We arrived at the camp site about 9pm and had everything set up by about half 9 or so. A quick trip around the camp site to see is about and scope out the facilities, then it was back to meet the neighbours and chill out by their fire.

The sleep was great, I used my new down sleeping bag, it was very warm and comfy. Only problem, on a clear morning the Sun in Scotland shows its face about 4am… Needed my siesta glasses but could be arsed to get out of my bag to get them. Won’t make that mistake tonight thought haha

Saturday: first on the list besides getting showered will be to find food. Then its off to the kilt makers for Gord and I. Then to the actual Mega Scotland event.

I will post more later including some pics I hope.

Cheerio from Scotland

Posted by Wordmobi

I must get some more pics of the girls with Minnie as well.. but she’s pretty skittish of the kids (and adults too really).

Continue reading to see about the trip to St Andrews…. (photos from the day are in Canada – 2010 – Group 3.

We’ve had a lot of rain here in NB, it’s the only thing that’s made the trip a bit tedious really.  It would have been nice to have some nicer weather and get out and about more.  There’s so much to see in NB but it really does want nicer weather, especially with kids.  On Monday (June 7) we took a chance on the weather holding at cloudy and a touch of drizzle to head down to St Andrews for some seafood.  The day turned out perfectly.  It was cool and windy when we got there but the sun was mostly out and the rain completely stopped.  It was great for walking around the town, not so good when you stopped to look though haha

We decided to eat at the Harbour Front Restaurant on Water Street, just about 150m from the Pier.  We went here because of the big platter for 2 they had on offer.  Well, really it was just a platter for just one Yuki, but I managed to distract her just enough to get a few bits from it

Some photos of the seafood feast

The first basket is what I ate, the second is what Yuki ate .. the last photo is of the lucky ones that survived the feast

It was a great day out and everyone had fun.  I made Yuki drive back home as she needs practice driving in Canada, she’s going to help with the non-stop drive back to Ontario on Wed night.  I’m getting way to old to do it myself now hahah

I sat in the middle row of seats and enjoyed the ride and surfed using the pocket access point and USB rocket pictured above, it was bloody slow haha

Lisa was playing on her DSi (Thanks to Nana Carol)  the entire trip down and back to St Andrews, killed the battery completely on the trip.. she’s junky already.  Emma, well it was just all too much for her, she had to crash for the entire trip home.

It’s Tuesday now and I’m blogging this from the Chapters – Indigo Bookstore in the Regent St Shopping Mall, sip’n a Starbucks coffee.  The girls are all out getting their hair cut and ready for the Wedding on Monday of my Dad and Carol.  There will be plenty of photos posted from that

Well, just got a text, the girls are done and heading for home.  I’ll go and meet them and get yuki for a bit more shopping.  We need to get a few more things and get back and start getting stuff packed up for tomorrows departure.

On the Sunday we went for a 90 min boat cruise around Kingston and Wolfe Island.  Here’s a couple of photos from the boat with Emma and Lisa taking turns at the helm (before leaving port haha)

We’d stayed until Monday morning when we packed up the van and headed out for Burlington VT.  We planned to stop here and shop, but clearly we made some wrong shopping choices as we didn’t find much in the way of bargains or much of any thing really.   Here we are crossing the bridges at Cornwall Ontario heading for the US.

Here we are taking the ferry across Lake Champlain that separates New York state and Vermont.

After a good nights sleep, but a stupid early wake up for some reason (still a bit jet lagged I guess), we got an early start on the second leg of the journey to New Brunswick to see Nana Shirley and the family in that part of the country.  We’re pretty well shopped out now I think   The girls have been spending money getting all kitted out for the wedding back in Kingston on the 14th of June.  I still need a shirt and tie but other then that we’re all set haha

When we arrived in New Brunswick it was starting to rain, and it rained for the next couple days.  Today we’ve had dry weather but it’s threatening to rain again for the next couple of days.   Saturday (June 5th, our wedding anniversary) we’re hoping to get an early start to the day and get down to St Andrews for sights and seafood, Yuki is a seafood-a-holic if ever there was one.  However, the weather forecast isn’t looking good for Saturday, so that might get pushed off until Monday.

