We were in London in Summer, it was a fine afternoon, going into the evening and we decided to get on the London Eye. As you can see from the clock it was near 7:00 pm.
This photo was taken as we were coming down.
Those long evenings were quite remarkable, not in the least going to a pub and sinking a few pints! There was one such pub not far from Charing Cross Station
The pub was called ‘The Princess of Wales’
And still be light enough to find your way home.
I’m always rummaging through the endless photographs that, if you were to ask me, I would vehemently deny I took.
It’s like the camera on my phone takes them itself, you know, the latest upgrade they didn’t tell you about, the artificial intelligence.
OK, so it’s simply a ferry crossing a wide stretch of water. You ask, why didn’t they build a bridge? A good question, and not one I can answer.
But, what does the thought of a ferry conjure up?
It brought to mind the film Jaws, and the summer visitors to the island, or should I say, shark hunting ground.
Here?
Perhaps a little less sinister…or not.
To me, at this point, it suggests the possibility of a get away, depending on what side you’re on, mainland, or island. I’m going to say, you’re on the island and going back to the mainland.
Running.
The island is like one of those remote places, with one way in and one way out. a place where people go to try and breathe life back into a marriage that’s falling apart under the stresses of city life, but it failed.
The problem wasn’t the fact you didn’t see each other enough, it’s just that you had grown to dislike each other, and going into a small isolated situation only made the problem worse.
It was just easier to blame everything else.
But going home, well that’s a whole different kettle of fish, because bridges were burned before you left, and going back, well, there was going to be grovelling involved.
Or not.
There’s a story here, but not right now. Perhaps in a day or two.
It’s late, very late, and I need some sleep … well, thinking time.
We were in London in Summer, it was a fine afternoon, going into the evening and we decided to get on the London Eye. As you can see from the clock it was near 7:00 pm.
This photo was taken as we were coming down.
Those long evenings were quite remarkable, not in the least going to a pub and sinking a few pints! There was one such pub not far from Charing Cross Station
The pub was called ‘The Princess of Wales’
And still be light enough to find your way home.
I’m always rummaging through the endless photographs that, if you were to ask me, I would vehemently deny I took.
It’s like the camera on my phone takes them itself, you know, the latest upgrade they didn’t tell you about, the artificial intelligence.
OK, so it’s simply a ferry crossing a wide stretch of water. You ask, why didn’t they build a bridge? A good question, and not one I can answer.
But, what does the thought of a ferry conjure up?
It brought to mind the film Jaws, and the summer visitors to the island, or should I say, shark hunting ground.
Here?
Perhaps a little less sinister…or not.
To me, at this point, it suggests the possibility of a get away, depending on what side you’re on, mainland, or island. I’m going to say, you’re on the island and going back to the mainland.
Running.
The island is like one of those remote places, with one way in and one way out. a place where people go to try and breathe life back into a marriage that’s falling apart under the stresses of city life, but it failed.
The problem wasn’t the fact you didn’t see each other enough, it’s just that you had grown to dislike each other, and going into a small isolated situation only made the problem worse.
It was just easier to blame everything else.
But going home, well that’s a whole different kettle of fish, because bridges were burned before you left, and going back, well, there was going to be grovelling involved.
Or not.
There’s a story here, but not right now. Perhaps in a day or two.
It’s late, very late, and I need some sleep … well, thinking time.
Oreti Village, Pukawa Bay, North Island, New Zeland
On the southern tip of Lake Taupo
Our first morning there, a Saturday. Winter. Cold. And a beautiful sunrise.
This was taken from the balcony, overlooking the lake.
The sun is just creeping up over the horizon
It gradually gets lighter, and then the sun breaks free of the low cloud
It lights up the balcony
And the trees just beyond, a cascade of colorful ferns.
It looks like it’s going to be a fine day, our first for this trip, and we will be heading to the mountains to see snow, for the first time for two of our granddaughters.
When we first planned to stay in Tuscany for a few days, we wanted to be in a central area. We had thought of staying in Florence and making daily treks, but the tour operator we selected told us it would be better if we stayed closer to Arezzo.
