Tooting Bec Lido is situated in a South London park. It’s huge, is almost two Olympic length pools end to end (100 yards long) and the width of a normal swimming pool.
It’s also unheated.
The fact that it’s unheated doesn’t deter the good people of London from taking a dip in winter, which is something I have managed to avoid due to being away most winters. This year however I decided to stay and face the music, which is a frosty tune I must say.
I can’t believe it was the 19th of May that I returned to Blighty, it seems like an age since then.
I have done few of the things I had lined up for my return and many of the things I had not, for instance I have only been to one festival though I had lined up myself a good few more to attend, yet have been busy work-wise plus have been helping a fellow turn his pub into an art gallery.
Continue reading English SummerI have a friend who, when she gets on a plane, I have been known to get a phone call from the cabin. She checks out the safety features, the amount of engines (two can looks pretty thin for such a large plane), she’s a nervous flier and as such keeps an eye on safety to such an extent that she has confronted people that behave suspiciously on a flight. It works, she has always gotten to where she is heading.
Continue reading Rolls Royce Qantas Engine Failure
I bought a Nikon S8100 recently to because I had my wonderful little Panasonic Lumix DZ10 stolen in Chile.
Continue reading Nikon S8100
I arrived in Australia and had a little shindig with friends I know in Sydney. The hospitality of the Krasnowskis knows no limits, so Jon, Rob, Sean and Dai all had a great evening out topped off by attempts to play coherent 12 string guitar in Jon’s back garden. I needed that and felt refreshed enough to make the train journey to Bellingen the next day.
Continue reading AustraliaFor a last wave at South America Valparaiso was a double edged sword, but certainly an interesting one. I loved the place but should have tucked myself in bed safely after dark, but the alternative certainly leads to an interesting life. Continue reading Santiago to New Zealand
Valparaiso is one of those places that defines a country. It is a loud mouth of a city, colourful, unapologetic, it has trade and a good climate that puts Santiago to shame, Continue reading Valparaiso
Valdivia is a pretty university town that was started up by German settlers. It has a civilised air to it, nice bars, traditions, great brewers! Yup, Continue reading Valdivia
The bus journey from Castro to Puerto Montt was a lovely journey. Green rolling hills, a ferry across the Canal de Chacao standing on deck with spray in the face from a wind flecked sea. Continue reading Puerto Montt
I had a weeks work to do in Castro so I found a neat little house to stay in with good Internet at the Hospidaje Familiar under the watchful eye of Orfilia and buckled down.
Castro was a lovely place to spend the week, brightly coloured houses gripping the side of a steep slope leading down to the sea, one of the last enclaves of the Spanish in South America. My hospidaje was a funny old place, it was above one of this bars where scantily clad women served beers to drunk sailors up until 11pm sharp when it would close it’s doors. The noise would be quite loud upstairs but I didn’t mind, it had character.