Algarve - January 2014

Using a well worn phrase, I have a bucket list, and on that list the Algarve has always sat near the top. This is the story of our trip in unprecedented detail compared to previous blogs. We flew from Birmingham on Monarch Airlines flight number ZB402 on January 4th 2014 and arrived about 11am. The weather was beautiful and about 15 degrees. It was like being transported into April. Upon arrival we picked up the car, a black Fiat Panda and drove to the self catering apartment in Olhao where we met the owner and paid the rent for the week. First duty was to find some lunch so we walked around the town taking in all the new sights in particular the market building on the shoreline. Walking back into town we saw many restaurants but settled on O Bote Restaurant where we had fried fish and potatoes. On the way back to the apartment we stopped at Pingo Doce to get some groceries for the self catering side of the holiday.

January 5th we headed out east to the Spanish border and the town of Vila Real de Santo Antonio. We parked and relaxed with a coffee at Pastelaria Carol  before heading up the high street. A major stopping place was Casa Caravella which was an excellent souvenir shop. We walked on taking in the sights, a view over the river to Spain and Santo Antonio's lighthouse. On the way back we stopped at Tavira and walked around the town, castle and had lunch at Tavira Romana Restaurant. In Olhao we shopped once again at Pingo Doce.

January 6th we decided to go to the westernmost extreme of Portugal today so headed out along the I125 and except for a coffee at Mcdonalds in Lagos we drove all the way out to Sagres point where a large Napoleonic fort is located. This is the open Atlantic with only Cape St Vincent between us and America and the waves were huge. We sat for a while just watching the breakers in the huge swell on an idyllic day. To be able to say we'd done it, we parked in Sagres and had a look at the harbour. This is essentially a tourist town and pretty dead in January. Lovely and clean like all Portuguese towns. We drove back to Lagos and parked on the riverside promenade. We walked around the old streets of the town and sat out in a patio coffee shop. We shopped at a small Intermarche on the promenade. Chris wanted to see the breakers hitting the harbour wall so I dropped her off while I went around, got lost in Lagos old city and then picked her up. We also visited Dona Ana cove to see the rocks made famous on so many Algarve brochures, before driving back home. On the way I filled up with petrol at Compañía Española de Petróleos, S.A (CERPA) in Lagoa. This is the flagship gas station in Portugal

January 7th we split into two outings, first to Faro starting with the station and I saw a selection of

Portuguese rail transport then around the old town checking out the Cathedral of Faro and a got lost at the lovely Jardim de Alameda Joao de Deus Park. We had parked near Egreja de Carmo on a parking meter run by Masitrave, a major sign and parking management company. We then returned to Olhao and headed for the Ria Formosa Park. We first ate at Restaurant Vista Formosa the best fried fish meal of the holiday. Then a wonderful day wandering around the trails of the park seeing wildlife and plantlife that we had never seen before, massive cacti, olive trees, spoonbills, flamingos. On the way home we again shopped at the Intermarche in Olhao

January 8th saw us heading inland to Silves and Monchique, the latter being up in the mountains at the top of a 15 kilometre winding road. We again wandered the town and got right up to the famous ruin of the 17th century convent (Nossa Senhora de Desterro- our Lady of Exile). We drove back to Silves and stopped for coffee just below the castle at Cafe Ingles. Then a highlight we went into Silves cathedral and saw the five tombs of the crusaders in lovely yellow Sives limestone. We bought some souvenirs at Cantinho Das Tradicoes and got a free pen! We stopped to take in the city near the Roman bridge.

January 9th and we decided to see a resort. Albufeira has a huge beautiful beach and we wandered over a

mile along its shore and could have gone much further. Albufeira also has an old sector but it has grown hugely to serve the tourist industry and whole streets of retail properties some with familiar names. We found a quiet street and had a another lovely fish supper at Adega De Pipas Restaurant. We stopped at Lidl for some groceries and Jumbo Petrol Station run by the supermarket chain Auchon.

