Qingdao... contiued

Qingdao - pronounced Chin dao - is not as plastic as I first thought. Had the wrong impression as we are staying in the business district. Which is brand new with nice wide streets and plenty of tower blocks, not very interesting.

A couple of days ago we went 'downtowm' and found the old heart of the city. Lots of German archeticture as it was occupied up until 1949. The govenors house, a church, a cathedral and the prison still stand although they are now used by the communist party.

Many of the sights that were shown on a little map were either well hidden or in different locations as we could not find them. Gave up looking after a few hours and went to Old Jack's Cafe a great little bar near the hotel.

What we did find was the following.

A cathedral, who's I don't know as the dedication was in chineese, but think St Mary as there was a statue to her in the garden.

A pagoda at the end of the pier with a lighthouse on the distant island.

A German hunting and fishing lodge overlooking No 2 beach, yes another beach with that name., although this one is officially called Taiping bay.

No 2 beach Qingdao, not to be confused with....

No 2 beach Sierra Leone.

Down on the beach and all over the rocks there were what seemed like hundreds of wedding couples with photographers posing for the pictures of their happy day. Not sure if it was a special day for weddings or it was a daily occurance but there were an awful lot of them for a daily occurance, unless every couple the weds in Qingdao has to get their photo taken on the beach under an old bylaw or ancient charter or somesuch!

Away from the beach area, which was right downtown as Qingdao sits on a promontory that juts out into Jiaozhou bay, a natural deep water harbour on the Yellow sea, we found a mixture of old and new buildings. Like most cities some were nice and some ugly, others just plain bizzare.

Mixture of old and new.

The culture market, newish in an old style. In here were many stalls selling pearls and watches at dirt cheap prices.


Bizzarely there was a family of three bridges going nowhere, and indeed coming from nowhere. Maybe a job training exercise for apprentice concrete pourers. The apprentice demolition team will be by later to take them down, maybe?

Chineese fortune tellers on the steps by the bridges to nowhere. Maybe they know what it is all about, although they won't tell unless palms are crossed with silver Yuans and a translator is employed.

All in all a pretty interesting place, but full of little chineese people and some of the worst driving I have seen outside Italy and Cairo.

At last an offer.

The day before I left, Saturday 18th, we had a third viewing of the house by a couple from Mullion, this time with their builder. This arrangement sounded very positive as they wanted to get estimates from him on work they would like to do to convert part of the house into a self-contained flat. Unfortunately the mad woman was in one of her moods caused by Lorcan an I offering a spare room to one of his cousins who had recently returned from living in Wales and was sleeping in a tent in a friends back garden. With all the spare space in our house I could not see a problem. But yet again I overestimated her capacity for compassion. She went off on one on the Friday night when we arrived home and wouldn't let go. When she is drunk she can be like a dog with a bone. Both Lorcan and myself having been down the pub for a few hours probably didn't help with her mood.

Saturday morning with the crucial third viewing looming she was threatening to put a stop to it, just out od spite. Shee seems hell bent on staying in the house and forcing us to co-habit forever. Trying hard to understand her motives in this ploy, as she constantly reminds me that I am her biggest problem and that she hates me, I asked her if '"she was still so much in love with me that she couldn't bear to have the house sold so we would have to spend the rest of out days together" as I cannot afford to live elsewhere while I am still paying the mortgage and the bills. If looks could kill I would not be writing this now but a fine wake would have been held at the Blue.

Anyway she finally calmed down and hid in her room whilst the prospective buyers came around.

The Monday after, once I was in China, they made an offer. After some negotiating on the price, and a lot of convincing the mad woman that we would not get a better one as the last one was around 18 months ago, we agree a price and with fingers crossed we will be sold up and on our seperate ways within a couple of months. Although she is still banging on about not signing any papers and will scupper the sale. God knows what is going through her head as she seems determined to scupper any chance we have on moving on with our lives.

Anyway she does make life a little bit interesting and looking back, even while in the middle of this madness I have to laugh.

Hammers and spanners....

Back in work now and instead of the cerebral stuff I have been doing for the last few years, audits on GSM networks and like stuff, I am back on the nuts and bolts and hammers and spanners of installation. Good fun and no need to think too much. No real pressure as I am number three of a two man team plus a site supervisor. I have ended up in Qingdao, China. This seems to be a very modern city with many tower blocks and lots of new ones going up. It is the site of the olympic sailing reggatta of 2008 and they seem to still be building the venue.

