RDQ 10th January - Holiday Plans

Great pics. The war is more of a distant memory in the UK as we are not reminded of it in the same way as they are in many parts of Europe. The village we have a family house in Brittany, one property is still referred to as the Generals house and the owners of that property are only starting to return due to the accusations of collaboration with the enemy. There is still signs up pointing the way to Berlin, plenty of reminders of those people who were dragged out to the countryside and shot. It always opens the eyes.

Yes, I must go. My cousin took my grandfather before he died to visit the grave of his younger brother, David who was a member of 1st Battalion Tyneside Scottish, Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment). They deployed to France at the end of April as part of the BEF and were part of the Dunkirk evacuation. He died on 20th May 1940 defending the retreating forces and is buried in the WW1 Cemetery at Ficheux. He was 20 and had only joined up a few months before. They were young lads, led by a few older. ex-WW1 NCOs, and only partly trained, not expected to fight and consequently poorly equipped, They were caught in the open near Ficheux on the 20 May 1940 and shot up. Fighting German tanks with rifle and bayonet, the Regiment suffered grievous losses and virtually ceased to exist. 

An extract from the engagement where he was killed:


“The companies of the Battalion, under-armed and ill-equipped, continued to fight individual company actions until they had exhausted what little ammunition had been given them for their original role. The provost serjeant was killed as he clambered on to a tank and thrust his rifle through an embrasure. A section of the youngest soldiers, with less than eight weeks' service, was seen to fix bayonets as an enemy tank approached them. Two old-soldier G.S.M.s were both killed behind anti-tank rifles whose crews had already been knocked out”

My grandad was very upset and, having served in the TA before the war, tried numerous times to join up and fight. (Un)fortunately, being older and married with 2 kids, and also a highly skilled boilermaker, he was eventually sent to the Tyneside shipyards under threat of £100 fine if he didn't work there. His older brother was a Merchant Seaman and died on the Russian convoys. They got word of his death the same time as David's. 

My Great Grandad died near the end of WW1, having been a prisoner for a while.
He had been in a protected occupation but apparently succumbed to the pressure of receiving white feathers and so joined up.
My Gran was born in 1916 so never really met her Dad and as he was buried somewhere behind the Iron Curtain she never visited his grave.

My Dad's dad was gassed in WW1 but survived to then go and work in the pits.

My Dad's brother in law was a gunner on a tanker in WW2 but not sure he was ever on an Arctic convoy.
He only mentioned it twice, to my cousin and me, when we were kids.
One of those times was to show us a little cardboard box with his medals in but even then he joked about it and told us to stand back to avoid the smell of cordite.

Our trip to Vienna in November will be our last foreign trip in a while.

We need to plan caravan trips next year. I fancy Wales in the spring followed by a few more local weekends.

I've never fancied the UAE as a holiday destination and neither of us fancy the far east either.

As with cars, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it, then knock away! I’ve spent enough time in caravans and summer holidays in the UK to know where I stand, but ETTO!

I had no desire to visit the UAE other than to tick it off the list, so first went on a 2 night stopover on the way to Bangkok. I still wouldn’t choose it as our main holiday, but for a warm winter break it works really well for us. Good weather, great hotels / service and lots to do when you have a small child.

We love the Far East, it’s so different to Europe and there are so many fantastic places to visit and stay plus great food, hospitality etc. Singapore is in my top 3 favourite cities in the world, there aren’t many places I’d go for a third time, as the world is a big and interesting place.

I think as I've got older, I find international air travel more stressful than the holiday is worth and the thought of long haul even worse.

I'm not a nervous flier, I just hate it.

I can appreciate a nice hotel, but after a couple of nights, I've had enough.

As you say, to each their own.

That's interesting Mark, as I'm not keen on short haul as it's a lot of travelling / hanging around for a relatively short distance and the experience is rarely anything other than average. With long haul, it really does feel like part of the holiday and who we fly with and even on what aircraft is part of the decision making process.

We're not stay in the hotel types either (even less likely to be in a shopping mall) and like to get out and explore the area and experience life away from the main tourist areas, which is why I usually rent a car, even on some of the smaller Malaysian/Thai islands. We have a similar plan to James in the Dordogne, out exploring in the morning and back early-mid afternoon for some chill time.   I wouldn't want to be stuck in a hotel all the time, no matter how nice it is and we tend to book an accommodation type that gives us plenty of our own space and ideally our own pool. 

Car hire on Bali isn't great, very little choice with only one operator that I can see and both places we're staying at have vehicles with drivers you can hire for half or full days, so that's the likely plan. We're hiring a car in the UAE and will be spending half the time in Abu Dhabi, so Yas Circuit, Ferrari World etc as well as exploring an area we haven't seen to before.

Just back from four days in Chia, in the south of Sardinia, to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. Weather was a little iffy (rained initially but then cleared up) but the place was stunning. Glorious scenery and beaches, a very relaxed end-of-season vibe, marvellous food. Sand like pale cream velvet and crystal clear water which was still easily warm enough to swim in. In fact the water and air were about the same temperature - 24/25 degrees.

Avis gave us a Cupra Leon to knock about in too, which was actually quite likeable.

Happy 10th wedding anniversary!

We loved Sardinia when we went there about 10 years ago. Seemed quite unspoilt.

It did seem a motobikers' heaven though with loads of bike touring groups - especially German ones. We came upon a nasty accident one day where a biker had hit the front of a car while going round a bend too fast on a mountain road. If he had bounced the other way he'd have gone down a rather steep ravine. Somehow the biker found that very funny. Probably the shock of his leg facing the wrong way. Luckily we were not first on the scene and the police and ambulance had already been called, but we had to wait while they cleared the road.

Ullswater. Loverley ❤️

Some friends of our bought a top floor property in Sliema, some 35 years ago. However, the "airspace" above a building is considered a separate property right in Malta. Whoever owns the airspace can build additional floors, provided they get the required permits - so someone did and now they own a property on one of the lower floors of an apartment block.

Arrived last night to a resort in Northern Cyprus. Upgraded from Garden Villa to Pool Villa. Don’t care about anything else: woke up to sun!

Nice, BB! I like the sort of endless pool, do you mind sharing the resort details??

I got some days in Disney sunshine late last week - it was unseasonably warm and sunny on what could have been a badly chosen time of year for a mostly outside trip!

On a similar note we had a couple of days in the Staffordshire countryside and spent a (surprisingly not too painful) day at Alton Towers on the Saturday. 

The weather in the morning couldn’t be described as warm but it was a stunning morning as the sun cut through the mist showing off the autumn colours. 

Only had my iPhone (11) on me and only took a couple from inside the park.