New putter

I haven't posted much about golf lately, but that's mostly because it's been raining for ever, and the course has spent much f the winter either closed, or open but is so waterlogged that it's absolutely not conducive to playing decent golf.

In between the times I have managed to get out and hack my way round the course in snorkel and flippers, I've been to the range a few times to keep practicing and watching the Pros ply their craft on the TV.

One of my (many) shortcomings, is my putting. I've always used a blade type putter as that's what came with the package set of clubs, but I've long been thinking of moving to a mallet type putter for more stability with it's heavier head.

So today I bit the bullet, and after trying a few different types out at my local golf store, I plumped for the TaylorMade Spider in red. It feels lovely in the hand. All I need now is some drier weather to be able to get out and use it in anger.

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Tenerife again

I posted about last year's winter break in Tenerife here.

Fabulous sunsets

This year we returned albeit a week later to the same hotel, the adults only Hovima Costa Adeje, again seeking some winter warmth and escape from the incessant rain we've all been experiencing since what seems like the end of November.

There's not much to add to what I said last year really. The weather was a bit warmer (hot in fact during the day), and all I said about the hotel and resort last year still stands.

La Caleta, about 2 miles walk down the coast

In the previous post I said that if we came again we'd probably do one of the whale/dolphin watching trips they run from the local marina, and we did just that. Rather than book one of the bigger, more crowded boats, we went with a smaller outfit, with just 12 of us in a RIB. Very environmentally conscious, and a great guide who clearly knows his stuff. It was a fascinating 2 hours just off the coast and we saw loads of pilot whales and Atlantic dolphins and a bonus loggerhead turtle. Well worth the trip cost of about £110 for the two of us. My Trip Advisor review can be seen here.

Loggerhead turtle

Pilot whales

Another pilot whale close to the boat

Pilot whale breathing out

We also did a trip to a banana plantation and local Bodega (winery). Whilst it was interesting, I'm afraid I was a little under the weather with some sort of bug for 36 hours, so that trip was a bit of a struggle for me, although Anne enjoyed it.

Bananas! I don't feel as good as I look!

In the banana plantation

On the walk to La Caleta

Near La Caleta

All in all another chilled week in the sun. 

Sunset over the hotel pool

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Austria in the snow

We're recently back from a trip to Austria, where my sister in law has an apartment. I've blogged about trips to Austria before as we've visited a couple of times previously - just search the blog for "Austria", but never visited in the winter.

This time we chose to go in January, along with our adult daughter, and another sister in law and her daughter who goes most years to go skiing.

We aren't skiers - I've never skied in my life, although I always fancied it, but at nearing mid 60's and with at least half a false knee, I'm not sure it's a great idea now, but more of that later.

My brother in law had put me on his car's insurance so we could go off exploring whilst they went skiing, but it was still a surprise to exit Salzburg airport the evening we arrived to be handed the keys by him with a "Well, you might as well drive" the hour or so's journey from Salzburg to Rauris in -14º temps and mostly pitch black!

Still, we made it ok. As previous blogs have noted, Rauris is a small rural village with decent skiing in the winter. The apartment has 3 bedrooms and is nice and comfortable with good views of the mountains

There were nine of us in all (over two apartments), comprising four skiers and 5 non skiers. The skiers obviously did their thing whilst the rest of us walked, took cable cars up the mountains to alms, enjoyed the views, the food, the beer and the aprés ski. We generally met up with the skiers at around lunchtime in one of the mountain alms for something to eat and some refreshment. A couple of meals out in the evening went down well, and one evening we did a long toboggan ride (about 5km in all down a mountain "road", although snowed over and with 4ft -6 ft snow banks each side it wasn't your typical road! 

