Happy Landings

I know you're all (both?) desperate to find out how the balloon flight ended. Hey, you at the back, wake up I tell you! Well, after drifting for about an hour over the Perthshire countryside our expert pilot brought us down in a grassy field. Our flight had been a source of high anxiety to some of the creatures below: a herd of cows was seen to move in a very peculiar way, and a deer let out the most blood-curdling scream. A pheasant emerged from a hedge, looked up at us and dived out of sight into a field full of crops creating a frenetic rippling effect in the process.

Andre radioed his assistant to ask him if he could see where we had landed, but unfortunately the reply was that he couldn't. Andre decided it was best to take off again, and this time we alighted in a field that had been harvested. The prominent stubble in the field seemed to bring the basket to a more abrupt halt than the first time. We noticed that a herd of cattle in a field slightly further on seemed more than a little spooked by the appearance of a huge bizarre red object in their vicinity. The farmer who owned the beasts was on site within minutes in his four-wheel-drive rather forcibly "requesting" that Andre deflate the balloon. Although the pilot would rather have kept the balloon inflated for a bit longer to help his assistant see where we were, the farmer made it clear that this was not an option.

The farmer claimed that some of the animals were pregnant, and said that he was worried that the fright of seeing the balloon would induce premature labour. While this may have been true, I believe farmers have been know to tell a few fibs to get the balloonists to do what they want. Some, when they see the Virgin logo, simply demand that the pilot gets his cheque book out.

Finally, Andre's assistant arrived, we all helped pack the balloon back in its bag, and we then toasted the flight with champagne----very civilised indeed! The landrover took us back to Perth, ending an evening that I don't think any of us will forget.

The Flight of the Sog 2

The whole balloon.
Originally uploaded by Wosog.

We flew for about an hour, floating over Perth and out into the countryside. It was amazingly quiet, the only noise being the intermittent blast of the burner heating the air to keep us from plummeting to the ground. Because the weather was hazy we only flew at 500-700 feet. I believe they usually fly at around 3,000 feet, but I'm sure Andre said they could go to 5,000 feet.

Andre is not the most talkative of people, but he's a pretty interesting guy, and, as you can see from this page on the Virgin website, he's a very experienced flyer----not just of balloons. I noticed that the balloon had a gps (global positioning system), and I said to Andre that it must come in handy when his team had to complete the task of finding the balloon after it landed. "Do you know what gps stands for?", he said. "No.", I said. "Go phone someone.", he replied".

As we drifted out into the country, he pointed to a stretch of land to our left. Not all farmers are delighted, it seems, when the ballonists land in their fields. "The woman that owns all the fields along there is mad.", he said. Apparently, after he landed in this woman's field earlier in the season her son stabbed the virtually new £80,000 balloon in several places as well as attacking his landrover with a baseball bat and threatening him and his crew with a gun!

The Flight of the Sog 1

By the time we arrived in Perth, the weather was really quite spectacular, and we were confident that the flight was going to go ahead. We had a walk around the city of Perth, taking photographs of the buildings, and of an interesting graveyard! After two o'clock, we phoned the number that we had been given. We found that we got a recorded message telling us that, indeed, the flight was to go ahead. It said that the participants in the flight were to meet at “the stone sculpture” in South Insch Park. Our hotel was right next to the park, and we had sufficient time to explore the area in some detail. We found, what we thought was the stone sculpture, but we were not entirely sure that we had the right location!

At 18.30 Wosog and I made our way to the stone sculpture and waited for the balloon, and our fellow passengers, to arrive. At around 18.20 a young man who had travelled up from Preston, arrived at the stone sculpture. We were reassured that, at least one other person had made the same mistake as we had! At around 18.25 the balloon arrived at last. The problem that the balloonist had, however, was that he was missing eight passengers. The mystery was solved when a party of seven girls from Argyll were found around the stone statue of Sir Walter Scott that was located at the entrance of the park. We never did find the remaining one passenger.

After the fascinating process of inflating the balloon, we finally took to the skies over Perth around 19.30.

To Travel Hopefully?

As I stated previously, in June I booked the hot air balloon flight that my relatives had bought me for my fiftieth birthday. It was scheduled to take off from Perth around 18.00 on Saturday 19th August. I don't usually pay much attention to the weather forecast, but the week before the flight I was painfully aware of how the previously settled weather was deteriorating relentlessly as the weekend approached.

