Faraway Friday with Raffle on the Side

Fiona Uncategorized

A couple of weeks ago Ducky suggested a “slides evening” where we can share our favourite travel slides. Well, this is your chance, Pubsters.

The way I suggest we do it is for you to send me your jpgs. I will put the jpgs into the library asap, and will send you the html for each one. You can then put up a comment with one or more of the pics, plus some information about your visit.

There may be a delay from time to time, as unfortunately Maestro CK Watt’s laptop has gone on sulk, possibly permanently. So I will look after the raffle too.

Very few of my travel slides have been digitised, so I have hunted on the web for images of some of my favourite foreign places looking as near as possible as they did when I first saw them. However, the travel theme is NOT restricted to non-Australian places!

From the Grand Tour of November 1978 – April 1979, then, I give you a street in St Paul de Vence, not all that far from one of CTar’s preferred places:

(Image Credit: Matyas Dubal)

The Coliseum in Rome (my first glimpse of it was from this angle, but further away, and it was one of those jolt to the solar plexus moments of recognition.

My first glimpse of the Alps was – once again – more distant than this. For a moment I couldn’t work out why the clouds on the horizon had such peaked tops . . .

Heather Whelan)

We had two goes at visiting Greece. The first time – during our month in Italy – the Brindisi ferry sailors were on strike. The second time – nearly at the end of our three months in continental Europe – we did a mad sprint by various trains from Paris to Brindisi. This time the ferry did sail, and we had four days in Greece, including one at Delphi. Another of those moments of recognition.

(Image Credit: University of Texas)

The Grand Tour started and ended in England (well, it was winter when we arrived, and a very cold and late spring for the final month of our time). We spent the first month staying at a B&B in Bloomsbury, spending most of the time exploring London (almost entirely by foot) during the day, and exploring the theatres and concert halls by night. (We also managed day trips to Brighton and Oxford). For our final month we hired a car – a Mini (all we could afford) – into and out of which 6’4″ OH had to shoehorn himself. Unlike the Minis in Australia, the driver’s seat did not go back very far, and he was most uncomfortable. So he was generally reluctant to stop and look at things, because of the agony of getting out and then back in. I did persuade him to stop at Stonehenge, however. It was late in March, blowing a gale; we were the only humans there, and this was way before the days of the fence, the Visitors’ Centre, and all the other paraphernalia now there. It was a truly haunting experience.

(Image Credit: Stonehenge News and Information)

Later this evening I will put up some more images of my travels before and after the Grand Tour (if I have time).

280 thoughts on “Faraway Friday with Raffle on the Side”

  2. Joe6pack,

    Ned and Syd look magnificent.

    You aren’t above a touch of sartorial elegance yourself.

  9. Janice,

    . . . they put the bitchop to shame when it comes to fashion sense

    When it comes to all forms of sense.

  14. TLBD

    The LBD species look a migratory species. I blame the ancestors .

  16. puffytmd,

    My school photo.

    Was that Grade 1, Puff? Happy Birthday for whatever day it is! 😉

  18. joe6pack

    Yaaaaaaay . Considering my real world epic lack of success with lotto best bet will be a bet.

    A good day became a better day. Had an email from a former employer asking if I could come back for a veeeery juicy 1 month contract. Nothing like having a unique skill in my “skill set”. Bummer that only 0.1 of SFA need it.

  19. Kaffeeklatscher,

    My claws are crossed that the contract will be extended. Bonne chance for both that and for lotto.

  20. Not being much of a traveller I can’t posy any photos. I’ll just have to make do with blast from the past music instead.

  25. Out for the night, so pictures of my travels will have to wait until I get home to my ”stash”.

    This working full time thing occasionally has its drawbacks. *wry grin*

  27. August 1998 on the way to Machu Picchu.

    These photos were taken at about 4000 metres. Heaven bless coca tea!

    Those Vikings sure got around.

  28. Fiona

    Thanks I think there is a good chance of that. I’ll check in with the HR dept. to see if they have implemented my recommendation at the “exit interview” . I’d gone away for them for quite some time and returned to find I had become pretty “surplus” . After months on full pay just twiddling my thumbs as they tried to work out what to do I received a job offer and took it. Told HR that if you send anyone away for an extended period to make a ‘re-entry’ plan for them ….. before they went.

  30. Up and running pro tem, I hope it lasts for a while.

    If any pubsters know anyone in the Armadale WA area who is a whiz with computers and is willing to have a gander at my desktop computer, approx 5 years old, it would be appreciated, if not I’ll have to buy a new one.

  31. kaffeeklatscher,

    Familiar with MBWA?

    Management By Wandering Around or, what happened to you, Management By Wondering About.

  33. There has been a lot of good research about not what happened to the Incas (well known now) but rather about what they did for 800 years or so.

    Very interesting.

    At a bit of a tangent, I can recommend

  34. This little black duck

    I slightly forgive the HR (mis)management in that it was the result of an emergency situation and the long term aspect unpredicted. Heading off on the “mission” turned out to be a bad thing in the end but the time away and the experiences on it elevates it to a top contender for “The best time of my life”. ‘Twas priceless as they say.

  35. kaffeeklatscher,

    There are many many things I could have done better but I don’t get morose about them; just count the many blessings I have.

    As you say, maybe it was all for the best.

  38. kk,

    A human resource, like the drink cooler over there, is just another item in the accounts.

  40. I just about vomited this morning when I heard Gerry Harvey spruiking an advertisement exhorting small business owners to buy ANYTHING, and I mean ANYTHING, because of the budget announcement.
    Oh, there was a quiet comment at the end saying “Taxation rules do apply”
    How bloody disgusting!

  43. This little black duck

    Definitely . No amount of money could buy the experience and even Tony Abbott can’t ruin the memories. Check out a couple of my pics a company up Darwin way now use in their advertising 🙂

  44. A panorama of Hōlei Pali (= cliff) from Chain of Craters Road, showing the dark, jagged `a`a lava, and shiny, smooth pahoehoe lava from the Mauna Ulu eruption, 1969-1974:

    Click to access mauna_ulu_trail_guide-1.pdf

    * As the story goes, `a`a lava was named by a Hawaiian who tried walking on it bare foot.

  46. joe6pack

    Now there’s thought. The AB’s ability to choke is a worry but why the hell not give it a go . At least it won’t become a “losing bet” for quite some time !!

  47. You would think that voters who have been through this would send the current lot in charge to hell and damnation

    In Britain, Hills points out, the experience of child poverty is surprisingly widespread. Using the definition of poverty as families with less than three-fifths of the median income, he finds that only one in eight children are poor in a given year. But over the course of a decade, half of all British children will experience at least a year in poverty. Being in poverty is abnormal; being touched by poverty during childhood is not.

    if they only give half a thought to what the last two budgets mean for them.

    Such a story will be familiar to observers of Australian politics. The National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling’s analysis of the Abbott government’s first two budgets showed that the poorest single parents would lose 8 per cent of their disposable incomes, while affluent individuals without children would be slightly better off. Those budgets proposed reducing family payments, removing the Schoolkids Bonus, and cutting pensions.

    A brain the size of HoJo’s laziness.

  48. kaffeeklatscher and joe6pack,

    Could you get some accelerated depreciation on that bet?

  49. This little black duck

    The “lipstick” is a wee portion of meat.

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