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Icelandic geysers and an ancient rift!

Posted in family and relationships, Fun Stuff, Holidays, It's my life, Travel, tagged Þingvellir Nature reserve, blogging about my travels, chasing the northern lights in iceland, gullfoss waterfall in iceland, northern lights in iceland, strokkur geyser in iceland, travelling in iceland, visiting for 3 days in iceland, winter travel in iceland on January 11, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Listen, if you want to be blown away by sheer, unadulterated extraordinary amazingness then this is a tour you HAVE to do!! Þingvellir Nature Reserve was fantastic. (pronounced Thingvellir) The unadulterated wild beauty, sheer vastness and wildness of the landscapes amaze and delight. Everything was covered with a new fall of snow, bright, blindingly white gorgeous snow. Everything was fantastic.

pure beautiful white snow

And so to the place where east meets west; the North Atlantic and Eurasian continental plate. Whoaaaa. If we had thought it was windy before, we were in for a real surprise at this place!! Fair blew us off our feet it did! People were being blow over, hats were sent flying through the air and if you took off your gloves to take photos, you made damn sure you held onto them tightly till they were safely in your pocket.

The North Atlantic and Eurasian continental plates…primeval beauty

It was fantastic. Exhilerating. Awesome. Visceral. Extraordinary. Primeval! Have you ever looked into the bowels of the earth, into an abyss that is millions of years old, at rocks that have been flung up from the middle of the earth by the powerful forces of nature, black and menacing and totally fascinating. I was enthralled. The North Atlantic and Eurasian continental plates stretch hundreds of miles across the planet, ever moving, ever shifting and shaping the land and the seas – slowly year on year, it inches further and further apart, the gap widening but not gaping; it’s filled with a constant upsurge of lava and rock that creates new landscapes just as amazing as the current. <insert : Iceland is the world’s 18th largest island, and Europe’s second largest island after Great Britain. It’s the site of a rift valley that marks the crest of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge>

: The road between two continental plates – North American (L) and Eurasian (R)

: prehistoric awesomeness

: incredible landscape

Walking through the gap was beyond incredible. It looked so menacing and yet so majestic, aeons of history; we are but a nano-second of existence in comparison to these rocks. After a fairly short time to explore we set off again and travelled along the road that took us from one continental plate to another. OMG!!!! Never in my wildest dreams. Beyond description.

these little houses are built on the rock and earth gap that separate the two plates!!! courtesy of StopandThinkPhotography – copyright @justcemanthe on instagram

And then what to my mind was the most amazing of all….I can’t even begin to explain how thrilling it is to stand and watch a geyser exploding in a rage of heated water from deep within the bowels of the earth!! Thrilling, exhilerating, amazing, mesmerising….I could go on and on.

Strokkur Geyser – wow!!!!

I stood for the whole 45 minutes we were stopped in this area just watching that geyser rising and falling, teasing you as it rises into a dome of awesome blueness, then dropping again into a steaming hole, bubbling up and disappearing, bubbling up a little closer to the edge and gone again and then suddenly with a whoosh that leaves you gasping it explodes dozens of feet up into the air; a raging mass of boiling water, so hot it would kill you within seconds. Awesome!!! I was entranced. Only coz Cémanthe phoned me did I not get left behind….LOL I could seriously have stayed all afternoon. At least I would have been warm 😉

: Strokkur – incredible geyser in Iceland – do you think it was cold?

: CJ at Strokkur Geyser

: Strokkur Geyser exploding

: the pathway leading to the geyser – the water on the left is scalding

insert : <Iceland has many geysers, including Geysir, from which the English word is derived, and the famous Strokkur, which erupts every 5–10 minutes. After a phase of inactivity, Geysir started erupting again after a series of earthquakes in 2000. Geysir has since grown quieter and does not erupt often>

Then we visited the Gullfoss Waterfall located in the canyon of Hvítá river in southwest Iceland…..I don’t even know how to describe this majestic, magnificent sight.

what a landscape….how do you describe something so amazing

It doesn’t flow over the cliff and into the bottomless gorge; it roars, thrashing and flinging it’s way over the edge and into the abyss. A tumultuous mass of turquoise blue water, channelled into one narrow race, the rest of the vast falls frozen over. And it was C.O.L.D!!!!

me and CJ at Gullfoss Waterfall…wow!!!

Freezingly, mind-numbingly, bone-crackingly cold. As you can imagine we stayed for as long as we didn’t freeze to the spot and then ran as fast as possible over frozen ground back to the warmth of the bus.

: Gullfoss waterfall….ice and more ice

: just extraordinary – Gullfoss waterfall

Three days of the most amazing adventures. We went out late at night to track the northern lights, rushing from one place to another, freezing our asses off for 15 minutes and then racing back to the warmth of the restaurant, a mug of hot chocolate, hands over the heater…defrost and back out again for another ‘freeze your extremities why don’t you’ escapade in an endeavour to see the northern lights.

me dressed for chasing the northern lights in the middle of the night…in Iceland 🙂

Cémanthe and I managed to find a hollowed out nook amongst the rocks where we huddled together shivering and laughing, our noses frozen, our eyes drained of fluids by the raging winds that managed to shuck down any opening it could find as our buttocks froze on the hard icy ground. I have NEVER, EVER, NEVER known such cold in my life!! Even on the coldest, snowy day in the UK, it doesn’t get as cold as that!!! Indescribable.

you won’t find the aroura there!!! it was as cold as it looks

So did we get to see the northern lights…..well yes we did!! Only we didn’t know we had till we saw the photos Cémanthe very cleverly managed to take.

the northern lights, courtesy of StopAndThinkPhotography copyright @justcemanthe on instagram

They looked for all the world like a grey shifting cloud….and no-one; namely the bloody guides, thought to tell us that that was the auroura!! I mean hello!!!! I have yet to discover if everyone sees a white shifting cloud or if it was just us. No-one got all excited, so I’m guessing it wasn’t just us that were unknowingly looking at the northern lights without realising. As we were about to leave, suddenly everyone did get all excited and we all piled off the bus and raced over to a narrow gorge and there in the distance were…a cloud of grey shifting clouds….the aroura apparently!!!

finally, the real deal…only seen once on camera …photo courtesy of StopAndThinkPhotography copyright @justcemanthe on instagram

Sorry of I sound underwhelmed, but they were NOTHING at all like you see on the brochures, or the pamphlets, or in the zillions of photos we have seen, taken by ‘other’ people. It was only when Cémanthe looked at the images on the camera did we realise that yes, those were the lights. Where were the blues, and greens, and pinks we were expecting to see? I am going to have to go back or go elsewhere…..like Norway!!

Leifur Eiríksson c. 970 – c. 1020 a Norse explorer.

Leifur Eiríksson c. 970 – c. 1020

a Norse explorer regarded as the first European to land in North America (excluding Greenland), nearly 500 years before Christopher Columbus.

episode 3 to follow tomorrow 🙂 #3DaysinIceland

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66 degrees North!!

