Welcome news Thanks for the update Di - informative and amusing! I have struggled to hear Michael on the radio, although I suspect I've been listening to the wrong station... Are you able to provide precise details, time, frequency etc. please?
THANK YOU DI Hallo Di. We have not met but Michael may have mentioned that he and I became friends coming out on the ship together. I so much enjoyed your two blogs. You are obviously interested in everything and reading your various notes actually gives me an appetite to come back to the island some time (I only did an 8 day holiday there). My wife and I live in Cape Town (although currently in the UK) and are hoping M will stopover with us on his way home next March. Are you returning via Cape Town. If so when. We would love to meet you. We get back on 25 September.
All good wishes to you both -
Peter
Di's blogs Hi Di and Mike
Thanks for your educative (a word that I learned from Chris Woodhead!) and entertaining reports. Enjoy your great adventure. Re the St Helena radio newsreaders, I shall never criticise Radio Shropshire again!
Bob
Di's Blog Great to here you arrived safe and sound, if when you get back to CT an you have time do get up table mountain it really is worth it. Look forward to next blog x
Di's journey Hi both, Pam Myers introduced me to your blog. I have caught up with the news &look forward to hearing more about your exciting adventure!
Sounds a bit different from Much Wenlock!
St Helena in the UK News Hi Di and Michael,
Thanks for the blog Di, sounds brill. Glad you had a good trip.
We are in Fife for a couple of weeks, so I am typing this in Anstruther library.
Just wanted to say that St Helena was in the news this morning regarding the planned building of a runway (£25m!) Sounds as if it would be cheaper to give all the residents a fat wodge so they could live somewhere else!!
I'm sure there's a lot more to it than that!
Have a great time together. Hope we can catch up when you get back.
All the best,
Colin
Glad to hear you arrived safely! The weather sounds much like we are having in GB - other than that it sounds very exotic - unlike GB. Let us know when you are bored!
CONGRATULATIONS! Michael it is so good to read about the improved assessments of the children you have been working with. I am impressed and it must be rewarding to feel that you are having such a positive effect.
I am intrigued by the ad which appears immediately under the end of this blog, for 'Ballerina pumps'. Are we to assume this is just a Google response to your brief reference to ballroom dancing, or is there something you are not telling us about how you spend those evenings (Wed and Thurs) you have omitted from your weekly record?
Anyway, thanks again for an instructive and entertaining read!
Peter
link Home thoughts from abroad album by clifford t ward was my favourite years ago and echoes the poem by the Browning poet. Infact it was the only album I ever bought and have never bought another since!!! I leave that to the hubby. Love Mary
Home Thoughts I am guessing I will be disqualified for obvious reasons, but the connection between Robert Browning and Clifford T Ward is that the latter wrote a brilliant song entitled Home Thoughts from Abroad, mentioning the poem by the former; the song being played occasionally on an outstanding radio show on St Helena by a modest and unassuming presenter...
Easy Michael, you insult your avid readers! Your blog title was either pinched from the title of Robert Browning's poem or from another plagiarist whose popular music disc has been around for nearly forty years.
Good to read your news. We shall see Di this week and admire the tropical kit she's bought for the voyage. I also understand that she's stocked up on Werther's Originals to sustain your sweet tooth through the autumn.
The weather has (probably briefly) turned here and it's another bright sunny day, so I mustn't waste it.
Take care.
Tons and tonnes Hi Michael,
I've always wanted to say something along the lines of "let me through, I'm a maths teacher" so here goes.....
The two measures of weight (or more correctly mass) are virtually the same, which I think is purely by coincidence I believe, but could be wrong. The old imperial ton is eqivalent to 2240 lbs and a metric tonne (1000kg) converts to 2200lbs.
I'll take my anorak off now!! Great to read your blog, hope Di has a good trip.
Colin
ᗅᗺᗷᗅ You never really got over that tribute-band evening at Ludlow Castle, did you? ("My life is whizzing by very fast, but this evening it has almost ground to a halt. I keep looking at my watch in the hope that it's nearly going-home time, and find it's only two minutes after the last time I looked")
Norwgian Wood Of course, the Beatles music was also influenced by the Vikings ... happy to report that certain other Vikings close to my heart do not carry the C & W gene .. nor the offspring (as you have probably heard!!)
Keep up the good work Bill
..... seems that you have a ready job in maths education for Di when she arrives ???
Top 3 Oh Michael!
How little you know of the fairer sex! Or some of us at any rate! I spend my life debating top 3s and sometimes have to extend to top 5s and in one instance top 10s but lets not go there!
Love reading your blogs and hope sporting prowess shines through!
Ellie x
Top 3 response Shame on you Mike Theobalds- not like you to deal in stereotypes!! I have been indulging in top 3s for a long time- we have a facebook section dedicated to it. Plenty of us females like categorising, list making, organising, etc etc- the autistic spectrum is not a purely male preserve. Here's some - admittedly more bizarre ones to think about. How about top 3:
1) places to have an extra eye
2) eras to live through
3) time wasting occupations
4) top 3s
5) bizarre top 3s
Keep up the blogging- always lifts me
Heather x
St Helena Island I enjoy reading your blog i am from the Island now live abroad i like to keep my eyes on the Island as i am hoping to return this year i have created a site for the community of the Island http://www.clickonsthelenaisland.com hopefully c u at donnys soon to watch the sun go down.
Pleased to have your update, Michael.
As you doubtless realise, as you gloat over the BBC weather reports, the rain in Shropshire continues unabated regardless of torches, jubilees or bowls engagements. Last evening's warm-up friendly was abandoned before the stalwart players left the changing room and instead there was a team-talk in the dog-free bar of the Gaskell Arms.
It's good to learn that you are keeping in training. We'd hate to be handicapped by you not being match fit if you make the team for the 2013 season. It'll be interesting to know if your splendid "top three" suggestion makes it onto the South Atlantic airwaves. After all the criticism the BBC has attracted for its jubilee broadcasting, they're probably desperate for fresh blood and new ideas, so there may be a career in light entertainment awaiting your return to Blighty!
Brilliant(ish) Mike,
Really enjoyed the post in a sadistic sort of way. Sorry he is causing you so much trouble.
I'm not surprised he is being a pain. He is used to coming and going as he pleases and has oceans of turf to himself. He would only ever spend minutes in the house per day.
As you said, hopefully he will just come and go now and keep himself happy.
Keep me posted. By the way I am 25 floors up in a bangkok hotel, a different planet.
Owen
Tolerance My my, your patience and understanding isn't that saintly-like quality that I recall from long evenings at tribute band concerts at Ludlow Castle!
And relax...
You have a wonderful way with words! Thoroughly enjoyed your blog - brought smiles to me on this grey wet May(!) Saturday afternoon.
Thanks Mike.
Colin
Simon Pipe
non-member comment
lovely
Thanks for a really evocative blog post. One of the best I've ever read from the island. Simon