Olypic flame.

Entrance to sailing venue.

Downtown from hotel window

View from the site.

A new stadium being built along with flats.

On the way here I had a few hours in London whilst getting my visa, for all you that have never been, or those who have but can't get back here as some pictures of the west end.

The new statue along the Mall to the dead queen mum.

Horse guards and the eye.

A dead war hero (Nelson) in Trafalgar Square.

Two old cadgers having a chat.
(FDR and Churchil)

Another trip over.

Just returned from another trip to Sierra Leone where as usual I had a great time.
Spent a lot of time this visit laying in the beach soaking up the sun, although I did identify a business opportunity that I will definitely follow up on, more of that once it gets under way. Suffice to say that the authorities in Freetown have made it much easier to start a business there than it was previously. All rides on selling the house here in the UK and getting rid of the missus who is still stringing out the divorce. Not sure what the record for streaching out a divorce is but it is now 2 and a half years since she started proceedings and I have a decree nisi to show for it.

Saw some fun things whilst laying on Lumley beach, first there were the fishermen who I have mentioned earlier. Here they are landing the catch,


And stowing the nets,


It seems an awful lot of work for a few fish,


But these ended up on my plate that evening.


Other fun things seen on and around the beach include a couple of spiders,



many lizards like this,


and this.

We WON

The quiz down at the Blue last Tuesday for the first time. Between us we won a voucher for 20 pounds, that is 4 pints each for Mark and myself as Kim works behind the bar and Scouse does not drink any more.


That is the highlight of my week, pretty dull time when home in Cornwall.

Been busy cleaning the house this week as we have two viewings this Saturday and now Lorcan and his mate have moved out I can finally get into his room with an industrial strength decontamination unit. Must say that after two teenage lads being in there it wasn't too bad.

Back home....... unfortunately! Part the third

The last adventure on my US tyrip this year involved ......

All these......

Two of these....

A missing one of these......

Lots of this......

And this.

After getting back to Illinois I was detailed to drive Ray's little red car, above, to New Mexico whilst Ray and Dave drove his truck with the rock crawling jeep on a trailer and Karen and the ladies, Terri and Ildi, took her Honda.

All went well for the first half hour when we needed to stop for breakfast. This after a late start as Ray realised that he had lost his cell phone the previous evening. Not a great omen.

Things after that seemed to go well and we made good time through Illinois and Missouri until just outside Joplin when one of the tyres on the jeep trailer blew out. Luckily Ray is an organised chap and had all the necessary tools and spares to complete a tyre change in a few minutes. An F1 team couldn't have been slicker than Dave and myself. Problem being that when the tyres were checked and inflated the day before the spare was not checked. No big problem, just needed some air.

Pulled off at the next junction and inflated the tyre. Luckily there was a little garage there which sold used tyres and Ray managed to purchase a replacement. Well not really purchase, more like had one donated as it was very ropey and almost repaired but would do in case of an emergency.

Good job too as no more than 5 miles down the road the spare blew too. Another quick tyre change and a crawl on the very dodgy replacement to Joplin. All good plans come a cropper and before we reached Joplin the spare spare blew also. Dumped the truck and Jeep in a car park and went to buy two new tyres.

Joplin, awaiting a replacement.

Stayed the night, and fortunately the next day was greatly uneventful. Texas is very flat and boring as the picture shows. Never noticed before but when you are following a truck and trailer and cannot get much beyond 65mph in a little Merceded you have lots of time to 'enjoy' the scenery.

The PODS delivery system was pretty slick. They deliver it to your home, you load, they ship and you unload. What took 3 days to load in Illinois was emptied in 3 hours in New Mexico.

The unloading crew of Ray, Karen, Terri, Ildi, and Dave were great fun to be with and the whole week was great fun with lots of laughter and a great time was had by all. Thanks guys.

As a house warming gift we found some herb wands that were supposed to chase out any negative vibes in your home. Talked Ray and Karen into burning these and walking them through the whole house and garden.



Not sure if ther really worked but they sure stunk the place out. Although some people witt smoke just about anything.

Again guys, thanks for a great time and I hope to be back there sometime soon.

Back home....... unfortunately! Part 2

Had a great weekend with my sister Sheelagh and her children Conor 6 and Kate 4. I had forgotten how lively little children can be and was quickly reminded of this fact.