Posted in family and relationships, Fun Stuff, Holidays, It's my life, Travel, tagged 3 days in iceland, Þingvellir Nature reserve, northern lights in iceland, touring iceland, travel to iceland, visiting reykjavik on January 10, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Exactly a year ago yesterday Cémanthe and I landed in Iceland!!! 🙂 In fact at precisely this time last year we were haring around in the dark trying to spot the Northern Lights!!

you won’t find the aroura there!!!

flag of Iceland

prelogue (is there such a thing?)…this article was started on the 14th January 2014….but I never got round to finishing it…..so here it is…..
It all started a few months before in 2013….seems longer somehow, when CJ phoned and suggested we plan a trip to Iceland!!! Would I like to go to Iceland to see the northern lights and go whale-watching?….uhmmm…hell yes!!! Iceland has been on my dream list for years!! and before I go any further, may I say OMG!!! Wow, what a country!!!

Although I initially uhmmed and ahhhed, dying to say yes but eventually said no (finances), but after much discussion (and I really was very keen to go) she persuaded me to be sensible and so we set the wheels in motion. Unfortunately visas and red-tape and money got in the way and had to be shifted, causing more than just a little bit of stress… Now what should be a simple process of booking the flights, hotels, excursions etc and just going….is not that simple on a South African passport. I have to apply for a visa every time I leave the UK to visit another country…..and that is a ruddy mission… So I won’t go into all the boring details…suffice it to say it was stressful in the extreme and we almost quit along the way…it’s also very expensive and bureaucratic!! Imagine!! But we persevered and survived and traveled to what is now my 2nd favourite country in the world….sorry Ireland and Italy…I still love you….but….have you been to Iceland?

fresh snowfall….stunning vistas

#3DaysInIceland.

The first thing I can say about the country…is that it is well named!! 🙂 It is icy! However, we can forgive that, as it was after all, the middle (almost) of winter!

do ya think it may have been cold?

Other than that….I can’t think of sufficient descriptive words to describe just how amazing the country is…but let me try…amazing, delightful, wonderous, awesome, spectacular, magnificent, incredible, beautiful, surprising, freezing, pretty damn exciting, welcoming, exquisite, extreme, visceral, wild, steamy, stunning, quirky, fantastic……you get the idea!!! I was totally bowled over and if it wasn’t for the fact that I adore London, I would move to Iceland 🙂 Iceland is beyond extraordinary. It is the quirkiest, coldest, most visceral, wild and now the most northerly place I have ever visited.

Hah!!! Wish you were here!! well actually, I was on my way to Iceland 🙂

So on the late afternoon of the 8th January, leaving from Victoria Bus Station, we made our way to Travelodge at Gatwick and checked into our room….cozy cozy….It was basic but awesome…the excitement was mounting and being so close to the airport was well amazing.

and we’re on our way!!!! 3 Days in Iceland

CJ to her credit had decided to check us into a hotel near the airport for the night since our flight left really early the next day, and it was better than trying to not only get up at sparrow-fart, but also to negotiate the travails of the London transport system and subsequent railway journey on the day…wayyyyyy too stressful. All sorts of things could go wrong and more often than not, do….especially when you HAVE to be somewhere at a certain time…like an airport where no plane waits for no wo/man!!…no cry!!

the New Media Angel being social 😉

I love to be surprised and astounded when I visit a country and Iceland did both…in buckets full. My first sight of the island was out the window (yes hooray we had a window seat); my heart thrilled at the sight. It is one of my dreams/goals to visit 100 islands and now I was just about to land onto the next! whoo hoo!! By the time we did land I already had about 20 photos mostly of the clouds and the ocean and the sun shining onto the wing of the plane…we left really early in the morning and raced the sunrise…getting there just ahead of the sun getting to its zenith for 66 degrees north in winter! Not very high I can tell you!

racing the sunrise…….

What a fabulous 3 days we had….

Day 1 we were up really early after spending a night of almost sleepless excitement!! We arrived with plenty of time to spare after a really easy hop to the airport by cab…better than walking in the rain…yup, it was raining; to be expected really as how it was winter and this is the UK…..which you wouldn’t think this year (2015) it’s been so unseasonably warm. But back to 2014….and then onto the plane for #3DaysInIceland. To our delight we had a window seat! I love the window seat! The plane, if I recall, took off on time and we were on our way whoo hooo!!

2014.01.09 UK 🙂 okay!!!

Lots of photos of the sunrise, clouds and the UK disappearing beneath us, then a hop, skip and bumpy ride across the top of Scotland.

Scotland!!!!

The flight was quick, soon enough we were flying over that tiny little island in the vast blue ocean as we craned our necks to get the best view ever and whoaaaaa…. suddenly we could see land!!!!….Iceland was beneath us. We peered out the window with much excitement pointing out volcanoes and glaciers and lots and lots of snow-covered mountains.

wow!!!! Iceland

OMG just writing about it now….albeit a year later I am almost in tears just remembering how thrilling it was to see Iceland for the first time. I was also <bizarrely> hoping to see the volcano exploding. Yeah, I know…go figure right!! But it didn’t and we landed safely into what has to be the most mind-blowing travel experience ever!!!

Iceland!!!!!

Once off the plane and through customs without any hassle (whew!) we left the customs area and tried to find our way out the airport…. oh my gosh, how do they pronounce those words. First of all I don’t read Icelandic <a North Germanic language descended from Old Norse > and after much miming and gesticulating I ended up in a queue while CJ went to the loo. So while I was standing in the queue some woman kept asking me if I wanted a baggage label…uhhmm no I just got off the plane for goodness sake, why do I need a baggage ticket to leave the airport?! All the time I’m thinking “weird considering we only had hand-luggage!” …hmmmm, LOL and hahahaha, as it turns out it was the queue to get BACK onto a plane; going where? Who the heck knows.

I challenge you to pronounce those words….the Icelandic ones!!!

Fortunately Cémanthe came back from the loo before I boarded (LOL) and rescued me with much hilarity!! Then it was negotiating a foreign language again to figure out where to go for our bus to Reykjavik. (btw, never ever when taking a coach to your hotel in a foreign country, decide to wait till you get to the hotel before you go for a pee!!! – If you need to go….go before you leave the airport!!) LOL…enough said on that subject!!
Do you know, that after a whole year, I still can’t quite believe that I have been to Iceland!!! Extraordinary!!

