Channel Islands: Isle of Wight

Of all the islands we visited, the Isle of Wight is closest to the UK; the ferry ride was only a couple of hours from mainland (opposed to like six or seven). It was also full of surprises.

Like this! I fully found Sooty!

By surprises I mean some things we did we thought would be AWESOME, but were actually somewhat disappointing, whereas other things we stumbled across blew our minds.

I am sure that everyone would agree that a triceratops is an example of awesome.

Our first surprise was our hotel. While the name was not imprinted on my brain, its decor will forever be burned into my memory. It was nautically themed and full of old people. Best of all were that areas of the hotel were named after areas of a ship. We got to stay on poop deck; Baiky and I were very excited about this.

Let immaturity reign supreme.

An example of a disappointment was our visit to an area that I thought was famous for dinosaur fossils (Isle of Wight is well known for its prehistoric remains). However, all we found was a dinosaured themed adventure park, and while I sometimes act a little childish (see above), there are limits.

Gemma on the cliffs.

So Gemma and I walked along some nearby cliffs, which brought us to out next surprise -  a rocket!!!

Yup, an ancient rocket ship.

As one is want to do on the Isle of Wight, we visted the Needles; chalk stacks rising out of the sea near the west coast. Let me tell you, this area had been done up bythe local government for the tourists, and boy, did they turn something good into something I immensely disliked!

The needles!

It was expensive to enter, there were gaudy rides, and it was impossible to get a good look at the stacks. The stacks been the entire reason we were there.

Found some chalk though.

 It wasn't all bad though. The needles does have a few other points of interest I was unaware of. A monument commemorates the first place wireless signals were sent across open sea, there was really cool glass blowing demonstration, and it was also a site for testing rockets. This area was used extensively in the 50s and 70s to test rocket technology.

Did not realise glass blowing actually meant blowing glass.

We also found two fascinating villages, one an old timey crafts village, which was okay, and one village for birds and monkeys; this was awesome.

Baiky relaxes with a Cider from Isle of Wight, in a stone bottle (perfect for keeping my brews) and stone goblet (I've always wanted one of these).

Channel Islands: Jersey

Jersey!!! (I climbed that).

Jersery is the largest of the Channel Islands, measuring in at a whooping 119.5 km² (thanks wikipedia!). Fun fact, when I first heard the names Guersey and Jersey for the Channel Island I thought to myself 'he, I never knew if I should call a sporting top a Guernsey or a Jersey'. This is because I constantly heard both being used as I was growing up to describe sporting tops but never knew which was correct. 

Gemma got bored during my hunt for the origin of the Jersey and Guernsey, so she went and got an icecream for breakfast. Crazy Brits.

Now, 10 to 15 years on, curiously, I come across two islands right next to each other that share the same name. Coincidence? Surely not. In the 15th century (or so) these two islands were famous for their woolen knitted sweaters. Jersey made jerseys and Guernsey made Guernsey. Was there any discernible difference between the two back then? Probably not, but I am sure many a bar fight was started by it. Of course, this has nothing to do with sporting terms, except I now know that a 'guernsey' is worn in Aussie Rules and a jersey in pretty much every other sport. Anyway, I digress...

Gemma at Elizabeth Castle

Jersey gave us bright sunshine, so we made the most of it by checking out the beaches and climbing on the rocks. We waited for the tide to change and, forgoing the amphibious bus/boat monstrosity,  walked along the causeway to Elizabeth Castle. 

 This may drive on land and float in the sea, but I did not trust it at all.

I got us lost as we went searching for the Jersey War tunnels. I did find out that apparently some of the Jersey locals are incredibly worried about burglars. The War tunnels were good, and described life on the island during WWII, including during the German occupation.

Its hard to see, but this fence is topped with broken glass. It was a nice house...

We spent one day driving around the island. We visited a few piers, like St Catherine's Breakwater, sort out some amazing coastal views by walking along the paths around High Cliff. I went for a brief run to the highest point on the island and came face-to-face with a radar dish. 

View from Les Platons, the highest point in Jersey.

Gemma and I also tried to find Leicester tower by had no success. Our final destination was the Devil's Hole.

The Devil's Hole.

This is a natural blowhole in a cliff. Supposedly, it got its name supposedly from a shipwreck in the area. The figure head washed up into the crater and a local sculptor worked the figurehead into a statue of the devil, a replica of which has been erected by the Hole.

 The Devil (looks lonely)

On our final evening we ended at a pub that gave a sense of deja vu for some reason.

Channel Islands: Sark

Ahh Sark. It was everything I expected it to be. This, of course, is not particularly difficult when I was looking somewhere nice and romantic for Easter and Sark is a dark community. Yup, no cars, no outdoor lights, limited indoor lighting (that can be seen outdoors), and on Easter Sunday no friggin restaurants or pubs.