January 10th being our last proper day we tried to cover a few outstanding sites. First the beautiful church at Amancil which was closed but has a famous trompe l'oeil inside. Then on to Loule to see the market, buy a plate at Idalecia Correia  and coffee and cake at So Sweet Cakes. We then went on to Estoi and visited the grand Palacio de Estoi. The evening was our last supper and we went to Restaurant Petisqueira in Olhao. We enjoyed it but not the best meal we had, I won't order skate again, boiled with potatoes.

January 11th and time to go, we filled the car up at BP of all places and then to the airport where we had a Costa coffee, bought some souvenirs and boarded the plane home. The Algarve is now officially one of my favourite places and I hope to return one day.

Growing up in the 1970's, technology and the dusty box of photos.

Mass Humanity in Today's Wired World

The plight of the generation who grew up in the 1970's has often been discussed, deciphered and sometimes degraded. We are the generation who grew up when it was easy to get a job after college, when a university degree meant something, whose music was Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd and Yes. Who had free love when it wasn't threatened by AIDS. Who could still survive a late night booze up at the local pub and may I say to my shame, still drive home. Who had all the things their parents were denied because rationing from the war had only just ended. Whose car was the mini, the Ford Anglia, Hillman imp and yes the last version of the glorious Hillman Hunter. Who could go to concerts and see Yes, Mott the Hoople and Genesis without needing to take out a mortgage. Who could afford to take out a mortgage knowing one day it would be paid off. Who banked at banks that behaved themselves with their money. Who didn't need to stand in the rain to take money out of a hole in the wall. When stamps were still something to be put on an envelope with a lick and not securitised. I could go on but I think the point is made. We had it easy, we didn't suffer the slings and arrows of the war generation, nor the hippy generation that crawled out from behind the sofa to cause the revolution. No, we sat back, waited for the fuss to be over and then reaped the rewards.

We could relate to the 80's. Not much different from the 70's except for a rather inappropriate hairstyle called a mullet. The row over the miners that closed most of the pits, was a bit upsetting but we were OK because we already had good jobs, could sit back and watch in our conceit. Our music still held sway, we had given birth to the punk scene, many of the 70's groups were still going though a little greyer. Eric and Ernie were still dominating Christmas air waves and many of our shows including Dr Who and Top of the Pops still held sway. None of us were aware of the rotten heart of the celebrity world where young children were being molested. Its a KnockOut was still a damn good show and Jimmy Saville a man to look up to. There were rumours of a new world coming. Our familiar slide rule and electric calculator were being usurped by a machine called  a computer, there was the first mobile phone the size of a brick. But we could ignore the fuss and carry on living as if it were still the 70's. It was, wasn't it.....really?

The 90's dawned and if we had kept our ears to the ground we would have heard the rumblings of a new world. A man named Bill Clinton was investing millions in something called the internet, there was something called windows 95 that was supposed to be big, money spued out of a bank wall at all hours if you had the right combination code. Some clever dick came up with an expression that technology quadrupled every two years or some such nonsense.... My father died.... But then we were saved, our focus became Y2K when everything was supposed to freeze up due to the lack of two numbers. Freeze all other development, concentrate on the big one. Save the world. Four years we spent on this project and we saved the world, the year 2000 came and went without so much as a whimper, Someone said a train got stuck in a tunnel because it thought 2000 should be a leap year, but we got through it and we congratulated ourselves. But behind our backs something was going on, the floodgates were about to open and technology was about accelerate like never before. All that pent up, running in circles from Y2K had created a monster that was unleashed, digital technology came of age, the 21st century was indeed a new world, a mad scramble took hold, the race was to the swift. And we from the 70's were not ready.

