Kendal

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Kate's work took us to Kendal in the Lake District of England. The area here is called Cumbria and most of Cumbria is the Lake District!

We flew through Heathrow where we stayed overnight at the nearby Crowne Plaza hotel (this has become a favorite). We rented a car for the duration of our stay and drove up to Kendal which is very near the Scottish border and Hadrian's Wall.

We had a brief visit with the Fry's in Woking (our sort of No. 2 mom and dad), a day with our friend Sam from Winnipeg in Oxford and an overnight with Chris (our sort of No.1 son) who was attending university at Nottingham. I'll focus on the visit to Kendal and the Lake District.

The Lake District National Park is a hilly area (the Brit's would say mountainous) jutting into the Irish Sea with the Isle of Mann to the west. Kendal is inland a bit on the southeast side, Carlisle inland a bit to the north east and bounds the top of the Park with the Firth of Soloway, Scotland and what remains of Hadrian's Wall to the north of that. Kendal and Carlisle are a major market towns in the area, but neither is very big — perhaps 25,000 in Kendal.

Kendal is a pretty town in a valley traversed by the Kent River which flows south to the Irish Sea at Morecambe Bay. There are a ton of old buildings made out of the local stone and has come to be known as "Auld Grey Town". In the middle ages the town was a source of woolen cloth — not surprising given the countryside and the many sheep wandering about to this day.

We stayed at Stonecross Manor Hotel in Kendal. For me it was a short walk into the town center which I explored over several days. We had a nice room with a four post bed and could look to the north from our window to see the hills and countryside. Kate had her meetings here. It's  quite a comfortable old stone hotel.

Kate was particularly interested in visiting the border town of Carlisle to the north as we've learned that her ancestors, the Grahams, weren't Irish (well they came from Ireland to Canada) but rather Border Reivers in the middle ages (basically hooligans who terrorized the locals). They were kicked out and sent to Ireland. There's even a story about a collection being taken up by the locals to pay to be get rid of them and their ilk. We did make a day trip on Tuesday to Carlisle and did find some evidence of there having been Grahams there. Unlike Kendal, Carlisle seems to be mostly of red brick construction. The drive north took us through farm country - mostly pasture land for more of the many sheep.

Within Kendal itself I've mentioned already the many stone buildings. In several places there's long streets of stone row houses with chimney pots. There's an historic stone "Miller Bridge" across the river that's quite pretty, a nearby historic Trinity Church and Abbot Hall Art Gallery. On the east side of the river on top of a small knoll there's the remains of an old castle.

On Wednesday I drove into the Lake District and took some pictures on Lake Windermere. It was a fall day with leaves turning color and not many tourists around. I gather in the summer time there are lots of people vacationing on the lake. This lake is long and narrow and the biggest of the lot. The picture above is from Bowness Bay on the lake. There's a good sized tourist town there called Bowness-on-Windermere (aptly named). Boating on the lake is a popular summer event. Not so on the day I visited — far too cool for that. But there was a tour boat taking people out for the far colors.

From the lake I headed to the coast for some seaside views.

On Thursday, with Kate and her meeting friends, we drove west to the same Lake Windermere and then north to the village of Grasmere nestled in a valley by a couple of smaller lakes for a bit of touristing, some lunch and a visit to the poet William Wordsworth's Dove Cottage. He was one of the "English Romantic Poets" who popularized a pastoral view of the Lake District and the modest/simple country living that he enjoyed there. Kate knows far more about poetry than me — I get Woodsworth and Wordsworth mixed up! These days the Lake District is still very much a pastoral environment — pastures, rough stone walls and lots of sheep. It's a popular tourist area for those who want to get out of the city and rent rough stone cottages. It's also a popular hiking destination — especially if you can hike out of the valleys and onto the hill tops.

On Friday, Martin and I drove south to the coast to the Leighton Moss Sanctuary, Carnforth. It's a marshy area managed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. We did some see some birds, nothing terribly interesting but then we didn't have the equipment for birding. There were other fellows who were far better equipped.

