The big trip later this year

Some time ago I mentioned about a long complicated trip I wanted to do whilst I could this year. It started with wanting to do a trip with my son to belatedly celebrate his fortieth birthday, when he said he would like to visit the Grand Canyon. This should of happened a couple of years ago but for my health problems, but they made me realise that this was a chance to fulfil some of the places on my Bucket List as well.
So on investigation it seemed we would have to travel to Las Vegas to do this, which suited me because although not a gambler I had always wondered what it was really like,  plus the shows and the Strip intrigued me. Son was only able to have a number of days holiday, plus it needed to be towards the end of the year.
I decided if I was going to do a trip such as this why not do a little more whilst away, so the plan for the big adventure started, I then thought well why not stop off at New York on the way, because previously I had not managed to see all the places I wanted and for reasons I cannot explain I had always wanted to travel on Staten Island Ferry and see the Statue of Liberty close up. I contacted son and asked would he like to add this to the trip, he did not seem to need much encouragement to do this also, so now we had two destinations.

When I looked at Google maps I thought maybe it would be a good time to travel further, so considered Hawaii and a visit to my friend Sofi, who had met up with me over here some years ago. I e mailed her a number of times but have heard nothing, so decided to cancel that but to continue the trip to Australia,  somewhere I had planned to return to many years ago but not got to again so far.
I thought about this and decided again on my list I would like to visit Sydney,  Ayres Rock and maybe the Great Barrier Reef, I then had another look at maps and decided I could indulge myself elsewhere and visit my friend in Penang which I had wanted to do for a number of years, also to see the Christmas Lights in Singapore,  which again had been on my list for many years after a brief trip there back in the 1990s when they were starting to put them up.
WOW this was going to be some trip, but I had realised if I did not do it soon, my health age and travel insurance costs, may prevent me from carrying it out, at this time I had not planned a particular length of time for the trip or a budget, so decided to contact my friendly travel agent Sue and talk it through with her as I did not think I could visit the places I wanted with conventional tours. She came to visit me and gathered information on duration of visits and the path I intended to take and went off to explore options for the trip, it now lookef as though it was on.
When I had time to reflect I thought that there were a few negatives for the trip, firstly, after my son went home I would be on my own with no travelling companion to share the experiences with.But previously when I had hoped to do it with someone special it had fallen through, so maybe doing on my own and seeing who I met on the way would add to the experience, the other things I have had to consider relate to my health, firstly how will my back and pelvis cope with all this travelling, also as I now wear hearing aids it maymake it harder to hear and fully experience some thongs, plus it may make me more vulnerable ad a lone traveller

The Ups And Downs Of Health 2 June 2014

I am sorry readers that I have been so quiet for a while,  but my health has interfered yet again. About two months ago my back went into spasm  and I kept getting pains down my right arm that were like electric shocks. I was aware at the time that I was spending far to long on the computer trying to sort out my holiday in November,  but more of that later in another blog.

The effect on things I could do was quite dramatic, I cannot explain how troubling the pains down my arm were, luckily if thats the word I had had a similar pain in the past and that prompt physio usually resolved it. So off to my two favourite physios Gail and Andrea for treatment, these were topped by Silvain another physion if and when the others were not available, despite their best efforts the pains down the arm did not abate for some considerable time, i am still getting twinges now in fac, it was possibly six weeks or more seeing one of them at least twice per week before there was a lot of change,  but at least they managed to reduce the pain in my lower back. To help  I was taking strong painkillers but only when pain was really bad because I knew the effect they would have on my quality of life and the limited quality of life I would have, also they did little to help with the pains down my arm. The other thing I was doing was having hot and cold compresses frequently through the day to try to reduce the inflamation.

This was all a wake up call and from discussion with physios I realised that I needed to do more exercises myself at home and also to work on my very poor posture as that was making things worse. It seems my right shoulder is coming forward due to this and my arthritis and needs a lot of effort from me to slow it all down. Also I now worry about what would happen when on holiday particularly when I go for my long holiday in November.

The other thing I realised was the need to cut down on computer use and to look at using Dragon voice recognition software more often to carry out tasks. This is quite ironic as I have been doing a fair bit of work with a number of charites etc to do with Cardbox a database facility, in fact for one of them I have now been appointed as Database manager, not quite sure yet what this involves. For some reason the effect of using the tablet does not seem at present to have as much effect on hand and arm, so doing this on it.

Therefore only today I  have Sean  from Sue Jensens company to do some training with the Dragon, coming to help go through better ways of carrying out tasks on the computer. I have only just realised, that the position that I sit in when watching tv and the angle is making my back and posture worse, so I have now ordered a bracket for the wall to raise it to a more sensible height, I wonder why they make these stands so low when as I have now found the middle of the screen should be at the same height as my eyes when sitting, no wonder my posture was worse, there is nothing with the tv to warn of this. More generally when out I am trying to improve my posture,  but after a lifetime of it being so poor its hard to change and sit properly.

