautiful the choir was really something after which we had lunch then took bus up to the Gulbenkian Museum which had exhibitions of Islamic and Egyptian art as well as a fantastic collection of Lelac jewellery. We then found a traditional Indian restaurant where we had a really nice meal then back to the apartment and packed our things and had a late drink with Sarah and her partner.

We went down to the centre again the next morning bought a few things from a really old established Lisbon shop then back to the apartment had a talk with Sarah then took a uber taxi to the train station and back to Faro arriving at 6:30pm due to delays where we went to another Airbnb which again was really nice consisting of 5 separate rooms and shared kitchen and toilets but really well maintained and clean. On the night we went to a newly opened buffet style Vegan restaurant the food was delicious but just couldn't eat all of the different foods on offer. Finished the day with a walk around the old town again.

The next day we took the train along the coast to the town of Olhao from where we took a ferry out to one of the islands named Anorma which was very nice lovely old bungalows and chalets 

 walked across the sand dunes and feet in the sea, took the ferry back did some shopping in local supermarket then train back to Faro had a meal in the apartment then another walk and early night.

Up at 5:00 am packed and took Uber up to the airport for our 9am flight back home all went well except when our bags went through the x ray machines they picked up on the bottle we bought at the flea market they asked us what it was, we said we don't know we bought it at a flea market, they then said do you often buy things you don't know what they are, we said yes sometimes. At one point there were five of them all looking at the x ray of this bottle before giving it back to us, where it now has pride of place on a shelf in our garden at home.       

We booked a short stay in Amsterdam from the 27 March to the 30^th 2022 and crossed overnight on the Newcastle to Ijmuiden ferry. Arriving at the ship at 4pm and sailing at 5:30pm on a nice sunny evening I pointed out to Jun the old derelict dry dock at South Shields where I joined my first ship on November 9^th 1965 fresh out of Sea Training School. We arrived at Ijmuiden at 7:30 am after we had had a really good breakfast and then boarded the bus to take us to Amsterdam City Centre which dropped us off by the riverside behind the railway station from which we were able to walk to the marina for our stay on a houseboat. After having something to eat we walked back to the train station and took a train up to the airport and then picked up the direct link bus to the Keukenhof Gardens which we both found absolutely beautiful and spent the rest of the day there and also buying lots of tulip bulbs and I bought a small orchid. We caught a bus and metro back to the houseboat and after cooking ourselves a light meal we spent the evening walking around the city centre.

The next morning after breakfast and spending a bit of time talking to the young guy who lives on the houseboat looking after it for the owners, we took the tram up to the Rijks Museum and spent the rest of the morning there before going back to the boat to pack and finding a lovely quirky cafe and second hand shop where we had something to eat and bought an old Indonesian wooden cat that was larger than the one we bought when we were in Indonesia and which we had been looking for ever since, of course it wouldn't go in our luggage so we had to carry it around with us the rest of the day and back to the ferry on the evening. we were picked up by the bus late afternoon and back to the ferry for our overnight crossing still very warm and calm seas although later in the evening it got a bit choppy. we had booked for a evening meal on board which was really nice and such a large selection of vegetarian for me, after which we booked for the 9pm cinema showing of Belfast and as we were the only two there it was like being in your own room with a giant TV.

We arrived back to North Shields at 8am and were on our way back home by 10am, having had a really good break.     

 We did have 3 days in Edinburgh in January and decided to go by train which we really enjoyed, did a bit of sightseeing and visited museums and galleries. Also went to see the musical The Lion King which was incredible the costumes and set designs were amazing. We also took the bus out to Roslyn to see the famous chapel there that was a beautiful place full of historical significance ( quite apart from the less significant aspect of being the final scene in the film of Dan Browns book The Davinci Code).

I was supposed to be going to London at start of April for some lectures but everything was cancelled and I was refunded the tickets for the lectures and the rail fare. We also managed in early September to get away in our campervan and tent to a site on the outskirts of North Berwick Scotland to spend a few days cycling old railway paths in the area. Although we did manage to complete three the weather was not very kind and we struggled in gale force winds and at times heavy rain and on one night we were awake most of the night having to keep going outside to secure the tent as it was on the verge of being torn away due to the winds and the rain got in to the tent making many things very wet, It turned out to be a tiring trip as well as a bit of an adventure and I think we were glad to be home at the end of it.   

So I have had plenty of time for contemplation, meditation and study at home and keeping in touch with the meditation groups and Throssel Buddhist Abbey via Zoom,e mails, calls etc. I also do Zoom meeting with Stella Marris every week we have managed to help one Spanish ship stranded off the Philipine coast after I read an article about it and passed it to our Chaplain, it then went to Head Office and from there to Stella Marris in Manilla who pressured the Govt to send out supplies to it. The other one was working with ITF (International Transport Federation) after Jun and I came across a Chinese Seafarer on a ship in the UK who after talking with him about wages, conditions etc realized he was very homesick and had mental health issues possibly verging on suicidal  thoughts, so we passed all this on to ITF and they spoke with the owners to get him off the ship and repatriated home. There is an article that I wrote about myself and Jun's visits to ships which Stella Maris had asked for which I have included at the end of this blog as a way of showing some of the things we do and the impact it can have on seafarers.

We went to Redcar sea front 6th of February for a service representing The Apostleship of the Sea to mark the 50th year since the sinking of The Lairdsfield and the death of all 10 crew at the mouth of the Tees a lot of people turned out for it including relatives from Northern Ireland who along with original members of the Lifeboat crew talked about how it affected them. I actually remember it and how the newspapers called it "The ship that did not want to sail", it had loaded steel for Cork and this had not been done correctly, she sailed and a crew member broke his leg so they came back alongside, sailed again and had engine trouble came back fixed that and sailed again in to a heavy swell the pilot got off and headed back to the station the ship turned to starboard was hit by a large swell and turned completely over before the pilot had even got back to the station a real tragedy. It was a lovely service and at the end there was a poem read called The Ship which was very moving.

Well things are starting to move a bit now as I have managed to go down to Teesport in December to make a start on putting toiletries,gloves,hats,socks,chocolate etc in to bags ready to give to seafarers for Christmas and we will start to go to the ships this week.

And finally, below is an article I wrote for Stella Maris AoS as part of their centenary celebrations.

An article that was published in the Apostleship of the Sea web site in 2020 I have always had a love of the sea and went to sea at age 16 for a few years followed by working on American oil rigs. But eventually went ashore and after retraining worked in Social Services and became a Supported Housing Manager as well as being a Buddhist Chaplain in local Hospitals.

But when I retired and after 4 years living in China with my Chinese wife Jun we returned to the UK. I wanted to do some volunteer work and the opportunity came up to be a ship visitor for Stella Maris when I met with Peter Barrigan the Chaplain for Tees and Hartlepool, and my wife joined me a year later also as a ship visitor and being Chinese there have been many opportunities to meet Chinese crews and help them in so many ways.

A few examples that spring to mind are…

One Chinese ship that had spent weeks at sea sailing to the USA where the crew were not allowed ashore. Then sailing to Teesport and due to a misunderstanding, they again believed they could not go ashore. The smiles on their faces when we explained that they could go ashore and what’s more we would take them was wonderful. We took them to the local towns, shopping, visiting places even spending quite a bit of time helping them to find fishing equipment, and when a few days later it was Chinese New Year Jun and I were invited to the ship to celebrate with them. The crew still over two years later keep in contact with us.

Another Chinese ship arrived at Teesport and whilst we were visiting, we found out that a large number of the crew had been away from home for many, many months and were feeling homesick and in particular missing traditional Chinese food especially a Chinese vegetable called in English, Chinese Leek, very different from our Leeks. Now Jun had a Chinese friend who lived about 15 miles from us and we knew she loved to grow traditional Chinese plants so we phoned her, and yes she had lots of Chinese Leeks,and yes we could have some. That same day we were back on board the ship delivering a bag full of Leeks plus other foods and herbs to a very surprised and grateful crew. Many of the Officers and crew keep in regular contact with us through WeChat as they sail all around the world and they often say the welcome they get from people in the UK is the best.

We were having a busy day visiting lots of ships when we received a call from the Mission on the North side of the river to inform us that they had a Filipino family there who had drove over from the other side of the Country looking for a ship in which their brother was the Chief Engineer, and that the ship was on our side of the river. We arranged to meet the family and get permission for them to go on to the port and visit him on the ship with us. We took them to the ship and after a very tearful greeting ( they had not seen each other for over 3 years ), we arranged for him to go ashore with them, do some sightseeing then go back to the Lake District where they lived and stay overnight. The Chief Engineer had to be back at work the next morning so we had them bring him back to the Mission very early the next morning and Roger one of our ship visitors agreed to come down to the port and take him back to the ship.

These are just three of the many stories of our times visiting ships at Teesport.

We had some spare time before catching the bus to the airport so we visited the art gallery on our way out we went in to the shop and I picked up some booklets/pamphlets then I spotted a map of the Leeds/Liverpool canal and said to Jun I will get that for Dave and proceeded to stuff it in my bag when Jun said how much is it I said its free as I took it back out and saw the price on it and realised I nearly had done shoplifting. Heavy rain when we left to walk to bus station and the plane was delayed leaving so we were late arriving at Pisa, and it was dark by the time I picked up the hire car for a 2 hour drive to San Gimignano the 13th century walled town famous for its towers. The  first half was on motorway but after that small unlit roads and the dawning realization that drivers in Italy don't take much notice of the dividing line down the middle of the road. When we arrived we had to find the right gate to enter the town to find the place we were staying then I had to drop Jun off with the bags and drive back outside and find somewhere to park. The hotel had been a small palace according to the owner and they had kept many original features, we went for a walk around the town after checking in and found the world famous ice cream makers Gelateria Dondoli's ( apparently it has won every world award ), it was delicious.

The next morning after a lovely breakfast we put our bags in the car then spent all morning exploring the town, really like going back in time we visited all the sites including a church and convent and bought truffles, then as we headed back to Dondoli's for a final ice cream I overheard a group of American ladies talking about the buildings and one said pointing " Gee it's just like a medieval New York" which made me do a quick turn to see what she could see that was like medieval New York and it was the seven towers. Back at Dondoli's I took a photograph of a large group of Chinese stood in line waiting for ice cream Jun said " they must be Taiwanese" I said "how do you know" she said "they are all in a orderly line if they were from the mainland they would be pushing to the front" ha-ha. We then drove to Voltero another lovely walled town had a late lunch visited the cathedral great views across the Tuscany countryside then set off across small back country roads stopping off at a rather strange town and watched what seemed like two rival groups of musicians in semi para military uniforms playing against each other, then on  to the farmhouse we were staying at for 3 nights just outside Montichino arriving after 6pm it was on top of a large hill looking down fields and fields of grapes and we had the place to ourselves and after unpacking we drove to a village supermarket to get food.

The next day we were up early to see mist in the valleys and the town of Montchino and a couple of hills seemingly floating in clouds a beautiful sight. Then we set off to visit the Benedictine Monastery of San Antino arriving just as Mass was starting so joined in, the monks sang beautifully, after which we walked around the place and gardens seeing and talking to some painters who were over there on painting/tuition holiday. We then drove in to Montchino, yes another walled town, famous for a particular type of wine and we had lunch at a restaurant where the walls from floor to ceiling were full of bottles of wine, there was a large extended family eating near us and picking the bottles out of the racks after having long conversations about them, so as we were leaving Jun asked them for advice on a nice wine which set off a long conversation about the various merits of wines before picking one for us. We then had a drive around the area stopping off at some Cypress trees after I spotted loads of photographers there, arrived back at the farmhouse made some coffee and we went on the balcony then a wind blew the door shut with the keys and phones inside and we were locked out!!!  Jun said she would walk down to the owners farmhouse about half mile away and arrived in time to see their car leaving, she then went to the next farm and managed to make them understand by miming what had happened and they then phoned them and got the brother in law to bring keys to us, but not before Jun had to walk all the way back.

