Hi everyone from Coburg, Germany. I made it eventually after two days solid driving.
The ferry to Venice was fine although poor Yorgi had to spend his time in a Doggie Area on deck together with two other large dogs, one of which kept eating his food! It rained during the night so even though the area was covered, as soon as I stept outside in the morning, above the howling wind, I also heard another howling. I couldn´t get up on deck quick enough! There he was, curled up in a corner, wet and abandoned!
Anyway, once off the ferry in Venice, all the car drivers had to wait on the port for the trucks to unload. Took at least half an hour, so good job it wasn´t raining hard. I´d shared my cabin with a German lady who made the trip often, so I followed her out of the port area and onto the chockerblock motorway – bit different to Skopelos! Shortly afterwards, she was into the fast lane and away. I stayed in the slow lane, absolutely petrified. I haven´t got a kind word to say about the truck drivers. Not Italian ones, Austrian ones or German ones! They are all b######s! Just cos I don´t want to drive at over 100km hour, I got hassled. Sometimes though I had to use autobahn but it was a harrowing experience.
Through the Bremmer pass I took the B road. Stayed 3/4 way along in a lovely guesthouse beside a stream, surrounded both sides by mountains. Paid €40 including wine and an excellent breakfast. Can’t show you the photos as I can’t find the camera download cable. Might even have left it in Corfu which will be a right bummer if I have.
The drive along the rest of the pass was excellent. Mountains, streams, pastures, little wooden houses with flowers on the balconies – real chocolate-box scenes.
So eventually arriving late day before yesterday in Coburg, met up with dad who just happened to be waiting on the steps of the hotel, which by the way costs €85 a night! Stayed just the one night then tried to find something else. But the whole down and beyond is fully booked cos of the festival, so the hotel took pity on me and put me up in a staff room in the attic. It’s perfect but I can’t stay there any longer than one night as it’s unofficial. So goodness knows where I’m gonna sleep tonight – maybe in the car! Bit of a comedown after chocolate on the pillow accommodation.
Last night we waited for dad’s band to arrive but they didn’t make it as far as we know as their coach driver ran out of time.
The atmosphere last night in town was amazing. Bands playing, people everywhere having fun. Stalls with wine a food… Real carnival stuff. Pity you can’t be here too to share it.

Here we are on top of the world, high in the Pindus mountains – the bit before it going REALLY BORING. A new highway is being constructed with some amazing bridges and tunnels but the construction is here and there, sort of littered all over the place. Pity I couldn’t some images of a half constructed bridge of an enormous valley but with an articulated truck in front and one up my arse, it wasn’t possible.

Set off Sunday 1 July across Greece to Parga (224 miles) on the west coast where I’ll be staying a few days with Eva, who used to work on Skopelos. Also working in Parga is Louise who worked on Skopelos for many years.
Then will probably leave the car on the mainland and travel over to Corfu, where I’ll be staying with Gilly for about 3 days. Will also be visiting Tina, my exlodger from years ago.
Back to the mainland and ferry to Venice, then on to Coburg (815 miles) where I’ll be meeting up with Dad, who is playing in a international Samba Band festival. After a short break in Coburg, Dad will be flying back to UK and I’ll be driving (511 miles!). Trying to find a passenger to share the petrol costs.
Will be driving back to Greece before the insurance runs out on 30th August.

Spent all day at the Newspaper Library in Colindale, a thirty minute trek from Charing Cross. Been reading all day an American magazine from the 1880s called House and Home which amid all the recipes, Household hints and adverts, pictures of nice middle class people in the drawing room, gallery and park, promotes red republicanism and communism, threatening, amongst other things, to string up a few English people if they don’t leave the Irish alone (a comment heard occasionally in the Leharne household in days gone by). The Editor of this unusual magazine was one John De Morgan, the hero (or villain) of Plumstead in the 1870s who saved the common there so that Julia and Alex could set up the Plumstead Common Environmental Group 120 years later. De Morgan left for the US broke, tired and fed up, but you couldn’t keep him down and this was his first step on the way to becoming a tax inspector on Staten Island and a writer of penny dreadfuls/dime novels. They obviously didn’t have careers advisers in those days..