My latest trip to London for the wildlife photographer of the year award exhibition 21 March 2014

My latest trip to London for the wildlife photographer of the year award exhibition 21 March 2014

I joined our U3A photography group, a little while ago, we have visited a number of venues, but this one to London seemed particularly interesting, given the fact that I’m going on Safari in the next few months, so I was hoping that this would give me inspiration as well as be a pleasant trip out in good company. The first thing I realised was I would not be ale to achieve a full day with such an early start, so common sense made me realise that I should that I should travel down the day before and then meet up with the others.

Because I have done this trip before it was going to be easy to book the train tickets and hotels, while the train tickets were not a problem other than the fact that I adopted for E tickets and had problems printing them out, but that was quickly solved, trying to find a hotel in a suitable location, at a reasonable price was a much bigger task, but eventually I booked one with travel Lodge, which was not too far away.

I did as I had done previously and went on Facebook to where a group of friends I have in London post I mentioned my trip, for most of them, unfortunately they were unavailable on the day that I was free, which was a shame booked, I was would find other things to do, fortunately close to the date a man called Dave volunteered to meet up and show me round and Maggie, who was been brilliant in the past, at showing myself and others the sights of London, said she would also meet up, but suggested the Tower of London experience as a good place to spend a couple of hours, I had had confirmation from my U3A friends that we would be meeting on the Saturday lunchtime going for a meal and then to the exhibition, so all was arranged.

On the day there were no problems on the train, I met with Dave at Euston, we decided because I only had a backpack not to go to the hotel first but instead to travel to the tower bridge, it’s funny how the brain does not work sometimes properly, the bus we were getting on was what I believe is called the Route Master, a real old boss, complete the conductor that you boarded at the back, it wended its way through the streets of London but then seem to get stuck when we looked out of the window realise we were close to the tower, so you might as well get off, it was only then I realised the bus was something to take a photo of because there are so few of them now, unfortunately, by the time I had got my camera out it had sped off into the distance, never to be seen again.

We walked over to Tower Bridge bought our tickets and spent a couple of pleasurable hours looking at the various exhibits and taking photos, it was interesting to listen to Dave about his various trips and career and life, I had sent a text to Maggie to confirm where we were so we met at about 5 PM, just as it was starting to get dark, which gave me the opportunity to take a series of photos of the tower, Tower Bridge, the Shard and various other places illuminated at night. We then went from meal, which was quite pleasant but in the short time we were there, it quickly filled up and Maggie explained this was typical of London, I felt it was time now to book into the hotel, the other two decided they would travel with me, part of the way which was very kind of them, I could not believe the length of the queues for a ticket on the underground, but once bought there were no problems and Maggie parted with us. I think at Victoria, I really do appreciate the effort she goes to to make these trips so memorable. Dave offered to see me all the way to the hotel, so we continued to Euston and then walked to the hotel, luckily he was able to use his phone and Google maps to find it for us, once booked in I parted with Dave and said I would be in touch when I got back home, but thanked him for his time and effort and kindness.

Went to my room it was a very basic compared to some I had been in, but there again, given its location, not too expensive, luckily it had a bath so I could have a good soak and a drink of tea before resting and watching TV before going to sleep. The hotel did say on its website that there was some traffic noise, even without my hearing aids with the window closed, it was still intrusive, but initially I slept quite well,despite the strange bed that seemed to rock, but woke in the early hours, so found it difficult to get back to sleep again. Eventually did. I got up about eight get washed and dressed, then went looking for somewhere for breakfast, those of you know me will not be surprised that I ended up at McDonald’s. I then went back to the room to sort my things out, then travelled back to Euston to meet up with my U3A friends. We could not believe the queue to get down to the underground and how many people wanted a ticket, including me. Eventually, this was sorted, luckily one of us knew where we were going, so off we went. It was decided we would have a meal first which was very pleasant and again those that know me will understand when I say how pleased I was to find carrot cake was on the menu, I think if I remember correctly it was a Lebanese restaurant.

We then joined a great big long queue to get into the museum, eventually we were inside, again , lots and lots of people and lots and lots of noise, we first went to a talk by a young man who, when he was 14 had been the young wild life photographer of the year, for one so young. He was exceptionally talented and knowledgeable about his subject. We then went to look at the photo exhibition, I had never realised how dedicated some people are to their photography, the time and effort some spent looking for that elusive photo was truly incredible, having said that some of the people lived in areas of the world where it was more conducive to the photos that they took than others. After this we parted with one member who was going on elsewhere, we had a short walk round a small part of museum before it was time to go back to Euston for our train.

We had a drink and cookie there then it was time for the train, we chatted on the train so the time passed quickly, when we got back to Manchester. We got the Metro to Piccadilly gardens and just by good luck the Fountains were working, and displaying in a range of colours which were quite spectacular, so we took a few minutes to get photos before going for the other tram, at Bury. I had just missed my bus so got the taxi, then the task of unpacking doing washing and catching up with those usual day-to-day tasks. It was all a very enjoyable trip in good company, I think I would like to go back to London again maybe spend more time looking at the buildings at night time, but we will have to see.