The following day we set off to drive to Pienza  and on the way decided to stop at a town for a coffee it was called Santa Quiriso Orisa ( I think), and what a beautiful unspoilt non-touristy place we first stopped to watch some guys unloading grapes in to a small local winery and one of them gave Jun a large bunch of them ( would have cost 10 pounds in Tesco's) so we sat and ate them and later walking down a small back road we had walnuts falling off a tree around us, so we ate those too then had lunch staying there for 4 hours. After this we stopped off at a famous little chapel surrounded by cypress trees that you had to walk to, It's called The Madonna di Vitaleta but called by everyone The little ears chapel and we met a nice Chinese couple there and stayed for a nice talk.We finally reached Pienza famous as being the summer residence of Pope Pius 11 only stayed a couple of hours then drove back to farmhouse and had a lovely walk across all the fields at sunset before watching the film Tea with Mussolini.

Up early and packed ready to go after Mara the owner arrived and after about 20 minutes driving she phoned to say we had left our coats so we went back then set off again for Florence via Sienna I knew you couldn't drive in to the walled city so we parked about 15 minutes away and got a bus up. We paid for two returns and spent a couple of hours there then got the bus back and two inspectors male and female got on examined our tickets and said they were not valid as the returns are only valid for 1 hour we said sorry we didn't know and offered to pay the fare and after taking both our details and getting off the bus with us then said you are fined a penalty of 48 euros each plus the fares I said no way are we paying that at which point they said if you don't pay now it goes up to 90 euros each I said how could we know its not written anywhere and they said it's in English at the bus stops after they gave us the tickets and walked away we got back to the car and I said to Jun i'm going back to the bus stop to check and sure enough nothing in English so I went after them and asked them to show me where it says 1 hour in English and after searching they couldn't see it and pointing to the bus companies web site said "there if you go on that it's in English". I couldn't believe it and said to him would you go to a local bus companies website before getting on a bus in England? and he said " yes I would" and I just said that's a lie you know you wouldn't and walked away.

Anyway we then set off to drive to Florence and still being upset about it I missed the turn off for where we wanted to be and had to drive right through Florence from one side to the other in rush hour traffic before finally finding the ex monastery we were staying at and collapsing with exhaustion ha-ha. The place was on the outskirts of Florence so we just got the bus in to the centre and on the first night went to Mass at the Santa Marre del Flore very beautiful and later on the bus back I received a call from the captain I knew on a ship in Teesport asking me if I could pick him up I said I don't think I can I'm in Florence which gave him a good laugh. The next day after a great breakfast we spent walking around Florence visiting all the sites like the Ponte Vecctio bridge just taking out time, we then got the bus back to Hotel then later drove the car up to Fiesole a lovely little town overlooking Florence and had something to eat there. We went back in to Florence the following day to visit the Uffizi art gallery we had booked the tickets weeks before to fast track in, but still had to queue but it really was worth it. We then went to find  the famous food stall in the indoor market,  we knew we had found it when we saw the queue and we spotted the Chinese couple again in the line so we had a meal with them, the stall specialises in various meat dishes but they did a great vegetarian pasta for me. 

Later we got the bus back to the hotel as the young man on reception had promised to help me put an appeal in against the Sienna bus company and after that we sent it off by recorded delivery. On the last day Jun went to do some shopping and I just went for a long walk across the river up to the other half of Florence and then met back up with Jun and we went up to the park that overlooks Florence and on the way back in the centre I saw a woman sat in one of the horse drawn carriages that cost up to 50 euros to hire being driven around and all the time she was just scrolling and texting on her phone I found myself saying " whats the point" in a good imitation of Karl Pilkington ha-ha.

Up early the next morning packed had breakfast and set off to drive to Pisa spent first half hour trying to find a garage to fill up, we stopped off at Luca but only had time for a very short look around arrived at airport car ok and went to check in. First time they found Jun's wine and a jar of relish so we left the check in and went outside and gave the wine to 4 elderly German ladies who were very suprised and delighted to have it free, then we went back in to check in and they found Jun's truffles and took that so we didn't bring anything back except some great memories.  

 Jun was ok the next morning once so we spent the next day looking around Chartres and went to Mass and Vespers on the night in the Cathedral, it is a magnificent building and the rose windows are wonderful, there was also a light show being projected onto the outside of the cathedral with music and that took your breath away to see and hear it.

 The next two days we spent driving, we visited Illies Cambray as we wanted to meet the priest again who had his church there,  he had also told us it was where Marcel Proust spent holidays there as a boy and his famous novel was about the town "In search of lost time". Unfortunately he was not at his church when we visited and the house of Marcel Proust was closed. We then drove to Chateudun that was a lovely place as well, then to Bonneval all very old towns with lots of history. The second day out we drove to Orleans that was a bit difficult driving through with lots of security about, we visited the Cathedral and home of Joan of Arc but that also was closed, wandered along the river looking at boats and walked around the old city area. We then decided to drive out and visit a medieval village about 30 minutes outside the city called Combleaux that was really nice walking along the river/canal and seeing all the lovely buildings and soaking up the quiet atmosphere , then back to Chartres via Chateudun again. Got back to Chartres in rush hour and  we used Juns Google map  it kept telling me to go this way and that way, all either no entry roads or pedestrian areas before we realized we had it on the walking app instead of the driving app, we nearly caused chaos haha. The next day we set off to take the car back to the airport, we had run into a few yellow jacket protestors on roads  usually camping on roundabouts disrupting the traffic etc, but it was mainly ok and when we came off the motorway at the toll booth there was a large group of them and lots of police, they had taken the toll booths over and were  letting everyone go through free, the police just stood by doing nothing.  We called to Versailles on the way back driving through the forests to get off the main roads some beautiful countryside and quaint villages. This was followed by the sharp contrast of driving north through Paris and after dropping the car off we took the train into Paris for the last 3 days, there wasn't any demonstrations while we were there but a huge police and army presence as well as lots of evidence of damage to buildings, shops ,banks, cash machines etc.

We visited the galleries, The Orsay  was amazing as was the smaller Orange, we also visited The Grand Synagogue but the man said its closed today can you come back tomorrow and we said no we are going home and have walked miles to get there so he arranged a private viewing for us with this other man who explained to us its history, let us take photos and even opened the room at back of altar to let us see the Torhas. We also visited the Basilica Sacra Cour another beautiful church and on the Sunday night went to High Mass at Notra Damme after which we went to a Turkish local café. There was also a famous restaurant Jun wanted to visit The Chartier apparently been going for well over a hundred years, very busy and you had to share tables it was like going back in time...although they didn't have much in the way of vegetarian meals, Jun had snails followed by duck. On the last night we walked around the Champs Elysees and towards the Eiffel tower.

We did both agree Paris had changed a bit in the last 10 years since we were last there, it had become a lot dirtier and there was a huge increase in homeless people  wandering around going through dustbins and refuse bags and begging which was very sad to see and also the weather the whole week had been either below or just above freezing so it must have been awful for them.  

The flight wasn't till the afternoon so after breakfast we had a lovely long walk along the coast firstly passing three fire crews working to put out a bus fire just around the corner from the hotel, had a lovely coffee on a balcony jutting out over the Pacific Ocean and visited a lovely Catholic Church, then back to collect our bags and the taxi owned by Henry ( lovely man) back to the airport and the inevitable flight delay before arriving in Cusco after 5pm the landing was a bit spectacular coming across the mountains then a very sharp turn before dropping down in the valley. We felt the effect of the altitude immediately and started to chew the Coco leaves and drink lots of Coco tea. Again taxi drivers hassling you wanting 60 Sol ( £12) to take us to the old historic quarter where we were staying we got one down to 20 and later found out even that was to much. After unpacking we laid down to rest and slept till 11pm then decided to just get into bed and we slept till 5am.

The next day after breakfast we went for a walk and to buy the tickets for Machu Pichu and Peru Rail, I had a headache but Jun was feeling ill so we went back to hotel Jun went to bed and I went out again on my own and visited the San Francisco Convent and Monastery a very beautiful place and while I was walking around I came across this couple with a guide and as we entered an upstairs room she stood in the centre and sang Ave Marie I had goose bumps down my back later we all went up to the bell tower and roof and on the way back I asked her if she would sing it again and let me video it to show my wife who was back at the hotel poorly and she did. she also showed me in another large room that you could stand in one corner with your ear to the wall and she went across to the other side and whispered to the wall and I could hear it as if she was stood right next to me.  

I went back to the Hotel but Jun still not feeling well so I went out on the evening for a walk and get something to eat and bring something back for Jun. The next morning we went out visiting museums and the Convent of St Theresa's Carmelites and bought tickets to go on a tour of the Sacred Valley as we intended to go nearly all the way of the tour but get off at Ollyamtambo to catch the train to Machu Pichu, but Jun started to feel unwell again so we went back to the hotel, then I went out again and visited the Church and Convent of De Santo Domingo which was built on a Inca site of which you can still see, I found a very hippy Vegan restaurant on the way back and we went there on the night.

We checked out the next morning and waited for the tour bus which didn't arrive so we rang the guy we had booked with and he came with a taxi and we caught up with the bus and set off on the tour of the sacred valley visiting Chinchero, Tupac, and other Inca sites with great views across the valleys and mountains also visited a local village and watched them processing and natural dying of Alpaca wool, as we walked in an Alpaca jumped up on Jun and I had my camera ready to get the shot. We then went to Moray a pre Inca site to see the famous circles, there were a group of young Koreans on the bus and they asked me if anyone had told me I looked like Walter White from the TV series Breaking Bad, I said yes quite a few and they said they had looked at me then did a internet search to look at him to compare. There was also another Korean on board who was the Head Chef at the Korean Embassy in Lima and had been taught by Gordon Ramsey ( who he said had made him cry) he was a real character I found him stood on the top of the hill overlooking the circles videoing himself singing "I did it my way". We then visited a valley with huge salt pans apparently the second best in the world and after lunch we arrived at Ollyantambo and the amazing Inca site there, but what a climb to the top but well worth it, the guide showed us the quarry site for the granite blocks which weighed upwards of 40 tons each it was down the valley and right up the top of the other side and still no one knows how they did it or even how they cut it. Recently 240 people from the town tried to pull a block weighing 40 tons using ropes on level ground and managed a couple of feet,  after this we said goodbye to everyone else and went to the station to catch the early evening Peru Rail train to Aguas Calientas for Machu Pichu arriving in a very heavy downpour, but we had to still get the bus tickets to take us up to the top the next morning then made our way to a little not very nice place to stay the night, we set off next morning just after 5am and there was already a lot of people waiting for the buses and it was still raining, what a ride to the top sheer drops in places and no barriers, when we got in to Machu Pichu we climbed up to the highest part but it was covered in clouds and mist but as it started to clear it made for very dramatic shots, and what an amazing place it took your breath away and then later we bumped into our Korean friends again and on the way out I had my passport stamped with Machu Pichu. We went back down to the town once again experiencing the sheer drops had a lovely meal overlooking the raging river that ran through the town then caught the afternoon train back to Ollyantambo and looked around for someone to take us back to Cusco managed to get on a mini bus and only paid 10sol each and he eventually set off shouting out of his window every few minutes "Cusco" "Cusco" "Cusco" till his bus was full but what a crazy driver I couldn't believe some of the things he did, but we arrived safely in Cusco nearly 3 hours later and we collected our bags and went to another place to stay in the San Bas area  with our own kitchen etc.they provided wonderful breakfasts with terrific views, the San Bas area is full of artisans, craft shops,markets and festivals great place.

The next day we walked around more of Cusco visiting museums and archaeological sites as well as going back to the Convent De Santo Domingo and booking our tickets to Puno on the Cruz De Sol bus. On the way back we stopped at a local café and Jun had a local delicacy part of a sheeps head and they managed to put together some veggie dish for me, we went back to where we were staying and then went out again at 5pm I had some street rice pudding which was delicious then we stood and watched a wedding and were invited in to the church, we also watched some great street dances and then went for something to eat and got caught in thunder/lightning/hailstone followed by rain so arrived at a local café drenched and Jun had the local dish of Guinea pig there.