Tonight we took the kids around to my cousin Gregg’s house to play with their 3 kids (Chanse, Dakota and Kendall), they were great and our girls had an awesome time playing with them.  That Kendall is a real cutie.  The kids had a great time running around and playing games.  I hope their kids sleep as well as I hope ours sleep haha.

Like usual, all the photos from our trip will be on Flickr.  They’ll all be in the Canada 2010 collection.

I’ll try to blog more as the trip goes, I’ve been time sharing the computer with Yuki so I don’t get to use it as much as I’d like

On May 1st I managed to get a few hours to get out alone and go walking.  I’d planned a 3.5mi walk but it turned out to be a 5.5 mile walk.  What a great place to go walking.  There were two separate wooded area’s.  Once was Archers Wood

About this wood

Parts of Archer’s Wood are believed to be remnants of the original British wildwood, a ditch and bank in the northern section is a scheduled ancient monument and, true to its name the wood was a sanctuary for highwaymen. Even today you look to the north and imagine a 14th century Cistercian monastic grange that once stood there. Flat and easy to access, the site is dominated by oak, ash and field maple and served by a figure-of-eight network of rides so it’s great for gentle walks. Be sure to stroll along the main ride to spot the rare and beautiful wild service tree – and look out for foxes, woodpeckers and nuthatches.

The other was Aversley Wood, both just outside of Sawtry, Cambridgeshire.

About this wood

A woodland gem in England’s least-wooded county, expansive, impressive Aversley Wood is well worth the steep trek (sometimes boggy in winter) required to reach it. Believed to date back to the Ice Age, it is one of Cambridgeshire’s largest ancient woodland sites and a full tour is not for the faint-hearted – but very rewarding, with impressive fenland views.

You can see the full route of the walk with notes along the way by going to www.stepwhere.com.  I’ve been using this site for storing and planning my recent walks.  You can see all my public walks by going to my user name, M1XZG.  The process I’ve been doing with the site is planning the walk online and loading the track onto my GPS, then, when I’m out walking I record the actual track I walk and upload that to www.stepwhere.com. 

To see some photos from the walk of the woods you can CLICK HERE for my www.flickr.com gallery.  Here are a couple of the photos.

If you get out walking why not share your routes?   Also, why not check out www.walkingforum.co.uk – it’s a fantastic site for all manner of walking discussions.

A detailed account of the walk …

I started by parking in the small lot that services a large open park and allotment area off St Judith’s Lane.  Walking out of the car park I turned right and followed the road to a “T” junction, 1.6 km (1 mi)  This is where you can enter Archers Wood.  Just inside the wood is a map, I had a quick study of the map and planned my route sort of through the wood.  I figured I’d walk the outside route around the wood.  The paths were mostly dry and in very good condition.  There was one detour put in place due to some flooding of the path but that was it for any sort of problems.  The wood is mostly on an incline and that was at the lowest end of the wood.  The rest of the wood was very dry with only a few muddy spots from the recent rains.  Through out the wood there are very nice benches placed in excellent locations providing nice views through cuttings or paths in the wood.  I didn’t find any wildlife except birds while walking through this wood, however there was plenty of evidence of small game by the number of rabbit runs.  If it weren’t for the din of A1(M) very close by this would be a perfect place to come and reflect on life and enjoy the quiet.

Exiting the wood by the same gate I entered by, I turned left and continued to follow St Judith’s Lane for just about 1 km (0.6 mi), just past a large farm on the right side of the road you’ll find the Public Path sign.  Follow the path for 1.7 km (1 mi) and that will bring you to one of the entrances to the Aversley Wood.   About 260m before the entrance is a park bench.  This is where I’d stopped to break out my stove and kettle and make a cup of tea and some lunch.  After about a 30min break or so I packed up and headed into the wood.  This was another spectacular wooded area.  The paths were well maintained and very wide with ample chances to sit on benches and reflect and enjoy the quiet.  Because of the geography of this wood there was pretty no noise from the outside world at all.  The only thing to be heard was the rustling of  leafs and the birds.  Again, I didn’t see any wildlife but it’s clear it exists from all of the small game runs.  I did see what I think might be badger tracks, I meant to take a snap of them to check it out but meh, forgot   After quite some time walking around the wood I finally left via the North Eastern most corner with a gentle ascent up a hill then down the other side right back to the park where I started off.  