Yesterday was mainly spent at Greenwich. Steve and I went to the memorial service for an ex-colleague, the one time Deputy Vice Chancellor at Greenwich – John McWilliam. I nearly didn’t get there because I was unable to get dressed but that’s a different story and, in case you’re getting excited, to do with laundry and the concierge. The service was held in the Royal Chapel at Greenwich, very fitting in the sense that John was almost single handedly responsible for acquiring the Royal Naval College as a campus for the University. He was always full of extravagant, great, ambitious and sometimes just plain daft ideas and plans. The University archives are full of restaurants, student villages, hotels, lakes and other schemes that never quite came off, But when he did get it right it was often spectacular. When he turned up at an Executive Management Team meeting saying I’ve got this great idea (cunning plan?) for us to take over Greenwich, there was a collective Yeah Right! But yesterday proved him right. There was a lot of the great and the good there; some nice speeches and memories; lots of hymns and prayers and blessings. Quite formidable in one of the world’s most famous chapels. John was always full of energy and mischief and some sort of secular beano might have been a better meorial in some ways but this was impressive. After there was a reception and I had a deluge of ex-colleagues and friends of both Ann and myself to meet. A bit overwhelming trying to catch up with 30 different people, particularly as I was as interested in getting news and gossip as they were.

Most people are envious of those of us who live in New Zealand, thugh there was the odd (very oddd) one or two who look on in pity. It’s hard to explain everything to people, particularly when the main question is ‘When are you coming back?’ Originally I had intended just to see a small number of very close people and eventually I was able to separate them off and I spent an hour or so with my first VC and another hour or so with someone else who I particularly remember.

Interesting to hear what was going on but three years is a long time; many of my colleagues have moved on; and it seems best to let the University, with its grand and gorgeous campus, get on with its business. Maybe in twenty years time I’ll totter past there on my zimmer frame and work out how I felt about my time there.

So, just a few days now. Some more Library work tomorrow, a meeting with the world’s expert on the Tichborne Claimant, and some shopping at High and Mighty [a better title than Tall and Fat!]. And it’s still like a pleasant Auckland August day. Where the hell is that global warming!

In spite of the roasting weather, I had two private evening hikes last week and I have another one on Friday; we’ll take the six o’clock bus to Panormos and walk back to Skopelos. Have come to terms with the fact now that the days of groups of 15-30 walkers is over. My book continues to sell well however and I will continue to be a thorn in the council’s side until all the paths are regularly cleaned and clearly marked.
Please note that I will be absent from the island from 1 July until 30 August – walking in the UK!

It’s now UK Monday evening and I’m back at the Charing Cross Hotel and back in the same room I had before, and back in a grey and sporadically wet London. Since the last post, I have been over to Kingston-on-Thames and Long Ditton, and then to Scarborough, Hunmanby and Hornsea. I’ve also rebooked my flight and am coming back a few days early (I’m suffering Mozeleyitis I think), so I’m now in the last week of my travels.

The conference was a UK/Australasia event, with me as the token kiwi (!). We started off in the Travelodge at Kingston for a night. I should have known what was coming when the front entrance was in a back alley; when there was a sign saying there was a revolutionary pricing structure starting at 26 pounds; when I saw the warning about the noise from the disco next door; and when we were offered breakfast at check in and asked to pay on the spot and then asked what time we wanted the breakfast box delivered. No rosemary and lavender shampoo and conditioner at this place! However it was cheap and cheerful and, after a dinner at Kingston’s best restaurant, it didn’t make much difference.

The seminar itself had a wide range of people from Universities, government, agencies. A couple of grumpy old men, three Vice Chancellors (all women) some civil servants and it was actually very useful. As it was only useful and interesting to about 300 people on the globe I won’t bore you all. It was based at one of these management centres that you seem to get all over England. They’re in the country (but not far from a city); they have nice walks, lots of trees, occasionally lakes, sometimes golf courses, often tennis courts, none of which anyone seems to use. In the middle is normally an old country house, rather messed about and a general feel of slightly dilapidated splendour. They seem, however, to provide the right environment for people to get excited about strategy, policy, plans and development (not easy). In the evening of the first day, the weather turns quite pleasant and I go and sit outside by myself for a while amongst the golf course, trees, tennis courts etc, and watch the the sun go down (ie about 9.30!). My first pleasant summer evening (and, it would seem, the last!)