On the Friday in Glasgow the rain was so heavy that there was localised flooding! On Saturday morning I checked the weather forecast on the internet and it was predicting fog for Perth! I wasn't sure if the torrential rain that fell as we set off for Perth would cause the flight to be postponed, but I was fairly sure that fog wouldn't go down too well! We were supposed to phone a number after 2 o'clock to see if things were going to go ahead, but I was far from optimistic as we drove north. We had booked a hotel room for the Saturday night anyway.

In the event, the weather improved steadily as headed for Perthshire, so it looked like Wosog might get a chance to claim the life assurance after all!

The Fat of the Land

When I was a wee boy my mother always used to tell me, when I was reluctant to eat something, that I should "remember the starving children of the world". The relentless training to clear my plate from an early age is probably part of the reason why I am a fat bloater now, although I suspect that it has more to do with the fact that I am basically a lazy sod---like most of my fellow inhabitants of the Western World. However, I was still astounded today to read that world now has more overweight people than hungry ones.

According to this article, there are about 1.4 billion overweight people in the world as opposed to the 800 million that are undernourished. The global march----or perhaps waddle is more appropriate----towards obesity is only going to get worse as countries like India and China start to enjoy the "benefits" of growing prosperity. The "powers that be" are just starting to think about how they might try to influence the unhealthy trend towards increasing bulk. Having tried for years to encourage patients to lose weight, and failing miserably both with them and myself, I really do wish them luck!

It Brings Tears To Your Eyes

Another gem in this week's "This Life" column in the Sunday Times concerns a certain Mr Mario Visnjic who sat back in his beach deckchair after a refreshing swim. Unfortunately, he got a bit of a shock when he tried to stand up as his testicles had become stuck between the slats of the chair!

It seems that Mr Visnjic's testes had shrunk while he was skinny dipping in the sea off Valalta in western Croatia, but they had re-expanded in the sunshine and became wedged between the wooden slats. Fortunately he was able to summon an attendant with his mobile phone who released him by cutting the chair in half!

Wosog and I have periodically thought of visiting Eastern Europe, but I think we'll not bother.

The Blunt Facts

The Sunday Times' "This Life" column usually makes interesting reading. Amongst other things this week, it details the results of a survey of 2,059 adults to see what things they found most irritating. Perhaps surprising in view of the large amount of dosh he has made, or perhaps not so surprising, is the fact that James Blunt is the fourth most irritating thing after "cold callers", caravans, and queue jumpers (no surprises there).

Poor James is even ahead of Carol Vorderman (surely not?), traffic wardens and noisy neighbours!

My American friends will be pleased to find they only come in at number 46.

Cats that look like Hitler

I need to stop taking pictures of my cat.
Originally uploaded by little_hobbit_feet.

I've previously blogged about the fact that you can find a site about anything on the Interweb. This is Luther, the cat belonging to my Flickr friend little_hobbit_feet. Although he is IMHO an adorable moggy, he does bear a passing resemblance to a certain psychopathic German politician from the last century.

However, it would appear that he is not unique in this respect. This site hosts pictures of other felines with this dubious distinction. "Why?" you may ask. Well I don't really know.

Wosog loves donkeys....

Wosog loves donkeys....
Originally uploaded by Son of Groucho.

An amusing incident happened during our recent holiday in Santorini: well it seems funny now, anyway. We went to Fira one evening and made the fatal decision to walk down the steps to the Old Port. We knew that some people traveled the 580 or so steps on donkeys, but we thought we would walk down and get the cable car back up. We didn't realise that there were so many donkeys, and how much of their "droppings" covered the steps. I can honestly say that I have never seen so much crap in the one place at the one time! The bloody donkeys also seemed to have no sense of direction, and it was in places difficult to walk down the steps at all! Meanwhile, the sun was beating down, the smell was getting worse, and the bottom of the steps never seemed to come. Eventually we reached the Old Port and almost immediately came back up up by cable car with some nice elderly Italians. If either of us ever harboured any affection for donkeys before that day it certainly disappeared that evening in Greece.

I took the picture above to try and capture some of Wosog's discomfiture at confronting a morass of donkeys. Before anyone starts flinging accusations, I did not take this photo in order to capture the image of the attractive girl on the left. She just happened to be there! I make this point because similar unjustified accusations have come my way in the past.

I'll say no more on the subject.

I taught her all she knows....

Sail boat silhouette
Originally uploaded by Wosog.