Finally we found the right bus and clambered on board and off we went and even though it was still early in the day, it was already getting dark…the days are like about 3 hours long!!! What a landscape!! Oh my word. It’s wild, visceral, primeval…it grabs you by the guts and shakes you right out of any complacency whatsoever. I have never seen such landscapes before….towering mountains covered with brilliantly white snow, vast plains covered with brilliantly white snow, rivers frozen over, treacherously icy roads <I could barely look out the front window watching the driver>….shivers up the spine!!

views from the tour bus

We stopped off at a number of hotels to drop passengers off and finally reached our own. When we did finally arrive at our hotel, it was to discover under-floor heating, comfy beds and lovely hot water straight from the underground thermal springs! Loverly juberley. Climbing off the bus you are immediately frozen to the spot!!! Jeezuz, I have never known such cold. Grabbing our bags we ran helter-skelter into the warm, welcoming embrace of a heated hotel. Whew!!

: quirky architecture in Reykjavik

: just loved the colourful architecture, I guess with long winter months you need a bit of colour

: quirky, quirky houses

Our room was comfortable albeit very basic, but it was WARM!!! and luxury of luxuries it had underfloor heating. Marvellous. I had died and gone to heaven!
But, first things first….With no time to rest, we dropped off our bags, we donned as much clothing as we could reasonably get on, wrapped up warm with leggings, thick socks, stocking, trousers, vests, tops, jumpers, scarves, jackets, the new faux-fur lined gloves and hats I bought at Christmas time and headed straight out to explore. Reykjavik is fantastic!!! Quirky houses, old architecture, fantastical sculptures, stunning modern architecture and a fabulous cathedral that sits atop the hill dominating the skyline…..demanding that you look “here I am!!!”

Hallgrímskirkja church is Reykjavík’s main landmark

Did you know that the sidewalks in Iceland have under’floor’ heating? I kid you not. They are heated. How fab is that! Of course the heat is provided free by mother nature and all the Icelanders do is pipe it off and utilise it all. Perhaps we should arrange to have a volcano under our island then we can give the finger to the energy suppliers that overcharge so heavily. Insert <With the widespread availability of geo-thermal power, and the harnessing of many rivers and waterfalls for hydroelectricity, most residents have access to inexpensive hot water, heating and electricity>. hmmmm.

eerie green lights of the poly-tunnels

….with much looking back over our shoulders to note landmarks for getting back to the hotel! We walked along icy streets and once again my poor brain had to cope with looking out for traffic coming at me from the wrong side of the road…I cannot understand why it is that people feel the need to drive on the right side of the road….that just seems wrong somehow 😉

: simple hey!!!

: …..okayyy then!!! good thing there are arrows 😉

Iceland….wow! what a stunningly beautiful country. Breathtaking in the extreme; never mind that we had scant breath for it to take due to the biting cold that snaked it’s way into everything and into our bones. Sæbraut, the sea in the centre of Reykjavík was just stunning….. just exquisite. I can’t explain to you how absolutely extraordinary the landscape really is. By now the sun was beginning to set and the snow-covered mountains were tinged with pink and lilac and creamy yellow…..never in my life have I seen such beauty….words do not pay adequate homage.

indescribable colours, Sæbraut, the sea in the centre of Reykjavík

We slipped and slid along the promenade, along icy roads to the edge of the bay making our way gingerly to town, or as best we could anyway. The snow-laden landscape leading down to the sea; delicious shades of blue, pink, lilac vie for attention….I have never seen so many shades of blue – frozen to the bone we stood and stared.

heading out to explore mid-afternoon

Quite frankly I can’t imagine anywhere more beautiful – the colours, the snow-covered buildings….for someone who loves snow, I was in paradise…pure and simple. We took hundreds of photos. The snow was almost knee deep in some places and treacherously slippery but we staggered along looking for all the world like two drunks fresh from the pub!!! I would so have loved to explore further afield but trying to stay upright on that ice was exhausting and we only made it as far as the opera house which was, thanks to the underground heated pipes, blessedly free from ice.

: The Opera House – stunning building

: the stunning Opera House in Reykjavik

What a sensible idea. From there we staggered into ‘town’ and took a stroll along the main street that runs through Reyjavik. Finally we made out way into the centre of Reykjavik, which although not very large and could fit into London’s left pocket, is charming!

: we just loved the quirky architecture – main street of Reykjavik

: looks a little like Santa’s workshop 🙂

: I really loved the architecture…so colourful and amazing

A delight of quirky stores stocking some of the most bizarre items you could imagine. There was a huge polar bear (stuffed of course) stood outside one of the stores.

: Mama bear and Papa bear 🙂

: hello!!! Unbelieveable

: polar bear on the loose.

The clothing is marvellous….I would so have loved to buy some but it would have been just to warm for our climate <bizarre I know, but it is real cold-weather clothing>.

how colourful is that!!

Oh my gosh, the shops are a delight with goodies to buy, some of which challenge the imagination….I have never seen such amazing things in my life. Then went for supper at ……wait for it……and Italian restaurant. I know right? WTF…we’re in Iceland and we go for Italian LOL….but…let me tell you, I did not know what the menus said since they’re mostly written in Icelandic, I couldn’t understand the accent and I wasn’t prepared to order something that turned out to be roast polar bear, or stewed seal, or pickled porpoise….no way hosé I wasn’t eating local this time around, so stuck with what I know….boring right…typical bloody tourist LOL!! (yeah, okay, I know….eat local!!) but we were in sore need of something hot and frankly it was less scary to order Italian than trying to figure out what the Icelandic menu was offering.

the Italian Restaurant

Bellies full we went shopping for breakfast goodies and stuff to eat during the days ahead. Loved their little supermarkets and milk is milk and bread is easily identifiable, as are vegetables <not that we had many of those>, and cheese is cheese no matter what country you’re in. It’s good fun shopping in foreign supermarkets, they are so completely different to the UK (or SA), and yet quite similar. The brand names are not anything at all that we are familiar with so trying to decided what to buy is quite a challenge…..but chocolates, crisps and sweets look the same in any language 😉 Although we did buy fruit too!!

Then it was back to the hotel for an earlyish night…we were way too excited to sleep immediately. And we still had a midnight excursion to go on…..yes we were heading out to see the Northern lights!!!

the closest we got to ‘northern lights’ 😉

Cémanthe had booked us on an excursion the next day to the totally unpronouncable – Þingvellir Nature reserve; <insert : a site of historical, cultural, and geological importance, one of the most popular tourist destinations in Iceland>, then the Gullfoss waterfalls and the North American and Eurasian rift. OMG!!!!! Seriously!!!

incredible landscape

day two to follow……

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highlights of 2014

Posted in family and relationships, Holidays, It's my life, Travel, tagged 3 days in iceland, iceland in winter, travel to iceland on January 9, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Another of my 2014 highlights was going to Iceland for 3 days with my daughter. In fact it was exactly 1 year ago today that we landed in this most incredible place. What an experience. I cannot even begin to tell you how extraordinary that country is…….blog to follow….eventually. 🙂

Cémanthe at the geysers

But what I can say for now is that it was one of the most fascinating and amazing places on the planet.