Admittedly there was other stuff to do.

At least that we planned for. Gemma and I had squirreled away some grog and tasty snacks. She bought some cider from Guernsey and I had topped up my trusty hip flask. So, fully prepared for a night under the stars we pitched out tent as close to the cliff as we dared and waited for the sun to set.

We had a long time to wait...

I was actually quite excited about this. UK does no have a whole lot of sky that is not inundated with light pollution at night due to the extremely high population density and often it is clouded over any way. I thought Gemma would be able to see something she had not seen before, especially as we had hit a spot of luck in that there was not a cloud in sight, She could witness a night sky lit by nothing but the trillions of stars and the full moon...

Whiskey and cider!

...Yeah, whoops. I forgot that the moon would drown out aaaaaaaaaaaaaall the stars. But, thats okay, as I continued to swoon her be flourshing the giant easter egg I had smuggled to the Island without her knowledge aaaaaand by bringing out our slippers which I had also smuggled over without her knowledge.

This is still our favourite photo.

Beaut. I. Ful Give that man a New. Actually, no, give him a good beer.

Beer was hard to find, so I had to find another vista.

Now, Sark is not all darkness and horse drawn carriages. There is also ample opportunity for cliff jumping if you were so inclined (we are not).

Horse drawn carriages leave horse drawn mess. I am very disappointed that the owner didn't pick up the poo with a horsey bag and throw it in the red dog poo bin in the background like the sign requests.

We followed a narrow isthmus to little Sark, a peninsula, on the south of the island. Here we actually found a tea house that was open for lunch on Easter Sunday. One of the ladies on the table behind seemed like she was being a little demanding (read: bossy to the point of being abusive) of the staff. It took us a while to realise she was the owner and just having fun hosting most of the inhabitants of the island.

Waving from the isthmus (i just...just love that word. I need to find more ways to drop casually into conversation).

We also managed to find our way to the awesomely named Venus Pools and the Window in the Rock. The latter has become less exciting to me since I found out it was man-made and not natural. 

Gemma sneaks through the hole in the wall.

Once the sun rose on Easter Monday we packed our bags and trudged back to the ferry, gearing up for the next destination on our Island adventure.

Heading to...(be continued)

Channel Islands: Guernsey

Gemma and I decided to make the most of the Easter break by taking a few days off after Easter, thus turning a five day break into a 10 day holiday. We used this massive time away to the utmost by visiting some of the Channel Islands - a bunch of islands in he English channel between UK and France. Now event though these islands have a different currency, don't pay British tax (or something like that), and are much closer to France then England, they are still part of the UK and a very popular tourist destination.

Some countries scare off toursits with complex visa applications, the Channel islands use the less conventional , yet just as effective, method of pill boxes. You can just see Baiky keeping an eye out for intruders.

Their popularity stems from two main reasons - they are waaaay down south, and so have the best weather of any UK territory and they are the only English territories (I think territory is the wrong word here) to be occupied by the Nazis (at least I am unaware of any others; feel free to educate me in the comments section and I will dutifully ignore said comment).

 We found this sign on one of our walks; about 60 years to late I reckon.

 We started off by spending a couple of days in Guernsey. We were greeted by a lazy rain. I call it lazy because it could not be bothered to go around us, and instead soaked us right through to our bones.

 Best. Weather. Ever. Also, funny story, it turns out the Gemma's jacket is NOT waterproof. Ahahahahahaha. I think I found that tidbit of information funnier than she did.

This was an issue because we arrived at 6am (via ferry, AND we bought Gemma's car!!!) and we did not have access to our hotel room for about 4 hours. So after going for a walk and visiting the lighthouse at St Martin's Point and Petit Bot Bay we were thoroughly drenched.

St Martin's Point.

Luckily the weather in our trip only improved from there, enabling us to visit all the sites Guernsey had to offer intrepid adventurers with only a couple of days to spare. We wandered around the tiniest church imaginable. 

Don't be fooled by this picture, I am showing you the angle that makes it look big (and, yes you can go inside)!

This, not surprisingly given my description, did not really take all that long.

This angle makes it look slimmer (I promised the church wouldn't show the 'fat' photo)

We visited the German Occupation Museum, which detailed the occupation by the Germans. Most interesting here (besides the tanks of course) was the tale of the poor administrator in charge at the time, whose name escapes me and google failed me. He had to represent the citizens of Guernsey while still maintaining the outrageous German rules imposed on his citizens.

Gemma and I also met up with Gemma's friend Paul, a local denizen. He showed us the trick of getting across to Lihou Island.

Here I am trying to get to Lihou island.

It turns out the the tides in Guernsey (and the rest of the channel islands) display one of the largest tidal ranges in the world, allowing the brave to safely wander across to the nearby island if you time it right. Just, you know, make sure you get back again in time too.