Checked out the next morning early to get to the bus station for a 6:5 hour bus trip to Puno, very comfortable seats that reclined right back like first class airplane seats. About 1 hour before arriving at Puno we drove through a "city" called Juliaca which is now the dirtiest city I have ever been to, I have never seen so much rubbish anywhere and the roads were non existent with mud and dust everywhere, very noisy and terrible looking buildings and in all this I saw a few small areas of grass also covered in litter with signs saying "keep off the grass".

Arrived in Puno and took taxi to jetty on Lake Titicaca ( 200 miles long and 40 miles wide) where boat took us out to the reed island we had booked what a fabulous place, we were staying with a family who live on one of the islands and their families had lived on them since the Spanish invaded. They really made us feel welcome and they told us a great deal of the history and about their culture. After settling in they gave us a canoe to go exploring which was great and that night was one of the loudest thunder storms I have ever heard, the whole lake lit up with lightning followed by torrential rain ( and not a drop got in). The next day they took us to other reed islands as well as going on a reed boat to meet more locals and visiting a school where we had photos taken with the children and teacher, we cheered up one little boy who had been crying as it was his first day at school.

On our way back to Puno I managed to get to see a famous ship in the harbour there the Yavari It was built as a gunboat/cargo/passenger ship for the Peruvian Navy in England in 1862  then boxed up into 2,766 pieces and sent around Cape Horn as cargo. It took six years to transport all the sections of the boat to the lake, carried over the Andes by llama and on horseback, reassembled by English engineers and finally launched in 1870 and has now been fully restored as a B&B.

We then set off by bus again at 3pm heading across the mountains in heavy rain and going over huge potholes for the city of Arequipa arriving there at 9:30 pm and staying at a little hotel close to the city square. The next day after a fantastic breakfast on the roof of the hotel with stunning views of the city and the mountains in the background including a volcano we set off walking around the centre and then visited the Convent of The Monasterio de Santa Catalina, what an extraordinarily beautiful and very large place, everywhere painted bright blues, deep reds and flowers everywhere with such a feeling of silence and tranquillity this was the home of Sister Ana de los Angeles died in 1686 and Beatified by Pope John II. it has to be one of the best Religious sites I have visited, we also visited the impressive Cathedral in the square and spent time wandering about the old area enjoying the life and architecture of a beautiful city.

The next day we booked ourselves on a  open top bus excursion around Arequipa and the surrounding countryside which we both really enjoyed one of the places we visited was a park where Jun went for a horse ride and a alpaca farm which just happened to have the shop next door selling the clothes. The following day we made our way to the airport for a flight back to Lima which of course was delayed and no information given, we only knew when it had started boarding when Jun asked me to go for a walk around to check and I found the boarding line tucked away in another area all together to where it was supposed to be, so we arrived in Lima at 1pm instead of 11am and met Henry who took us back to Mira Flores, later we walked down to the coast and spent a couple of hours in a bar at the end of a great old pier drinking pisco with the large waves crashing around it. The next day we went into the city centre and visited the Cathedral and went down into the catacombs, not the place to be if you suffer from claustrophobia. we also visited the Presenditial Palace, no changing of the guard that day unless you count the police relieving the previous police on duty by a casual walk over and shake of hands, but did get some great shots of Jun with them fully kitted out with machine guns etc. We found two local cafes which we ate in and went back too one for Jun with the local speciality of fish soup and the other a veggie café for me  which cost us about 12sol (£2:20 each). Later we got the tram/bus out to Barranco a seaside place very run down with old colonial buildings which apparently was the place to be in the 19th century, but now peopled with artists, drop outs, hippies, great atmosphere so we stayed there till night. we were walking down one street and I pointed out a house to Jun which had a second floor and conservatory on it with lots of statues and plants at which point this old guy who had been washing his car came over and invited us to go in as it was his house he showed us all the statues and paintings that his wife had done before she died we had a chat took some photos and left. A bit later we passed a church on a hill overlooking the ocean and the front looked really nice and well maintained but the rest of it was decayed and covered in ripped tarpaulins and housed dozens of small vultures. On the evening we found this restaurant in a old building which looked like a ex warehouse which was owned and run by a family from Argentina for generations, I said to Jun it's like we have walked onto the film set for The Sopranos or something, after that we walked all the way back to Mira Flores.

The next day we checked out and Henry took us to the bus station to get tickets down to Paracas to visit the nature reserve and go out to the Ballestas Islands, the bus wasn't leaving till the afternoon so we took the time to visit The Museum Larco which houses the biggest collection of Peruvian Culture anywhere, all in the ex Governors House and with beautiful gardens. We took a taxi back to the bus station and traffic was very heavy and we were late so this time I was glad he drove like a madman as he got us back just in time.

We drove down the Pan American highway and arrived at Paracas after nearly 5 hours, we tried to book tickets  for the return the next day but they were full so that started a frantic search to find another bus company, I wanted a coffee but as Jun rightly pointed out to me by saying " we can get a coffee anytime but not bus tickets!" We asked one woman in the street who took us to a very run down room/office with a family in it obviously run by the matriarchal old lady in a wheelchair who sold us two tickets on a bus leaving the next afternoon. Jun was very unsure about this so we asked the guy in the hotel who went back with us and spoke to them but he didn't look so sure as well, and then when we booked our tickets for the boat we asked the guy there who said he had never heard of that bus and pointed us to another bus company who happened to have 8 seats left so we went back to  "The Family" and asked to cancel, you thought we had just greatly insulted them all and they all started talking together in a corner eventually I said we will give you some money to compensate you after which we got our money back.

The next day we went down to the jetty for our boat and it was closed went back to the agents who told us all boats were cancelled due to bad weather around the islands so that was the end of that we just waited for the 3:30 bus back to Lima arriving back at 9pm picked up our luggage from Mira Flores and went to The Grand Hotel Bolivia for our last night in the city centre, it was a hotel built in 1920 and many famous people stayed there but is now well past its sell by date but still had the faded opulence and was huge I said to Jun the corridors reminded me of the Overlook Hotel in the film " The Shining". The next day was Jun's birthday and we spent it sightseeing including visiting the famous Monastery of St Francis of Assisi spectacular building and history and huge catacombs full of human remains. On the afternoon we managed to get on a local open top bus that was full of Peruvians and they let us do half of the 2 hour tour around the city and out to the more run down areas, at one point we passed the café we had been in a couple of times and the staff recognised us and were shouting and waving. After this we went back to the hotel and Henry picked us up for the drive back to the airport in very heavy traffic for our flights back, which left on time 13 hours to Amsterdam 2 hour wait then 1 hour to Durham Tees Valley and picked up by our friend Paul and home.

I completed my Merchant Navy Ship Welfare Visitor training and exam and now have the ID and qualification and have been visiting ships on my own for last 3 weeks or more, as well as doing my training to drive the large mini bus, been on some lovely ships as well as one or two you wouldn't want to sail down the river in. It is great to be able to meet crews from all over the world and help them in such diverse ways, for example I was on a Polish ship last week and a young female cadet officer asked me how she could get to Middlesbrough for 11pm Tuesday night as she was leaving the ship to go back to University in Poland and had to get the bus to London at midnight followed by further buses all the way back to Poland as the shipping company wouldn't pay for her to fly back. We arranged for a taxi to collect her at the dock gates and for someone to watch out for her till the taxi arrived and Stella Maris paid for the taxi. Another time I had arranged to pick up some Vietnamese crew to take them in to Middlesbrough shopping and they asked me could I firstly take them to Middlesbrough Football ground to have a look around which I did and I was even talking to the wife of one them on his mobile back in Vietnam, then I dropped them off at the shopping centre and arranged to go back at 6pm to collect them. When I went back the same guy showed me some toiletries he had bought for his wife and I said was it expensive for you, and he said yes sir we don't get paid much and gave me a punnet of grapes he had bought for me as a thank you, I was really touched by that and on the night I was at our meditation group and Dave brought in some unwanted Xmas presents of which some were perfumes etc. So the next day I was back down the ship and gave them out to him and a couple of others as gifts for their wives, girlfriends.   

I was at a meeting last Wed with Peter the Chaplain and Jerry the Harbour Master that I had arranged for them with the Interfaith group to let them know what we do and look for volunteers from other faiths as well as get names, addresses and other contact details from various religions for crew members. It was really good to be able to set all that up within a week of them talking to me about it. I have also arranged with Rev Adelin to take close to 20 people from the chaplaincy and ports up to Throssel for a day at the end of March.

Jun arrives back on the 30th of January and for her 50th birthday in March we are going to travel around Peru for 3 weeks, really looking forward to that as I have never been to South America before.

We start the Gainford meditation group in the village hall on Feb 8th so it will be interesting to see who comes and what they make of it, we did put a full page in the Parish news about it, I wonder what the local Vicar will make of it as she is starting a Christian meditation group at the same time, I am sure it will be fine as she is a lovely woman.

I went over to the Lakes with my friend Rob from next door to do a photography shoot specifically at a cave called Cathedral Quarry. Rob set a post code of a house on the sat-nav supposedly close by as we were not sure where it exactly was took us 2:5 hours to get there, we asked directions at the house and were told continue down the lane ( tractor trail more like) till we see some slate and a sty and if we reach the river we have gone to far. So we reached the river crossed it parked up ate some lunch then set off walking back the way we came and turned off at a field, we then trekked through water, bog and snow up and down hills in the rain for 2 hours with no sign of it. Eventually we made our way to a farmhouse and asked the lady if she knew it she said yes get back on the lane walk 200 yards and when you reach some slate there is a sty on your left just take that. So off we go again and found a footpath across hills with a wooden sty about 200 yards away...great this must be it we thought but after another 45 minutes we realized it wasn't and made our way back to the lane and asked a man at the next house we reached. He said yes I know it, continue down the lane "cross the river" continue on and when you come to a ford further along don't go over it but bear left and it is up there, and it was. We worked it out that the 200 yards the lady had told us was really close to a mile away  and the sty was two very small steps in a slate wall. But it was certainly worth all the effort as we got some great landscape shots as well as some inside the cave.   

Well I settled down a (little bit) after my time spent on Caldey Island, a few visits up to our Monastery  Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey and continuing with the meditation groups in Teesside and Gainford plus two visits to the Hindu Centre in Middlesbrough for lunches as well as attending the Diwali Festival which I hadn't been to for the last 5 years. It is a lovely festival and I went with Paul and his son Daniel and Simon and met John there, it was really well attended and had a lot more people there who are not Hindu than I remember from previous attendances as well as more younger Hindus. One observation I made was seeing a young man sat in front of me who all through the first part of the ceremonies played a football game on his phone, later when he got up to leave the ceremony hall I turned to John and said it must be half time.

Rev Adelin came down from Thursday to Saturday in October, on the Friday we visited Peter the Chaplain for Teesport and Hartlepool  and spent the day with him and Brian another ship visitor visiting crew on ships and getting to know the job and dock locations. On the Saturday we had a day retreat in Middlesbrough and I also was given the telephone number/e mail and address of Mia  ( a lay Buddhist I know) and her husband who have now located to Beijing so hoping to see them soon.

Well we finally got Jun's Spouse visa after lots of problems, delays, e mails, including me meeting with our local MP and getting her involved. It was clear practically from the start that the UK visa office are not up to the job, and after 60 working days they sent Jun an e mail to tell her they hadn't been able to process it within the guidelines of 60 days as her case was not straightforward and when we contacted them they wouldn't say why but promised to escalate the case. They then sent out another e mail at a later date which was by then 72 working days saying exactly the same thing  (not-straightforward), and when I phoned and wrote to them they made the same promise as before ( we will escalate the case). So I  told them our MP was now involved with the case  and then all of a sudden they write to Jun to inform her they are now dealing with her case but there are some documents missing and gave her 10 days to send them, by this time it was upto 84 working days ( these documents were not missing we had been very sure about sending in everything they required). So we resubmitted them and within a few days Jun got confirmation she had been give the Visa, she then had 30 days to return to the UK to collect her Biometric card. I would not wish for anyone to go through this process it was so frustrating and upsetting and we were treated terribly. 