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highlights of 2014

Posted in family and relationships, It's my life, tagged brothers and sisters, family relationships, meet up in london on January 8, 2015| Leave a Comment »

One the highlights of my 2014 year was seeing my brother again after quite some time 🙂

We had a really lovely evening together and I felt that a lot of barriers that had been put up came down (mostly from my side). Our family has such a lot of baggage from a really topsy-turvy childhood and so often resentments and misunderstandings have stood in the way of what could/should be a loving relationship.

It’s amazing to me how things that happened in our childhood can have such long-term effects…even right into adulthood…..I’m grateful that I have had the opportunity to get to know my brother better. I shudder to think this may never have happened. His lovely wife, my sister-in-law had a lot to do with the fences initially being brought down and the relationship to start being rebuilt. She is truly the best sister-in-law a person could ever hope for.

my younger brother & me 🙂

He was over in London for a couple of days in September last year and we met up one night when I too was in London and had an altogether lovely evening just talking and walking and talking. This photo was a #selfie 😉 taken on the Southbank near the Oxo Tower and Gabriel’s Wharf.

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getting back on the horse…..

Posted in around the UK, family and relationships, Holidays, interesting things that happen in London, It's my life, Travel, tagged 3 days in london, broadstairs in kent, canterbury in kent, new year fireworks in london, travel in the UK on January 5, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Hello dear lovely people.

weobley, herefordshire, black and white villages of the uk, historical villages of the uk

not the horse I am on…but you get the picture 😉

Just dropping by to let you know that after much deliberation, soul-searching and missing London desperately….I have reactivated 3 Days in London…I’m back….In mind and spirit if not body 😉

another of my favourite quotes

That’s still difficult and although I do manage the odd day/s here and there, largely I am working and because I now have to travel all the way to Broadstairs between jobs, and since it is criminally expensive to travel by train to London for a day…I can’t spend as much time in the city as I would like. But, there we go. Broadstairs is gorgeous and I am loving the fresh sea air and walks on the beach with my chica, (who I might add is looking so much happier and healthier and less stressed since she has moved there….3 months already can you believe!!!),

beautiful sunset on the beach at Broadstairs….that is Cémanthe in the distance

and the extraordinary sunrises I get to see; they’re something else (altho that won’t last for long coz the days are getting longer and the sun is rising earlier and soon it will arise before I am prepared to!!! LOL). Hence the reason winter is one of my favourite seasons…..it’s the only time of the year I get to watch a sunrise. 7/8am is way more reasonable than 4am!!!

sunrise in Viking Bay, Broadstairs

So, here’s the thing, I have started up/continued with 3 Days in London. Partly inspired by the 3DIL App…after ignoring it for 3 months and not updating it or anything, the downloads increased by nearly 2,000 to in excess of 4,500 downloads….. so, as you can imagine, when I saw that, I was like WOW…okay so I can’t let these people down and since the ‘business’ is not yet viable to sell, I have decided to activate things again and just get on with it. You may have noticed a lot more activity lately on the twitter profile and I have opened a new instagram account for 3daysinlondon as well as which I am back on my facebook page….I am however going to try and avoid the 2014 burn-out due to my obsession with the city.

one of my favourite views, upstream from Tower Bridge

“Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.” — Samuel Johnson

I spent a lot of the latter part of 2014 deliberating and after an intense coaching session on the 3rd January, with my wonderful daughter (who is a qualified coach), I am now moving forward with more deliberation and focus. I also discovered that I have in fact achieved my life’s goal….”to have a roof over my head while I travel”. Only it isn’t quite in the form/way that I meant when I said it……as in “I would like to have a camper-van and travel to different parts of the country for/at my leisure”, the goal has manifested itself in my job…wherein I get to travel to different parts of the country and I always have a roof over my head while working!!! Go figure! LOL so back to the drawing board on that and I shall have to advise the universe of exactly what it is that I want/would like (it doesn’t do to be demanding….I’ll ask nicely).

a mobile home = a roof over my head while I travel

So after the coaching session, I’ve now given myself 5 years in which to build 3 Days in London up into a viable business and that’s where my focus will be….besides working, of which I will be doing a lot in the next year or so. I turn 60 this year and the sudden realisation that I am nearing retirement age (urgh! how did that happen so quickly) gave me a kick up the proverbial *** to start saving…which means I have to work more …blergh!!! That means I don’t get to as many events as I would like or spend anywhere near as much time in the city as I would love….but you can’t have it all…..so for now I have made my peace with life as it is and just making the most of wherever I am.

wish you were here….

I’ve also had to give up my membership of the Historic Royal Palaces and Kew Gardens, which is terribly sad, but seems no point paying for something that I am not going to be able to visit for the foreseeable future…..I shall save the money instead.

beautiful Hampton Court Palace

In other news, I have been growing my hair now for the last two years and it is now unbelievably… down to my waist!! The intention is to donate it to charity for wigs for people who have lost theirs during cancer treatment. I’ll be setting up a justgiving link to go with the donation as you wouldn’t believe it but women who have lost their hair only get a synthetic wig from the NHS which I suppose is reasonable as they are expensive….did you know that a real hair wig costs anything between £200 – £2,000….which is extraordinary. So the plan is to have it cut while I am in London in Feb, as it is now driving me nuts and gets hooked on everything. And don’t even talk to me about washing it….lordy what a mission that is.

Besides that, we went to Canterbury 🙂 Yayyyy!!! Entered via the West Gate (or was it North?) and finally I have visited one of the cities in the UK that I was so desperate to see. It turned out to be so very different to what I was expecting and ever so fascinating with seriously old houses. I will write on that shortly.

The Moat Tearooms on the right….a 15th century house

I also managed to get up to London for the 2015 New Year fireworks and although I didn’t have my usual front row seat due to himself Boris J introducing a fee #booBoris and me being the stubborn person I am refusing to pay for something that was free before and quite frankly in my humble opinion as a Londoner (well not officially right now…but still….) I should be able to go for free…..I did however, get a spot on Horse Guards and although I couldn’t see what was happening in the lower regions of the London Eye, I get to see the wonderful display above. My gosh, they certainly are a sight to see. More on that later.

fabulous spectacle – New Year in London

So in the world of Cindy, all is well. I’m back in Essex with a client I visited last year…..and more on that later too 😉 or else this will end up a book instead of a blog.

from Essex (work) to Kent (home)

See y’all 🙂

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From Richmond to Broadstairs

Posted in around the UK, family and relationships, It's my life, Travel, tagged london to broadstairs, memories are made of this, places of the uk, towns of the uk, travel in the UK, Twickenham on January 2, 2015| 5 Comments »

I guess it had to happen someday…moving away from London.

when a man is tired of London……

Yes, we’ve moved….okay technically we moved nearly 3 months ago, but what with one thing and another I haven’t had time to sit down a write about it. So after living in the area; 4 years for her and 3 years for me, my daughter decided to move from Richmond to Broadstairs….