Wosog and I have been married for 24 years this year ( yes, I am that old), and our anniversary is on the 10th of July. One of the things we did when we were in Santorini was to go on a cruise that was designed to let you view the sunset off Oia. I'd like to say it was deliberate, but by total coincidence the date of this trip fell on our anniversary. As you will imagine we both took lots of photographs of the sunset and this one taken by Wosog was her first picture to get into what is called Explore in Flickr.

Explore lists the 500 most interesting pictures uploaded to Flickr each day. Nobody knows how the Gods of Flickr measure interestingness, but there is no doubt that Explore contains some spectacular images. This photo not only got into explore but was listed very near the top. I think you'll agree it's a fabulous reminder of our 24 years together.

There I've said it: I'll go back to being a total cynic again!

A Great Break in Santorini

Wosog and I had a great holiday in Santorini. As I said in a previous post, Santorini is actually a group of islands. By far the biggest is Thera (or Thira), where we stayed, but the group also includes a smaller island called Thirasia, as well as two volcanic islands called Nea Kameni (which has several craters and last erupted in 1950) and Palea Kameni (which has hot springs). Finally there is tiny island with a prominent upper layer of pumice called Aspronisi. There are a few people on Thirasia but the vast majority of the Santorini population stay on Thera.

We stayed in Perissa, which is basically a beach resort. The apartments had quite a nice swimming pool, but Wosog, who loves to swim in the sea, didn't use it at all. They guy who looked after the pool was extremely obsessional about it. It was fascinating to watch him go through his routine every day, but it seemed to work because I don't think I've ever seen a cleaner pool! The Pool Man was middle-aged, and never smiled, partly because he was constantly nagged by his rather vain wife. We later found out that he was a retired Albanian policeman, which somehow seemed to explain a lot.

Behind Perissa, between it and the bigger resort of Kamari, is the small mountain Mesa Vouno that has the ruins of the city of Ancient Thera on top of it. In an effort to try and avoid excessive holiday weight gain, I actually climbed (or rather walked) up Mesa Vouno 3 times: once to photograph a little church perched on the side of the mountain, and twice to visit Ancient Thera (once without, and once with Wosog). Aren't you proud of me?

Unfortunately, it didn't work and I came back an even bigger blob than before. Don't worry, the diet has already started!

Tas Mania 3, and post-holiday depression

Well Gdog has made it to Australia. She had to travel all on her own down to London by train, get to Heathrow Airport, fly to Hongkong and finally fly to Melbourne. The initial stages of this mammoth voyage coincided with Wosog and I returning from sunny Santorini. As a result, we won't see The Little Princess for a total of six weeks: it must have been something we said!

An anxious Wosog tracked the migration of her baby by means of frequent text messages and slightly less frequent mobile phone calls. Gsog hadn't phoned her to see her off because he had forgotten when she was going ('nough said)! We were particularly concerned that the wee soul would fall asleep in Hongkong Airport and miss her flight to Oz. However we needn't have worried, and she is now recovering from her jet lag with my excellent cousin David who lives near Melbourne. In a few days she'll tie the corks to her wide-brimmed hat and join her fellow conservationists as they head off for Tasmania. Watch this space for more details.

As for me, I had a great holiday in Santorini (more of which later). However, I've just remembered the one thing that I don't like about holidays: the fact that you have to go back to work after them. I'll sign off now as I'm off to buy a lottery ticket.

Everyday Low Prices...

Many thanks to my friend Donna di Mondo on Flickr for pointing me in the direction of this excellent video.

Thank goodness none of our British supermarkets behave like this, eh?

My Political Compass

My Political Compass
Originally uploaded by Son of Groucho.

Thanks to Birdman for pointing me in the direction of this site that claims to be able to analyse your political position based on a detailed questionnaire.

I'm in the same quadrant as Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama: not too bad company!

Why don't you give it a go?

Off to Greece again...

Dedicated graecophiles Sog and Wosog are off to Greece again in the early hours of Tuesday morning. We are off to the island of Santorini this time. Basically, as you all may have suspected, Wosog decides where we are going, and I merely agree. Hence, I didn't realise until now that Santorini is actually a circular group of islands. Needless to say, I have no idea which of the group we are going to----I'll tell you when we get back!

We are leaving the house to be looked after by Gsog (why does a phrase that includes the words "lunatics" and "asylum" keep running through my head?). Gdog will also be keeping an eye on things---which is only slightly more reassuring. Thank goodness we have sensible neighbours!

Size doesn't matter?

Many thanks to SeenyaRita of Flickr for pointing me in the direction of this tragic tale.

It is quite funny, though, isn't it (in a gruesome sort of way)?

Up, up and away......