So finally Jun arrived on the 7th of November for 3 weeks minus her luggage which had not made it onto the connecting flight and the next day we travelled to Durham to collect her card and then meet the van driver in a motorway service station to get her luggage.

Jun came with me on some ship welfare visits and Peter is very keen for her to start work especially with her translation skills, Jun really enjoyed it, and I have now completed the training and awaiting my qualification from The Merchant Navy Board after completing their ship welfare course.

We went upto Scotland for a few days stopping off at Jedburgh and watching the Remembrance Sunday parade, then to Melrose visiting the famous Abbey there, then to Edinburgh for 2 days staying with a French lady in her lovely apartment through Air BnB, she is an artist and her apartment reflected this.  We spent time visiting art galleries and going down to the grassmarket, Leith and going out to the Forth bridge. On the way back we followed the coast heading for North Berwick, our first stop was as we were driving through a village called Aberlady when we observed a huge cascade of poppies in front of the church, as we walked up a lady was opening the church and told us the story that the thousands of poppies are all hand knitted by people from all over the world and it is quite famous. We spent time at North Berwick which in some respects is like going back in time, after which we stopped off at St Abbs a small fishing village but well know for its diving, then on back home.

Jun went back to Beijing at start of December and will be back here at end of January so I am spending more time doing ship visits, collecting Xmas gifts from all over, amazing to see so much generosity from people, went to the Seamen's Mission Xmas party  to help out, staying for a couple of hours but had to leave as I was setting off early the next morning for a retreat at Ministeracres which was well attended.

The following week my friend Dave and I sailed from North Shields on the DFDS ferry to Ijmuiden in Holland for 3 days on a 15 hour overnight crossing which should have given us just less than a day in Amsterdam then a overnight crossing back. It was very cold the whole time with snow in Amsterdam but the ferry was very nice  the cabin was comfortable.....but, there is always a but, there was a delay disembarking so by the time we got off and the coach got us to Amsterdam it was nearly 12 noon. We bought tram tickets and quickly got to the Van Gogh Museum which was amazing, we then went to the Amsterdam Houseboat Museum going onto a large converted houseboat all done in 1950's décor beautiful! Then after something quick to eat we headed back to the pick up point outside the station for 3:45 to find a large queue waiting for the coaches which were.... not there as apparently other people whose flights had been cancelled owing to the weather were going back by ferry and had taken our places, and the bus drivers had not thought to check for their boarding cards. So after nearly 2 hours stood freezing we were back on the coach back to Ijmuiden, the bus driver said to me how sorry they were but the good news was that the ferry was waiting for us, my reply was " I should bloody well think so" ha-ha. Anyway it was a good crossing back and we made up the time, the crew were really good on the ferry all very polite and helpful, and I got lots of photographs over the 3 days.

I was straight back down to Teesport visiting ships with Peter, and  one day we visited 5 ships and handed out 75 presents to crew including presents for a female Filipino Chief Officer whose joy at receiving a present was heartwarming. I have agreed to work with Peter on Xmas day and am looking forward to going on the ships that are in and taking the crews ashore.

We haven't been anywhere really this time we have continued  with the Spouse/Settlement Visa app and other outstanding admin stuff, and have made the online application and paid the £2,0070.00  for the Visa and NHS, then Jun took all the hard evidence when she returned  to the company back in Beijing who work on behalf of the UK Govt, they promptly scanned it all and send it to Sheffield UK for the decision ( typical eh ha-ha).Sheffield have now e mailed us to say they have opened the application and it will take approx. 3 months to process providing everything is as it should be, so hopefully Jun could be back here in Oct/Nov as she has to collect her visa and  biometrics within a certain time frame. We did have days out here and there one of them to Malham Cove which was a great day we walked to it from the village and then climbed to the top from one of the sides ( not straight up as some climbers were doing), another day on retreat up Monkseaton at Whitley Bay and Sunday Festival at Throssel.

 I have had a couple of  full days out doing photography with my next door neighbour as well as continuing to go to my two meditation  groups and another night were Rob my neighbour comes in and has a meditation with me as well as having days up at Throssel Buddhist Monastery I also have had a meeting with Colin the NHS senior chaplain at West Park Mental Health Hospital to discuss doing some chaplaincy work like I did before at the James Cook Hospital. I am also starting  work with the Seaman's Mission in Teesport in October as a lot of ships come in with crews from Asia who are Buddhist.

I have also been doing a bit of work in the allotment recently as the slugs ate all our vegs, so I have put a pond in for frogs so next year  hopefully they will keep them down as I don't want to use slug pellets and I have left a area of the allotment wild around the pond. I get some funny looks from the neighbouring allotment owners, especially one day when I had sown wildflowers among the weeds and the allotment manager passed me as I was watering what appeared to him to be just weeds.  

I asked Jun to do a search online in China recently after reading an article that said they had banned Winnie the Pooh she did, and sure enough it came up saying "This webpage is not available" its because there are some big conferences coming up and lots of people call Xi Jinping the teddybear, so they have blocked all references to the bear you couldn't make it up could you ha-ha. We still have times when we get things wrong with each other with regard to language a recent example was when we were chatting with each other on FaceTime and talking about the weather and weather forecasters here in the UK and China and Jun said the weather at the moment is very hot and humid but there is a very big storm coming in 2021, I said how could they know that far ahead, then we both realized she meant on the 21st and 22nd of the month.

I was invited to visit my friend Paul from our village at his cottage on the Island of Caldey off the Pembrokeshire coast where he was staying with his son for summer, it is an Island owned by the Cistercians with a beautiful Monastery at the centre. I went down for 7 days travelling down by train a 7.5 hour journey with four train changes, one of them arriving in Birmingham giving me 4 minutes to get to the next one. When I arrived at Tenby the seaside resort in Wales it was 5:30 and to late to catch a boat to the Island so I spent the night in a dormitory at  maronbier youth hostel  on the  coastal path and had a lovely 2 hour walk along the cliffs. It all felt a little strange being on a holiday without Jun with me, the next morning I was down at the pier at 7:30 to catch the mail boat in very heavy rain and was soaking wet by the time we had completed the 30 minute crossing in choppy seas and Paul met me at the jetty and introduced me to some of the Monks as they were going to the mainland to visit some nuns at their Monastery.  

By the afternoon the weather was beautiful and Paul took me around the Island visiting the original monastery now being renovated by the Welsh Trust with a spire at a very steep angle , the lighthouse at the highest point of the island, the farmhouse which includes the Chocolate factory made famous by the Monks as well as the perfumes they once made but now is made by others, the hermitage where Brother Paul lived before his death when he no longer wanted to live in the Monastery, an eccentric character by all accounts and over the next days some of the caves and coves the watchtower ,stations of the cross, old buildings etc. The next day Paul took me in to the Monastery where I met Father Gillis we had a long talk he is the same age as me and has been a Cistercian for 38 years but before that he was a Buddhist for 3 years, we talked about things as diverse as all religions being fundamentally the same  to Somerset Maugham's The Razors Edge one of his favourite books and mine, to Alice in Wonderland, he also gave us both a copy of a  prayer from Ghandi and a lovely copy of the Dhammapada. We walked around all of the Monastery as all the Monks know Paul with him staying on the Island since he was a child we attended many of the services over the week while I was there which I really enjoyed. Another Monk I met Brother Titus was a ex Formula 1 racing driver who now drove the Orders small bubble like Fiat at a sedate 15 miles an hour, we had a nice talk about the value of silence in life and on retreat and he said he would like me to come back one day and spend time in the Monastery.  I was down the jetty one morning with Paul collecting his groceries off the boat when I helped to unload the Monks deliveries and was thanked and called "brother" by a crew member he obviously thought I was a monk ha-ha.

Paul told many stories of some of the characters and events over the years from the Island one of my favourites was about Brother Stephen who apparently had a wonderful sense of humour and after he died Paul and some other islanders helped to dig his grave after it had been marked out. On the day of the burial Paul was stood a little way from the grave and noticed one of the Monks shoulders shaking and he thought he is really upset and must be crying, then he noticed the Abbot trying to supress a smile at which point they were called over and the coffin was stuck at an angle the grave wasn't big enough and the Monks were in fact all laughing. Paul and the others pulled the coffin out and dug some more but it stuck again so out it came again, and again for the third time at which point Paul said Brother Stephen must already be a saint when the Monks asked why Paul said he has already risen three times, everyone laughed and agreed Brother Stephen would have really appreciated the humour of it.

Another funny episode occurred one morning when we were in the cottage kitchen with the back door and yard door open and lots of tourists were wandering around ( they come over on tourist boats for the day) and this man with camera in hand just walks into the kitchen I said sorry this is a private house but he didn't seem to understand and just looked around then walked out, Paul said that happens a few times when I looked in the yard there was a sign on the wall which read St Theresa's cottage but underneath it was another sign that said welcome, I said that's why they must think it's a chapel or something so we turned the welcome sign around.

We also spent time in the woods building a camp for Daniel Pauls son, that was an opportunity to be a child again it was looking really good by the time I left, I said to Paul we will know how good it will be when you go into the woods and can't find it ha-ha. We also had one day on a private beach which you had to access from the cliff top using a rope to get down the steep incline, it was much harder getting back up. Another great vehicle they have on the island is a ex USA army landing craft which they use at low time to unload and load passengers off the boats when they can't get in, that was fun to watch in operation.

On my last morning I was awake at 6am to the sound of strong winds and torrential rain I was due to go off at 10:30 on the boat but was convinced I was going to be there for another day, but by 9am it was a beautiful sunny day and the first tourist boat came out so I took that back to Tenby along with another man who had been on retreat and a priest and caught the 11:40 train for Swansea then Bristol then onto Darlington. At Birmingham I was sat on my own and a Chinese family came on and asked me if the other seats were free they had two young girls with them who burst into fits of giggles when I spoke to them in my limited Chinese but it certainly broke the ice and I arrived back home at 9pm. 

Last week Jun was at work and they were all informed to collect their tickets and after work go to the Theatre in the centre of Beijing to watch a production about The Long March to celebrate Red Army Day, none of them wanted to see it so Jun left her car at work and they took the crew bus down to the city centre photographed themselves outside the theatre and left. But the next morning on the crew bus to work their boss started asking them all about it ,what was it like etc, they were really put on the spot ha-ha.

I am now back in China and just about recovered from the jet lag so thought I would start another blog page, and run it till we leave in 2 months.

I was in plenty of time at the airport arriving at 11:30am thanks to Dave Martin picking me up at home and driving me there, and everything went very smoothly all the way to Beijing we did hit quite a bit of turbulence for 40 minutes or so when we were about 3 hours from Beijing, and as usual I could not sleep so was feeling very tired when I arrived at 8:30 the next morning. I was sat next to two young Asians who kept to themselves and later in the flight when we had to fill in our landing/entry cards they looked very puzzled so I offered to help and they showed me their passports and seaman ID cards and they were from North Korea.

After I had had a short sleep we took our bikes out later in the day and went to a street repair man as the gears had seized up on my bike, he repaired it for one pound and then we went food shopping in a local market, had tea watched a film and in bed by 10.

Jun had to work Saturday but then was off for 3 days so I went for a good bike ride along Moon River and a walk in the park the weather is quite warm about 20 or so now. 

On Sunday Jun and I went with her sister and niece to visit an area of the Great Wall we haven't seen before north west of Beijing about a 2+ hour journey called Lakeside Great Wall it runs across the hills past a large dam then goes down the hill disappears into a man made  lake before emerging again at the other side. It was a good climb up but very worth it for the views of the lakes and the village below and the hundreds of blossoming cherry trees and not as touristy as the other two main areas.

Yesterday we went to the Police Station to register that I was back in the country and next week I have to renew my residency visa ( we don't want them banging on the door again late at night like a scene from a John Le Carre novel ha-ha ).