Weather was good so that all the sporting activities for them went ahead from 'flag' football, which is like touch rugby for the little ones. Seeing as american football is all about playing catch and trying to stop the oppositin from getting anywhere near the ball I struggled to understand the concept of having a flag tied loosely to the waist to be ripped off. A non-contact version of a truly violent game.

Saturday was a sport I could relate to, soccer as they quaintly call football, played by little kids is the same the world over. Everyone chases the ball and just kicks the hell out of the thing. Great fun and I have seen this done on 6 continents, truly a world game. Sadly the sport seems to be dropped before the kids get to be 16 as all the focus is on the parochial games of american football, baseball and basketball whose 'world' champions all happen to be from the US.

We stopped at a garage sale on the way home from the 'soccer' field and picked up a fusball table for 10 bucks, a true bargain.

Kate and the Football table

As it was the week before halloween and also Kate's birthday there was a lot of excitement and dressing up for parties. Kate had a fairy princess costume and Conor was a spy and looking very cool.

The Princess and the Spy.

Monday lunchtime it was back on the train to return to Morton, Il. Again I was not impressed with the running of the Amtrak service. I wrote the following while stuck in Albany:

Travelling back to Morton, Illinois I realised that the railways in Britain are not so bad after all. The clowns that run Amtrak do so for the benefit of the crew not the passengers. Either that or the crew are blindly following orders without question, and we all know where actions like that end up!

When boarding the train tickets are checked for destination and you are told which car to sit in, choice of seat is then up to the passenger. When tickets are collected a little slip of paper is poked into the overhead luggage rack stating your destination. The ticket collector seemed to get a bit upset when I swapped seats when a pair became available as this seemed to confuse him. Seems that you gotta stay put! So much for land of the free! can't even freely move around a train!

Unfortunately they seem to want to fill one car at atime as when I went to the 'cafe' car there was acompletely empty coach. I asked the crew if they could explain why and they told me that it would come off at Albany. Fair enough but why were the passengers for Albany not in that one but filling up the other coaches? Couldn't answer me and just kept saying that the car would be coming off at Albany and I was to stay in the seat for the entire trip as there would be no chance to change seat. Didn't quite understand that one either.

On reaching Albany they wandered through muttering something about getting off. Didn't quite catch it and if it was a train announcement then why not use the intercom, unless they couldn't figure out how it worked as on the way out I was woken pre-dawn by somebody hollering through it that breakfast would be served. After about 10 mins the train pulled out, travelled about 200yde, just enough to clear the platform and stopped. The lights went out. Guard cane through and stated that the train would stay here until 7:05, 1 hour and 45 mins and the lights would come on shortly as a couple of cars were being removed and replaced. Why they couldn't do this in the station and let passengers off for the duration is again beyond me. It is not a sif there was no room as there are 4 platforms and not a single train passed as we sat there doing nothing.

After all that we then reversed back into the station and left 25 minutes late.

Sorry British Rail, or whatever you are called these days, all is forgiven.

Back home....... unfortunately!

Arrived back home last week after a long journey from Alberquerque via Chicago and London that took a couple of days. Since my last post I was all over the states .....

.... scene fades to show rememberances of past events......


..... After the crash landing of the balloon we upped stakes and returned to Illinois. This year we decided to go the northern route through Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa and then south into Peoria. This was so we could see the rockies but as with lots of great ideas the weather did not co-operate and the mountains were hidden behind a veil of clouds, rain and mist. Have to go another time.

Nebraska and Iowa are flat and boring. Drove through wind and rain on a journey best forgotten.

Back in Morton Ray had his second PODS removal cube delivered and we then spent three days loading all the crap, oops sorry, stuff onto it that was going to be shipped to his and Karen's new house that they bought while ballooning in Albq.

With this completed I decided to go on another trip to visit my sister in Massachucettes using Amtrak the US rail network.

26 hours on a bloody train. Seats were OK but nothing special and space was at a premium as there seemed to be just enough of them for the passengers who were herded into set coaches at the whim of the conductors, about 6 of them. Seems that even though there were no seat assignments as such one could not sit where one liked as passengers for certain destinations had to sit in assigned coaches. When asked why the reason given was so that the conductors knew where people were but still put little pieces of paper on the luggage racks saying the destination. Totally illogical, but that is the us for you.

