Mumtraveller

Hello all Today I was up to London in Hampton Court - and not being mugged in the Philipines- I am sorry but my Yahoo account has been hacked - I have lost all emails and all contacts - so this blog is a good way to reach most of you. Thanks to everyone who might have thought it was true and showed concern by texting phoning or messaging me here...and given that Richard has been working in Manilla a couple of times - it was perfectly feasible that I might have been there!! Now it's aright mess to try and see if Yahoo can restore my account ....meanwhile I am changing all passwords etc ....maybe I shall use a Maori word - they are pretty unintelligible. Love bemused and confused me. xxx... read more

My home exchange with Helen and Enrique on the German Dutch border was lovely and on Friday I set off to drive to Amsterdam. Negotiating the very busy roads - mostly motorways was easier than it would have been since I had Sally Satnav to guide my way. I even managed to get off the motorways and cross a large parkland area The Hoge Veluwe National Park (a bit like driving through the New Forest) . In the middle there is the Kroller Muller Museum - a sculpture park and collection of many Van Gogh paintings as well as other artworks - so I spent some time there including time for a nice cup of coffee and Dutch apple cake. Japanese visitors galore seem to like having their photos taken beside a famous artwork....I prefer to ... read more

Hello my dears It's a rainy day here and so I will have a bit of a rest from sightseeing. I am staying with a very nice couple ( Hospitality exchange again) in Emmerich on the Rhein - and you an see Holland from here. One wonders about our penchant for border security in the UK when here you are flashing about on motorways from France to Belgium to Holland and Germany - never stopping for pasports or customs- only a cctv camera to catch you. We certainly seem to have put up the drawbridge compared to the rest of Europe. So leaving the White Cliffs of Dover on Sunday morning the sun was shining and the sea was calm ( goody no Kwells this time) I arrived in Dunkerque 2 hours later. Ferries to France ... read more

Dear all I have actually been back home a few days but didn't get a chance to do my blog on the latest trip away- so it's retrospective - but I know everyone likes to see my photos and know what I have been up to- so here it comes..... Many people fly into Alicante’s new airport and then whizz off to the coastal resorts like nearby Benidorm and Torevieja…. But visiting my lovely cousin, Marilyn, and her husband,Terry, they pick me up and whizz me inland across the mountains to the valley where they live between two villages Frailes and Hondon de las Nieves. Almonds blossoms were out and vines are cut right back to stumps, orange and lemon trees are laden with fruits and we pass many olive trees some ancient and some newly ... read more

At last I have found a coffee shop which does wif fi - I am back in Dubai but here goes with the report on my last couple of days in Oman ... it's a bit long but you will see why.... After the visit to the fort I was off again – driving myself from Muscat through the mountains to the coast at Sur and then on to the turtle reserve at Ras al Jinz. This was a journey of about 250 km and well done Oman for such brilliant roads. The geology of the country here is fantastic with a a huge range of different rock types and ages from ancient to relatively recent in geological terms. So what a lot of dynamite must have gone into blasting the way through these mountains to ... read more

Just over a week ago I left the chill of Sussex behind and flew to Dubai and am staying with my good friend, Lesley. (Sorry that Lars and Lillemor couldn't join us as was the original plan). For those of you who don’t know I was teaching in Dubai for 6 years and we left in 2004. The last visit was in 2006 just after Michael died – so I knew there would be many changes. But the scale of change in that time is staggering-- mile upon mile of construction of fabulous skyscrapers, roads, shopping malls, leisure and housing developments….and to top it all the tallest building in the world Burj Khalifa. Then at ground level there is a new public transport system something I never contemplated for Dubai – two metro lines run across ... read more