Cornwall coast

Took a walk along the coast path from Polurian cove to Loe Bar then through Penrose estate and ended up in the Blue for a couple of pints last week. Here are some pictures.

Polurian cove and coastline

After walking down the lane to Mullion I cut through to Polurian Cove and walked along the coast path heading north to the Marconi Centre at Poldhu. Poldhu is the Cornish for Blackpool and as like its more famous northern namesake it attracts many visitors to its beach.

Marconi Monument to 1st transatlantic radio transmission.

Further along I passed Church Cove at Gunwalloe, another popular beach where the golf course comes down to the shore.

Gunwalloe, the golf course and Mullion village in the distance.

At Loe Bar, a shingle bank that was created by storms in the 13th century effectively cutting off Helston from the sea, is a monument to the HMS Anson which went down in a storm in January 1807 with the loss of over a hundred lives.

Anson Memorial at Loe Bar.

This tragedy had a silver lining though as it caused Henry Trengrouse to invent his life saving rocket line apparatus that helped get sailors from stricken ships.

Loe Bar

Kicking back.

Thought some of you may like to see a bit of what it is like back here in Cornwall. For those who have never been down this way here are some photos of the local area taken while I was out on my bike the other day. Boredom is a terrible thing if it makes one go cycling up and down hills. Found out that the brakes do not actually stop the bloody bike but just stop it accelerating going down the hills. This makes getting around the hairpin bends at the bottom a little bit interesting. Not actually fallen off yet.... but give it time.

This is what originally brought me down to this part of the world.

Goonhilly Satelite Earth Station.

Cane to do an FDM multiplex installation job way back in 1984. When that finished I was at aloose end and just kept returning at weekends to see a woman and slowly became hooked on the place.

Unfortunatley nowadays the station is almost closed and is just a tourist attraction. This is the place where the first sattelite transmissions were received from Telstra back in the '60's. The view is from across the downs which is the highest point on the Lizard peninsular and as couple of miles from where I live at present.

Arthur, the first dish built.

One of the narrow lanes around the Lizard penninsular.

View from my garden.

My house. If you want to buy it you can find it here:

Flora day

Been a busy week since my return to Cornwall. Found out the extent of the damage to the car, another one virtually written off by my ever considerate son. he smashed it into a granite post hard enough to smash in the front end, wing and crumple the bonnet. Airbag deployed so he must have been going at a fair rate.

Tuesday night after a few beers in town I fell up the stairs while carrying a pot of tea to my room before bed as the three light bulbs there were blown and had not been replaced. As the soon-to-be ex-wife (why it is still soon-to-be is beyond me at present) and son were over in the pub I had the childish idea that if they liked to live in the dark an not replace light bulbs then they could. I proceeded to remove all the bulbs in the downstairs rooms. Great fun to hear them stumbling around in the dark and cussing me for being home.

Wednesday was the pre Flora morris dancing by the bowling green performed by the Blue Anchor morris dancers, a collection of local professional people, my lawyer amongst them and other odd balls.

A fun evening and a few beers with mates in the Blue afterwards. Enjoyed myself so much I forgot the time and missed the last bus home. Ended up walking the 5 miles at around midnight. All the running on the treadmill in Islamabad has some benefits.

Thursday was the annual party in Helston - Flora Day. This happens every May 8th since forever, nobody really knows how long this ancient pagan ritual has been going, but safe to say probably over 1,000 years as it is a pre-christian ritual celebrating spring.

The locals dance through the streets led by the town band and the local dignitaries including the mayor Ronnie Williams. The early morning dances had the best of the weather so the children who dance at 11am and the midday dancers in their top hats and evening dresses were spared the worst. Here are some pictures from the 5pm dance. The guy waving is Chris a lad who once played football for me as a 12 year old and has probably been dancing the Flora since he was 5 years old.

Chris Cook waving

Helston Town Band

The Furry Dancers

Still heading home...

It is now Sunday and I still have not reached home after leaving Islamabad Thursday morning. I have been detoured slightly. Spent Thursday night in London with a good friend, Elaine, who I haven't seen for over 4 years. It is quite amazing that after so long we just seemed to pick up our last conversation as if it was yeaterday. Shows that with good friends you are always comfortable. Had dinner and a few beers and caught up on what we have been doing and a pleasant evening flew by.

