PASTYandCREAM

We are going to postpone our trip to India. In light of what has happened in Mumbai we have had a long discussion about recent events. We spent all day yesterday deciding whether to go ahead or not, especially because of where we were intending to travel ie the North, West & Mumbai ....and up by Pakistan border. We are so shocked, saddened and worried by what has happened to Mumbai and have been glued to the news following these horrific events and cannot believe to what depths these terrorists have gone to this time. It seems they have stepped up to a very different level of terrorism and has unfortunately affected our decision to go now. The bombs in Jaipur in May and other attacks in Delhi and Gujarat during September almost stopped us, but ... read more

Greetings friends & family... We are off again on another mini adventure shortly, we shall be leaving here at the end of November for a 10 week trip to northern and western India. This is just to send you our Best Wishes for a lovely Christmas and peaceful New Year, please don't worry about sending a card this year as I shall not be doing so, this is it! It has been some time since we have been way together, some 2 years and is about time. Mike has been off to California & Canada accompanying his mother, but for me this next trip is well overdue . We are starting off in Delhi, which we have not been to in some 24 years, where we shall stay for a few days and then it will ... read more

A month ago we got back from an amazing sailing experience on the Costa Dourada, SE Spain. Very good friends of Mandy and Doug, have now been living aboard first 'Magpie' and now 'Ipsos' full time - retired from the Navy and both loving every moment of their alternative lifestyle, based on the Costa Dourada. We were cordially invited to live aboard with them to find out for ourselves if we would take to living on the briney. It was our first chance to experience sailing and living on a yacht for real, it has always been a dream of mine to have an ocean going yacht and travel (I used to sail dinghies with my Dad as a kid) but Mike was never too keen. This way we were to find out whether it was ... read more

Welcome to one of the happy isles of Oceania, "Kia Orana" (hello & long happy life)... This is the third time we have been priviliged to visit Rarotonga set in the Southern Cooks, South Pacific. It's a long ways from anywhere thats for sure, 10.5hrs to LA another 10 to UK, but thats what makes it so special and relatively quiet and untouristy and unglam and thats why we like it so. Not kidding about the sea dogs either, the local mutts are all similar in that they are so friendly and they have this incredible addiction to swimming and catching fish - TRUE! We witnessed one day kayaking amongst the motus (islands) two young dogs, dog paddle a distance of half a mile from one island to the next just to meet up with the ... read more

I am writing the Tassie part from the very comfortable Queensland home of our dear friends Ron & Jenny, we have been here nearly three weeks staying with them which has enabled me to get Tassie pics up at long last :-) Tassie was lots of things! The scenery reminded us very much of many places: home (inc. the weather :-( which was a bit of a shock to the sys.!), New Zealand and bits of South Australia, most varied scenery, as you can see from the pics. Food was very good, especially the dairy they produce, we tasted the best Brie ever 'King Island' Triple Brie, plus there was double and single camemberts too which all went well with the wines, which was mainly single estate . Smoked fish: Trevally, Bream, Salmon, Flake (shark) all ... read more

Well this will make you all feel a better back in chilly UK.......we have for the past 2 days been holed up in a small village Warartah stuck up on a plateau and its been absolutely chucking it down all day and night, blowing a gale and a cool 10oC, overnight temps been as low as 3.5oC! But the bonus is they have a large pond/lake where they have resident duckbill platypuses so have been out watching them at dusk with the torch. The truck has held up pretty well, no leaks so far. Tasmania is a chilly place and quite separate from Australia in all sorts of ways! So have been spending the time updating the 'blog' which was well out of date - so apologies for you getting lots of updates in the past ... read more