My final visit, near Keswick to the north, was the Castlerigg Stone Circle. It's another, but smaller, Stonehenge kind of place. Much more modest but equally mysterious. When this was built: prehistoric times. Why this was built: lost to history.

We drove a car load of Kate's chums from the meeting back to Heathrow Airport on Saturday where we all flew off to our various destinations. For us, it was home to St Marys via Toronto.

Niagara Wines

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Terry, Ken and I went for a tour of some wineries near Grimsby and Jordan in the Niagara Wine Region. If you don't know Ontario wines you should take a bit of a drive to the area and sample some. Kate and I like to go once a year or more.  We are members of the Ontario Wine Society (Niagara Chapter) which holds events at some of these wineries.

My friend Terry from is keen on Italian Wines (Sangiovese has not done well here) and Rieslings (the crisp kind, not the overly sweet stuff). My other friend Ken from Stratford is a member of my wine club -- the Stonetown Beefsteak & Burgundy. Ken is on a search for the illusive Pinot Noir. There are some good ones to be found but as they say, you may have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince.

The region is pretty intensive with some fine wines. We stopped at Tawse, pictured above, where they have very good wines -- not cheap, but very good. They've put a lot of money into this place. One claim to fame is their wines are gravity fed (meaning they don't have to pump wines from primary to secondary fermentors and on to barrles; instead gravity flow is used).

Wayne Gretzky Estates is nearby. I recall this winery having a different name not that long ago. There is a trend amongst wineries to have big names invest and put their names on the bottle.

Flat Rock Cellars is one of my favorites for Pinot Noir -- they claim their $20 Pinot Noir can stand up to anyone in the price range. They're built on the escarpment and again make some noise about gravity fed wines. I like the Pinot Noir but they also make a Rusty Shed Chardonnay from fields just below the winery and some Riesling from on top of the escarpment that Terry really liked. It's a very good winery.

Birchwood Estates, by contrast, is a modest winery without a fancy dancy tasting room.

Finally we stopped at De Sousa on our way home. They have a Portugese heritage -- I like Portugal and Portugese wines. Since my last visit they seem to have kicked it up a notch and have invested a bit in their patio/garden area which is quite lovely on a sunny day like today.

I was the designated driver and spent the day spitting wine. You still absorb some alcohol, but not as much as my buddies. It was a rather full day of wine tasting. They fell asleep on the way home! Lucky buggers.

Fred Picnic

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We camped at the Fred Eaglesmith Charity Picnic this year. We're not one for roughing it but borrowed a tent from Mike for the weekend (we ended up keeping it -- he has lots).

We camped out so we wouldn't have to drive home. We also hoped to stay up late and get involved with some camp fire sing-alongs.

Springwater Conservation Area, where this event is held, is a little over an hour south of us near the town of Aylmer, Ontario.

There was an impressive guest list for the shows. Including of course the finely honed lunacy of Washboard Hank and his partner in crime Mountain Muriel. Roger Marin returned with his band (he used to tour with Fred). We always enjoy the talent that plays this event. And it's a charity event too.

The most important guest, for us, was Audrey Auld. She has a duet she wrote and sings with Fred, "B-Grade Affair" -- pure country.

Victoria

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We were in Victoria BC, this year for Kate's annual KBS conference. Victoria is famous for the "newly wed and the nearly dead" -- a honeymoon and retirement capital.

We flew Westjet out of London, with stops in Winnipeg and Calgary. Our European friends who flew over the pole had shorter flights than ours! Our return flight was quicker with a single stop in Calgary and then directly home to London.

It's good that we have Westjet flying out of London. We'd rather fly out of London than deal with Toronto and the traffic to get there. Besides, parking in London is pretty cheap by comparison.

We stayed at the conference hotel, the Harbour Towers on Quebec Street, which is only a couple of blocks from Fisherman's Wharf (to the west), the Inner Harbor (due north), the Legislature and the Empress hotel (to the east). It's a modern high rise hotel and the conference events were held on the lower floors. We had a suite with kitchenette that our friends Arlinda and Keith had reserved. We have some nice pictures from the hotel of the harbor to the north and the mountains of Washington State to the south. The neighborhood is called "James Bay". The James Bay area has a lot of lovely old homes.