Friday was my anual visit to the dentist which resulted in a clean and polish, hooray. After I went to Sudbury in Suffolk to visit another old friend who's adventures you can read about on his blog, http://greyhound10.blogspot.com/ . Had a few beers with him at lunch time and then hit the town quite hard. Ended up in the local Weatherspoons pub drinking real ale until very late. Was served at one point by a real idiot. He tried to tell me that by law he had to serve all pints with at least 5% foam on top. This was the first time I had heard that one from an incompetent barperson who just could not manage to pour a pint properly. Asked for the manager who was all apologies and had the good barmaid, who had been serving us for the rest of the night, replace the lousy pints. When you think that you have heard all excuses for incompetence a new one pops up.

Saturday saw me head for Shrewsbury and my mother. This trip went via Swindon so I could go to the last game of the season and watch the mighty Lions get beat. Met up with another friend, Timmus, who is a Swindon supporter who had bought tickets for the part of the ground for the home supporters. This was not much of a problem to begin with as it allowed us entry to the bar where we managed to get some cider and food. Trouble was when Millwall scored first and I really had to sit on my hands and say nothing let alone jump up and cheer. Very frustrating but only happened once as we ended up getting beaten 2-1 after a poor ref ignored a blatant penalty for us and pulled play back for a previous foul after he had played the advantage. Surely the advantage would have been a penalty rather than a free kick outside the box.

Sunday was a day chilling out at my mum's place. Spent the day chatting and learning things that I never knew about my family, like the fact that I have an older cousin who was put up for adoption back in the early fifties. Seems that everybody else in the family knew about this but me, always the last to know what is going on. England looks lovely in the springtime as evedinced by my mum's garden.

Mum's garden in spring.

Heading home

Finally heading home. Finished the project in Islamabad with a presentation to what we thought was to be the board and senior management of the Mobilink parent company. Instead it was ith the muppets that I have been banging heads with for the last 3 months plus the CTO. With the same results, we show our findings and they argue. Was so bad at one stage with the planning manager lying through his teeth I was tempted to just walk out and head for home then. Total waste of everybodies time.

At least I finally looked the part as I wore my new tailor made suit for the first, and possible last, time. And don't I look the part.


This wonderful suit was made for me by a little local tailor with a shop in the basement of a building in the blue area of Islamabad. Paul found him after asking in the laundry for somebody who could repair a zipper in his trousers. I ended up buying 3 suits, 2 long sleeved shirts, 3 short sleeved work shirts and 4 silk shirts from the man. All made to very high standards. and for less than 180 pounds total.

So if you ever need a suit made in Islamabad let me know and I will give you his phone number.

Pakistan was no way as bad as I was led to believe by the international press. Not suprising as there is never good news in the papers as that does not sell too well. If you ever get the chance to go then I would strongly advise you to seize the opportunity with both hands. The people I met were very friendly and bent over backwards to be helpful. The food was very good and if they have a shortage problem then it is not evident in the restaurants as the quantities were huge. You will still need to be careful of the water and the electricity does not stay on as they have a lot of 'loadshedding' throughout the day and night.

Any use???

Out by Murree where the road leads to the disputed area the most underused government agency in the world has a huge billboard advertising their services.....

I give you the Azad Jammu & Kashmir Tourism Department

Taxila

Last Saturday I went to Taxila with a couple of colleagues. Taxila is a collection of ancient ruins dating back to 500BC or so. Pre-christian so definitley pre-muslim. We visited the museum which seemed to be full of stone heads. Not the best or most interesting place to spend a Saturday morning after getting to bed after 4am. Friday night started with a few drinks at the UN club chatting with some friends and ended up back at Shane's place across the city sucking down some Murree classic lager. had to grap a local cab back to the digs as our driver was again ignoring my calls. He has done this on a few occasions now, such is life when you are reliant on unreliable people.

Anyway after wandering around the museum in a daze and not really taking much in we headed off to find some ruins. Not the most intrepid trio who ever scaled an old city wall, Amir with his leg in plaster, me in a semi-drunken daze and Khalid the fit one!

Found out why the museum was full of heads, they had been nicked off of all the statues we saw in the ruins. Why the heads would be stolen is a mystery to me. Unless it is because they are all of Buddah and the religions that followed felt threatened.

One of the many headless Buddahs

An ancient monastry.

You know after visiting many ancient ruins around the world one pile of rocks is begining to look a lot like any other. Just built by different people. They are all thick walls that surround bedrooms, dining halls, kitchens and khazis. Am I just a little toooooo cynical???