Well, I finally got round to it: booking my flight in a hot air balloon, that is. "What on Earth are you wittering on about, Sog" you say. Well a group of my kind relatives clubbed together and bought me a balloon flight as a fiftieth birthday present. I half suspected that they might do something like this because they had been canvassing my opinion on parachute jumps and the like at an earlier family gathering. Fortunately, my less than enthusiastic reaction to the latter convinced them that I was a fully paid up member of the CCS---the Coward's Club of Scotland.

I instantly thought that the balloon flight was a great idea with numerous photographic possibilities. However it was only when Wosog rejected the idea of buying an extra ticket so she could get into the basket with me that I started to wonder if my yellow streak might prove an obstacle again. Anyway, I've put that thought behind me and booked a flight from Perth on Saturday 19th August.

I don't know if I've mentioned the fact that Wosog has a wicked sense of humour? I'm sure it's a total coincidence that as part of my 50th birthday present from her she gave me a book by Ian McEwan called "Enduring Love". Part of the complex plot involves a GP falling to his death from a hot air balloon.

Funny, that!

Tas Mania 2

When we heard Gdog was going to Tasmania, we thought we would give her the opportunity to demonstrate her deep knowledge of that far off land by mentioning the tasmanian devil. "That's some sort of plant, isn't it?" said Gdog. I didn't think this was likely in view of the cartoon character based on the creature!

Well, Gdog here is what the tasmanian devil "plant" sounds like, and here's a bit of info about them.

Sometimes I wonder if we should let her walk through Glasgow on her own far less travel to the other side of the planet! Anyway I'm sure she'll be fine (typing slowly due to crossed fingers).

Tas Mania

I don't know if I mentioned it, but Gdog's going on a wee trip to Australia next month. She's going there as a student volunteer. The organisation involved, International Student Volunteers, Inc., has projects in various parts of the world. Gdog has known for a while that she is going to Oz, but she only found out this week (a) which part of Australia she is going to, and (b) what exactly she will be doing there.

It turns out she is going for 2 weeks to the Long Point Wetlands Rehabilitation Project in Tasmania, which is run by the the Tasmanian Land Conservancy. One thing we hadn't thought about until very recently, following a conversation with my cousin in Melbourne, is the fact that Gdog is visiting Oz during their Winter. Here is the advice she has been given about the weather she can expect:

"The daytime temperatures will range between approx. 10° to 18° C (50° - 65° F) although may be as cold as - 5° C (23° F) overnight outside. Weather conditions vary in winter, however rain and windy weather can be expected on some days, so please ensure that you are adequately prepared for cold, wet and windy weather. Please note also that wet clothes may not dry overnight, so at least two sets of clothes to work in should be brought unless you don'’t mind putting on wet clothes in the chilly morning!"

This is not exactly the picture I would have had in mind previously when I thought of Australia!

Gdog's main task at the project will be removing gorse, which sounds like somewhat harder physical work than she is used to. She will be getting up at 07.30 and clearing gorse from 09.00 to 15.30. I suspect the accomodation will also be somewhat more basic than she is used to! Some folk, on hearing that she is going to Tasmania to clear gorse have made the point that Scotland has quite a lot of gorse that she could have cleared if she wanted to, at much less expense!

Gdog, however, assures us that she is looking forward to the challenge, but I think she is really looking forward to the two week holiday that follows the volunteer work.

Call me a cynic, if you like......

A Weekend in Old Reekie

If anyone is reading this and is mystified by the title, Old Reekie is Edinburgh, the capital of Bonnie Scotland. Although I only live about an hour's drive from Edinburgh, I've only been in the city about half a dozen times. Because we had made arrangements to meet friends there on Saturday evening we decided to make a weekend of it.

We heard from one of our friends that the weather had been foggy and cold on the Friday, but on Saturday the sun was "splitting the sky". The grass in Princes Street Gardens was covered with eager sun-worshippers when we arrived about 13.00. We spent the afternoon wandering around Edinburgh Castle photographing everything in sight.

In the evening we had some excellent Mexican Food then went to the Jam House, which is part-owned by Jools Holland. The music was good and we had a great night that finished around 01.00. We were glad that we had booked a hotel 5 minutes walk away (at great expense).

The next morning we took some more photographs, including several of the Scottish Parliament. I was quite impressed with the controversial building, although I am still very aware of how expensive the project was and disappointed with the continuing problems that the building seems to have.

All in all it wasn't exactly a relaxing weekend, but well worth while. I'll maybe not leave it so long before I visit Old Reekie again!