A very busy day for us as I ploughed through the Indian material and have already got several volumes ready to list, here are the covers so far, lots more to come. We went to Wilmslow to pick up a match pot for painting the dining room/library as we near the start of the next round of house decoration. We had lunch at the garden centre in the village, Mandy went for her blood test at Holmes Chapel only to be told that it was cancelled as the nurse was off sick but they hadn't told anyone. I've been running off the DVD covers alongside posters for St Oswalds fund raiser tonight, quiz and pancakes at Plumley village hall plus advertising the Easter services at St Oswalds. Also a poster for North West Air Ambulance which is the beneficiary of our raffle tonight. We had snow overnight and through the day, I'm keeping an eye open for photographic opportunities tomorrow if there is a good coverage of snow but clear roads as the Woodhead had very lengthy delays today. I'm well into the Indian trucks now, here is a photo selection from my coverage at Kochi. We woke up about 7.30 after heading up to bed at 9pm, shattered after the journey back from India. The big task was to clear the back log of DVD orders, this was completed by around 11am with three sacks of post to take around to Lawrence's post office cum village shop in our little village of Lower Peover situated in the heart of Cheshire, located in the North West of England. Regular readers may well know all that but many of our readers pick up on 'key' words and may well be looking in from India to see what we got up to. After getting the orders done I had to read our fuel meters as we are now online with accounts and have saved a fortune changing suppliers. Really all you change is the company who bills you, who can run the account most efficiently and get advantageous rates from the producer. Mandy went off to get some household shopping done and has a doctors appointment later this afternoon. There have been a few more orders truckling through on the net which will go tomorrow but the postman had little to bring other than my first 65th birthday card from friend Sue who is off on a cruise now. We'll have another quiet night with TV but tomorrow we have the next St Oswalds fund raiser, the pancake and quiz evening at Plumley village hall, the event is open to all comers and yours truly set the questions and will be doing the raffle. The next transport related task was to get the covers done for the four London DVDs I'd made before we went to India, this has now been done and they are on our shop. We are going to start decorating before I undertake much more film work which will then leave most of the spring and summer free. A reminder that we are hoping to attend several truck events this year including Gaydon, Truckfest, Llandudno and Kelsall. The first and last of these we'll have a small stand at. Kurla is a suburb about 35mins train ride north of Victoria terminus, as well as being an important commuter stati9on there is a more modern terminal from where we started our 22 hour journey to Kochi. It took a little bit of puzzling out to understand the Kurla double deck BEST bus situation, I knew they were at West station, in fact there is no crossing so there are small bus station either side. It took little effort to track down the buses at Kurla, my first visirt to this enclave of DD operated routes in Mumbai and well from the tourist trail. The Mumbai BEST deckers are due to come off in 2020 with replacements not really available that they could afford or would match emission levels. The slide show was from my first trip up to the dock area refreshing my memory of the layout, actually the best road in has a flyover above and thus in half shadow below. The area of truck commerce is pretty poor as you can see but over the years has gained toilets, banks and shops. We arrived back at Manchester airport only to get stuck on the runway as the air bridge for our allocated spot had broken down and everything else was full, same old world of Manchester airport, what's new. Anyway my tan struck a popular note for comment at church this morning. I'm getting all the video downloaded ready to edit but must get the covers for the London DVDs done first. We are both really tired, lots of damage from the storm last week, our bird table fell and 6 fence panels were out but they belong to next door. It's been wet and windy all day. All the DVD orders are now downloaded and will be sent out tomorrow. Lets kick off our review of India with Mumbai last week and we'll be having an early night as we only got about three hours sleep on the way home! I know that back at home please are only having their morning coffee but herein Kochi in the south of India it is time for us to shower and do our final packing. We have had a lovely day all Saturday sat watching the dolphins in the harbour, just said goodbye to some lovely Brits we met a couple of days back, we had met many interesting and kind people on our travels, the young man who looks after the pool area who has been great helping Mandy with the wheelchair brought around two ice creams this afternoon as he knows how much I like them and it was chocolates. I put the Amazon shop back on and eBay has the cine to!Ms relisted at auction, our own shop on this site has been open throughout our journey to India. All outstanding orders will go out on Monday morning, we land at Manchester first thing Sunday. We'll leave the hotel about 5pm the airport is quite a way from here. We flyback via Abu Dhabi and then onwards to Manchester. It's been sunny for every day and it's about 36c outside. Speak to you all once we are settled back in slightly less sunny and warm Cheshire
