It is hard to believe that it is Day 12, but when I think about all that has happened then indeed it is Day 12. We have been staying on a working arable farm and you are left in no doubt that you are on a farm when you go outside the front door. The farm smell literally knocks your socks off. Charlotte our hostess is wonderful and nothing is a bother to her from supplying maps, information and generally just being a lovely lady to chat with. She has amazing knowledge on W.W 1 and a huge library on the [View Full Entry]

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Day 11 saw us off to the town of Brugge. We had been told that this was the most beautiful old town with the most amazing buildings. What we had not been told was that Brugge would be over run with British tourists. They were there in their bus loads. There were thousands of people just everywhere. The Brits are great at standing in queues and boy were there ever loads of queues at the Horse rides and Canal Boat rides. We decided that those activities were not for us. The other interesting thing about Belgium is that you cannot find [View Full Entry]

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Day 10 continues into the afternoon. We set off after lunch for Ieper and the Menin Gate. It was a lovely drive through to Ieper and the Menin Gate was awe inspiring. There were just thousands of names of fallen soldiers recorded on the walls of Menin Gate. In fact there were 400,000 names on the walls. We spent the afternoon wandering around Ieper and it was hard to believe that the whole town was flattened in the Battles of Ieper. The town has since been rebuilt as an exact replica of the original town. It took from 1919 to 1967 [View Full Entry]

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Day 10 found us at breakfast with a number of other couples, who were from Wales and England. Breakfast was an amazing affair as the food was Belgium fare and this included special breads, cheeses, custard, ham, chocolate, sweet cake stuff as well as cereals, eggs, juices and fruit. Quite a mixture of foods but very delicious. After breakfast we set off for the day to find where my Great Uncle William had died in 1917. This was a very moving and emotional time for me as well as being very sad to think that William like many thousands of soldiers [View Full Entry]

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Day 9 saw us arrive at the Ypres Salient where my Great Uncle William McCready lies buried in the fields just over the way from where we are staying at Varlet Farm. The trip out to the Salient was not without incident. The first thing we had to do from our Hotel in Brussels was find Hertz rental cars. Once found we then had to navigate our way out of Brussels to the A40 motorway. Remembering that we were driving on the wrong side of the road was a challenge!!! Driving out of Brussels was also a challenge as we had [View Full Entry]

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I am writing this blog on Day 7 of our holiday and we have made it to Brussels. As I write this blog I can look out the window of our Hotel room to the most magical sight of Grande Place, a beautiful square all lit up with Xmas lights. We had a very good trip up from Dubai. Lufthanza the airline we flew with was excellent we were very impressed with their service and how lovely they were to us. All we did all day was eat, we had breakfast and lunch on the flight to Munich and then on [View Full Entry]

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Day 6 saw us at the Supermarket buying all the ingredients for an apple pie. All went well until I had to work out how to cook the apple pie in the gas oven. The gas oven did not have a thermostat so that is where the fun began. After a lot of thought and discussion I realised that the oven was too hot and the pie looked as though the top would be burnt and the inside not cooked. Luckily all was resolved and a reasonable apple pie was ready for the BBQ dinner that had been arranged. Chelle had [View Full Entry]

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Today has dawned fine and warm as usual for Dubai. There is a haze over the city from all the construction work going on. The economic outlook for Dubai is not all that rosy as the credit crunch starts to bite. The company Chelle works for has started to lay off staff, as their main client has stopped projected projects from going ahead. At this stage Chelle does not know how this will affect her or the department she heads up. Like the rest of the world the Middle East is also feeling the effects of the lack of credit world [View Full Entry]

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Day 4 Dubai. Day four dawned, another lovely morning in Dubai. Chelle and I were off to do a little more Mall shopping for Chelle’s wardrobe!!!! Graham decided he was all shopped out and so he stayed at home and compiled the last two blogs, hence the spelling mistakes!! Engineers do not do spelling very well. We went to the new Dubai Mall, this Mall is next door to the Burj Dubai. This is a brand new Mall and it only opened a couple of weeks ago. It is so large that one gets totally lost and finding ones car is [View Full Entry]

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Another day of malls ! We started the morning at Emirates Mall where Graham went from seat to seat as mother and daughter shopped. Graham did go to the money changer and noted how much the Ausralian and NZ dollar has dropped since last year. Things do not seem to have slowed down in UAE yet compared with the rest of the world. Graham and Sandy were dropped off at the Madinet while Chelle went to the hairdresser. When you have your colours done you have to have the hair changed as well. That cost her NZ$350 - the UAE is [View Full Entry]

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