So where does that leave us. Well the new century started and we all survived Y2K. There was the usual soul searching as to whether it had all been necessary, but then the fact that we had fixed everything meant that it inevitably went through without any problems. The unforeseen consequence was that four of five years pent up demand for innovation that had been stalled by Y2K, literally exploded. Banks ramped up their systems, phone companies upgraded their networks and a new 21^st technology known as the ‘app’ entered the lexicon. Information was at your fingertips 24/7, your location mattered little and when the internet’s technology combined with GPS location technology the result was simply stunning as seen with Google maps or Facebook check-in. The phone has now simply become an ‘app’ on a mini hand-held computer. To call the iphone an iphone in some ways may be an insult. The phone feature is just an ‘app’.

So what of the children of this technological evolution? We are all acutely aware of the teenager walking down the road and whenever they stop, at a shop, at a bus stop or simply on a park bench, the phone is taken out and checked for whatever service or services are available. Most phones can now be linked to a laptop at home and a lot of the features can be linked. The children of the 21^st century are truly hot wired to the internet and all that entails. Using my daughter as an example, she evolved with these features as she grew up. Facebook is the classic example where friends were added as they joined the social network, videos were uploaded to youtube, the de facto leader, photos were uploaded to flickr, another leader. Or it could all simply be placed on facebook There was no longer any need to store this stuff in boxes in the attic or bedroom. Letters became texts or emails, articles became online newspapers, books became ebooks although there is still some doubt as to the demise of the physical book. I met some girls once at a car boot sale and I was selling some second hand CD’s and asked if they were interested. We don’t buy CD’s any more! They just watch on youtube or their cloud files. Pity the poor CD, a revolutionary wonderful device that looks like a dying breed after a mere 25 years of existence. Even the USB that may yet be reprieved, is being largely subverted by cloud technology.

But let us return to my central theme and of social network technology which is at the centre of this whirlwind. My daughter, as I mentioned, keeps all the friends she has made on facebook, she keeps all her photos on flickr, receives all her bank statements by email and everything is stored somewhere on the internet. Unintentionally she has provided herself with a massive library of herself, her friends, her interests and her life. This will continue to build over the next 40 or 50 years to a massive library online that defines her life. Nowhere in man’s history has this previously been possible on such a vast scale. Oh sure we have Samuel Pepys diary, but this is one man and few others were as prolific in the minutiae of their daily lives. Many souls simply lived and died and their lives are now represented by some old photographs that are unlabeled resting in some antique shop. My Aunt Bessie is a good example where I have boxes of hopelessly unidentifiable photos. I have collected together what documentation and photographs that can be identified with any degree of certainty and placed in some meaningful order Bessie Field Website. But compared to what could have been and to what my daughter will have, it is a paltry offering. My intention is to put the rest on flickr and invite people to identify the locations so that maybe bring some meaning can be made of them. It will be a labour of love and one small representation of the untold millions who have lived and died. To see my progress please visit Bessie Field Photos.

But what of the us. The generations who, to a large extent, are still living yet have a large chunk of their history in diaries, photo albums and VHS tapes not yet lost. Whose friends are phone numbers and addresses in an address book and what’s more to the point have lost contact with 90% of the people they ever knew. It’s obviously too late for the ‘dead people’ and truth be told the generation from the 1950’s in general shy away from all things technological. I am not defining everyone but in general the generation before the decade of the 1970’s (and I refer to the ten teenage years) are less than enamoured with technology and happy to live out their lives without it. Whereas the the generation from the 1980’s were aware of what was afoot and have generally got up to speed more or less intact. No, it is the group from the 1970’s who most want to be technologically wired and are faced with a bigger mass upload of their lives than anyone else. The teenagers from the 1960’s I have identified as being the one where the jury is still out. They were the hippie generation, free love, free everything and where the young rebelled from the old. I can only go by what I see and in general my older sister and her ilk want little or nothing to do with computers outside work hours and what has to be done. ‘I still prefer to go to the bank in person’. Prefer, not insist, simply prefer.