Sunday

We stayed in Rauris, pottered around the village

Looking down the Rauris valley

Rauris chuch and village

Monday

We drove over to Angertal near Bad Hofgastein in the next valley, and took the cable car up the Stubnerkogel to around 2,200m (7,200ft) where the views were glorious 

The gang above Bad Hofgastein

The Gastein valley

The 140m long & 28m high
Stubnerkogel suspension bridge

Tuesday

Tuesday dawned wet and dull Whilst the skiers went off somewhere we drove to Zell am See for a walk by the lake and a browse in the town (and coffee and cake!) One of our party who shall remain nameless (not me) had an altercation with an automatically cleaning toilet (basically got trapped inside when it started cleaning!!!). No harm done, but it was very funny!

The Grand Hotel Zell am See

The offending automatic toilet

Zell am See 

Ice patterns

Wednesday

A brighter day than Tuesday, but a thaw was setting in as the temp rose to around freezing We wandered around Rauris in the morning, had a lazy lunch waiting for the skiers to return before going off on our toboggan trip at the Ammererhof Hotel at the top of the valley. Great fun! I only crashed twice too!

The Ammererhof Hotel

A bit snowy up here!

Ready for the off

Tally Ho!

Made it in one piece - just!

Thursday

A pretty lazy day. Anne and I went for a walk around Rauris, before coming back for lunch and generally loafing about. The skiers returned about 4pm and we went over to the local aprés ski all for a bit of a session. Good fun was had by all!

One of the two rivers in Rauris

The oldest building in Rauris.
Still not sure what it is/was

Apres ski!

Shots

Apres ski giggles

Cheers!

Friday

By now the temperature was above freezing, and the thaw was well and truly set in. What had been snow all over at ground level (970m above sea level, but still ground level), was now mostly gone apart from the snow cannoned nursery slopes and ski run finish. There was plenty of snow higher up though. We took the cable car up the mountain, and did a walk on a snowy trail back to an all for lunch before descending back by cable car.

My wife's niece on the slopes

Starting our snowy walk at about 1,700m

Mountains and valleys

The snow's deep up here

Tilly's Trail

Snow angel

All in all we had a great time. I was, I have to admit, quite jealous of the skiers. Despite my reservations on age and dodgy knees, when I saw the age and condition of some people on the slopes, I reckon I could give it a go. Who knows, maybe next year?

As an aside, what was truly magnificent was seeing the children on the slopes, some so small, but fearless and technically quite brilliant at skiing. Ah, sometimes I wish I was younger!!!

All photos here are from my iPhone. A fuller set taken with my "proper" cameras is available on my Flickr pages here.

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Lincolnshire - land of my youth

The Lincolnshire fens near Billingborough

We're just back from a swift visit between Christmas and New Year, to my brother's in Lincolnshire. We lived about 8 miles away from where he now lives from (very) late 1969 until 1979, so my formative years between 10 and 20 were spent growing up there. I wrote briefly about it here a long time ago.

We lived on the fens, where it is very flat. It's rural and pretty much all arable farming land. It can be very bleak, and the skies are huge courtesy of the flatness, and consequently it can get very windy too.

When my parents moved to Chepstow in 1979 I was in many ways glad to leave Lincolnshire behind, but the longer I've been away, the more I find myself missing it

It's been several years since we've made it over there, so it was great to get back for a big family get together. and a walk round the area taking in Sempringham Abbey when the rain stopped!

Sempringham Abbey

Who knew that there was a Welsh connection in Lincolnshire? Certainly It's not something I knew about when I lived near here!

Sempringham Abbey info

The fens lie very low - some below sea level, and most not far above it. The land is drained by "dykes" that criss cross the land, edging many of the fields before draining into larger "drains" and eventually, the local rivers and onto the Wash. Some of the dykes are little more than small ditches, and some are huge - almost rivers in their own right, usually with steep sided banks. Many a day I spent fishing on my local drain, the South Forty Foot drain a couple of miles from my house. I spent much of my youth wandering the fens in my local area near Donington, the village where we lived. Fishing, exploring the dykes and bridges and observing wildlife from pheasants, to curlews, water voles and more.

Sempringham Abbey, a dyke and a old bridge

Nostalgia eh? 

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The glorious Peak District - even in the rain

I'm a bit late with this post - about a month and half late truth be told. Stuff just gets in the way, doesn't it?