The total distance was 8.9km (5.6mi).  The weather really couldn’t have been more perfect, it was sunny but a little cool so it made walking not too hot.  Sitting idle you could feel the cold after a while, but it was very nice. 

I’m looking forward to future walk and hope to plan for a number of them to be through wooded areas like these.

It was a decent enough few days.. the weather could have been better but at least it didn’t rain the entire time. I did manage to get 3 Geocaches in while i was up there too.  Nice easy ones.

We went to the Metrocentre Shopping Centre in Gateshead, besides just walking around looking at the huge number of shops we also enjoyed the entertainment area there .. they had loads of those “grabber” games where you have get a prize out of the machine plus a number of other games of luck/skill/chance where you get tickets if you win and you can exchange them for crap.. and I use that term in the most loving way possible  

The other thing they had were dodgems (bumper cars) .. Lisa was bugging us to let her go.. being too small to go alone I went with Lisa.. man I tell you, I’ve never seen a kid laugh so much and so hard for so long.. I was dead certain I’d have to be yelling “clean up in dodgem #10′” haha she had a great time.. I had to operate the “gas peddle” as it was out of her reach, but she did most of the steering and the ramming of others out in on the rink or whatever you call it.  Yuki took Emma out as well in another car.. Emma had an OK time but she is just a little too small and got chucked around too much.  Lets just say it’s a good thing the cars are well padded including a 6-8 inch thick patch on the steering wheel haha she hit that a lot.. but she survived.  I think Lisa and I ended up having 3 goes on them.

On Tuesday we’d gone for a walk around the town centre, one of the places we visited was Castle Keep,  Pretty slick place and quite well preserved but it’s not had an easy go in it’s life that’s for sure.   Here are a couple of photos from the place .. check out the rest by clicking on any of the photos..

We also visited The Cathedral Church of St. Nicolas just up the road from Castle Keep.

Check out more photos by clicking on any of the above.

We’ve all suffered through Christmas and of course New Years, so Happy New Year eh?

Well, that brings us to today now.  I’ve converted back to Windows (it was a sad day yesterday).  I’d finally had enough of Ubuntu.  It was a series of issues that forced me back to Windows … apps that stopped working, funny things happening since upgrading from Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10, that was a mistake for sure and generally speaking I just grew tired of missing functionality in Ubuntu when everyone you deal with uses Windows.  Oh well.  I’m not running Windows 7, 64-Bit, finally making full use of the hardware in my laptop.  The only “issue” I have right now is Win 7 doesn’t seem to support the ACPI power management stuff.. so, as a result when I pull the power and run on battery the only performance tuning that happens is the screen dims but the CPU’s run full out and thus drain the battery at an alarming rate.  I’m sure I’ll find the correct drivers for that issue at some point. 

Oh yeah, I bought a new car as well .. pics of the new motor here ..

There’s not really much else to report I suppose.  As usual, check out the photos on our flickr account for new photos and videos. Such as this one, Lisa playing her piano..

I hope I’ll have some more interesting things to blog about in the future.. just sort of lost the desire to blog.. hoping it comes back.

Expect some blog postings from me while I’m there, certainly not a day by day posting like previous trips haha there’ll be way too much boring work stuff I’m sure. I will however post when I’ve done something fun and have some pics to show as well.

Follow me on twitter and on facebook.

check for an update Friday evening for day 4 and 5 combined plus i will get the loads of pics and vids uploaded …

Thansk for reahjfkndsjkn ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Posted by Wordmobi

Once there we found a nice kebab shop where we had what appears to have been a faeces free lunch, much to our delight. After lunch it onto a tram heading towards the Central Station. We ditches the tram at the Rokin and Grimburgwal stop. There was a tour boat leaving in 15 mins so we got out tickets and boarded for a 1hr tour. Sadly this boat didn’t do cover the canals through the Red Light district, however it was still very good. It has a GPS triggered multi lingual playout system for the commentary which was neat.