Well good old weebky crashed once more and wiped my blog but as a mere not on their horizon I don't suppose they bother what I think. What a result, Whitehaven go over to the Tories a rare cash of the ruling party winning any election, who would ever have envisaged this part of Cumbria go to the conservatives but the retention of nuclear weapons won't have done the government any harm. Poor Jeremy goes from one disaster to another. It's still in high thirties here in Kerala in the south of India, the storms at home even made the national papers in India. It was our last full day, I went to see if I could see any running on the metro it nothing at all, travelled right to the end of the line then got abusback all the Wayne around to our hotel on willingly island which produced a different bus ticket which to my humble eyes seemed abetter quality one. The weather turned cloudy later this afternoon, to Ordos c!Our increasing but temperature still very high as the state starts its way into the monsoon season which hits this region first. My back had another glitch this morning but I seem to have escaped with no damage, my broken finger much better although swollen and painful it gets knocked. It looks as if we can keep our room on to tea time Saturday we then head off to the airport terminal back tomanchester early Sunday morning. Sender to get ourselves sorted quickly so we can get on with decorating the lounge and dining room. I've still got covers for all the London DVDs to do then edit the Indian material. I'm not sure how much I've done probably more than I think. There are plenty more trips coming up this year.itisgoing to be a shock getting back to UK temperatures, a day sun bathing tomorrow to round the trip off, although the for and drink are expensive we haven't spent much else other than a small piece of gold for her nibs! Bye for now.
Greetingsfrom the best exotic fan hotel in Kochi, of course it isn't the first line Taj no more than the trident down the road is a first line overkill hotel but it does have its charm and some lovely staff although like Whitbread in the UK they want to screw you for a good internet connection and are notable in their low profile. The latest challenge is that they are running out of beer and haven't enough forms to fill in to get new supplies but breakfast was adreamwith no coach tourists around, a nicequiet event with Brandon toast and a little cheese to satisfy my milk craving.sorry that the weebky spell check still throws up funny mixes of words, just spotted my beans on toast became Brandon whoever he is. The evening call to prayers is bouncing across the harbour, when I got back this afternoon there was a profession of ships coming back and forth. I set off reasonably early and headed over on the ferry then took a three wheeler to the southern past of the Kerala transport boards decker route with ten minutes to spare I thought but after spotting the roadside stop the driver thought it stopped the other side when I spotted it coming up to the stop we had just left. We wheeler around and against the traffic raced across the dual carriageway and gave chase to the bus and eventually it stopped and the taxi drive cut in before it beeping away like a man possessed. A nice friendly driver but it actually started c!Oder to the city than the reports or concierge thought, anyway the sun was sport on for a comfortable top deck front window drive to its terminus and then I filled in with busy road side shots before a return ride almost to its destination near the mobility hubor bus station and we were all tumbled off bar a couple of people because he thought that is where we wanted to be so I never saw the southern terminus after all but a good day out with two lengthy rides. The Titan is still the one on ashoks website, they received two at Kerala in 2011 the other may be used for tourism elsewhere I'm not at all sure. A sit by the pool and beer while it lasts tomorrow perhaps a look at trains and the new metro being tested if I can find a vantage point
poor start but good finish to the day. To start I'd envisaged going over on the ferry to ernakulum this morning after having rattled off some film on willindon island,. The temperature has been bouncing around 36deg c which seems to be catching up with mumbai. An Italian cruise liner pulled into port at breakfast time this morning first thing Mandy and I took a taxi to one of the jewellery emporiums in the city, Mandy purchased a 24carrot gold cross, she is still contemplating a bracelet and necklace from the hotel shop. Gold in the city is pretty well just sold on weight. When I came to come outside from the hotel I wandered 100. Metres to the end of the hotel and filmed a fishing boat coming in, then a soldier with s gun appeared and said I could take pictures outside the hotel as it was all military. Strange as the military post was miles away and there were zero warning signs, had a set to with management which ended up as 0.5 for trip advisor. I ended up going to the new mobility hub but got throuhn out of this new bus station. The day hot worse but finally I got the ferry over to the mainland and then to the container Terminal and finnsly back to the hotel after getting thrown out of the main city bus ststion. I'm next going to try and discover the subterranean passages of this old quarter.
