A very cold Kew...

On Sunday we went to Kew before heading back to King's Cross so Dawn could get her train back home to East Yorkshire.

It was pretty cold, and a lot of the ponds were frozen - great fun watching the birds skidding and sliding around on the ice! And the tree-top walkway was fantastic as well - its always great, no matter what time of year. I'm not sure I'd been on it when the trees were quite so bare before.

Watch out for photos to be posted shortly!

Winter view from the tree top walk

Winter view from the tree top walk
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Winter colours at Kew

Winter colours at Kew
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Spot the ice...

Re-visiting Egypt

My friend Dawn (who I met on my trip to Egypt) came down to stay for the weekend - we decided that it made the most sense to re-visit our Christmas holiday with a stroll around the British Museum - home to many plundered relics from Egypt! It was quite strange to see pieces that were so similar to things we had seen in-situ such a short time ago - and also to look at these things with much more of an appreciation of the history of them.

There is a lot of controversy around the Rosetta Stone - but I must admit that after having been to the Egyptian Museum that I do think they need to do some work on their facilities before being able to display it - I can see why the British Museum is a bit loathe to return it...

It did occur to me while I was there as well that I don't think I've ever really spent much time at the British Museum so we had a lovely afternoon checking out the different galleries. I'm not sure its my favourite museum (that is probably sacrilege to say), but it was good to spend some time checking it out.

First walk of 2010

Did a cracking walk yesterday with Julia and Kevin. The Amberley Circular - 10.5 miles and it was really good.

First half before lunch was walking through the water meadows of the Arun - and after the snow and then the rain, they were definitely more water than meadow! We were all very pleased to be wearing our wonderful waterproof boots, and Julia was very envious of Kevin and I with our gaiters on... Highlight of the morning had to be coming around a corner to see about 7 or 8 deer at the end of our path leaping over a fence - a few young bucks with some rather large antlers as well! Just amazing to see - its all in the timing.

After lunch it was a stretch up the hill to the top of the South Downs for a great walk along the ridge. Bit grey, but the views were still ok - we could really see the waterlogged meadows. And time for a quick drink at the fab Bridge Inn pub before getting the train back to London. Excellent start to a new year of walking!

Boot cleaning!

Boot cleaning!
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Attempting to clean mud off boots - turned out to be a waste of time - there was plenty more to come!

Playing in the snow

Playing in the snow
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Spot the waterlogged meadows in the distance!

A wee round up...

Not been enormously busy lately as I've been settling back into the groove of work - aligned with the fact that January is always a quiet month as we get paid earlier in December so that December pay has to stretch out a looonnngg way...

But I did go and see Moctezuma at the British Library a couple of weeks ago. Not sure if that link will work or not as it finishes today so they may move the page... Very good exhibition tho - in the same theme as the Hadrian one I went to - didn't paint the Spanish in a very good light - although I guess they were fairly typical of any conquering sort of nation. Also interesting to see the 'name glyphs' they used, as opposed to the 'hieroglyphs' the Egyptians used...

Also went to see Up In The Air last week - the new George Clooney movie. I didn't know much about it so was expecting a rom com. Doesn't quite fall into that category it has to be said... Enjoyed it tho - wasn't expecting the ending at all.

Snow...

This was taken from my lounge window on Wednesday - with my phone so its not amazing quality, but you can just sort of see the snow falling...

It's been a while...

Since I've blogged about the weather...

But OMG! I haven't seen anything like this - it is incredible. Started snowing on Wednesday, and since then has got freezing cold and now the snow has frozen so the pavements are just covered in sheet ice. To get to the main road I walk on the road as opposed to the pavement. And more snow is forecast.

We're not anywhere near as bad down South as people in Scotland and up north. But despite all the protestations, this country still shuts down when it snows. My trains are running but they're pretty messed up - but at least they're running I guess...

Only two premiership football games managed to be played today - nothing is immune!

All Egypt photos posted...

Now on Flickr - and for those of you also on Facebook, I've also done a 'best of' if you don't want to trawl through my albums... I'm so tired of uploading photos I can't face doing any more so won't add any more holiday ones to the blog - you'll just have to look on Flickr!

Blogging done!

Egypt now (briefly) written up and I've started to add my photos to Flickr as well. I've posted a couple below in my posts, but more on Flickr, and still many more to be loaded...

Egypt bound

I headed off to Egypt on December 19th to do Explore's Nile Felucca Sailtrek. I just fancied a change at Xmas, and it was absolutely fantastic to get away from the madness of the silly season, see some sun, and see some absolutely fantastic sites.

Its the same company I went to Jordan with, and once more I wasn't disappointed. Brilliant trip, great guide and a fascinating country.

Updates below - on the correct dates (cos I'm a bit of a pedant like that...) :-). I'm about halfway through at the moment, and once I've done the blog I'll upload my photos - I'm going as fast as I can!! But its hard to write it without sounding like a 'then we went here, then we did this...' type of narrative...

C's and D's - racing along!

Having been a tad tardy with my updates recently I am now up to albums beginning with 'E' on my iPod. So here are the C's and D's I've listened to...