We are still putting all the evidence and docs together to apply for Jun's spouse visa sometime in July it is very complicated and we have to pay 1,200 pounds when we submit it and another 1,200 in 2.5 years time when we renew it followed  by 1,400 2.5 years after that for it to be permanent so it takes 5 years in all to get it plus the money we have to pay each year for Jun to be registered with the NHS, and some people still think it is easy for foreigners to move to England ha-ha. We went into the city centre on Saturday to the police station where Jun is registered to get some paperwork stamped, then we hired bikes and biked across to the Govt building to pick up my passport as i had just had my residency visa renewed. Then we biked all the way to the National Art Gallery before getting the metro back home. We must have biked miles and miles and it was really hot but it was a great day and a great way of getting about. Since last year there has been an explosion of bikes available it used to be that you went to the racks and used a prepaid  card to unlock a bike then when you were finished you took it back to another rack, but now you register with your phone and when you scan the bike it unlocks it and you can pick them up and drop them off anywhere you want not just at the racks and they are literally everywhere.

When we were walking towards the metro on Saturday the side road gets full of drivers waiting in their cars for pick ups/dropping off etc which isn't allowed so the police regularly move them on and the police car drove down with his lights flashing and loudspeaker blaring and as they drove away and he moved down the road other cars just started parking behind him. Talk about a pointless exercise ha-ha. 

Hard to believe I have already been here nearly 2 weeks, time certainly speeds up the older you get or maybe it's me that needs to slow down ha-ha.

I started teaching English to little Ella ( 9 years old) again and have done two 1.5 hour lessons with her, there is also a children's after school club on the ground floor of our apartment block and the owner wanted me to work with the children on a evening which i at first said yes too as she mentioned doing some acting with them. But later she was talking about putting a play on in English with stage sets and costumes for the parents in 3 weeks, most of the children are around 5 years of age so i said no to that as it would have been impossible to do anything in that time.I walked down to Nui Nuis school a couple of times to collect her when Jun was late home or a bit busy it's a great system they have, all along the pavement outside the school there are retangle areas marked 1-5 and each group of children come out marching together singing and chanting with one boy or girl in front of each group holding up a placard with their number on, and as they reach their area they finish singing and disperse to whoever is picking them up. Nui Nui got a lot of stares from her schoolfriends when i was there to collect her. 

It is the time of year again for what Jun and I call "April snow" the air is full of white cotton like seeds from the thousands of Poplar trees around the city. We went down to the city centre last Saturday to the passport/visa office to renew my residency visa, which more or less went smoothly i go back 22nd to pick it back up, went for lunch at a Muslim restaurant and then further down the road we bought bread at a Russian shop followed by a visit into a Christian Church all on the same road. After that  we went to the south of the city to re-visit the Fa Yuan Si Temple it was full of blooming Lilac bushes the air smelt wonderful, it is an old temple ( 16th c) and is also the Beijing Buddhist Training College. It then took us over 2.5 hours on the metro to get back to Tong Zhou district so went to our local massage/foot clinic and they had just reopened that day after being closed for refurbishment so they were really pleased to see us both and we had a back and head massage followed by a fantastic foot massage, I felt like i was floating when we walked out. 

I have just been for a long bike ride along Moon river 6 miles and the temp today is 25 the other day i biked to the old Muslim quarter in Tong Zhou and had a good walk around, I get a lot of stares there as i have never yet seen another foreigner in that area but i like to visit it.

There has been a lot of talk recently about pollution and we just had 2 days where we had a severe dust storm with very strong winds descend down from Mongolia coupled with heavy smog already here and the WHO says anything over 50 microns is hazardous to health and we were experiencing up to 960 microns and the winds alone brought down parts of buildings,trees and a few fatalities, and two days later its back to blue skies and the temp at about 30.

There is a photograph of an old big passenger boat i have taken and posted a couple of times berthed in the Grand Canal, well its now converted into a restaurant that specialises in traditional hotpot meals.Jun and I went there last night and it was very good, hot pots are basically you order the food you want and they bring it to you all fresh and raw and you have these bowls on the table lit from underneath full of boiling water and you put your food in yourself and eat it as it cooks.It only takes minutes to cook and you then have sauces etc to dip it into as you take it out.

We walked back home through the Canal park and they had a huge screen set up showing a film lots of people stood and sat about watching it, we also checked out a new cinema that has just opened next to where we live so will give that a visit before we head back to the UK.

We  spent a couple of hours at a "art village" which is close to us last Sunday, we have been a couple of times before and i like it there, then we are hoping to go to a Buddhist Temple about 80k north of Beijing that i want to see which is quite famous.

There has been another big international conference here in Beijing and as always when they have one of these they impose all kinds of restrictions one of them being reducing or stopping traffic. This time Juns work colleauges where on the works shuttle bus going to the office when the police stopped all the traffic they had to wait there for 2 hours so they got off the bus and stood around in groups at which point the police came and told them to disperse as they didn't want groups stood around.

Jun had to fly down to her home city of Guangdong in the south at 4am last Sunday as her mother was seriously ill with a heart condition, her and her other sister and brother got her in to hospital but they said they couldn't operate as she was to weak and only gave her a 10% chance of surviving, the average cost per day for a stay in hospital is 200/300 pounds. After a few days she was discharged but then became poorly again 2 nights later so she was taken back in to a different hospital, but Jun arranged through old University friends to have her transferred to a better hospital. The staff were not happy and charged Jun 100 pounds for a 2 hour stay, but she is in a much better hospital now, makes you really appreciate our NHS.

Juns sister in Guangong has a daughter who is aged 10 and is very streetwise and the other day she had 2 yuan ( 20p) to spend, so she went to a fruit stall and asked the woman for some fruit for the 2 yuan, the woman said sorry there is nothing you can buy here for 2 yuan, to which she replied " Ha! I think you just don't want my business" ha-ha.

I went for a long bike ride and decided to go through the Grand Canal park and follow the canal down but when i got to the small gate at the back that i use to get in a security guard stopped me. I said are you saying I cant go in or I cant ride my bike in as another man had just rode out of the gate, they pointed to a sign but i said i didn't understand at which point a second guard came up to me and started shouting in my face, I then gave him even more back and he staggered back a couple of steps really suprised, so i just rode off but later i saw that they were doing a load of flood work and the top part of the park was indeed all closed off. I continued my bike ride and about 1.5 hours later i went back to apologise and as i rode up to the gate he saw me and ran to it and started to pull it close, he must have thought i was going back for another go ha-ha. Anyway i did apologise to them both before riding back home.

We have spent this weekend packing ready for our trip back to the UK next Tuesday, I had my last bike ride this morning along moon river as far as you can bike at the moment, at the end of it i then cross a bridge on a three lane ring road to ride back on the other side,where i observed a big lorry driving across on the wrong side causing cars to swerve and horns blaring, somethings don't change ha-ha.

I also went to see a Traditional Chinese Doctor for treatment to my back and legs this morning, him and his wife live in one of the other apartments and run a clinic from there, it was the most painful massage i have ever had, left me feeling very sore and drained, but hoping i feel better later on. 

The following week we went to Keilder Observatory up near the Scottish borders for an evening of star gazing, I had booked it a few weeks previous unfortunately it absolutely poured down the whole night so didn't get to see anything, however the staff gave some great talks and we did get to see cut slices of meteorites under a microscope, a small piece of rock from Mars and actually hold a piece of Moon rock.

The following Saturday we went up to Ministeracres retreat centre for the full day, we had a full weekend retreat but we could only make the Saturday as we were busy preparing for our trip to Morocco it was well attended by people from our local North East Meditation Groups and it's great that since Steve,Sue and I set it up quite a few years ago it is still going well.

We were up the following Tuesday at 5:30 am to drive to Manchester airport we left early in case of hold ups, which there was and I had to go a different route and we arrived there in very heavy rain but in plenty of time it was a 3.5 hour flight to Marrakech and we arrived at the Riad we had booked, early evening. After unpacking we walked the 20 minutes in to the main square "Place Jemma El Fna" which was very busy and noisy with all kinds of performers, groups playing traditional music, snake charmers, acrobats, food stalls and everyone hassling you to get money. My first encounter was when we were stood talking to a family that had been on the same flight when I felt something grab me just above my ankle I jumped and turned and saw a legless man on a wooden board with wheels looking up at me with his hand outstretched. The next one was a bit later when I spotted some local musicians and brought my camera up and took a photo and noticed there was a dwarf with them who started to shout at me and run towards me with his hands out demanding money, he was in his fifties and had a old fashioned suit on eventually we lost him in the crowd, but more about this man later.

The next morning after breakfast we set off walking and firstly visited the Jardin Majorella a park and museum which had been the home of the famous fashion guru Yves St Laurent, it was very beautiful with such lovely bold colours. we then began to explore the famous Souks Jun's use of a sat-nav on her phone came in very handy, later we visited the Palais Bahia and Palace Badi both filled with interesting history and lots of nesting storks that must have been there for many generations, we kept bumping in to a lovely Chinese Malayan couple in each place and later I surprised a group of young Chinese when I greeted them in Mandarin.

We found a local street food seller outside of a Mosque who served wonderful food and very cheap he did a great vegetarian tajine for me and on an evening excellent soup, I also watched him giving food free to beggars he was a lovely man,while we were having lunch we were sat next to a local woman with two little girls and a baby and Jun went up to a local fruit seller and asked about a particular fruit so he cut it open and gave some to both of us. It turned out to be from a particular cacti and it turned both our mouths and lips bright red the girls found it highly amusing especially when I started to stick my tongue out at them.  

We set off the following day and walked for miles at first through the many souks then we started to look for the Mosque Maderson Ben Youseff but were very cleverly side lined by seasoned touts who tried to get us to the tanneries, the first one on a scooter started chatting and told us the mosque was closed but that the tanneries were close by and gave us directions before driving off.  We set off in that direction "and just happened to bump in to another young man who said he was going to the tanneries" as his family was there having come down from the mountains for the special festival day, we walked with him for quite awhile and he took us to an entrance and shook hands with a man there before saying goodbye and leaving, the third man then tried to get us to take some sprigs of mint and go in to his tannery, we said no and walked off and he followed us obviously quite upset that we were not falling for it. We made our way back to the mosque which was of course open. Later we took a bus to see the art deco railway station, beautiful building but I caused a little upset by going through a no entrance door on to the platform to get a couple of photos.

We also walked to the Palais Royal but it was closed after which we visited the Tombeaux Saadiens and then on to the impressive Bab Agragi Gate which was very impressive, after this we stopped off at a local street stall selling large bread buns filled with meat sliced off in front of you from a sheep's head, Jun said it was delicious.

We were up very early the next morning to meet the mini bus that was taking 13 of us on a 3 day 2 night trip over the Atlas Mountains and in to the Sahara Desert the group comprised of one group of three Chinese a young man and two young women all living in the UK at Universities, another of a Chinese young man and a Korean young woman, two young women from the USA one of them was living in Morocco and working for the Peace Corp and finally two couples from Poland.

We drove the whole day across the mountains stopping off for photographs, tea, lunch and to visit some wonderful places the first being the Ait-Ben-Haddou located in the foothills on the southern slopes of the High Atlas in the Province of Ouarzazate. The Ksar of Aït-Ben-Haddou is a striking example of southern Moroccan architecture. The ksar is a mainly collective grouping of dwellings. Inside the defensive walls which are reinforced by angle towers and pierced with a baffle gate, houses crowd together - some modest, others resembling small urban castles with their high angle towers and upper sections decorated with motifs in clay brick. It is now a UNESCO heritage site but has previously been used for many famous films... Gladiators, Lawrence of Arabia, Star Wars, Prince of Persia, Jewel of the Nile,Sahara to name a few. After spending time there we continued driving arriving at a very cold Hotel in a valley in heavy rain in the dark, we stayed up talking with some of the others especially the three Chinese around a log fire trying to keep warm till after 11pm.