Once back, we embarked on a monumental walk which I will try to work out with google earth later… But it went from the Allard Pierson Museum NNE along Kloveniersburghwal, down Oude Hoogstraat, before entering the Red Light District we stopped for a snack.. Another experience of cost of living here.. 2 average sized chocolate dipped donuts with sprinkles, 1 chocolate topped waffle with crushed peanuts, a coffee, a bottle of Lemon Ice Tea and use of the bathroom … €14. Unreal!!

Now we set off to the Red Light District. I have to admit I was a bit bothered about having the kids there, just on principle. However, seeing how many other famines there were made me feel better… Two wrongs might not make a right but it give some validation haha. It was interesting and loads of ladies hanging out in their windows looking for punters to ‘do business’ with. The place was very clean and tidy. I’m sure its much more impressive at night though. We leave that area and head WNW through the Warmoesstraat district, mostly sex shops, sex screening and what not, then out past Beure van Berlage shop, sort of your Harrods of Amsterdam I guess, 6 floors of ass dragging shopping goodness.

We then joined Nieuwendijk and headed SSW on there till we reached Dam Square. We continued south along Kalverstraat till its very bitter end at the Kalvertoren and the Flower Marker… tulips, tulips, tulips…. And yup more tulips. Bulbs for mile.

Right, for those keeping locational tabs, we are now (still on foot I might add) at the corners of Singal (flower market), Heiligeweg, Koningsplein and the start of the Leidsestraat shopping area. We now walk SW for the full length of this area, starting to remember some of the muddle we found ourselves in yesterday looking for tram tickets.

Getting hungry again due to the now 4 or 4.hrs that have passed since walking..er I mean lunch. I’ getting a union signed up for my next holiday! We found a nice little Mexican place and ordered 5 starters, those left us stuffed. Total damage was only €31, a record for the week!!

Right, fed watered and leaked we were now able to get back to the hotel to get the kids a much needed bath. That simply consisting getting 2 trams with a change. Luckily we guessed right and even managed our stops without the need for one of our soon to be patented

‘oh shit missed the stop, never mind, get off at the next on and either walk back or tram back, screw that its too far just get a tram’

This time it all worked out perfectly, how said you can’t teach imports new tricks. The rest of the evening was uneventful back in the room. We should be fully chilled out and ready for tomorrow…..

Posted by Wordmobi

Having walked around for about 1.5mi looking at shops that apparently don’t open on on Monday until 11am, or if at all. One lessoned learned is NEVER go to Amsterdam on Monday, it’s shut!! We were looking for a tourist info booth, which should have been somewhere around the Diamant Museum, so we could buy a couple unlimited travel cards. Turns out they hide them from the tourists, never found either that was in the mile or so radius of each other, shocking. Finally managed to get some tram tickets, not the ones we wanted but whatever, got us out of the rain.

Then it was onto a tram heading towards the Central Station, looking for the Magna Plaza shopping centre. We’d missed the stop so had to fetch another tram going back the opposite direction to get back, we did that a lot today .  After the Magna Plaza, we wandered the entire length of Nieuwendijk Street shopping area.  Ok, HOLY CRAP that’s a lot of places to go in and out of.  There must be 500 stores in about 1/2 a mile.  We finally decided to stop for lunch, the kids were starving, we were too to be fair.  We wanted to get some of the Holland pancakes.  Right, this is where our day starts to take a major shit, pardon the French but you’ll see why.