It took me about three years to upload and digitise all my photos, 2005 to 2007 and I am still working through full annotation of place and people etc. It’s a long job that will last many more years. How laborious compared to the photos I take today that are uploaded fully annotated and complete. I don’t think my CD collection will ever be fully uploaded. I have an amazon cloud library and it is building but the back catalogue is a mere 250 songs until I buy more space. But it is also an ongoing project. I have few videos in comparison so I have finished those already. Yet I pity the fans of super 8 who must to this day be working through boxes of old reels or VHS tapes if indeed they even care. Books are my next challenge and hinges on the purchase of a ebook reader next year. If there is a ‘to be updated’ part of this diatribe then this subject is it.

Which brings me to social media. I have all my current friends as part of this network but I can never hope to have many from my past prior to the advent of facebook. When I think of all the people I knew at school, most of who I can’t remember their names and the ones I can, the girls names will have changed. I have used facebook since 2005 and have about 60 contacts, paltry compared to the 500 plus of my daughter. Why do I care, I don’t but its like a dictionary, you have one but you don’t necessarily look up every word. And yet when you want to find a word you would hate it if it wasn't there. As a library, as a dictionary, as a research tool later in life I think we are only just scratching the surface with what social media can do. But for me it has little to do with chatting with friends and much more a warehouse diary of my life.

In conclusion, I will continue on with the completion of this project to the best of my ability. I will complete my photos file. I will add to facebook any friend I find. I will continue with blogs and document as much as possible the interesting things of my life. I will become as 21st century as I possibly can. This is a scary world and I am sure many feel like bewildered Victorians as the railways changed communication from the horse and cart speed of life to something akin to frighteningly fast. We live in another fast new world, I have embraced it but I still find it daunting as I open yet another box of dusty papers.

Severn Valley Railway Autumn Gala

See video at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tabRR8IjzQ0

So the gala announced that schools class 'Cheltenham' would be paying a visit. I love all steam locomotives but these are my favourites so suddenly there was a ad scramble to arrange a visit preferably on the Friday to avoid the crowds. We parked at the Blackstone Car Park as there is always room there and the car is safely away from the road and we then walked into Bewdley.

Duchess of Sutherland

Arriving at the station I purchased a return ticket to Kidderminster that would allow me to say that I had been pulled by 'Cheltenham' then we went on to the platform to assess who was where. The first news was that the Metropolitan No 1 0-4-4 had failed on its brakes and would not be working today. Kinlet hall was on pilot duty and The Duchess of Sutherland was due in on the northbound platform for Bridgnorth. So far so good, then when the Duchess arrived in her magnificence there came the news that she had failed as well and would be taken out of service. For me this was actually a bonus since it meant she was decoupled and I got a good shot of the front smokebox. It's uncanny how these engines evoke the model engine made by Hornby Dublo back in the 60's. Of course it's the other way round but I didn't think that way when I owned my prize model. Kinlet hall took over then we waited for the arrival of Sir Keith Park who pulled a rake of coaches...and me... all the way to Kidderminster.

Sir Keith Park

The great thing about Kidderminster is the open space that allows great lines of vision for taking photographs. I love Cheltenham but Sir Keith Park is a damn cool Bullied Pacific and I spent a lot of time close to her taking photos before heading into the station for a coffee in the museum. Kidderminster definitely now evokes a busy station atmosphere and is a real mecca for people wanting to experience a station in steam's hey day.

Cheltenham

Then I headed to the platform again and waited for Sir Keith to depart and for Cheltenham to come in almost immediately after. Wonderful. Wonderful. Wonderful. It was just so neat to see her on GWR metals. I moved to my photo position at the car park and waited. Eventually she came round the coaches and settled in front of the coaches. I took many photos and some of them are my best from the day. I now have photos I can use without copyright permission. Great feeling

Time to leave and I climbed in the last coach and as we rounded the curves I was able to see all along to where Cheltenham chugged reliably along in front. A credit to her designer engineer Richard Maunsell. The rest of the day was uneventful but I waived goodbye as she steamed away headed for all points north to Bridgnorth and another group of devoted photographers.

