Heading for the North Cape...


About every 5km an 'emergency stop' was in order



£20 to get in - "yours is the first GB car I have seen this season!"





But there were many Italians in motor homes



A rather nice Latte with Waffle at the North Cape
served by a Danish 'English' PhD
using a vocabulary straight out of Wodehouse

@ Grimsmark...





Site of the first (or possibly second I can't remember for sure)
Hjelm Homestead


The paintings go back 60 years (possibly!)

All packed and ready for the big trip...

Last view as I head for the E4

A short drive in Scandinavia...



My cabin on DFDS Newcastle-Haugesund via Bergen

By choice I would not travel with DFDS again - they have a monopoly on
this crossing and don't they know it!



Approaching Haugesund - tide was in -
we cleared the bridge by about 50cm

A fact finding trip to Novgorod...



Count the birch trees... it is a long journey from St Petersburg
and it avoids thinking about all the near misses (and failed misses)
you will see over the two hours...




Russian-Italian restaurant
- more expensive than in the UK




And this was a starter!


In the much nicer 'Kremlin' restaurant - a wee bowl of (chilled) soup

It's a Mercedes!



Novgorod Factory






On the St Petersburg-Moscow Highway ... Baba Yaga's house
on chicken legs -but note the legend is based on a bear-proof
food store design used in pre-history

I wrote to my MP...

" Dear Dr Jones,
It's a BROWN tax not a GREEN tax...
Mr Brown has put up airport tax but not enough to make anyone think again about travelling by air
It will make no environmental difference at all
A proper green tax would have been one.... "

and the reply was:

From: "JONES, Lynne"
To: "David Williams"

Sorry not to have replied before.
I am inclined to agree.
I will ask Gordon Brown for a response and then get back to you.
LYNNE JONES MP
House of Commons London
SW1A 0AA

www.lynnejones.org.uk

Sadly Dr Jones has been de-selected and replaced with someone more docile and inclined to toe the party line... I hope this was not a result asking my question!

Welsh Walk 2007



Rhinog Fach - maybe it was a bit steep - we are all 10 years older!



King of the Mountain




Rhinog Fawr.. for the full blog see... Welshwalk2007


The Loneliest Teleffon Box...



Now we know why they take your car if you drive off-road



it's a glow worm site - Mr Glowworm only shines in July and August - and then only between about 10Pm and midnight - so we were very lucky to spot this...

The Fanatics Party @ RSTechEd 2007 in Orlando


I could see and hear Universal Studios from my hotel room -
but I only got out for 2 hours in the whole week - and that
was to visit a bread factory.




Problems leaving the US - I have no idea what was going on
be there was a lot of shouting and gesticulating for about 10
minutes


The Hudson river palisades...

Cape Cod - Pilgrims Landing...








This of course if the history as written by the US Government
Parks service:

First Discoverie: They wandered around, found a spring and saw signs of 'natives'
Second Discoverie: They came across a 'hastily deserted village where they obtained stores of corn, grain and beans*', "obtained" is an interesting word - what they really did was loot the natives winter food stores. Which led to the...
Third Discoverie: "hostile encounter with Indians. Arrows and musket balls were exchanged" - well, yes! - because the Indians are now going to starve over the winter and are more than a little miffed with the Pilgrims - who sort of set to pattern for the next two hundred years

*wikipedia says that without these stores and seed corn the Pilgrims would not have survived and that they paid the Indians back some months later. hmmm....

Cape Cod...

Before


After


The Lobster Barn


My car - as I asked for GPS and they did not have the model
I paid for I got upgraded to a Toyota Avalon (nice!)

Cranberry farmer (and shy dog) - Cape Code, Mass.
Was very surprised to meet an Englishman who knew the ins-and-outs of cranberry culture (unfortunately mine are dieing)
Interesting that sand is getting so expensive that farmers are trying to do without and see what happens to the yields.

Dad and daughter out biking (mum is driving the van) in Vermont

First trip to Skarbimierz...


The 06:50 to Munich (At least we are going business class)

The realisation slowly sinks in.

Welcome to your new home

The boys are going home - hooray!