Odd thing happened in Erie, Indiana. After being woken by a wailing banshee announcing breakfast was being served at some ungodly hour pre-dawn, I was accosted by a guy in a brown uniform asking if I was a US citizen, the conversation went as follows:

Brown shirt: Are you a US citizen?
Me: No.
BS: Do you have a passport?
Me: Of course! (thinks: What a dumb question! How the hell would I be here otherwise)
BS: Can I see it?
Me: Who are you?
BS: Border Patrol!
Me: (sounding confused) Have we crossed a border or something?
BS: No just a check!
Me: (hands over passport) So if I had just said 'yes' you wouldn't have gone any further? ( he had been ignoring anybody who said that they were a US citizen)
BS: No I would have been able to tell from the accent! (returned passport after close scrutiny of the data page but not of the visa stamp)

Still not sure what that was all about, maybe somebody had snuck over the Canadian border and jumped on a moving train during the night. Must be bloody desperate to escape from the economic depression of Canada for the so called land of the free!

Rest of the journey uneventful although as we went deeped into New England the scenery became better as the leaves were turning beautiful shades of yellow, orange and red.

Will be doing the catching up in installments... so keep checking back!

A GREAT but sad day..

Had a wonderful day today. Found out that after 1 year 11 months and 6 days my decree nisi was finally granted yeaterday at 10am BST. I am finally officially a divorced man, just need to sell the bloody house, pay her off and I will be free.


Following that we went flying at the fiesta. Winds were picking up so we went off field, as it was special shapes day on field, and set up and flew quickly. I was in the basket with Kelly and Keith the pilot.

Had a nice slow pass of the field at around 5mph and saw some of the stragglers taking off.

Wells Fargo Stagecoach over Fiesta field

Flew on over the Rio Grande and splashed down just north of the little island in the middle. Current was pretty fast as well as airspeed picking up, we hit the water at around 11mph which ammounts to a lot of inertia in a 90,000 cubic feet balloon. First time I have hit a riverbed in a balloon.

Rio Grande, set down just north of the little island.

Managed to get water.....

and riverbed in the basket.

Flew over a maize maze set out in a field with the shape of a balloon as part of the path.

Maize maze.

Headed for Rio Rancho, north of Albuquerque for a landing. Wind was now getting up which leads to a hell of an exciting landing. Came in at around 30mph and just missed a house as we came a bit low, had to burn to rise above the roof and must have missed the chimney by inches as the owner was standing there waving and taking photos. Not sure if they were for fun or in case of an insurance claim. Hit the ground and bounced and dragged a good 20 yards with lots of other peoples crew hanging on to stop us. Balloons were laid out all over the area after lots of hard landings.

After landing.

Unfortunately there were some accidents due to the wind speeds. A young lad was caught in one of the lines and dragged by the neck for about 20 yards right next to our landing site, he was taken off to hospital. A worse accident occurred about a half mile away from us where a basket was caught in some power lines and the propane hoses were ruptured. The basket caught on fire and the pilot was thrown out to his death whilst the passenger hit the ground and sustained multiple broken bones. All balloonist's thoughts go out to all the families involved.

George Hahn, a pilot in the same launch square as us has taken what is commonly known as a cattle car, a large basket from a ride balloon, and mounted it on a truck chassis to make a vehicle for running around the field.

A cattle car on wheels.

As this is probably the last day for flying due to inclement weather coming in overnight we had the Sky Angle crew photo.

Bill, Tina (SkyAngel herself and crew chief), Dennis (tame weatherman), Keith (pilot), Kelly, me, Ray.

All in it has been another great week down in Albuquerque, thanks to all who have made it such an enjoyable time. Back to Illinois tomorrow.

Day 4 at Fiesta.

After two days washed out by the weather it was good to be back on the field and flying again.
Today was a competition day and the targets were to be on the field so everyone was supposed to leave and fly back across the target area and drop their baggies, sand filled nylon bags with streamers.

As many people did not want to compete it was decided to allow those to fly from the field. This is what Keith decided, Dennis fitted the burners the right way up!

Black bits to the top Dennis!

Other people to fly from the field today were from overseas with their special shapes.

The Swiss brought a cathedral

The Brazilians brought a chicken

While the Germans brought their pisspot!

We also found Nemo!

To launch a balloon you need the OK from a launch director, commonly known a Zebras due to their black and white striped shirts. Over the years the dress has become more outlandish and bits have been added to the costume.

Our Zebra says GO

Chasing is just as much fun as flying and in the truck the crew have a good craic. Today we saw a sign that shows that the good lord has the same problems as me sometimes, as stated by the following sign spotted outside a church.

I've had to say the same to some women in the past !!!!!!