Up very early the next day and after breakfast we set off again next stopping at the Todra Gorge which we walked through then following the river past community gardens and Berber women doing there washing in the water and watched the villagers dying and making their famous carpets. We then continued on heading for Merzouga  where we were met by the guides and our camels for a 2 hour trek to our tents to sleep overnight in the desert, we rode on the camels in the dark across the sand dunes in a very strong wind and the temp was -4 degrees but the sky was spectacular, Jun and I were prepared for the cold and  well wrapped up unfortunately some of the others were not. The tents were a whole lot better than we expected decked out in carpets and with a good bed but we had to keep all our clothes on it was so cold, we all had dinner together after which the guides sang and played instruments around a campfire. We set off back at 6:30 am in a cloudy but warmer day stopping off to see the sunrise then back to Merzouga for breakfast leaving at 9:30 for the long drive back to Marrakech coming over the Atlas Mountains we drove in to a snowstorm/blizzard which was a bit scary considering all the steep drops and passed a lorry which had hit a car which caused a delay. We arrived back in Marrakech at 8:30pm and made our way to another Riad we had booked near the square.

On our last full day we went through the souks and after lunch Jun went off shopping and I set off to do some street photography and as I walked down this wide street full of people I was behind a group of tourists who suddenly moved to the left and right and in the gap in front of me stood the dwarf from the first night holding his hand out, what a surreal moment that was.

The next day was our last and it was a lovely sunny day we left for the airport late afternoon arriving back in Manchester that night in heavy rain, we stayed at a local airport hotel and the next day drove to Salford to see the L.S Lowry gallery  which was very good, then drove up to Lancaster to visit the Castle and ex prison that was very interesting and we learnt a lot about the history of the courts and  its infamous past. We then set off for home arriving back in Gainford late that night and very tired.

Well we finally got back from our " Grand tour of Spain" and after a couple of days to recover we set off in our little campervan "Connie" to try out for the first time sleeping overnight in her. We booked a campsite on a farm just outside the seaside town of Seahouses in Northumberland, we spent the full day to get there as we kept stopping off at local tourist places e.g. Whitley Bay, St Marys Lighthouse, Blyth, Amble, Alnmouth, Alnwick where we visited the largest second hand bookshop in the UK inside the old railway station. Finally having a walk along the beach facing Dunstanburgh Castle before heading to the campsite, which was very nicely situated and had electric hook up, very clean toilets and showers and a large barn with sinks for washing dishes complete with washing machines. After tea which Jun and I cooked together in Connie we drove in to Seahouses to check the times of boat trips out to the Farne Islands.

The following morning we were up early and after breakfast went in to Seahouses and parked Connie for the day on the pier and took a boat trip out to the Farne Islands. it was amazing, a really great day we first sailed around all of the Islands getting up close to the seals lots of photo opportunities then sailed up to Longstone Lighthouse which is where Grace Darling when she was just 22 years of age and her father in a rowing boat set off from in a gale to rescue nine people from the ship Forfarshire which had ran aground on Harcar rock in September 1838. We  then landed on Staple Island and everyone on board ensured they had hats or other kinds of protective cover as you are bombarded by Terns as you walk through their nesting areas with lots of chicks and some nests still with eggs in them. we got some good photos of each other being attacked and I also got one of a very serious photographer stood with a huge camera on a tripod looking through the lens with a Tern stood on his head. There were huge colonies of Puffins as well which was great as they are one of Junes favourite birds, eventually we had to head back to the boat for the trip back to Seahouses. We then set off for the drive back home by a different route basically just exploring and even get lost once or twice.

Then it was time for June to return to China with me staying on in the UK for various health appointments and also with Dad not being very well.

I continued to do some work for the Teesdale Landscape Partnership with my friend Dave which was looking at Tithe fields from the 17th/18th century around the Barningham area from old maps  and photographing them as they are now especially looking for any that still had cowsheds etc still in them. Dave,June and I have also took on an allotment in Gainford which needs an enormous amount of work but are very excited to be making a start this year. We have also during this time ( Dave and I) been to see an amazing interactive play in the Gala theatre Durham titled "1916 The Somme" this really was a very moving story based on a group of friends who joined up together from local mining villages and what happened to them. We also spent a day at the Yorkshire Air Museum before Jun went back and that was a very interesting and rewarding visit as well as getting some great photographs, our final visit to date was to the Tees cottage Victorian water pumping station in Darlington a fully restored working station the size of it and the machinery as well as the Victorian architecture was incredible.

Sadly during this time my Father passed away aged 95 my two sisters and I arranged the funeral and had at my dads request the Glen Miller song "In the mood" played as well as "I did it my way" from his favourite singer Frank Sinatra. It was a very moving service as the local Royal Artillery Association also attended with their Standard Bearers and lowered the flags as the Last Post was played over Dads coffin with his beret,medals and bugle on top. We all went back to the Nursing Home after the service and they had decorated a lounge out with photographs of dad as well as Army and Railway memorabilia.

The next day I drove back to Hartlepool to collect Dads ashes from the Funeral home as the three of us were going to scatter them at the cemetery near to where we scattered Mams ashes then up to Greatham village signal box where Dad had spent many years working there to scatter the rest. When I arrived at the Funeral home I had to wait as Dads ashes had not arrived and while sitting there another man came in to collect his Dads ashes and he was very apologetic for not coming sooner ( as in a couple of days ago) and was telling the lady in there the reasons i.e. his car had broken down, other things to take care of etc. etc. and the lady said as she was handing him his Dads ashes in the Urn " Don't worry it's fine, he has been no bother" at which we all burst out laughing. Eventually I got Dads Urn and my sisters and I after scattering some of his ashes at the cemetery went up to the signal box I was a bit concerned as to how we would do it as they are very strict about being on Railway property, so I decided the best thing was to just go up to the signalman and ask him I explained to him that our Father had worked in this signal box and many others but this was his favourite. he asked me his name and when I told him he said I knew your father very well I was his book boy when I started on the railway so he was very happy to let me do it as we were to scatter his ashes at a place he loved.

We left China at the end of May and flew back to the UK where we stayed for just 6 days before flying out to Murcia in Spain for my nephews wedding followed by a 2 week drive around Spain. We flew from Leeds/Bradford airport so drove down there and our first problem was when Jun realized she had left her camera, IPad and make up bag at home. The second was when we arrived at Murcia and after standing in a queue for 55minutes to pick up our paid for hire car they wouldn't let us have it as we didn't have the right credit card to leave a deposit even though it was the one I had booked the car with ( never book a car through Rentalcars.com). There were no buses and taxis wanted over 60 euros to take us to our first place at the marina in La Manga where we were staying on a yacht. Eventually managed to hire a car from another rental company but had to pay a lot more and we arrived at the marina at 10pm to meet the owner who had been waiting nearly 3 hours to show us around.

The next morning we had to find my sisters and families who were staying at a villa outside of La Manga to find out all the details of the wedding as it was being held on the beach, we all had to dress in white or beige and the reception was at the sunset club on the beach but the evening one was in the gardens of the La Manga club next to the golf club. we decided the best thing was to drive over to their villa the next morning leave the car there and go on the coaches provided. We then left them and spent the day driving around La Manga which is a very long strip of land jutting out in to the mediterean looking at old windmills and lighthouses  and calling in to a shop to buy an additional adapter to find it was owned and run by a Chinese couple so had a good conversation with them and they invited us to visit them. 

We both liked our time on the yacht it was comfortable and had everything we needed and it was nice to sit on the deck on an evening and watch the sun go down, the next day we were up early and set off for the wedding and it was a fabulous day the beach wedding was lovely and there was free drinks and buffet at the sunset beach club both Andrew my nephew and his best man Taffy gave brilliant speeches. After 3 hours we all got on the buses to go to the evening reception and again it was fantastic there was all kinds of games for everyone to play, there was a singer and some of the guests also got up and sang including Dave my brother in law playing a guitar. Andrew and Lauren also did an amazing gymnastic dance together, we left after 9pm as we had to drive back and be up early the next morning to go back to the La Manga club for brunch and then set off for our second destination of Granada about 320km away as we were due to meet our next host at 6pm in the centre by the Cathedral, but as we were advised not to use our car in the old quarter we left it close to the main bus station and took the bus in arriving at 2 minutes to 6 and met Mel who took us to the apartment which was on the ground floor of a very old Moorish house beautifully furnished and colours with a great roof top garden right in the old quarters and a 30 minute walk to the Alhambra. Mel asked us if we already had tickets as they sell out 2 months in advance which of course we hadn't he advised getting up there at 7am as they always kept 200 tickets back we arrived there at 7am and there was already 20 in front of us, we had to wait till 8:30 till they opened but what a fabulous place once we got in there was so much to see from Forts,Palaces,Bathhouses,Gardens and amazing water features. The Nasrid Palace was magnificent it is so popular you get the time printed on your ticket for admission,  the only thing that spoiled the day was seeing an unfortunate man taking a selfie of himself and he stepped back to far and fell in to one of the ornamental pools I felt so sorry for him.

The next day we spent walking around Granada a man approached me and asked if I spoke English I said yes then he asked if I could give him some money as he was unemployed, I said " and I'm a pensioner" he looked at me and laughed and said "Oh OK". Later we took a bus up to St Nicholas as it's one of the best viewpoints of the Alhambra at sunset in the square there were people playing instruments and singing and some local girls started dancing it was a great atmosphere, we then walked all the way back. The next day we visited a Jewish house that is now a museum that tells the life of the Serephin Jews of Spain, then we walked up to the old Arabic area and visited the house where St John of  God lived and died, an amazing place really deceiving from the outside it looked fairly small but it was huge inside it was all Moorish architecture. In the evening we walked up to the Albayzin Quarter with old whitewashed houses and tiny cobbled streets and visited a church and a mosque.

The next day we set off in the morning to drive to Cordoba a very lovely drive over the mountains which took 3 hours stopping off at a village to eat and Jun buying a huge amount of fruit from a roadside market for less than £5. We arrived in Cordoba and used the sat-nav to find the place and it took us through streets that got narrower and narrower eventually the wing mirrors were nearly touching the walls then we couldn't go any further and I had to reverse out ( that was fun). after finding the place we went out and visited the famous Mezquita Mosque which is now a Catholic Cathedral an amazing place, after we visited the old Jewish Quarter then just wandered around letting ourselves get lost in the old alleyways for the rest of the day and again the following morning before setting off to drive to Seville.

It was a difficult job finding the place we were staying at in Seville lots of one way streets eventually found it using the sat-nav, we got settled in then went walking for 3 hours in temperatures of 37, but what an amazing city there was so much to see beautiful architecture and the Plaza of Espana was really something. On the night we visited a club Jun had been to before where there was Flamenco dancing on. The next morning we walked to the Cathedral and then visited the Alcazal Royal Palace a very beautiful place, after which we visited the bullring but didn't go in and then the Naval museum  then we bought tickets to see professional Flamenco dancers do a show in a 15th century house, we were both very impressed with the show I have never seen anyone move their feet so fast. On the last day in Seville I spent the morning wandering around taking photographs while Jun did some shopping, then we set off to drive in to the countryside to stay at a Moorish town called Olvera a stunning town clinging to the sides of hills with whitewashed houses and a church and fort at the very top, the street were very narrow and they had introduced a complicated one way system that had us baffled for the first day. We took a walk around to find shops after we had settled in to a lovely little house and unbelievably we found another shop run by Chinese who were very surprised when we started to greet them in Chinese. later we walked up the very steep streets to the church to watch a stunning sunset. The next day we drove to the start of the Via Verdo nature trail 11km of gravel paths that used to be a railway line to see the largest group of Griffon vultures in Spain that was a sight then we walked back and it was very hot.

 The next day we drove to the famous town of Ronda very old and lots of historical things to see especially the bridges over the ravines with the highest the Puerte Nuevo being infamous during the civil war for prisoners being thrown off, we then drove out and went to the bottom of the ravine and had a lovely picnic. On our last full day at Olvera we drove to the very beautiful town of Zahara what a spectacular place perched high up a hillside with fantastic views overlooking a lake then we drove further in to the mountains to find a famous gorge waterfall, we set off walking but it was just too hot over 38 so we went back and we found a dead goat which I moved  to an open area hoping the vultures would come down but no luck.