The seminar finishes Saturday lunchtime and I hurtle off to Kings Cross to get the train to Scarborough. I always like travelling North on a train, so I look forward to it. The train is full and very fast and after just three hours and twenty minutes, I’m in Scarborough being picked up by David. We worked together at Greenwich for a long time and he has ‘retired’ and moved up to North Yorkshire where he and Maureen have bought five acres of land on a hill overlooking the North Yorkshire coast from Flamborough to north of Scarborough. Many years ago I remember David saying that when they retired he would have a house in the country and two dogs. He’s kept his promise but added 42 sheep, six geese, any number of chooks and five pigs (at the latest count)! Add to that several hundred rabbits, a labrador and a gorgeous view and this is rural idyll. In addition, the two of them seem to have taken over much of the organisation of the county, despite coming from one of the area’s most disadvantaged minorities – townies – and not even just townies, but Southerners, and even worse Londoners (think Remuerans in Invercargill). However, they seem to have taken to it, and it seems to have taken to them. David is a local councillor, and after five months, in the ‘cabinet; they’re involved in local organistions and have turned their hand to dramatics with David appearing in pantomime as Baron Hardup. So ‘retired’ doesn’t really mean much!

A large part of the day does seem committed to feeding, watering and tending the animals as well as keeping five acres trim. I don’t think they quite intended to accumulate so many animals – they bought the house for the view, and thought a few animals would improve the view – but I suspect they have discovered that life with sheep, pigs, geese and chooks has advantages over life in a University or bank (though the behaviour of the inmates may be similar on some occasions).

On Sunday, Maureen is doing a five kilometre walk to raise money for Cancer Research, and David and I head off to Hornsea where I’ve arranged to meet the tenant of our house, Derek. On the way we stop at a Sunday morning market where I buy a shirt and a sweat shirt for 7 pounds. The stall holder takes pity on me and reduces it to six. It’s just about as cheap as Shanghai (which I very vaguely remember having visited recently). The drive down to Hornsea is very pleasant, green with the land getting flatter and the sense of space, the sea nearby and the big skies. I thought Easy Yorkshire was pretty quiet but it seems relatively crowded compared with the North. Get to Hornsea with the sun popping out and it looks much as I remebered it, and seems as attractive as before. The house always makes me blink because it is so cute and unexpected and, apart from the garage doors, looks in good condition. Derek, who is an engineer, is just about to head off to St Petersburg, but we have a cup of tea. Although the house is too small for us, it doesn’t feel at all cramped and has the same nice, relaxed feel, helped by the warmth of the Raeburn in the kitchen. Apart from the kitchen ceiling falling in because of a bathroom leak, the house is in good order and Derek (and sometimes his daughter) clearly enjoy living there. So much so that when I explain we want to sell the house by October 2008, he is keen to come to an arrangement that means we won’t have to put it on the market, and he won’t have to leave. He brings me up to speed on some local gossip and then heads off to the airport. David and I have a mooch around Hornsea looking at some of our (Ann and I) old haunts and have a ceremonial fish and chips on the seat looking out over the North Sea. Not much has changed though another restaurant has closed down – food isn’t Hornsea’s strong point. I go to see if our neighbour Gary is around. His family has had an awful time over the last few years, and has effectively broken up in tragic circumstances, and I would have liked to talk to him. But I can’t find him though I do bump in to another neighbour who provides a bit more gossip and reminds me that Hornsea is being spoilt by skateboarders, graffiti artists, indeed anybody under the age of 21. She teaches at the School.

So eventually, having been to the sea, the park, the mere (where there are still several hundred geese and swans, and too many people from West Yorkshire), we head off up North again. I ask David to drop by Ulrome Sands, a place where Ann, Daisy and I used to go for a walk. The local road is closed because the cliffs have been falling down and a huge chunk has disappeared. The coastline here has been receding over the centuries and about 30 villages are reputed to be under the sea. Even in our time, Ann and I have seen, paths, roads, houses, caravans, and even a hotel disappear. There appears to be some desperate work going on to stop the current problem, whch seems worse than normal.

Then back to SpellHowe. By now the rain is coming in and David and Maureen have a soggy feeding time with their animals. One of the geese has a problem with its wing and the other geese have turned against it so it needs its wing binding and then isolating for its own safety. The two townies are magnificent!

Monday morning and its up early, off for the train and back to London. Tomorrow, its the memorial service at Greenwich which will be quite different and will mean I meet up with a lot of old colleagues and friends, and also meet up with my past again!!