Basant

Basant is a festival of kite flying in Lahore to welcome in the spring. Many people go to the rooftops of the old city and fly their kites. Sounded like a wonderful sight so Paul and I had Khalid drive us there. Unfortunatly due to unknown reasons the festival was cancelled for the 5th year. Still I expected to see some kites being flown but nothing. Very disappointing.

Instead we hooked up with Javed of Deosai tours (deosaitours@yahoo.com) for a wander through the narrow alleys of the old city. He took us all over through different bazzars starting with the famous Heera Mandi, the red light area where the dancing girls live. These dancing girls were once important people and entertained the Mughal emperors that build the Fort and the Badshshi Masjid. Over the years they have become not much better than whores even though they like to think of themselves as descended from a courtesan class. They look down on the common whores who have moved into the area from the countryside. For more about these people read 'The Dancing Girls of Lahore' by Louise Brown.

On our wanderings we took in a couple of mosques, the mosque of Wazir Khan which is said to be the most beautiful in the city and later a daylight visit to the Badshahi mosque.

Wazir Khan Mosque

While walking through the old city we saw many different ways to sell wares, here are a selection of sellers and professions.

Butcher

Dentist

Sleeping paintbrush seller

The people in the old city seem very friendly forever asking "What's your name" and "Where you from". The all want to shake hands and say how do you do.

Riding

Recently as there is not much to do around Islamabad we have been hores riding. For those of you who heard about my first attempt at this activity, this horse did understand the command 'bloody whoa'. On the edge of Islamabad there is some farmland and woods. The horse riding is in this area. One week we went down a dry river bed and then through the woods. It is really peaceful riding through the woods.


There have been a few scares here recently mainly resulting from the anti-islam film put on the internet by a Dutch MP. This resulted in the closing of the UN club here. I don't really know how this would help the situation, all it did was to piss of the ex-pats here as we couldn't get a drink for the weekend.

Wagah

About 30km from Lahore city centre is the border crossing at Wagah. This is a very special crossing place as since partition they have performed the nightly ceremony of lowering the flag and closing the gates.

These days it is done in an ampitheatre with cheering crowds on both sides. As a westerner I was escorted by the military to the front platform. At first I was not sure why I had been picked out by the military and escorted a different way from all the locals. I ended up with a grandstand view.

The parade consists of a lot of shouting, quick marching, stamping and football like cheering from the crowds. Great spectacle.

Pakistani (in Black) and Indian border guards.

The high stepping had them bringing their knees up to their chest level before crashing their boots down. The did everything quickstep. It reminded me of Monty Python's 'Ministry of Silly Walks'.

After the parade we had to leave the stands and walk round the edge of the show area. This took us past a crossing point that does not seem to be used but has not been permanently closed. It just has troops either side. There is a monument to 50 years of the Rangers which I guess are the border guards. Had my picture taken there with Amir.

Pakistan - Indian border with Indian soldier in background.

After seeing the picture I turned and thanked the Indian for posing there for us. The Pakistani soldier guarding the crossing told us in no uncertain terms not to talk to 'Him' as he was a bad person. Why? we asked. Soldier replied 'Him Indian we Pakistan, he bad person' I guess they still hate each other. We walked away laughing at the absurdness of it all.

Later that evening we went to the Sufi shrine to Baba Shah Jamal. In our ignorance we ended up in the ladies section of the temple. Nobody said anything to us but we did receive odd looks. Who is going to approach a 6'2" white guy who is wandering around as if he owns the place. We ended up leaving the womens section via the shrine in the middle of the courtyard which had an exit to the mens section. Faux pas number 2... when we left the shrine, which was absolutely beautiful with the ceiling made of mother of pearl and other semi precious stones, and the shrine itsself covered with about 6 inches of rose petals, we just turned and walked out into the male section. We thought we had got away with that but it turned out that we sould not have turned our backs on the shrine. Dumb bloody foreigners.

Later we walked around Charing Cross and up the Mall. You can tell the Brits were here for a while. At one end of the Mall is Summit Minar which commoeates the Islamic summit conference in 1974. This closes at 6pm but when we arrived at around 9pm Amir decided it would be better for us to take a picture if we just climbed the fence. So we did.

Monument with statue of Koran.

When the security guard saw we were foreigners and taking pictures he showed us the museum dedicated to the summit conference. Not only that but he opened it and showed us round. Cannot imagine that happening at a museum in Londao for a couple of foreigners who had jumped the fence.