Paul parts the waters for us!

 More importantly, past or the cars lined up for an annual drag race. I have never seen so many elite cars at one time. 

This was followed up a few days later by a 'Hill Climb'. Pictured here are some F3s, but there were also a whole bunch of sports cars worth more than I'll ever see in a lifetime.

Fortunately, we also found time to take a leisurely drive around the coast of the island, stop off at Castle Cornet (for some history) and I even managed to sneak in a little run. I also probably could not finish this post without describing the difficulty in finding a beer on Good Friday before 7pm (and the strange looks we got when we asked for one).

Found one!

Operation Snooker Awesome

Here it finally is! The post you've all been waiting for (or is it being? this is harder to figure out than 'then' or 'than'). I am you all remember the allusion I made renovating my snooker table at Christmas.

The table I bought for about £100 is a slate bed, 7 foot snooker table. The problem was the rubbers were old, the pockets were cut poorly, the cloth was old, and the woodwork looked a little tatty. So Gemma and I rolled up our sleeves and got dirty.

My table before I inexplicably decided to take it apart.

First we painted the entire thing white. It took a few coats but we got there in the end. At first, to protect the cloth (I wasn't sure if I was going to change the cloth at this time) we covered the cloth on the rails with blue tape. 

Christmas time!

It looked so good we decided the blue stripe was a keeper!

Gemma paints a Teal stripe on my rail. Note the big-arse, oak snooker legs on the left of the photo. They came from a full-size table and will make more sense later...

Next we had to fix the rails. I took one apart and Gemma and I spent a few hours debating if we should remake these ourselves. With the correct tools it wouldn't have been too hard, but unfortunately we lacked a band saw and without a mould the shape the rubbers I decided it would be better just to get these done by professionals.

 

Prepping the slate for the cloth.

Following this we stripped back the cloth, wiped down the slate, and recovered with tournament grade cloth in a lovely deep purple. I have never recovered a table before, but  had seen it done a couple of times. It wasn't too difficult, but would have been easier with a better staple gun. 

Cutting the cloth to size (for the table and for the rails).

While I understand nap, at first I wasn't aware that the cloth can be put on upside down as well as back-to-front and nearly put it on wrong. Luckily I figured that out before it was too late, I also think I could have stretched the cloth a bit tighter as it seems slower than I would like it was tough to pull it neatly over the final side pocket.

 
Stapling the cloth to the table.

After that we had to cover the rubbers. This was the most fun. Luckily the store that redid my rails numbered each one and provided arrows to ensure I put the cloth on the right way, and then I spent ages watching a youtube video by billiards.com.au to learn how it was done (repeat x6).

 Banging in the retaining slips on the cushions.

The final touches were drawing on the table markings and leveling the table. More time spent on the net learning the ratios of table length to dots, lines, and Ds followed by using coasters and a spirit level to set the table.

I used the string to make sure my line markings were perfectly centered. Gemma judged me. She judged me poorly.

I couldn't get it quite as level as I would have liked, it seemed to be bowing in the middle. So I jumped on Gumtree and found a bloke selling snooker table legs for 10 quid a pop and viola, my new and improved table!

Aaaaaaaaand done!

Cambridge University Footy Presentation Dinner

In the middle of April Gemma and I headed back to Cambridge for the Cambridge University Aussie Rules Presentation Dinner. It was a black tie affair, which I was woefully under prepared for. I did my best to obtain the correct attire for the evening, but alas came up wanting. So I wore a ...black tie.

This is a good photo of Gemma and I. The photos taken later on progressively show my inability to stand with her support.

The dinner was held at Downing College with a champagne reception, free flowing wine, and an awesome two course meal. Not surprisingly a large part of the night was presentations. Speeches were made, medals were presented, and the msot skilled and best-looking of the players won individual prizes. 

The dinner

Now, I am not going to lie, I was a little tipsy by the time the presentation part of the evening rolled around so I am a bit unsure of all the individual winners. Sandy won the MVP, Phil (the other Phil) won something, and I got the Golden Trowel!

Using the Golden Trowel to eat dessert.

There was a whole big story to the Golden Trowel. It was used to dig the holes in the footy ground to put up the goal posts and they stumbled across a skeleton (or something like that). The trowel is now given out to best newcomer each season. Donal proudly told Gemma and I that he had won it the previous year, snatched the trowel to show us where his name was engraved, and then sheepishly remembered he had gotten outrageously drunk at the presentation dinner and lost the original Golden Trowel. Mine was the replacement.

The team.

Finally, after copious amounts of wine and a plethora of team photos we hit the town. I don't remember much from this except been a demon on the dance floor. Most importantly the Golden Trowel survived the trip to the club.

 Donal, Aoife, Phil (the other Phil), and me. Proud to say I am yet to lose the Trowel.