(Continue reading… it’s a beaut)

So, we go into this place called “Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner”, not the most creative of resaurant names to say the least but it looked ok, it was busy which should, by most accounts suggest it’s half decent.  Right, we get ourselves sat down at a table, it was some cramped, I’m glad I’ve lost all that weight, we’d have never gotten in.  Next to us was a table of 5 girls, they finished up and cleared out.  We asked the waitress if we could move to that table as it had more room.  There was a hesitation on her part suggesting it might be a great inconvienence to her and the planet if we moved, but she said fine, just bring our own cutlery from the table we were at already (they hadn’t yet layed out the new table, only wiped it down), no problem.  Whilst at the first table we’d caught a whiff of what I thought was either dog or horse droppings.  Figured it was coming from outside through the open window.  The number of dogs walking around on leds in Amsterdam is quite impressive.  Anyhow, after we moved it was still there.  Anyhow, we get our lunch, which was alright I suppose.  The pancakes were really only crepes with our selected toppings, the kids had those.  I had a club sandwich, which was average and Yuki had a plate of chicken wings and chips.  Right, not long after getting our food the waitress notices a big turd on the floor near the 2 seat table next to ours.  She says, get this, … Is that yours?  Dead straight I might add.  I’d have considered saying yes, I’m often in the habit of pinching a loaf in the middle of a crowded restaurant, but figured it might well have been lost on her.  We answered, no, it most certainly wasn’t ours.  Now, this having been my first trip to Holland and admittedly not being fully versed in the local customs, she then accuses our kids of shitting on the floor.  Is it normal for children in Holland, or the parents of children in Holland to allow their kids to drop their britches and shit in restaurants? I’d really like to think it’s not.  Anyhow, now having noticed the aforementioned turd on the floor, it took the staff a good 8 mins to clean it up.  We’d finished up, only just, and Yuki mentions to one of the girls that was doing a fanstasic job with a mob to really spread it around the floor, she must be a farmer because a John Deere couldn’t have spread it better!!  Yuki askes her for the bill.  The women snaps back “Can’t you see I’m cleaning up your mess”  well shit (pardon the pun) that was a red rag to a bull for Yuki, she lost it a bit.. but rightly so.  She demanded to see a manager.  Things go from bad to worse now.  The women snaps back at Yuki to her demand to know who the manager is, she says “Ok, fine then, I’m the manager”, I’m guessing not.  There was a battle or words about how it WASN’T our group that crapped on the floor.

I spoke to a guy that was dressed quite nicely and asked who the owner or manager was, he claimed to be manager.  I explained how unimpressed I was about his staff member accusing my children of crapping on his floor and demanded to know what will be done about the bill and we weren’t happy.  He said “Ok ok ok no problem, it’s finished, no problem” I asked if that ment we don’t pay the bill and we can go? “Ok, no problem, you go”.  Right, with that we leave.   He then chases us down across the street demanding payment.  WHAT THE FUCK?!?!  We have a discussion about the incident.  He’s demanding we go back and pay the bill or he’ll “take me back” hmm I said “No, phone the police and I’ll speak to them about the matter”  He kept saying no to that idea.  After he phoned for 2 heavies to come and help back him up I decided it best if I phone the police myself.  There’s no way that’s going down.  Anyhow, the police turn up.  We explain everything to the cops, one goes off and speaks to the now 4 people (2 staff from the shit hole and 2 heavies).  He comes back to inform us we have to pay, the law is the law.  They were completely unwilling to listen to reason.  Fine, I fork over 42 Euro for what will amount to be the worse lunch of my entire life ANYWHERE.  I handed the money to the cop and told HIM to give it to the guy I wasn’t speaking to him, the cop looked upset by this, but at this point I didn’t really give a shit (because apparently earlier we already had).   They returned my change and we finally went on our way.

That experience alone has just about put me off this country completely.  I’m sure it’s isolated and we might not ever encounter something like that again, but geezus, customer serivce and respect for the customers?  ZERO!!!

Right, back to the rest of the day.  We continued our quest for the shops.  We’re very wet (it’s not really stopped raining much of the day), were pissed off at how we were treated, not only by the staff but by the cops as well I think, and just generally in a unhappy state.   Eventually we made it back to the hotel to chill out and warm up for a while before heading out looking for dinner.  I’d found a number of places close by using Google Maps on the phone, awesome application BTW, if you haven’t got it on your smart phone GET IT!!!  However, it failed to remind me it was Monday and most of them were shut.