We picked Greve in Chianti, and a place called Antico Pastificio, we booked a standard apartment with two bedrooms, and it was about as authentic Italian you could get. The building we stayed in was the yellow pasta factory, and the apartment named ‘Iris’.
It was only steps away from the main square, shops, restaurants, and at the opposite end, the quaint ringing of church bells at various times during the day.
Gaining access was through a very narrow arch which required some deft driving and then up the road. There were villas and two large apartment blocks.
You can just see the archway at the end of the road.
This was the entrance to our room,
along a passage and up the stairs, turning left at the top.
Going straight ahead through the gate to the car park,
and access to the grounds behind the buildings.
This was the view from the lounge/living room. The days were hot, and on several evenings it rained, breaking the heat and making the evenings sitting by the window cool and refreshing.
And the last view is looking towards the town piazza and the church
I came across this photo:
This is like so many roads off in what is known as the Gold Coast hinterland, that tract of land between the ocean and the mountain range that runs along the eastern side of the country, known as the Great Dividing Range.
This is the road that runs behind where friends of ours live, and runs on down into a valley where a river runs, and when the rains come down, floods.
It’s hard to imagine that a few hundred years ago all of this would have been tropical jungle, and intrepid explorers would be making their way north or west, just to see what was there.
I imagine in another 100 years, all of this will be gone, given over to housing, shopping malls, and factories, and anything that resembles country living will have been moved out to far beyond the mountain range and towards the what is called the ‘red’ centre.
Or over that time there is a reckoning with mother nature, and if there is, I know who I’d put my money on.
But, as for a story…
…
It was quite literally the road to nowhere.
You just had to follow it until it disintegrated into a dirt track, and then for another 20 miles before you finished up at a rusty gate attached to a dilapidated fence that surrounds the a house that was cleverly hidden behind a grove of trees, the only place I knew as home. We had no phones, no television or radio, no real contact with the outside world.
Until, one day, my fairy godmother came and rescued me.
Yes, it felt like that.
Little had I realized that there were any other people in our family, and it took until the death of my parents to find out I had grandparents, and a much larger extended family.
There had been, according to my father, no reason to leave. Or for anyone else to come, and the few that ventured to end of the road, found there was nothing to see, and no reason to stay.
For all intents and purposes we didn’t exist, and, oddly, I was content with that.
Until I decided to venture further afield, run into two people, a man and a woman, both of whom said they were related to my father, and ask me to take them back with them to meet my father,
A bad choice, but I didn’t know it at the time.
Not until my father ran them off at the point of the gun he always had with him.
He knew who they were, and it surprised me to see the change in him, from the strong silent type, to a man greatly afraid, though he would not tell me of what.
He just told me to lock myself in my room, and not to come out for anything.
I heard him leave, but not come back.
It took three days before I left that room, to find I was completely alone in the house. Outside, it was a different story. There, half way between the back door and the barn were the two people I’d brought home, both dead. A little further away were my parents, also dead.
And another man, who was leaning over my father.
I stopped when he looked up in my direction.
“You must be Jake.”
How did he know my name? I nodded, warily watching him in case I had to run.
He went from body to body, checking to see if they were still alive, then stood and turned around to look at me.
“Do you know what happened?”
“No.”
“Do you know who the other two are?”
I assumed he was referring to the visitors.
“No. The man said he was a relative, asked me to bring them here.”
“How did you…”
Escape? “My father told me to hide and not come out.” If this man was associated with the other two…
Perhaps he saw my trepidation.
“I’m a friend of your father’s, a policeman. You were supposed to be safe here.”
We were, until I brought the harbingers of death. “Not any more,” I said.
…
© Charles Heath 2021
This is something you don’t see every day of the week, or once in a lifetime, perhaps.
We arrived at the Hilton Auckland hotel somewhere between one and two in the morning after arriving from Australia by plane around midnight.
Sometimes there is a benefit in arriving late, and, of course, being a very high tier HHonors guest, where the room you book is upgraded.
This stay we got one hell of a surprise.
We got to spend the night in the Presidential Suite.
The lounge and extra bathroom.