Broadstairs – a seaside town in Kent

Here’s the thing. My daughter wanted to have a change of scenery, to get away from the noise and hustle and bustle, pollution and grime of the big city…or as they called it in the ‘olden days’ – the ‘big smoke’. We may not have much smoke by way of coal and wood fires these days, but the emmissions from cars, trucks and vans more than makes up for that!! It always gives me a start when returning from a trip overseas to fly in over London and see the levels of pollution…..urgh, we live in that! So I was totally sympathetic to her wanting to get out of it. She had been longing to move to the countryside/seaside for ever such a long time, to escape to peace and quiet, but I suspect she held off so long because of me…knowing how much I loved London and because we really were, despite the freezing cold house in winter and noisy upstairs tennants, very happy in our little house in Richmond. But, as they say, all good things must come to an end and so the decision was made.

Richmond Riverside

After many weekends away and trips to various seaside towns, some that made her go ooooo and others that generated a blergh…….a trip to Broadstairs yielded a delightful little house in a quiet street in a quaint seaside town….and her heart was stolen….she was sold …so to speak. I got a whatsapp message with images of the house and a ‘should I go for it’….yes, of course you should…..if it’s what you want then for sure go for it. And so she did, put the offer in and a few days or so later I got another whatsapp image…..’I got it!!!’ I was thrilled for her and devastated for me…although I think that’s probably quite a strong word as I had more or less by then, due to previous circumstances mentioned, decided to quit London and the business of London and move away. So this was actually ideal timing.

Viking Bay – Broadstairs

We had a final breakfast at our favourite café in St Margarets; La Creperie Bretonne

our favourite breakfast place in St Margarets

Boxes were obtained, sorting began and soon our possessions were being whittled down and packed into what one hoped would be a few boxes…hah!!! Never underestimate the volume of stuff one collects over the years. However, I did a massive purge and all the personal development tapes, dvd’s, videos and boxes of books that I very foolishly wasted my money on in 2007/2008 took a hike….in other words, I destroyed the lot!!! Yes, I spent hours ripping up tapes, tearing books into shreds and destroying cds and dvds. I know this seems like a wilful act of destruction, but my feelings about this invasive industry still run very high. I am still smarting at the pervasive and underhand tactics they use to get you to sign up to their very expensive courses and I’m still paying the price; emotionally, mentally and financially. They sell you on the idea that by doing their course, your life will change….well it did, but not for the better…..especially financially. (and yes, I have written the book!) LOL But I digress….

: cd’s from the supposed Success University

: dvd’s etc that I wasted my money on 😦

So finally after much packing and dumping and selling and heart-wrenching decisions, we were packed up and ready to go…..and at the beginning of October (yes, I know, it’s taken that long) the van (please note the word ‘van’) arrived to collect all our boxes and things to begin the long trek to Broadstairs. It’s 80 miles…..and a very long 80 miles too may I add. We’re now closer to Belgium and France than we are to London!!! Go figure!! hahaha.

beneath the clouds is Belgium – sunset in Viking Bay

Anyway, getting back to the ‘van’, my lovely daughter had moved any number of times in her life, but never a major move besides one some years ago that we would rather consign to the annuls of history along with the jerk who was her husband at the time, and she had acquired quite a lot of furniture and household stuff in the four years we lived at Richmond. So when she got a ‘man-with-a-van’ and his wife in to give her an estimate of volume and cost, both she and they totally underestimated the amount of stuff there was…..and lo and behold the van, when it arrived on moving day, was too small. However, I am very good at puzzles, and did make a really good effort to squeeze everything in, I heaved and moved and shoved and jiggled and juggled boxes and furniture, and managed, much to the amazement of the van man and his sidekick, to get so much stuff in to the van that they were well impressed. In fact I quite simply put them to shame. I did in the process end up with a body covered in bruises and bloodied arms and shins. I looked like I had been to war! They should have paid me for doing their job. Hah!! But unfortunately she had to quickly scout around and order another van to collate and take with her the rest of the stuff left over. We ended up with a truck that cost as much again as the first quote and was that big it could have easily managed the whole bleeding lot. But, since much was already packed in the van and they had a few days ago given her the option to cancel, we felt we had to just go with what we had…and I wasn’t of a mind to unpack the bloody van again.

So everything in and away we went, barring some of my stuff……I hung onto the house as long as I could and since we had paid rent up to a certain date, I was determined to do as much in London as I could before I had to go. Crikey, it’s a long way….not to Tipperary but to Broadstairs. We finally made it and then there was unpacking to do. Firstly, I got stuck in and offloaded the van in double quick time, they really should have paid me….and very foolishly I didn’t get them to take the boxes upstairs, but had them pile the darn things in the dining area. Urgh!!! Stupid. Then they tried to get the bed bases up the stairs…..hmmmmm, yes, well….bearing in mind it was an old house, the people were not only thinner but shorter in ‘those’ days and as it turned out the damn staircase was too narrow and turned at too sharp an angle to allow us to get the bases past the first few steps. Bleeding heck…now what? So the mattress went up and (please don’t tell the landlord) but we took the bannister off the wall the next day and tried again…still to no avail, and to this day they are still stacked in the dining area…..but the boxes…..yes the boxes. Hmmm.

Now you might ask, where was my daughter while all this was happening…..well she, poor baby, had just come out of surgery after having a heart monitor stuck into her breastbone and was incapacitated. So Mama, did her thing….I’ve also had years of practice after having moved house on an average of about once every 6 months before she was born and 14 times in the 21 years after that, I had plenty of experience.

Once the vans were unpacked we set out to explore and have a very welcome cup of tea. Broadstairs is an absolute delight.

colourful beach huts in Broadstairs

Quirky shops, narrow roads, a rumbunctious pub, all sorts of fantastical items that have washed up onto the beach over the years, fantastic views, long stretches of secluded beaches, unobstructed views of the sunrise over the sea, a history that goes as far back as the Vikings and probably further, hence the name Viking Bay, a chapel that dates from the early 1600’s, little tea shops and home to the Charles Dickens Museum and Bleak House!!! Yes, yer man Charles Dickens used to summer in Broadstairs. Some of his books were written there and of course ‘Bleak House’….sitting for all the world bold as brass on the clifftop.

Bleak House, Broadstairs

Marvelous. Once I had my girl settled in as much as could be, I headed back to London for my great London walkabout and my goodbye London excursions. Sadly I didn’t get to do or even see everything I wanted but I did a heck of a lot.

my luggage – from St Margarets to Broadstairs

Once I finally cut the strings that bound me to London I hopped on a train with 2 large, very large suitcases, (one suitcase handle broke before I had gone 10 feet along the pavement to the station) and a reusable bag of groceries…..and made my sorry way to Broadstairs.