We finally found a very nice Indonesian place called Desa (selected it from the 2 listed on that page).  It wasn’t busy really, but there was a large party that arrived with near perfect timing of all the food hitting the table so as to prevent them waiting about.   We selected one of the sort of all inclusive meals for 2, they said it would be more then enough to include the kids (free), boy howdy, they were right too.  It was like 12 or 13 dishes of food that came out with 4-6 pieces in each dish, but combined it was massive.  We brought heaps back to the hotel.  Well, anyhow, Yuki mentions to one of the servers that it’s Lisa’s birthday, expecting maybe a free ice cream or something but the waitress brought around a couple of gift bags (pics on flickr once we get back to a proper internet connection, free wifi works but only just), and inside each bag was a few little toy things for the kids and a load of sweets.  These looked to have been made up before hand to give out in these sorts of occasions.  No free ice cream but the kids didn’t care, did I mention they have one to each of the girls?  They were over the moon haha    Well that experience was a good start to making up for lunch, certainly the meal was 100000% better for the value, which BTW was only 8 Euro difference, shocking.

Back at the hotel the girls got into their bags to see what they had.  I have an un-bagging video which I’ll get up later at home haha

And with that, the day is pretty well over.  Going to check emails and what not then get to bed.  Sorry for the long winded posting today, but there was a lot to say for sure.

Once on-board we made out way to a window seat near the front of ‘Food City’ close to the kids play zone. We had breakfast on board then the kids disappeared to the play area only to return for nibbles and drinks and the occasional potty break. Just after lunch a magician came out to the kids play zone and put on a show for about and hour… He was like the pied piper, kids from far and wide appeared to watch his magic and balloon tricks.

The arrival and disembarkation was uneventful, as was the drive to Amsterdam, well mostly. A couple of wrong turns due to clarity issues of the GPS coupled with the giggling at it speaking road names of infinite length.

We attempted to get to the hotel to unload the car, that failed as there was no where to stop for blocks.. Literally. We decided to just got the Park and Ride at Olympisch Stadion. Here can park for just €6/day (24hrs). That comes with a free tram/bus pass to and from the PnR. We made it to Albert Cuypstraat on the tram and stopped to feed the kids at McD’s. Then it was about a 10 min walk to the hotel.

I failed to notify my over zealous bastard of a bank, who might I add will shut down my credit card at the very thought of a foreign purchase, shut down my card when the hotel attempted payment. A quickish call to them and several insults at them later had my card restored to service.

That pretty much brings me to now as I am typing this blog entry… Lisa is sleeping, Emma is fussing about and Yuki is on my laptop and that leaves me on my phone to blog that pretty much does it for day on in Holland. Stay tuned for the results of day 2, tomorrow.

Posted by Wordmobi

I’ve finally got the photos posted on Flickr now. The easiest way to see them all is by going to the Camping 2009 Collection.  You can see we had a great time

While we were away I was blogging using my Nokia N97 phone with the use of Wordmobi (WordPress Blogging Tool) and QuickOffice 6.  Entering text into Wordmobi is fine but there’s no spell check available in the tool.  So, the process I used was to write up the posting content in QuickOffice and saved as a Word Document.  Once it was complete and spell checked I’d copy the text and paste it into Wordmobi.  This then allowed me to post direct to the blog and add the tags and whatever I wanted.  All in all this process was very good and worked well for me.  I had my laptop with me including my datacard and power source but never once turned it on during the week we were away.  I was able to do everything I needed to using my phone.  Other apps I used were the Facebook App that came installed on the phone and my favorite Twitter App – Gravity.  I would have been online using Nimbuzz, but for some reason I just couldn’t get authenticated, but it worked fine from home, not sure what happened there.

I’ve received a lot of positive comments from people via various paths about my blog postings while away.  Thanks for the comments and thanks for reading them too!

I really must try to blog more often… perhaps with the new found process using my phone I will feel more like it.  Since moving from Windows to Linux full time on my laptop it’s not as convienent to use my one beloved Windows too, Windows Live Writer … truely a great application for blogging on WordPress sites.

Thank again for following our holiday and reading the site.