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Showing posts from June, 2015

Getting back to my roots in Gloucestershire, England

Once upon a time at the turn of the 20th century, there was a boy named Christopher and a girl named Gussie who lived a few houses apart on Pearcroft Road in the village of Stonehouse, Gloucestershire, England. They literally grew up together and fell in love.....when Christopher (Gussie called him "Jack") moved to Canada for a new adventure Gussie followed him a couple of years later in 1913 and they got married.  Christopher and Gussie were my grandparents.  Sadly my grandpa died when I was just four years old and I don't remember him at all.  My grandmother however was in my life until I was 34 years old and we were very very close.  I could talk about everything with her.  We would have a meal together every week - through her I tried new food that wasn't served in our home such as lamb, veal, broccoli (how exotic!), cauliflower and her peach pies have not been equaled to this day..she was an excellent cook.  As the years went on I still fit in an evening meal wit

A second rotation of the Golden Circle

When I visited Iceland in October 2013 I did the Golden Circle tour and of all the luck it happened to be their first snowfall of the season that day...so this time around I decided to do an "express" verson of the tour to view it during what I hoped was better summery weather.  While the sun did come out at odd times it was mostly a rainy day...sigh...oh well, Iceland is not known for its great weather. We visited three main attractions:  Thiingveller (Parliament Plains) National Park, the Geysir area and Gullfoss waterfall - in the opposite direction from the last time with less time in each place. Thiingveller looked different this time...not white but wet....this is the national park where the first General Assembly of Iceland took place in 930 and was held here until 1798.  The area is a protected shrine and held in high esteem by Icelanders.  It is also situated on the mid Atlantic tectonic plate boundaries - meaning it is basically in the middle of Europe and North

A (mini) cruise on the Med sea....

Now before you get all impressed and think "wow, she even did a Mediterranean cruise, isn't she amazing".... this was just a day cruise on my Intrepid tour of Turkey   I must say it was a beauty though.... We had unseasonably cold weather in Turkey and we arrived into the coastal of Kas (pronounced "Kosh") to torrential rain and an "almost nation wide" power outage.  I didn't have high hopes for the next day needless to say...however it all came together and we awoke to sunny skies and WARMTH.  It was a glorious day of utter relaxation on what was a fantastic but very busy tour.  We were picked up by private transport and headed out - stopping to get the following views of Kas...... If I ever return to Turkey this place will be one I spend some time in...I absolutely loved the beauty and laid back vibe of Kas.  I will be doing a blog post on this lovely town in the future. So we got to the dock...not too shabby view wise and there