First to Clapham Junction, then to Broadstairs and a cab to the house. Not at all sure how I did that journey, but it seems I must have managed because I did eventually get to my destination. Mind you the staff on South West Trains were ever so helpful and the Train Conductor helped me on and off with all my bags, bless him.

And so to Broadstairs.

Viking Bay – Broadstairs

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The Universe was having a laugh….

Posted in It's my life, tagged living in london, london emergency services, travelling in the uk, visiting museums in the uk, working in the uk on September 5, 2014| 1 Comment »

So yes, indeed the Universe had a laugh on me!

For the last few years I have constantly asked the agency for work in London, mostly so that I can be close to home and especially so that I could be in the city and explore…. but it seldom came my way and I have been sent off in different directions to all corners of this little island!

high tide in Richmond – home 🙂

But now, now that I have closed down the business of 3 Days in London, suddenly I get a job slap bang in the center of Kensington…almost next door to The Natural History Museum to be precise….is the Universe having a laugh or what?

So laugh over, off I went and settled in for the duration….glad for the opportunity to have a fling in London. The flat where I was working was literally a 5 minute walk from the NHM and the marvellous V&A Museum….and that is where I spent a lot of my break times, if I wasn’t sleeping. It was also a treat to see the magical roof of the NHM from the kitchen window each morning. I was staying in one of those amazing looking apartments in Queensway Gardens on the 4th floor and view was terrific albeit limited.

the roof of the Natural History Museum

The V&A is so enormous that it’s impossible to see everything in one or even two visits so there are a lot of the galleries I have not yet explored. It was great!!! I discovered some wonderful galleries of 15th-19th century England where I saw David Garrick’s bed, a model of the Queen’s State Coach and a model of the 1861 Crystal Palace exhibition hall as well as a number of terrific Victorian items and treasures. I entered the museum via the Exhibition Road entrance and then turned immediately right and up the stairs….three floors of galleries filled to the brim with fabulous items.

I also had the chance to meet up with my wonderful friend Valy from Belgium who was on a quick 2 day visit over the Bank Holiday weekend and we managed to catch up for coffee at a little café in Gloucester Road.

: a little cafe on Gloucester Road

: roller-skaters roll by

I discovered that London is quite noisy at night with a constant flow of traffic, albeit not anywhere near as noisy as Richmond where my bedroom is but 30 feet away from the dual carriage way that is never quiet and rumbles with traffic all day and most of the night….with an occasional lull at about 3am.

I had been scheduled to be there for 2.5 weeks but suddenly and without any warning after just one week the lady up and died. She was 98 so I suppose it shouldn’t have come as any surprise, but she seemed well enough and was quite alert and all in the morning…but within 45 minutes of the London ambulance services being called she took her last breath and gracefully slipped away.

As for the London Emergency Services, I was most impressed. I had barely put the phone down and there was a ring at the front door…..and there they were. A lovely trio who were so sweet and caring with my patient and just lovely after she passed away. This is not the first time I have lost a patient while working as most of the people I care for are either very, very old or at end of life, so although it came as a shock that it was so unexpected it wasn’t a surprise.

I spent the next two days at the flat tidying up and sorting stuff out for her daughter who was flying in from South Africa and then after handing over to her I was on my way home again…..I never complain about being on my way home.

I so enjoyed seeing my daughter again, albeit just for a few hours as I got more work almost immediately and Thursday saw me on the train and on my way to East Sussex for 1 week. Down on the farm……….

on my way to the farm in East Sussex

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disconnecting from Facebook

Posted in It's my life, tagged disconnecting from facebook, facebook, photos on instagram, social media, travelling on September 2, 2014| 2 Comments »

I used to be a great fan of facebook and loved being able to keep up with friends and family, to see what they were up to, where they had been and generally keeping in touch. It has also been a terrific way of keeping up with my daughter and what she is up to on any day….. In the first heady days of registering I set about connecting with as many people as possible and managed to hook up with a lot of friends I had lost touch with over the years…it was also great to be able to keep in touch with family especially as I was now living so far away.

In time and when MLM was big I had loads of people connect with me in order to sell me their products! Needless to say I got ensnared in a company called Success University which really wasn’t at all what it appeared to be…..but that’s for another story. Over the years facebook has changed and they have become far too smart for their own good and the word algorithm should be banned from their dictionaries….in fact I think their computer smart-asses should be banned from ever changing anything ever again (yes, I am being grumpy). It’s lost it’s charm. People can now abuse you on facebook and mostly get away with it. Sure you can block them and I have blocked and reported a number of people, may of whom were fake id’s anyway, so no loss there. But with facebook deciding whose updates I can or can’t see and with them changing things so much I just got fed up! I’ve been off the platform before and didn’t miss it but after a few days curiosity got the better of me and I logged back on…but this time I’ve had it…I have disconnected my profile and plan to keep it that way.

Alongside of this and after my decision to close down my business, I have been on a self-imposed detox from social media and my computer….so it’s been quite a challenge to actually log on and write this blog…..

I just haven’t had the heart to open up my computer; a constant reminder of what I was so focussed on for the last 4 years…..it all seems such a waste now, but I do keep reminding myself that what I have learned can’t be unlearned and all the wonderful things I have done over the last 4 years are forever in my memories and my photos 😉 ….lest we forget those!!

It’s been interesting….I haven’t missed facebook AT ALL and have probably, although not saved any time, I have certainly been less irritated and had more time to actually grab a book and read instead of scrolling endlessly through hundreds of updates.

I haven’t been on twitter much either, and except for the odd peek now and then, I have pretty much left the world to just get on with itself while I have relaxed, slept and taken myself out and about….taking photos of course. New places, new views.

The only platform I have continued to use, and that’s because it really is my favourite platform is instagram. I love to see photos of far-flung places and most definitely love to see photos of London via my favourite London igers. I have sadly lost all my hashtags…this happens everytime I update the bloody app and it’s terribly annoying…some of them are not often used but when I want them they are generally there…..However, I am now in the process of compiling new and different hashtags relevant to my new adventures. I have also recently rediscovered snapseed (thanks to my daughter) and have had much fun converting my photos to HDR via the app. It certainly makes a huge difference to the quality of the photos and as an accompaniment to that I have started shooting in HDR too….I have to say I am most impressed and sorry that I din’t venture into that arena earlier…..but never too late to start.

I have also followed a lot more different igers and sadly I have to date lost over 130 followers…who have skipped town so to speak. I guess my not posting mostly London images now means they are no longer interested. But I have watched the numbers bounce up and down and occasionally someone new follows and then someone else goes away…..but since it’s no longer important to my business, I am slowly releasing my anxiety when the numbers drop. Hopefully I don’t eventually end up at zero…that would be pitiful LOL

In the meantime, my self-imposed detox from social media means that not only have I not posted much by way of anything on twitter I have also not posted any blogs…..so this is my first for a while. It feels quite strange not having all that ‘work’ to do for the business of 3 Days in London any more.