We left Olvera the next morning for a 2 hour drive to Guadix were we were staying in a cave house we had arranged to meet the owner a German lady at the train station at 6pm so we spent the afternoon visiting an area of cave dwellings and they were superb to see with one lady inviting us in to look around her home. We met Tesjar and followed her to her home and she showed us around the cave house then we went for a long hike over the top of the houses taking her dog with us as she had to go back to work. It was very different staying in a cave house and we both did not sleep to well but it certainly was an experience. The next day we set off for the coast but firstly visited a 5000 year old site on the cliff tops overlooking a huge ravine and on the opposite side you could see cave houses in the sides of the cliff. It was a long drive to the coast over 3 hours to the town of Carthanage a very old seaport we walked along the seafront and then after eating we took a boat ride around the harbour lots of cargo ships in, but also it's a Spanish Navy port so lots of warships and even a submarine in the dry dock. After this we set off to drive back to Murcia airport for our flight back to the UK arriving home at midnight.      

I arrived back in China OK on the 28th of March it took 23 hours from door to door which even after all these times i find amazing, but I still cannot sleep on an aeroplane so had some catching up to do.

Jun hadn't been well before I arrived she had been down with a touch of food poisoning but is now fine and we spent the first weekend together cycling along the Grand canal on a beautiful sunny day. And the  Monday she was also off work as it was Memory Day when the Chinese remember their ancestors and tend to the graves.

We had a bad thing happen to us at the end of the first week when our PC was invaded by a really nasty virus we have no idea how it got in, but once in it encrypts all your files etc and you cant see them,open them, delete them, nothing. You then receive a message telling you what they have done and how the only way to decrypt it and get all your files back is by paying them $500 within 24 hours which then goes up to $1,000 and this is done by buying bitcoin and if you don't pay within 96 hours that's the end of it . The virus is called Cryptowall and the FBI think it originated in Russia,they are offering a huge reward to track them down and estimate in the last 2 years they have made $325,000,000. To make matters worse both Jun and I had our portable hard drives connected and they too were wiped out I lost 90% of all my photographs, a very black day for us both. We took our PC to a local shop on Saturday ran by a really nice young couple and they removed all the programmes from it and then installed new programmes  so we are literally starting from scratch again. 

 I did manage to re-download all my images back from my Zenfolio web site on to a new portable hard drive and i still have quite a few image files on my PC back in the UK, but have still lost quite a lot, never mind though it's not such a big thing. Spring is here and its lovely to see all the cherry blossom the gardeners in our complex are doing a wonderful job and they have refilled the water feature that runs all around the gardens. I have been going out most days on my bike when Jun is at work cycling along the moon river or grand canal as the weather has been quite nice, although some days are still a little is cold. I saw a couple sitting outside a shop the other recently and they had a pet monkey so i stopped to look and it jumped on to my bike and when she tried to get it off it jumped on me and clung to my chest like it didn't want to go, it was quite moving ha-ha. 

The other Saturday Jun and I went in to the city to visit an art gallery it was all Chinese artists apart from one exhibition of the work of the American photographer Paul Caponigro.

We have also been busy sorting out the places to visit and stay at when we go to Spain as well as getting the visa for Jun. At the moment we are going to La Manga for the wedding then on to Granada,Cordoba,Seville,Ronda with a couple of days in a village in the Sierra Nevada so a lot of driving but really looking forward to it Jun took a day off work and we went to the Spanish Consul ( 1.45 hours to get there by metro and bus) to apply for her visa which all went ok and she got it back in just over a a week. After that we had lunch in a lovely little cafe that is famous for its dumplings and because we were so close to the 798 art area we got a taxi there. The taxi driver was a Buddhist and all of the inside of his cab had Buddhist scriptures and pictures as well as playing Buddhist chants so we had a good talk and he told us that as part of his practice he advertises that any person 70 years or over who is on their own can have a free ride from him in Beijing, isn't that lovely.

We went on a trip to Datong recently. We left home at 7:30 on Friday evening to go to Beijing Western railway station and after one bus ride plus two metro trains arrived there at 9:30 ready to catch our overnight sleeper train to Datong at 11:00, Datong is in the North West in Shanxi Province. We had booked beds in second class  which consisted of carriages with bunks stacked three high with about 60 bunks to a carriage and a walkway down one side,we didn't sleep very well as the train was going through mountains and was always braking and swaying. We arrived at Datong at 5:20am and it was quite cold so we had to dig out our other clothes and put them on as well, we then found a noodle shop just opening so had breakfast there then went to the bus station for the first bus at 7:30 to the Yungang caves. We met a gentleman at the bus stop who was 70 and all he did was travel around China, and had also traveled abroad living in Australia for 6 months as well as Cuba and Italy. He was a mine of information and even other people were asking him how do you get here,how far to there,what time is the bus etc  I told him him he missed his vocation as a travel guide.

We were the first to arrive at Yungang so were at the front of the queue which also meant we kept ahead of others so i managed to get quite a few photos of the carvings without other people being in them, and the entrance was free for me because of my age ( age can have its benefits). The caves and Buddhist carvings took your breath away they were amazing, they were better than i had even imagined they were, dating from the 5th-6th century and consisting of 252 grottoes and 51,000 carvings and became a UNESCO world heritage site in 2011. We left there on the afternoon to go back to Datong to check in to the lovely hotel Jun had booked,then after a rest we set off to explore the city and its temples both Buddhist,Taoist and a Mosque,I received lots of stares and the people were extremely friendly everywhere we went. We also wanted to see if we could share the cost of the trips the next day so were looking for other groups or people we thought might be going to the other famous sites in the area. We eventually spoke with this man who said he was taking another couple in his car and we could share the costs, so we arranged for them to meet us the next morning at 8am. So after an evening meal at an extremely popular restaurant ( when we got our ticket there was 23 tickets in front of us) we went back to the hotel.

We met the driver and the other two who were a retired Chinese couple from Shanghai who were great as was the driver and we had a fabulous day out. The couple retired in 2008 and since then have spent their time traveling all over China and the world they were really enthusiastic about travel and showed us photos of safaris in Kenya, mystical sunrises in Tibet etc and in June they are off to Iceland. We discussed with the driver where we wanted to go and arranged the price as originally we were just going to go to the Hanging Temple and The Sakyamuni Pagoda of Fogong Temple which were still a fair distance away but the couple wanted to visit the Buddhist Temples in the Wu Tai mountains so we said great we would love to go there as well. We told him our train was at 11pm that night and he said he could get us back by 9pm and all this was for one hundred pounds between the four of us, so off we went. 

Our first visit after traveling up mountain roads (with unbelievable amounts of lorries going up and down making it a quite hairy ride at times) was to the Hanging Temple and that describes it very well as it seems to just hang from the cliff face 200 foot above the ground, again it was free entry for me and the Chinese couple but unfortunately we couldn't go up to it and go in as they were just taking the scaffold down after doing repairs, but it was still spectacular from the grounds below and the river and dam at one end. 

We then set off for the Wu Tai mountains and i was asking the driver about the lorries as i had never seen so many in my life and its because Shanxi is the largest coal producing area in China, although production is slowing down with China's commitment to reduce its use of fossil fuels. I then saw the longest train i have ever seen an unbelievable amount of wagons and it was on a special track specifically laid to carry coal to the Eastern seaport.

We stopped off for lunch on the way as it was a long ride and gave the locals a chance to stare and smile at me before completing the ride in to Wu Tai through amazing mountain scenery and long drops. You have to pay to enter as its all a conservation area, but locals arrange to meet people on the road and for a fee take them through in their cars as they can come and go freely i even saw people get out of a car and walk down the hillside to rejoin their car after it had gone through the entrance gates, which i have to say made checkpoint charlie pale in to insignificance, but once again it was free for me and the Chinese couple.

I have never seen so many Buddhist Temples in one place they are everywhere on the mountain sides and in the valley in fact there is a town there which has grew up around it and probably does very well with all its shops and restaurants. There are Tibetan,Zen and Pure Land Temples and its lovely to see the different orders of Monks and Nuns everywhere although around the town area it did feel a bit touristy.

We left there and set off back to Datong with our last visit to The Sakyamuni Pagoda of Fogong Temple this complete wooden tower was built with no nails in 1056 and stands 221 feet high and is the oldest full wooden pagoda in China, and has survived numerous earthquakes, unfortunately we arrived to late to be able to go in but it was still marvelous to see it.

We then continued back to Datong arriving at 8:30 and saying goodbye to our driver and other couple we walked around looking for a foot massage place but couldn't find one open although one woman we asked after telling her we were getting the train in a hour or so said did we want a room for an hour so i don't know what she thought was going on but Jun was quick to tell her we were a married couple ha-ha.

We took the returning overnight sleeper back to Beijing at 11pm the train was the Inner Mongolia to Guangzhou ( not quite express) train which was traveling 3,112 km and would take 41 hours but for us it was again only 6 hours arriving back in Beijing at 5am and having to wait for the Metro line to open to get home after which Jun had to change and go to work, so that was the end of a fantastic long tiring weekend.

Well we arrived back in Beijing in the early hours of 4th of December the plane from London to Warsaw left on time and we only had a 40 minute stopover there which was just enough time to get off go through security and board the next one which was a brand new Boeing Dreamliner. It was very comfortable with loads of leg room as i was by the exit door so could really stretch out and Jun had all 3 seats to herself so she made a bed and had a good sleep ha-ha,but it still took me about 10 days to recover from the journey and readjust to the time difference.

We had a very busy but productive time back in the UK we viewed over 30 properties and drove over 2,000 miles covering all the North and the East of England as well as South West Scotland. We looked around some beautiful homes and it was quite difficult making choices,we ended up with four favourites out of which we eventually went for the one in Gainford Village set in Teesdale in County Durham a really lovely little 100 year old house with a nice homely feel to it . Our offer was accepted so it is all in the hands of our solicitors at the moment with a completion date of April,so we will be going back in June both to furnish and decorate our new home and go to our nieces wedding in Liverpool in July.

Connie our campervan served us really well and gave us no trouble at all, we even stayed overnight in a camping site outside Glasgow on our way up to Dunoon it was very cosy.The Dunoon area was very  picturesque,with a nice ferry ride across and with stunning views across the Clyde and Holy Loch with some beautiful houses to look at, but we decided it was just to far from friends,family and our Buddhist Monastery.One amusing incident occured as we arrived at the ferry landing as i drove in there were three full lanes of parked vehicles so i just stopped behind the last vehicle in the third lane ( should have moved in to the next lane).After a little while one of the crew came up to me and said "congratulations you have single handly blocked the whole entrance into the ferry landing". When i looked behind me i had blocked the whole road in to the terminal and the traffic was backed up right back to the main road ha-ha.Another one was when we were driving through a town and Jun turned to me and said while pointing at an old victorian type house " look they have  free swimming baths there".When i looked it was a big old pub with a sign in the window saying "free pool" I had to explain what pool was and snooker/billiards,Jun had never heard of pool,we both had a great laugh about that one.

We are settled back at home now poor Jun had to return to work the following day which must have been hard for her I only started teaching again last week,and now Christmas has passed as just another day here so we have not celebrated it at all which will also be the case for New Year.Then we will be preparing to box up some of our belongings that are going to be shipped back to the UK,as well as ordering some goods to be delivered for when we get back.Jun has created a great online 3D effect plan of our house and we can decorate it and place various pieces of furniture in it to see how it looks...Amazing!

OK I will finish this short blog and wish all of you a very Peaceful Christmas and hope you all have a great New Year.             

Well we have just about finished packing for our trip back to the UK we will be leaving Beijing early Monday morning the 4th of November and flying to Warsaw then catching a connecting flight to London, We plan on staying overnight as we arrive late then travelling up by train the following day. We bought ourselves a Citroen relay campervan which we are looking forward to picking up and travelling about in, as we set of on the mammoth task of viewing 40plus properties in North and East Yorkshire,Durham,Weardale,Northumberland and South West Scotland as well of course visiting family and friends and going up to Throssel Buddhist Abbey to spend some time with the monks.