Another day of blistering hot weather and it lasted through to the evening. I decided that today I'd go and find the best truck filming spot, what I'd already Sussex out was pretty neat the action. The tuck tuck driver took me into the main port area near the gates, the old bridge which sits besides the new one is like everything around a parking lot for the lorries.theartics are fairly thin on the ground as the majority of containers arent full sized and fit on an ordinary truck. I was hoping that astride the waterway it would have a cooling breeze but this wasn't the case. There were actually more buses than lorries, I learnt that willingdon island where we are staying is the next most busy area but since the container port opened it has lost most of its traffic, it's served by a ro ro ferry which stops the lorries passing through the town centre. I discovered they have baked beans at breakfast which adds a little to the bun fight, I think breakfast is the Taj hotels weakness, it's a transit camp for your groups but is a very pleasant place to relax by the pool and watch the comings and goings on the water. My new knee was hurting a bit today, must be the heat getting to it, I don't think we'll look we need any more sun as we have still got a few days to go. Read the news on further NHS cuts at home that bitch may is living up to the standards of Blair and Thatcher. I cannot believe the hole we are going to be buried in, surely the kick back must start soon but socialism seems to be also buried under another elite who have no compassion, no real idea of everyday life etc.
Where has my blog gone, I just finished typing and it vanished,sorry but haven't time to start all over again.thiseretched weebky site keeps landing unwanted surprises a load of yanks with nothing to do but try new tricks while they still haven't sorted the wreckage they've caused the week before. It's been another very warm day although34c doesn't feel that bad after the soaring highs in Mumbai. Today I tackled some of the many islands and territories around the city of Kochi in the far south of the sub continent. I had aferry trip to a small island, note though that most are actually linked to the mainland by bridges but do seem to have individual incentives and buses. The ferries are about rough and ready. I eventually got sticker torn but still whole for my friend Martin who collects such things, perhaps anewcorner of the world for his collection, I even had a ridding skittle car ferry as a foot passenger. About five trips in all and got buses at each location, there is a central transport hub which I'll visit one day this week. Well do a day of tourist stuff for Mandy perhaps a Kerala back waters cruise on Wednesday. I want to get started on the trucks as well. Hotel a Taj not a patch o. The overkill group but less than. Half the price but it's friendly ,in a good spot looking out on the container Terminal actually isn't bad as there are lots of dolphins in the harbour and all sorts of shipdpass by,imagine Birkenhead with infinity swimming pools. Well it's a tough job someone's got to do it.
It was a long day and night aboard the durinto train from Mumbai to Kochi about twenty two hours of hard seat and hard bed if that was first class it was a pity there wasn't a super first class. It was supposed to be non stop but stopped every few yards I think the average must have worked out at about 40mph and the advertised max of 99mph nothing but a pipe dream. The journey from the oberoi to the station was alarming to say the least. The concierge had underestimated the time to get to the station and had picked a taxi driver who didn't even know how to get to one of the main railway stations. Add the evening traffic, we'll just add traffic and we got there with twenty minutes to spare. The trip involved doing a u turn on a motorway then reversing back down amotorway both with the blessing of traffic cops. The train carriage had plenty of room although even on broad Indian that's not enough for the wheelchair. There was a stream of setting up visitors first dropping off Gisele's, then blankets, then sheets, then sweeping, debugging, smelly spraying, stuff to get rid of smells, breakfast order,tickets inspections, forms to be signed to say it had been cleaned, internet wouldn't work who Indian mobile for text with code word. Then the calls kept coming all day , decking the food became an embarrassment each time, water supply Cal's, call to see if we needed anything else, lunch call, late breakfast call, past Goa anewspaper pick up of Sunday times. The night wasoneofbeing illuminated at a hundred non existent stops, single-track required halts to pass other trains, even ro ro lorries spotted. Looking out of the wondowgrew tiresome . We got through most of our marks and Spencers supplies. Finally arrived about an hour late at Kochi but no lift but I found the driver who got a porter and there were escalator s which was a rare sight, really a fairly modern station for India. The hotel is a Taj hotel and a little worn around the edges but nice enough and the food and wine were good, thankful oh it's all slot cheaper than in Mumbai. During the night my locked jaw became free which will make breakfast easier going. We can see all sorts of shipping from willingdon island built by the Brits in 19th c. Well take it easy today and I'll start exploring tomorrow, the new metro isn't open but we saw a train o. Test on way in front. The train. Spotters bus station near railway and there seem to be numerous ferries as it all built around the port and islands.
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