Higger Tor from the Longshaw Estate

As regular readers will know, we usually have a large family get away in late October/early November, most often to the Peak District, but a couple of times to Devon. This year it was the Peaks again and a week away in Matlock. Slightly depleted this year, as a few couldn't make it, and more poignantly our first family get away after losing my brother in law to cancer in March (he was the one who'd booked this trip), a total of 11 of us made the trip. With only my daughter and wife's niece under 50, we're long past the days of hiking up the bigger hills on 10 mile traipses. A couple of miles and a nice coffee shop tended to be the order of the day for the most part.

We stayed in a large house - Riber House on a hill overlooking Matlock and underneath the imposing Riber Hall. The journey to the house was inserting. Up a 1:3/1:4 hill with a couple of sharp hairpin bends, before a quarter of a mile along a rough track, but worth it. The house was fantastically set up, and included a hot tub on the patio and a pool table in the basement. The only downside, it was remote, so no easy walk to a pub. Mind you, we had enough beer and wine to sink a battleship!

The hot tub was well utilised, and we did find a nice pub that served food for an evening meal out, and we were very comfortable in the well equipped house during our stay. 

Our accommodation is the house just below Riber Hall
Taken from a bridge over the river Derwent in Matlock

As is usual, we broke our journey up from South Wales with an overnight stop at my sister-in-law's house in Solihull. The following day we stopped en route to Matlock at Keddlestone Hall a National Trust property, for a wiser, coffee and a bite to eat. As most of the group are NT members, a lot of our visits tend towards places like this and it was a pleasant stop for a couple of hours.

(Some of) The grounds of Keddlestone Hall

After a week of decent weather, the forecast for our week away was pretty miserable. Our first full day was a bit of a washout with the weather, although we popped into Matlock in the rain. The next day we managed to dodge the showers on a lovely walk along the Cromford canal a couple of miles from Matlock. When the sun did peek through the rain clouds, it lit up the autumn foliage beautifully. 

Some of the crew

Cromford Canal

Chatsworth estate is a regular haunt on our visits to this area, but we're normally too early for the Christmas decorations and market. This year though we were better timed, and had booked tickets to see the festive decorations in the house. We began with a walk across the grounds to the house and around the Christmas market before going into the house at our allotted time. The place was heaving - the market especially so, but the timed entry to the house at least kept the crowds slightly more organised.

Chatsworth House
(the hundreds of visitor cars not visible in this photo!)

Inside the main hall at Chatsworth

The following day was another wet one (well they all were to be fair), and we had a leisurely walking from a car park close to Bakewell, into the town and a meander around the shops, stopping for the obligatory coffee and snack. Bakewell's a lovely spot, though obviously gets very busy because it's such a pretty and central spot.

Bakewell and the river Derwent

One of the things I defiantly wanted to see on this visit was the Derwent reservoir dam, just above the Ladybower reservoir. This was the series of dams that the Dambusters used as their training ground before their famous attack on the Rhur dams. Whilst that peaked my interests, I was rather more interested to see if the water was flowing over the top - given all the rain we'd had, I needed have worried. It was pouring over!

Water overspilling the Derwent Dam

Alongside the Derwent Dam

The Derwent Dam

Ladybower reservoir below the Derwent Dam

Our final day we parked at another NT place, Longshaw Estate and did a 5 or so mile circular walk through down through get impressive Padley Gorge. The weather was kinder to us and whilst it was wet underfoot, at least it didn't rain! The autumn colours, and gushing brook and waterfalls were fabulous.

Oh, and we stopped for coffee and cake...

Descending into Padley Gorge

Down at the bottom

Nearly back out

Once again, we had a fantastic week despite the rain which we mostly managed to avoid. Matlock is a little further south than we've normally been, but to be honest, nowhere's that far as to be unmanageable. Derwent Dam for instance was about a 45 minute drive. 

I love the Peak District. So many interesting places and superb walking to be had. If you haven't been, you should go. If you have, then you'll know...

We're back to Devon next year though, at a spot near Bideford, so that'll be a nice change.

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