Local news here is that I have taken on a bit more work teaching two adults conversational English so still keeping busy along with the three children I still work with. The weather has changed quite dramatically these last two weeks now a lot colder and a lot more smog days, I am in the third week of a throat and chest infection so have only gone out on nicer days to the parks and taking some photographs. There was also the terrible attack last Monday when it seems three people in a car drove around the crash barriers outside the Forbidden City in Tiananmen Square drove through the crowds killing two people and injuring over forty before exploding the car killing themselves. The Chinese Authorities at first claimed it was just a car accident but later reported it as a terrorist attack, and will now I am sure tighten up even further their security measures.

Other recent news is that I was contacted by a well known Australian artist who is at present preparing for an exhibition in late 2014 of her paintings/photographs on the theme of nature/flowers in hard environments. She asked me if she could use one of my photographs as a model for one of her paintings which of course I was very happy to agree to. She will credit me with the photograph in the exhibition and catalogue as well as sending me a copy of the painting when it is completed, her website should anyone like to look at is www.rospaton.com

OK I will finish this very short blog off here and write again upon our return.

I have just been offered more work from another private education center here in the BDA area but I told them I will think about it and get back to them during the Summer holidays as I have just took on two new children teaching from home, I could work full time easily if I wanted to here, but as you know I am only interested in doing part time work. Although I have saved enough already to buy a car for when we go back to the UK, as well as buying a scooter here and camera equipment, so it has paid well and I have enjoyed doing it.

There is a 3 day holiday starts today so Jun is off although she had to work the weekend. We went to the antique centre a week gone Saturday to meet a couple from England who were in Beijing for a week I knew him from being a contact on Flickr so that was nice he had asked if we could meet up they are spending 2 weeks in China then off to Thailand,Nepal,Laos before going to Australia to work for a year. Then I invited them over to where we live so they could see a part of Beijing that isn't so busy and chaotic and they loved it, as they are thinking of coming back here to teach after Australia. I showed them around the BDA area and then we took them to the Mongolian Restaurant for a meal they are now in Xian ( where the Terracotta warriors are).
The Police Commissioner of Shanghai has just been arrested on corruption charges he was caught getting ready to flee the country apparently he had 5 passports and millions stashed away, just another one who is on the wrong team ( a supporter of Bo Xi Lei) there is so very much of this kind of thing going on here now it seems the supporters of the party that are not on top are being exposed for the same things the other party does a terrible business all round, but I try not to read or watch to much news both here and abroad. I am reminded of the piece in Hindu mythology about it all being Lila (All part of the divine play of the Cosmos).
I went back to the hospital the other week as I have had a problem with my left shoulder for over 6 months i.e. cant move it in certain positions without severe pain and aching a lot of the time went for x rays followed by a MRI scan and apparently I have a tear in my Rotary Cuff??? which requires surgery he was showing another young doctor the photos/x rays and discussing it then he asked me to lift my right arm and prodded various areas with his finger saying does this hurt ,can you feel that etc. So I said to Jun tell him its fine no problems but he might want to ask me the same questions about my left arm ha-ha anyway everyone seen the funny side of it.Then he suggested the surgery saying I will be in hospital for 2 weeks and it will take about 3 months to fully recover. I said and how much will that cost he said over 4,000 so that's completely out of the question assuming they even manage to  operate on the correct shoulder ha-ha.I think I will have to try and manage till next year and see if I can get it done while at home.
Our apartment complex looks really nice at the moment all the water is running in the streams it's full of fish, and everywhere beautiful cherry blossoms and magnolia and the weather has become warmer, I went out and took some photos the other day some of which are on Flickr and here on my website.
We are starting to book places to stay at when we travel to Indonesia in Aug/Sep so starting to look forward to that as I have never been there before the closest I ever came was sailing on a ship between the islands of Lombok and Bali, but Bali is on the travel list for 6 days.

 We are back in Beijing after 1 week in sweltering Puerto Galera the temp never dropped below 40c the whole time we were there .We left Beijing at 1am 7th May Monday arriving at Manilla at 5.30 am then got a taxi to the hotel where we were catching the bus at 8.30 to the port of Batang, the taxi driver was (while driving), trying to tie a knot with the two seperate bits of his seat belt in rush hour traffic haha.We had a 90 minute wait at the hotel so we had breakfast then I went for a walk and got lost on my way back,all the streets were so busy and looked the same and I couldn,t remember the name of the hotel,eventually I recognised a building and got back,I think senility is setting in.
The bus journey was just over 2 hours to the port of Batang to catch the ferry, the woman working on the bus was a great character full of fun and life,we had to wait about 45 minutes for the ferry which then took about 1 hour to reach the island.We stayed at the small harbour town of Sabang at the steps & gardens resort that is built into the hillside overlooking the sea and bay,and it had the right name it was a killer climbing it,and of course ours was the one right at the top, but what a view.The resort was just small chalet type buildings each with a bedroom,bathroom and balcony but the gardens were just beautiful there were flowers,bushes,trees everywhere and a large waterfall, lovely eating area and a swimming pool with jacuzzi.The staff were so friendly and polite,you could even have your breakfast delivered to your room if you wanted,nothing was to much trouble for them they constantly asked if everything was ok and could they do anything for you.
The port itself is was very colourful and quite busy,you got hassled a little bit for trips,hiring bikes,buying trinkets etc  but they are ok once you say no. I was out walking the other morning and a old guy tried to sell me some coral jewelrey but once I said no we sat down together and had a good chat,his name was Paul and he was an expert on british boxers,then I met a lady named Rita who was a right character selling braided straps, and yes I bought one, she was just so funny.A bit later I sat with three children while their mother was setting up an old dilapidated stall on the path around the cove they were just full of questions and so happy.
Jun did 6 dives but I kept telling her to be careful she was down to 30 metres she said the coral and fish were amazing she went out with a chinese diving school and one day they went out on a trip to an area nicknamed the "washing machine" so she didn,t go to that one (hardly suprising with a name like that), one of the young boys was caught in the current and the instructors had to go after him.We saw him later and he looked a bit subdued and shaky.
We hired a scooter one day and went for a good ride the roads are pretty poor full of potholes and wide cracks but they are renewing them.We visited a lovely waterfall then went searching for one of the local hilltribe  villages which we found by parking the scooter at the side of the road then climbing up a really steep set of stairs and coming out at the top amongst about 6 village huts and one small school,we walked about saying hello the children were very shy but allowed me to take their photos as well as one young woman who had a lovely smile,all this whilst living in absolute poverty.We then rode around the coast stopping off at little beaches and coves one of them was so beautiful like paradise, palm trees and coconuts everywhere,and a life size statue of the virgin mary on a rock looking out to sea, we sat in little covered beach huts with just about 4/5 other filipino families sharing the whole beach,then after 30 minutes or so a family arrived carrying a huge TV a huge boxamplifier and small generator and I started laughing and they said to me "this is the filipino style" haha.
There were lots of nice places to eat with really nice food and quite a lot of bars which were full of  half naked dancing girls (apparently), we were talking to a english guy who works in one of them and has lived here for 18 months he said he has the best job in the world and will never go back to England haha.
One day we were sat at the diving school and the filipino place next door was having a party for the 80 year old grandmother and they invited us in to meet everyone and have something to eat,they are really happy people and so welcoming.

We just got back end of last week from a trip to the coast to a place called Beidaihe had a nice time but it was a really long drive over 3 hours each way and "wacky races" all the way haha.There was 11 of us in 3 cars me and Jun in ours with nyarene a woman who is  87 years old from New Zealand and still travelling the world on her own she is a real character full of great stories.She lived in china from 1947 till 1951 leaving when the communists took over, she started a school with our friend Lung,s grandfather, she has also asked us to go out  to visit her and stay at her home Lung and his wife have been and said it,s amazing a huge house overlooking the sea on the outskirts of Auckland apparently she is very wealthy and still drives her own car ( lexus),so who knows we might get a cheap holiday haha.
It was nice to walk down to the beach and see the sea again, I spotted a woman stood in the water staring out to sea in a wedding dress i took some photos of her, then she walked back to a 4x4 so we went up to her and showed her the photos her husband was at the back of the motor with a makeshift darkroom set up and we got talking he is a professional photographer for one of chinas main newspapers and has had exhibitions both in China and Paris.He is currently doing a project using old fashioned glass plate photos and showed me some that he had just taken of his wife (thats why she was in a wedding dress in the sea) they were amazing and sell for upto 1,000 pounds each.Anyway we have swapped numbers as they live in Beijing and they suggested we meet up some time.There website is www.dijinjun.com if you would like to see some of his work. 
On the night we went to a really famous restaraunt (famous that is for its sea food) so it made no difference to me,the next morning we drove about 35 km up the coast to where the great wall starts, you might remember it from Karl Pilkingtons "An idiot abroad" the wall just goes out about 20 meters into the sea and Karl said "what use is that the invaders will just roll up their trousers and wade around it" or words to that effect haha. The car in the front had sat nav and on the way it took us right through the city centre and all the old areas of Qinhuaningdao it was a nightmare driving Lung said that was the roads from when he went there as a kid on holiday I said I think it,s the same roads Marco Polo used as well haha.It was very busy there with it being the holidays but it was worth going, they were charging 10 pound to go in and including a short boat trip but we said no and just visited the wall for 5 pound. Even the road from Beijing to Beidaihe was a toll road and cost us 12 pound each way a lot of money to pay to play russian roulette haha  ( we will go by train next time).We checked the news on Saturday for Friday the last day of the holidays and in one day  in this province alone 57 people died on the roads. And the following day a coach taking 55 students back to Uni in the next city to Beijing crashed,apparently the driver was having some kind of "duel" with a car driver when he lost control of the bus and it went over on its right side onto the steel crash barrier and skidded along for 200 meteres with the barrier cutting through it like a knife 35 of the students died.We saw some photos taken of the bus on a blog site as well as one photo of dead students scattered all over the road,It was really awful I just don,t understand why the Gov,t doesn,t do anything to change peoples driving habits eg stiffer penalties, driving bans.
 

The weather is now in the middle 30's each day so we have not been going out to much at the weekend, sitting at home with the air con on just going out in the evening and on top of that I have caught a cold (in this weather). The mosquitos made a meal of me the other night so we have put the net up now around the bed it looks like one of them old fashioned four posters.I was woken up at about 2am today and for a moment I thought I was back at sea in the navy, the wind was howling through the open windows,curtains flapping wildly ornaments falling , heavy rain, thunder like the blitz and the apartment nearly lit up constantly by the lightning.It was like something out of an apocalyptic vision It was some thunderstorm, then at 7am when we got up it was back to blistering sunshine like it had never happened.Oh another thing we have every night is the frogs croaking and I mean really croaking they sound like them old football wooden rattles that the fans used to spin around haha.
I have had to turn work down recently they were offering me to much,I finished the editing of the manga book last week and that has gone to the printers and the english teaching is now 1 boy 2 hours a week one to one, also 1 girl the same then a class of 6 for 1.5 hours a week I am starting another young boy on 1 hour a day for 2 weeks before he sits an exam.I told the school I would see what I wanted to do when I get back at end of July,but i think i will be happy just doing some more one to ones . It was nice to be told by the school that the parents had told them that their children really liked my lessons (Or is that  just the school trying to get me to do more haha).
The head office of the Beijing customs is a huge new building in the city centre it has it's own hotel,restaraunt,bar I have been to visit it with Jun a couple of times and the last time Jun took me to see it's own state of the art olympic swimming pool and gym and told me how they got it.Apparently the head of the customs wanted to have it installed when the building was at the planning stage but feared there might be a backlash when people found out how the tax payers money was being spent so it was approved under the heading of fire prevention as a self sufficient fire system and back up.It must be the worlds biggest fire extinguisher haha.
We went for a meal last week with some of Juns friends from work and one of them called Lung works in the police department of the customs and we were talking about crime here compared to the west and how I felt there was a lot less in china and it seems a lot safer.He then told me that in 2008 when the olympics where here he and others where following a gang of drug dealers undercover (mainly nigerians),who when they realized they were being followed opened fire on them and he and the others returned fire he dishcharged his gun 4 times at them but was really happy he didn,t hit anyone and that was the first time it had got that serious for him and made him realize how things were changing here.