Tour of Britain - Stage 5

See video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cjLr4TR4gI

Well the day started out OK, it was actually dry before 9am but then the heavens opened and it didn't stop. I walked round the back of Machynlleth via the Leisure Centre and came out through a wood into a carpark where the coaches were just driving up. I moved up to the Sky coach and people were already gathering behind railings. Despite the rain, nobody moved away. I was about one row back so was able to peer through to where, under a canopy, the bikes were being set out and the tyres filled to the right pressure by what can only be described as a very tall man. As is the case with most of my observations of celebrity, the staff seemed to be milling around very busy with something but not really sure what they were about. One guy had a very important job of removing the water that collected in the canopy a number of times nearly soaking someone or other with the cascade. I wonder how you would apply for that job.

Just before the race the guys started to emerge in full regalia and made some attempt to sign autographs on rain soaked sports cards given out earlier. I did not attempt to remove my sheet from the bag and just made the effort to get a few close shots of Bradley. Considering the weather, I count myself lucky in what I managed to obtain. And Bradley, well you could tell he had done a lot of this and did not complain but I think he was glad to get off to the starting line. 

We then all trooped over in the rain to the starting line on Maengwyn Street. A guy making the general announcements and even managing to interview Bradley. Bikers getting ready to leave at the same time keeping out of the rain. Excited kids taking photos on 1000's of smart phones. These must be the most photographed bike races to date. Your token grown ups dressed in mascot animal costumes. The Klaxon going off at 8 the 4 then 2 minutes to go. Then they are off in the driving rain but with better weather promised further south at Caerffili.

I looked up and saw our friends, the Turtons over on the other side frantically waiving and generally having a good time. They indicated to move towards the clock tower and we met up where the barriers tapered out  and headed to the White Lion for drinks. We discovered that we were a lot wetter than we had realised but happily my camera was dry and had survived the ordeal with some interesting shots and video.

RSPB - Merefest

The RSPB have been around for a long time and was initially founded as a society for the protection of birds. As most people know they have grown into an organisation was is the watchword for the preservation of all our natural heritage from butterflies to badgers, from pondweed to beech forests.

I have been a member since 2010 and am fortunate to live near to Ynyshir from where Springwatch is broadcast. The Dyfi Estuary is a beautiful unspoiled part of the UK and the wealth of wildlife is truly amazing. My own personal interest is the 50 or so species of butterfly in this country and my aim is to see most of them in my life. To this extent I was in Durlston Country Park where I added several species to my list including the rare Lulworth skipper and the Marbled White.

So I you can imagine my delight when I visited the Albrighton Garden Centre and the RSPB had a stand attended by a lady who was very knowledgeable about everything that is happening right now. I was delighted to learn that RSBP are expanding their range of butterfly pins, I have collected all of them and the 2013 addition of the Brimstone is spectacular especially as this is the butterfly with one of the biggest recoveries since the disastrous summer of 2012. 

The RSBP now have expanded their mandate to embrace an overall preservation of the ecology of the country in general. To that extent they were promoting Merefest that took place on Saturday September 21st 2013. Sadly we were not able to attend at such short notice but I picked up a brochure so that I can go next year. It takes place at Cholmondeley Castle near Wrexham, is all about ecology and more information can be found at www.themeresandmosses.co.uk. The day is centred on pond and bug life but it is approached from a point of view of fun with canoeing, crafts and trampolines to engage young people. If the wildlife of the UK is to survive, this is the way it has to be tackled.

If you are interested in the work of the RSBP visit www.rspb.org.uk for more information. The Merefest is just one of the ways the RSBP is trying to provide corridors for wildlife so that they can continue to negotiate and thrive in our modern country.