Next door to our hotel there's a quaint Victoria clapboard restaurant we visited for lunch several times --the Gatsby (now called the Pendray Inn and Tea Garden/Huntingdon Manor Hotel -- Victorian bric-a-brac wooden). It was just out our door, across the street, and towards harbor.

One day, when Kate as at the conference, she went outside for a bit during the break and bumped into our friend Scott talking to a weirdly dressed fellow. Kate approached, and recognizing who it was, she says "Valdy!" (he's a popular folk singer we've seen many times over the years -- he lives in the area). Valdy looks at her and says, "Kate!" (he read her conference name tag).

We had a National Car rental for duration. This meant we were able to see some sites beyond the immediate area. We also brought our fold up bikes with us, that made visting in the area easier. We were able to get out of the city to visit with Cai & Natasha, Jeananne & Jim. We drove out of the city to the west and up the coast of the island to Port Renfrew with Deborah and Jerry one rainy misty day.  It is a real rain forest area with lot of ferns and thick moss on hanging on the trees. We bumped into some of the huge slugs Kate had warned me about. They are huge!

Mostly, however, we were hanging around the city center which is quite scenic. The harbor, of course, is quite a tourist draw.  The picture above shows some of the Victoria Harbor Ferrys. They shuttle around the harbor on a back and forth tour to the West Bay with several stops along the way. They do a daily synchronized performance in the Inner Harbor to music. Over at the West Bay there are more house boats tied up. There was also this very weird house at the West Bay. I saw a bunch of sea otters frolicking on the docks. On Wednesday afternoon we (i.e. the conference group) took a whale watching cruise from inner harbor out to North West channel. We did see some seals sun bathing but we didn't see any whales and, while it was sunny, it was very cold and windy. We were quite chilled. There were other cruises on small open rubber dinghy's that went out to the same spot looking for whales -- they must have been very cold, and very wet. I'd not recommend doing that.

From the inner harbor there are sea planes that come and go. We had taken a sea plan from Vancouver a few years ago that landed here. It's expensive but a quick way to get from downtown to downtown. The car ferry to Port Angeles, WA docks in the inner harbor. The huge cruise ships land at a special cruise ship dock on the outer edge of the Victoria Harbor. It's in James Bay, the far south westerly corner.

British Columbia is famous for totem poles carved by the coastal natives. There's a stand of them in a park by the parliament building, there's another along the water front when we biked over to Fisherman's Wharf which is just a little to the north west of our hotel (walking distance really). The wharf is a scenic area that I returned to again and again. There are a lot of house boats anchored there, some commercial ships, sail boats and even some square riggers. Very scenic. An added bonus is the friendly harbor seals who patrol the area. And to top that there's the playful sea otters. There's also a very good fish and chip shop at the wharf.

On the ocean side of James Bay (due south of our hotel) and I wandered along Holland Point Park and Findlayson Point. There's a long breakwater extending out with a lighthouse and cruise boat wharf to the west. You would sometimes sea big cruise boats on the horizon as well as the car ferry which goes to Port Angeles in Washington State.

Kate and I visited Craigdarroch Castle which is very near the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria to the west a bit in the Rockland area. Both are interesting Victorian structures (there's a lot of that in the city). As for famous artists, the Emily Carr house is near our hotel in the James Bay area near Beacon Hill Park (more totem poles there) -- I visited her home one day. Another day there was an open air market in a nearby park.

We visited the Victoria Butterfly House a couple of times. There are lots of stunning butterflys and moths in a pretty glassed green house setting and it's not too far from the city center. I visited Goldstream Provincial Park with a friend's daughter to see more rainforest and moss covered trees. We took the Brentwood Bay Ferry back across Saanich Inlet to land near Butterfly house.

Finally there are some wineries near Victoria. We visited one.