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Being google for London

Posted in It's my life, tagged guide to london, London on August 14, 2014| 8 Comments »

So, here I am just under a week since I made the momentous decision to close down my business! Yesterday morning and this morning I had a major panic-attack…a real wobbly and almost reconsidered the whole thing…..except that of course nothing has changed. The reasons for disconnecting myself from the business of 3 Days in London are still the same and much as I loved my business and loved being identified as 3 Days in London…it became me and I lost myself in the process.

timeous quote

Roughly 4.5 years ago I designed an itinerary for an American friend who was coming to London and wanted my suggestions on what to do with 6 hours in London…Out of that I started a new business called 3 Days in London and spent days and hours in London charting new routes and created 3 full-day itineraries ‘3 Days in London’ that would take in all the top attractions as well as many of the hidden and secret London places that are so amazing and yet so many visitors to our incredible city never get to see. I started a new website, got onto twitter, opened a facebook page, started a pinterest profile, opened a flickr account, got going on instagram soon after it appeared and signed onto so many social media platforms that I totally lost count. After years of steadily tweeting, blogging and posting photos and providing what I hoped was interesting information about the city; the history, hidden places, events, races and exhibitions I started to get invitations to Press Previews….. finally I was being noticed and was now going to the openings of new exhibitions…wow!!! I can’t tell you how delighted and thrilled and amazed I was when I got my first invitation: to the opening of a new exhibition at the Tower of London.

Line of Kings at the Tower of London

Around the same time I created and had an App built….it was/is great. To date there have been almost 3,000 downloads and of course bearing in mind it’s free to download, it was still exciting nonetheless to see the download numbers creeping up!

developing the App

I adore London; it really was my passion and of course having learned via the Personal Development journey I was on in 2007/2008 that to start a business by doing what you loved was the best way to ‘Turn Passion into Profit’ (I am part quoting the title of a book by Christopher Howard) I decided to turn my love of London into a business. However….and this is a big however….that did not happen. I got so wrapped up in trying to be the ‘google of London’ that although my love for London never waned, my passion has.

: The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh

: 60 Glorious years

I’ve seen the Queen and the Royal Family, been at the Royal Wedding, the Diamond Jubilee, was at the gate of Buckingham Palace when our future king was born

waiting for the arrival of a future king…

watched numerous Trooping the Colour events, been rowed along the Thames in the beautiful Trinity Tide (the 1st),

The Trinity Tide…not the year I got to ride 😉

participated in the Tudor Pull twice, stood on the Gloriana (a highlight), been to watch the arrival of ‘The First Georgian king’,

The Glorious Georges

climbed the O2, been up the Orbit and had numerous rides on the London Eye and walked 80% of the streets, courts and lanes in the City of London.

The City of London

I’ve climbed The Monument (3 times), climbed to the Golden Gallery of St Paul’s (5 or 6 times) & the tower of Westminster Cathedral, been up The Shard, down the Tube (travelled on every line and visited nearly all the stations),

Going underground…

I’ve sailed down the Thames in various craft including a tall-ship, and over the Thames in the cable car, walked beneath the Thames via the Greenwich tunnel and tramped along the beaches wherever possible. I’ve been to both the London locks, walked across every bridge from Hampton Court to Tower Bridge, watched all the river races, explored and investigated nooks and crannies, learned to drink a lager: London Pride (go figure hahahaha) and pulled a pint at The George Inn.

pulling a pint at the George Inn

I became a tad obsessed with trying to see and do EVERYTHING, and go everywhere; visit every palace (which I have done), explore every historical house (still a few to go), attend every exhibition, every attraction, visit every ‘views of London’ (I’ve done most), visit all the churches in City of London and Westminster and many more besides (only a few to go), all the parks (still many to go), all the events (been to all the annual ones!!).

: Happy New Year

: view from The Shard

: The Tudor Pull

I’ve seen the Lord Mayor’s Show (5 times), and watched the fireworks at the London Eye at 5 New Year’s nights and stayed out all night in 2014, seen the tree being switched on in Trafalgar Square. I’ve tried to visit every hidden place, every secret place, visit all the famous cemeteries (3 to go), go on as many tours of different areas as possible, learn about the many kings and queens, about the famous

Charles Dickens

and infamous people who had shaped the city and all this while taking thousands of photos – to date I have over 60,000!! Ironically I missed quite a lot of the events taking place in front of me in my endeavour to capture the ‘perfect’ photo or the ‘best’ video to share, to share them without overwhelming the social media platforms….all this while trying to blog about everything I had done, update the App (which, like a baby, needs constant attention) and still work and have a life…..in the process I forgot about me, in my desire to do everything and to share everything I knew about the city I exhausted myself, sometimes staying up till 3am in the morning and back at my desk by 6am setting tweets, updating the blog (some posts took anything up to 8 hours to craft in my need to have the full and correct information), editing and uploading photos etc etc etc…..London is such an amazing place and I became quite obsessed with trying to make sure that I didn’t miss anything (not possible) and share everything…..which of course is impossible.

seeing everything….

I tried to learn about SEO, key words and phrases, back-links, how to craft a blog to make it interesting, I bought books and downloaded ‘useful information’, I gathered boxes and boxes of flyers, leaflets, brochures all carefully collated into categories and alphabetical order for easy access when doing research, and dozens of books on London – all this stuff, except for the books, are now in the recycling bin along with a little bit of my heart!! 😦

some of my London books

I downloaded articles on how to write a Press release, how to do this, how to do that, what to do and what not to do when writing a blog…..gahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! I tried to figure out the best time to send tweets, to update the facebook page, upload photos to pinterest, when was the best time to post a blog…..and on and on and on……the ‘experts’ all had an idea of what/when/how was best…and I had no idea who was the best expert.

Amongst all this madness I decided to redesign my website; to make it into a super duper resource….a place where people could visit and easily find out everything (almost) there is to do and see in the city. Lists of things to do, places to visit, Top attractions, what to see, museums and galleries, churches, places, parks and gardens and squares, annual events and and and….lists and lists and more lists…..you don’t want to miss a thing! One thing about me….I LOVE lists!!! I have spent months and months researching, learning and crafting interesting and useful (I hope) articles for the website….all of which I would now have said is wasted time….

down the toilet….

I met with the website designer at the beginning of the year and the first draft was beautiful..I got so excited. Now I would be able to confidently upload the itineraries I had created 4 years ago (nope, I had not yet put them up…despite walking them a number of times and having other people test them for me, lack of confidence stopped me at every turn, what if the information that was on the itinerary was incorrect!! What if they didn’t like them). I planned that once the website was completed I would approach possible sponsors for the App etc. I wanted to be taken seriously, to have a professional website, to show I was serious. So when things started to go awry with the development of the new website, I started to get concerned. Time and months went by with no indication of when it would be ready…finally I started to put the pressure on. I eventually got a link, clicked on it and was sent to a porn site….apparently my new website along with 4 others had been hacked. I won’t go into the subsequent details except to say that by now my confidence in the end result was beginning to wane….why didn’t the developer have sufficient security?

pretty much says it all really..

