my name is mwd

One of the things I liked about Ireland was their road signs – they had a somewhat ad hoc feel to them, indicative of a more relaxed out look on these things. I captured a small selection below:

Some need a bit of pondering – bottom left presumably indicates a tree in winter ahead, bottom right is a workman sat on wall. Top right, well, answers on a postcard… ;)

A random shot from atop Ely Cathedral. Alas I didn’t have time to get much of a better shot as it started snowing on us :)

Laura all helmeted up, watching an aerial display at Duxford from afar. There was a range of big and small planes from around World War Two doing fancy manoeuvres quite low down. It was quite impressive stuff to see so close; the larger planes seemed to be really on the edge at times, moving in ways that made me feel odd watching them, so I’d imagine it’s worse inside. It’s unusual you get to see such heavy flying machines up close (given their intended purpose, certainly that’s a good thing with regards to these specific planes), and there’s a degree of inspiration that they give, which I think you get less of a feel for now that modern planes are just too fast to see (though Laura correctly pointed out that vertical take off/landing is still quite impressive).

Laura and I have just returned from a week up in Scotland, staying up in Inveruglas at my parents’ caravan up there. It was nice to have a quite week in the wilderness. We even managed a Munro. I’ve only ever done one Munro, but I’ve now done it three times, but this was the first time I’ve done the climb in the day – previously I’ve climbed up to fail to see sunrise on the longest day. This year we waited until noon before ascending :)

Spotted in the Highlands of Scotland (Luss, on Loch Lomond, which is just in the Highlands…) – a sign of the modern world:

Oxburgh hall – it was wonderful blue skies, but alas my phone doesn’t have a polarising filter.

Probably fair to say that we were more impressed with the outside than the inside. But then inside had stiff competition given the weather.

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One of the things about being in a foreign land is that all the signage is different. This gate warning sign amused me in its attempt to capture the dynamics of being crushed by a gate…

My flight was cancelled after all – oh dear. Just made it home, after spending most the day in Heathrow – a fun day out for all the family. Haven’t managed to get through to BA to try and reschedule my flights. At the airport I was told essentially to go home. There was a multi-hour queue for rebooking, but I was told that priority was being given to people trying to get home over people trying to leave the UK (which is fair enough), and thus there wasn’t much point queuing. But the BA phone number isn’t answering at the moment, so I suspect I’m not leaving on a jet plane tomorrow, and on Monday I won’t want to go to Seattle, I’ll want to go to Portland…

Yesterday I woke up aching a bit, and decided against doing any long journeys that I’d had in my mind. The walking up hills and comfort of the 996 had taken their toll a bit :) However, the best laid plans etc…

I started off with a bike up to the BMW Motorrad centre in Bishopbriggs and the Ducati garage in Glasgow. Although I’m not really in the market for a new bike (I think/hope) I’d have to go to London to try and find the nearest such shops to Cambridge, so I went to drool. Annoyingly all the sales people seemed busy with real customers, so I was disappointed to not get at least to sit on some of my dream bikes. Oh well, another time perhaps.

I thought I’d bore you all with a little bit from my recent trip. I’ll spare you the work details, they’re really dull, but I was impressed both by the Eurostar and Brussels itself.

The Eurostar first. On the way to Brussels there was about seven of us, spread over the train. The train itself is very nice, clean, well kept - more so than most trains in the UK and, indeed, most budget airline planes. In standard class there’s a little more leg room than you’d find on a plane; it’s not a huge amount, but it does make the difference, as on the return leg I could comfortably watch DVDs on my iBook when placed on the fold down table - no way I’d be able to do that on most cheap flights. On the way there we were all quite hungry, having just had an all day meeting, so we quickly invaded the buffet/bar carriage, which has a serving bar, and a set of tables to stand at. Food wise they were a bit low, but the food they did have was fairly cheap, and better yet they had beer. In fact, we spent the entire journey in the bar, and drank it dry (though, it has to be said we only had 2 or 3 beers each). But it was fantastic - essentially we went to a bar in London, had a few drinks for a couple of hours, and then stepped out in Brussels - now that to me is a very sensible and civilised way to travel :)