Blogs from Derby, Derbyshire, England, United Kingdom, Europe

"Are we there yet ?" Morning had barely broken as we heard plaintive cry from our travelling companion Sion . He continued over breakfast . "Are we there yet? Are we starting out?" At the best of times he is not the most patient of company when he gets going. Today he was worse than usual . Between each toast mouthful he mumbled "Isn't it time to go yet?" " We will be late" How could we break it to him that it was only 45 minutes to Derby city centre and we were not meeting Jo , Zoe and his best friend Woolly Mammoth until 11.00 Plenty of time but we could see he was getting very impatient pacing the floor , tut tutting and looking at his watch. I almost thought to get a ... read more

The last year or so has seen the quest for self determination come to the fore. The UK decided in a rather confused referendum to leave Europe behind. Scotland in turn thought and continues to think about leaving the rest of the UK behind. The last week has seen Catalonia vote to leave Spain and Spain subsequently renounce the decision. Theses events have of course been fought out with a ballot box. In 1745, a whole bigger picture threatened to engulf the union between England and Scotland. It was played out in Derby. On a metal banner hidden on the side of a modern building by the River Derwent, a metal banner proclaims "Prince Charles Edward Stuart arrived in Derby on 6th December 1745 and held a Council of War at Exeter House on this site". ... read more

We arrived in Derby around 4:00pm and quickly checked in to our apartment and then set the GPS to take us Roy Hampton's home in Beeston, Nottinghamshire. Roy and his wife Carol had kindly invited us for dinner. Roy is my Grandmother's nephew. And what a dinner it was ! Three courses, four if you wanted cheese and biscuits. We were looking forward to a home cooked meal but we were well and truly stuffed. Roy showed me some old photos and he caught up on the news from our family in Australia. It was a lovely evening, and left at around 11:00pm. We were very well looked after. The next day, we walked into the city centre of Derby to have breakfast. It's an old town with quaint architecture and arcades. The Derby Cathederal can ... read more

I cant believe how quickly the time has passed and that in less than 4 weeks Tom and i will be setting off on the journey of a lifetime. Have had some really useful Christmas presents: rucksack/day sack, some Aussie dollars, microfibre towel, folding bowl, knife fork spoon set, merrell shoes, some bridgedale socks and zip off trousers. Our wonderful "Children" bought a keyboard for the ipad to make blogging easier. Its all starting to feel very real! We are all vaccinated and are stocking up on essential meds which will occupy a fair amount of rucksack space. I think packing is going to be the first challenge - I am never good at travelling light- but by far the biggest challenge will be saying goodbye to our children and the dogs. Thank heavens for Face ... read more

East Midlands Airport Welcome to East Midlands Airport one of the best regional airport in Great Britain and one of the busiest. "Floating airports" are being designed which could be located out at sea and which would use designs such as pneumatic stabilized platform technology. EMA also runs thriving businesses in property development and management, car parking, airport security, fire fighting, engineering, advertising and motor transport with budget and family hotels: East Midlands Airport hotels . A military airport is known as an airbase or air station. The terms aerodrome, airdrome, airfield, and airstrip may also be used to refer to airports, and the terms heliport, seaplane base, and STOLport refer to airports dedicated exclusively to helicopters, seaplanes, or short take-off and landing aircraft. If you want t... read more