Turtles, eagles, herons and geese..

huge moss covered trees

Today we walked around Stanley Park - some massive trees and beautiful woodland and views across the bay. there are some seriously old trees here but apparently 10,000 were destroyed in a storm in 2006 which must have been a massive change tot he landscape. We saw a turtle sunbathing and lots of Canada geese and even spotted two bald eagles swooping across the bay. There were some amazingly zebra striped dragonflies and quite a lot of large stately herons. Its a large area so although it was busy - sunny Saturday day out - it didn't feel crowded apart from the cycle lanes and it was a nice change to the non stop traffic and bustle of the city the day before.

turtle sunning itself

beautiful roots of a fallen tree

We walked right through the park and we wandered into town, walking through very varied suburbs but mostly looking quite affluent, we had lunch in a bar and found quite a few little street markets. We did a lot of people watching - and there are some interesting people to watch - and then we thought we might go to the art gallery but the queue was massive and it was quite alot of dosh to get in so we went and got our hire car instead....

What a hoot - we booked the economy - cheapest car we could find for 60 days and believe me I did my homework, choosing to go with reputable company as we needed the car for so long and across to the USA as well... and have ended up with a seriously fat car Mercedes... its bigger and posher then anything we have ever driven before- I just checked the contract to make sure they gave us the right car!!!! I guess we are in the land of the plentiful..... except we went downtown on the bus this morning and went a different route to before and both of us were quite shocked at the rows of homeless people living out of shopping trolleys and boxes lined up all along both sides of the street for quite a distance. It was like a shanty town ... it was very depressing to see. I guess that's big city life these days, such evident poverty surrounded by such incredibly obvious wealth!!

Back to the car scenario - it make us a bit nervous and slightly embarrassed to be driving something so large and grand esp when we are camping in a £40 tent (and people are living out of shopping trolleys) ha ha however we will try and enjoy it! We can at least sleep in the car if we need to!!!!

Tomorrow we head into the mountains via Walmart to buy sleeping mats camp stoves and the accessories we need for wild living in the outback.. and then we head for wilderness leaving wifi and internet (and comfy bed) behind so I don't know when we will post next.. depends when we find a cafe!!!

just an after thought - I think Dr Freds getting desperate for rocks......

Alesund

Our final destination stop was Alesund. This is a very pretty town in southern Norway built on a peninsula. All the houses are painted pretty colours and a lot of the architecture is all very Art Nouveau based. This is because the town itself was completely burnt to the ground In 1904 by a fire for which they never found the original cause. The whole town had to be rebuilt and this became a huge National Effort and a lot of prominent and up and coming architects flocked to the town to stick there 20 pence in. Consequently the town is very heavily Art Nouveau which was very fashionable at the time. There is this wonderful Museum just off the harbour which is a very beautiful Art Nouveau house. It has amazing panelling, doors, wallpaper, and it's all furnished with beautiful art Nouveau Furniture. It also house a collection of of enameled Art Nouveau Trinkets,boxes, spoons, jewellery, very very beautiful. There is an interesting collection of old books and paintings a...

Autumnal Garden Days

I love these (rare) warm sunny late summer days and there is all sorts of lovely things going on in my garden... I counted 12 red admiral butterflies whizzing around the over grown ivy which I had been about to hack down but then left until the flutterbies have finished with it... The late blooms add a dash of colour and the daisy strewn lawn is littered with autumnal leaves, debris from my brief half an hour of slash and burn and the stone wall is covered in glorious soft moss all shiny and tactile with a few late nasturtiums loitering. I've hacked out the brambles for this year, sadly I missed the fruit as we were away, ditto the strawberries, we never seem to get the fruit before the birds so I've made space and moved the plants that were getting swamped and so not performing to their potential - hopefully next year they will literally blossom now they have light and room to flourish.

Goodbye Dissertation!!!

The dissertation is finished... it took me ages to do all the detail stuff Harvard referencing ect... the simplest tasks were starting to drive me mad!! I cant believe how long it took me to work out how to number pages excluding the first two pages aagghhhh... I suppose I should be grateful that its not like the olden days where you had to get it typed and bound before hand in - this essay has been a hard slog, a subject which I felt was interesting - how the digital explosion is ruining traditional creative methods turned into a fairly unexciting - pretty boring unexceptional topic! there will never be a next time but my advice is think of something funky - does Danny Boyle like garden Gnomes - Racoon meets Lady Gaga - anything that might surprise you but not too grown up!! I have worked hard and will be rewarded with a mid grade because there is no passion in this essay - the hard slog is evident as is the lack of enthusiasm - C'est la vie you cant win them all....

Planet Ruby Starrs

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