After many emails and phone calls, many of which went unanswered and quite a few months went by, I finally got a link to the site……suffice to say I was dismayed…I was shocked at quite frankly what looked to me like something that had hastily been cobbled together to meet my demands (after nearly 7 months) and in that split second I was…right that’s it!!! I’ve had enough. I’m out!!!!

hmmm….

There was so much that was fundamentally wrong and although my initial list of errors only took into account the big stuff I had discovered that was incorrect, the fact that the name of the company had been spelled incorrectly in not one but two places really upset me a lot…..the response I got from the developer of ‘quick fix’ or ‘easy change’ just didn’t after all cut the mustard. This had come right on top of the double whammy of the day before and I really just couldn’t take it in. I didn’t want to see so many errors on what really should have been a professional presentation…..TIME to quit!

time to quit!

The reality is that I am a very small fish in the very big London pond….there are HUGE London websites that employ dozens of people to research, report and update their websites….the enormity of what I was trying to do finally hit me square between the eyeballs….my love-affair was over. Not with London, but with the business of London.

: Love Locks

: LOVE London

: lock and key…..love!!!

I had lost my passion for the city, I was exhausted with trying to be everywhere and do everything and tweet, instagram, facebook, flickr, pinterest and write about it. I was tired of trying to get stats that I needed, to learn about the different platforms that keep changing their algorithms, facebook changed theirs so often I got heart-palpitations trying to keep up….. and layouts; don’t even talk to me about layouts!!!…I got heartily sick of logging onto a platform that I had used just the day before and the whole appearance had changed and I had to learn all over again where to find things. I seriously believe that the developers are too clever for their own good and should not be allowed anywhere near the platform once it’s done! I got fed up with all the spam that appeared on my blog every day (despite having akismet installed), with nasty people making shitty comments or complaining about my tweets on twitter, or spending hours editing and uploading photos, or creating videos and only 5 or 6 people even liked them. I also had to tackle bloody Windows 8 along the way after my previous computer crashed and I had to get a new one…it has also cost me a lot financially. I had to stop and really question why I was still doing this.

& what am I doing?

On the plus side, I did get to conduct a few guided walks with groups of people, bespoke walks that were fun to research, fun to plan and in reality quite tiring to do. I was terrified that they would get injured in some or another way while on the walk with me and frankly even having insurance doesn’t cover that stress. I’ve written a short story…my great Victorian novel I like to call it…LOL in reality it’s a short story, but it was fun to write and I actually sold quite a few, I’ve created 2 blurb books, one my daughter made for me out of some of my more interesting blogs and one I made for a friend who visited Twickenham, and I have been to so many places, seen so many amazing things, visited so many fantastic venues and attended some brilliant events and exhibitions. I have connected with some absolutely wonderful people along the way… some from as far away as Russia and Ukraine, Toronto in Canada, Texas, California, Florida, and other American states; some of whom I have actually met, many of whom have become very very good friends 😉 as well as wonderful people from the UK and London. These are just a few of the wonderful people I have met….

: me and Vic Norman

: Boris and me 😉

: The Royal Family’s biggest fan

: Ben Wilson

: Nika, Valy & me

: Tammy from Texas

On this amazing journey I discovered that not only was Queen Lizzie’s birthday close to mine, but my birthday falls on St George’s Day and I share the same birth date as Shakespeare!! How cool is that!

: The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh

: St George

: St George’s Day

: William Shakespeare

I have learned so much about the history of this great city, the greatest city on the planet in my humble opinion, that I can only look back with great joy at all I have done and the people I have met and I can tell you one thing for sure….okay make that two things…I Love London, that will never wane and I know more about this city than I know about ANYTHING else on the planet!!!

when a man is tired of London……

I LOVE London, but, I am no longer trying to be ‘google for London…..’

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Postcard from life….

Posted in It's my life, tagged blogging about my life, life choices, Travel, Universe on August 12, 2014| 6 Comments »

hello!!!! I’m back!! 🙂 Yes, Unbelievably, I have been away for so long but now I’m back. Life has given me another fork in the road and as usual you can only go in one direction, so here I am…..back on my original road…..

Last week, on one day, the Universe decided to throw me a double whammy of bad news and also a break down in communication regarding the future of my business.

As as result of that I decided to shut down my facebook profile,

way out…..

close down my business and give up the lease on the house I have been sharing with my daughter for the last 3 years. She has been desperate to have her own place and only been staying here because she was worried about me. When I moved in 3 years ago it was meant to be for 6 months……we got way too comfortable and frankly it suited us both at the time….but she is so ready to have her own place….so since I have now decided to go off exploring again, she is free to head off and find her own place.

a new direction….

So, from here on in I will be blogging more regularly and travelling again 🙂 Hooray!

Going back a bit……the reason for my sudden change of direction came about because of three things:

1) After many years of unexplained and many times severe blackouts, my daughter’s Cardiologist tells her that the probable reason for the severe blackouts is that her heart keeps stopping….yeah…I kid you not. It seems she has in fact had a near-death experience just recently and last year when I discovered her unresponsive and despite slapping, shouting and shaking her, still got no response, her heart had in fact stopped. Thankfully I did just keep hitting, shouting and shaking her coz after a short while she came around and we whisked off to hospital……so lets hope they find a way of sorting this out.

2) the bastard ex-husband who told her that he wanted children but not with her has only gone and not only got the house he denied her, but remarried and had a child. To say that I was filled with fury would be an understatement. She has struggled for over 4 years now to come to terms with his wretched treatment of her and the horrible stuff she found out after she left and now he has the audacity to go and have a child while she is struggling to get back on her feet emotionally. There should be a way of dealing with people like him.

3) I’ve been working on the 3 Days in London business for 4.5 years now, building credibility, learning about London, creating a website, building a twitter following, writing books, building an App and providing as much information to visitors as possible… and the next step was the redesigned website….which when I finally got the link, what the website developer had done was so not up to scratch that I bloody nearly freaked…actually I lie….I did freak. So that little piece of joy came round about the time I heard the above 2 items…so all three things in a short space of time and I am like OKAY!!! universe that’s enough bullsh!t. time for a change 😉

They always say that things come in threes

things always come in three’s

So the long and the short of it is that we are now definitely giving up the lease on the house, my daughter is finally going to find a place of her own near the coast which she has been wanting to do for a few years now and I am going to pack my life up in boxes, start working full time again so I can sort out my debt and then I am going to buy the campervan/caravan that I have been wanting for ever such a long time and go travelling.

…time to travel….

Time to become a nomad once again.

So keep your eye on this blog and keep up with my new adventures. I will of course still blog about London……I adore London and it will always be in my blood.