Looking towards the private bathroom.
A bathroom fit for a King and a Queen
And the royal bed
There was a note to say that we should keep the blinds closed for privacy and that a ship would be arriving in the port, but I did not expect it to be literally fifty feet from our balcony.
When we first planned to stay in Tuscany for a few days, we wanted to be in a central area. We had thought of staying in Florence and making daily treks, but the tour operator we selected told us it would be better if we stayed closer to Arezzo.
We picked Greve in Chianti, and a place called Antico Pastificio, we booked a standard apartment with two bedrooms, and it was about as authentic Italian you could get. The building we stayed in was the yellow pasta factory, and the apartment named ‘Iris’.
It was only steps away from the main square, shops, restaurants, and at the opposite end, the quaint ringing of church bells at various times during the day.
Gaining access was through a very narrow arch which required some deft driving and then up the road. There were villas and two large apartment blocks.
You can just see the archway at the end of the road.
This was the entrance to our room,
along a passage and up the stairs, turning left at the top.
Going straight ahead through the gate to the car park,
and access to the grounds behind the buildings.
This was the view from the lounge/living room. The days were hot, and on several evenings it rained, breaking the heat and making the evenings sitting by the window cool and refreshing.
And the last view is looking towards the town piazza and the church
I came across this photo:
This is like so many roads off in what is known as the Gold Coast hinterland, that tract of land between the ocean and the mountain range that runs along the eastern side of the country, known as the Great Dividing Range.
This is the road that runs behind where friends of ours live, and runs on down into a valley where a river runs, and when the rains come down, floods.
It’s hard to imagine that a few hundred years ago all of this would have been tropical jungle, and intrepid explorers would be making their way north or west, just to see what was there.
I imagine in another 100 years, all of this will be gone, given over to housing, shopping malls, and factories, and anything that resembles country living will have been moved out to far beyond the mountain range and towards the what is called the ‘red’ centre.
Or over that time there is a reckoning with mother nature, and if there is, I know who I’d put my money on.
But, as for a story…
…
It was quite literally the road to nowhere.
You just had to follow it until it disintegrated into a dirt track, and then for another 20 miles before you finished up at a rusty gate attached to a dilapidated fence that surrounds the a house that was cleverly hidden behind a grove of trees, the only place I knew as home. We had no phones, no television or radio, no real contact with the outside world.
Until, one day, my fairy godmother came and rescued me.
Yes, it felt like that.
Little had I realized that there were any other people in our family, and it took until the death of my parents to find out I had grandparents, and a much larger extended family.
There had been, according to my father, no reason to leave. Or for anyone else to come, and the few that ventured to end of the road, found there was nothing to see, and no reason to stay.
For all intents and purposes we didn’t exist, and, oddly, I was content with that.
Until I decided to venture further afield, run into two people, a man and a woman, both of whom said they were related to my father, and ask me to take them back with them to meet my father,
A bad choice, but I didn’t know it at the time.
Not until my father ran them off at the point of the gun he always had with him.
He knew who they were, and it surprised me to see the change in him, from the strong silent type, to a man greatly afraid, though he would not tell me of what.
He just told me to lock myself in my room, and not to come out for anything.
I heard him leave, but not come back.
It took three days before I left that room, to find I was completely alone in the house. Outside, it was a different story. There, half way between the back door and the barn were the two people I’d brought home, both dead. A little further away were my parents, also dead.
And another man, who was leaning over my father.
I stopped when he looked up in my direction.
“You must be Jake.”
How did he know my name? I nodded, warily watching him in case I had to run.
He went from body to body, checking to see if they were still alive, then stood and turned around to look at me.
“Do you know what happened?”
“No.”
“Do you know who the other two are?”
I assumed he was referring to the visitors.
“No. The man said he was a relative, asked me to bring them here.”
“How did you…”
Escape? “My father told me to hide and not come out.” If this man was associated with the other two…
Perhaps he saw my trepidation.
“I’m a friend of your father’s, a policeman. You were supposed to be safe here.”
We were, until I brought the harbingers of death. “Not any more,” I said.
…
© Charles Heath 2021