St Lucia

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We spent a week in St Lucia during March of 2008. In recent years we had traveled to all inclusive resorts in Cuba and Mexico and had met up with Paul and Judy, my brother and his wife, who flew in from Halifax. This year they weren't keen or able to travel. So we went alone, to an island further south (hoping for even warmer waters) and stayed at a small hotel rather than an all inclusive.

The Inn on the Bay, on high land overlooking Marigot Bay, is on the west side of the island. They had a driver waiting for us at the airport when we arrived. The place was owned by some Norman and Louise from Montreal. We later discovered that it was listed for sale as the "Villa Margot". It wasn't very busy (perhaps that's why they were selling) but the rooms were comfortable, the views over the bay and out to sea were great and there was a pool as well. There was also a small lending library where I found "The Hardcore Troubadour: The Life and Near Death of Steve Earle". That was an interesting read!

There was a steep and rough trail directly down to the bay, alternatively you could walk down the road into the small village at the bay. In the village there's a short ferry service to get you to other side of the bay where there's a small beach and a hillside resort. At this narrow point you could almost throw a ball across the bay -- it's that narrow.

The picture above is Kate on board one of the water taxis. The roads in St Lucia are winding and very hilly. From our bay it was often easier to take a water taxi. Although one day we did take a local bus to Castries just north of us to explore the town and find a bank which would accept our bank card.

The large cruise ships would land at Castries or at Soufriere further south. Our bay was way too tiny for them.

We took the "Jean Water Taxi" south along the coast one day to the Ti Kaye Resort & Spa on Anse Cochon Beach. Over the course of our stay we dealt with Jean a lot, he was friendly and helpful ... very helpful. Several boat loads from cruise ships arrived during the day to enjoy the beach at Anse Cochon. We had heard there was good snorkeling there. It's a lovely beach, there's a restaurant open to visitors, and the water is warm. However, it's not a great place to snorkel. We never found any place for snorkeling on the island that we were really excited by. One day we took a very long snorkel/swim out of our bay and along the shore. The island is volcanic and the coast drops off quickly. There's some coral but nothing terribly exciting. Kate was pushing me out well beyond my comfort zone.

More about how helpful Jean of the "Jean Water Taxi" was. There was an ATM in Marigot Bay but it wouldn't work for us. We did get some money out of an ATM when we were in Castries. One day we were running low on cash and had Jean take us to Soufriere -- we were going to visit the Pitons, the Botanic Garden and the Volcanic area. Jean had arranged a guide for us (a cousin or some such family/friend). Soufriere is perhaps the largest city, bigger even than Castries, and we were going to hit an ATM to pay Jean and the local guide. When we got there the banks were closed and we couldn't get any cash! Jean's cousin, the local guide, said not to worry he would take us around and we could pay Jean later and Jean would pay him. And that's what we did. We ended up getting some cash from the Inn and had it added to our bill which we payed by our credit card. We were very grateful for the kindness and trust these locals had shown us.

Another interesting story along the same lines. Marigot Bay has sheltered area where small boats can safely dock. One day we were down by the water when this huge black private luxury cruiser came into the bay. It was the biggest ever and could barely navigate in the narrow confines of the bay but it got turned around and safely docked. At that time Prince Charles was visiting St Lucia so we thought this might be his ship but of course it wasn't. Anyway, the waiter at the restaurant where we were watching this unfold says to me, "Do you have a boat like that?". I said, "Oh no, I'm just an ordinary guy like you". He replies, "No you're not. You're a tourist from far away, I'm a poor server and he never left St Lucia".

We took a taxi one night to the Fish Fry at Anse la Raye a little south from us.

Here's a photo album of our adventures.

Washington

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In February of 2008 we were in Washington DC for a few days. We flew into Dulles -- the airport in the center of the city.

I had some time to tramp around the mall and see the monuments -- Lincoln at left, Jefferson, Washington, FDR, Vietnam and Korean War Memorials, etc. Kate was busy with her conference.

February is winter even in Washington so the weather is cool, the trees are bare and the grass is grown. Spring is better when the trees bud.

Here's a photo album of some of the things I saw.