C'mon Kids - The Boo Radleys
Candy Apple Grey - Husker Du
Careless Love - Madeleine Peyroux
Carried to Dust - Calexico
Cassadega - Bright Eyes
Cast of Thousands - Elbow
The Cavern: The Most Famous Club in the World - Various artists
Cease to Begin - Band of Horses
Chelsea Walls - Jeff Tweedy/Wilco
Cherry Pie - Leila Adu
Cherry Tree - The National
Chester - Josh Rouse & Kurt Wagner
Chrome Dreams II - Neil Young
Chronicle - The 20 Greatest Hits
Circles - The Autumn Defense
City Chorus - Age Pryor
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Closer - Joy Division
Cockahoop - Cerys Matthews
Colin Meloy Sings Live (Kill Rock Stars/Stage Three) - Colin Meloy
College Dropout - Kanye West
Colossal Youth - Young Marble Giants
The Colour and the Shape - Foo Fighters
Come On Feel the Lemonheads - The Lemonheads
Comfort in Sound - Feeder
Conor Oberst - Conor Oberst
Consolers of the Lonely - The Raconteurs
Copperhead Road - Steve Earle
The Coral - The Coral
Costello Music - The Fratellis
Cotton Teeth - The Snake The Cross The Crown
The Crane Wife - The Decemberists
The Creek Drank the Cradle - Iron & Wine
Creekdippin' for the First Time - Mark Olson & the Creekdippers
Crocodiles - Echo & the Bunnymen
Cuts Across the Land - The Duke Spirit


Dance Hall at Louse Point - John Parish & Polly Jean Harvey
Datapanik in the Year Zero - Pere Ubu
Dead Letter Office - REM
Dean Chandler - Dean Chandler
Decade - Neil Young
December's Child - Mark Olson & the Creekdippers
Decline of British Sea Power - British Sea Power
Definitely Maybe - Oasis
Deserter's Songs - Mercury Rev
Dig Lazarus, Dig!! - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
Digital Ash in a Digital Urn - Bright Eyes
Do You Like Rock Music? - British Sea Power
Document - REM
Dog House Music - Sea Sick Steve
Doolittle - The Pixies
Dr Boondigga & the Big BW - Fat Freddy's Drop
Draw - Matthew Jay
Drawn from Memory - Embrace
Drawn to the Deep End - Gene
Dream Letter - Live in London - Tim Buckley
The Dream of the Blue Turtles - Sting
Drive - Bic Runga
Dummy - Portishead
Dusty in Memphis - Dusty Springfield


A few blasts from the past in those two lists. And some perennial faves - Elbow, Gene, Embrace... I have no idea where or who I got the Pere Ubu album from - that remains a mystery to me.

Fantastic Pop Life

Continuing to make the most of my time off between Xmas and New Year, after meeting Craig for lunch at the very delicious Pacific Oriental I headed off to the Tate Modern to check out the Pop Life exhibition. Interesting to read the reviews of the restaurant - it was fine for us, although the chairs weren't that comfortable. I did notice the big screen up on the wall, but nothing was showing when we were there fortunately.

Pop Life was great. I got an audio guide, which now comes on an iTouch so I had fun using that as well. Has made me want an iTouch/iPhone even more, but being fiscally responsible, that ain't going to happen sadly. Really enjoyed the exhibition - interesting to see how the featured artists have used business and commerce - and the three R18 rooms were definitely very explicit!

Comedy Wednesday...

Comedy Wednesday involved a trip into town with Kevin to see 'Men Who Stare at Goats' which was very good. Nothing at all like the book in the sense that the story is completely made up, but they do use a lot of the source material. And somehow watching it makes the ludicrousness of it even more unbelievable...

Then it was off to see Stewart Lee (I was using a spare ticket Kevin had). Very funny! No point trying to write about any of the themes as you really did need to be there, but he was great. Also very funny was the man sat in front of us who was absolutely shrieking with laughter the whole way through. Think it is safe to assume he was enjoying it as much as we were!

Egypt updates will follow - but its a bit daunting thinking about writing it up, so I thought I would keep this up to date in the interim.

Ballooning and more sightseeing

My last full day started early with a hot air balloon ride over the Valley of the Kings. Although due to the wind it was actually a hot air balloon ride over the Valley of the Nobles. I'd been a bit nervous about it, especially as my travel insurance didn't cover me for it, but the price of the ticket included insurance so I was brave.

First time I'd ever done it and was great - so peaceful when the burner wasn't going. And the views were stupendous. It is so clear where the irrigation from the Nile stops and the desert just starts. Such an amazing landscape.

Then it was off to the Valley of the Kings - of which there are no photos as you aren't allowed to even take your cameras into the site, let alone into any of the tombs. My one regret is that I didn't go into King Tut's tomb - you needed a separate ticket, and our guide was pretty dismissive about it. In retrospect I should have just gone for it. Next time! These tombs were incredible though - to see the paintings and the hieroglyphs in full colour was stunning. And by now, we were starting to recognise quite a few of the symbols so we almost felt like we could read bits of them! Well sort of...

The last temple area visited was Deir el-Bahri. Which was also the site of the Luxor massacre back in 1997. I think by then I had reached temple saturation - it was really hot, we were tired, and it was starting to feel like yet another temple. Quite scary though when you realise that there really isn't anywhere to hide there if someone was to start shooting. Very sobering.

But it was a relief to get back to the hotel, have lunch and a beer and then devote myself to an afternoon practicing my bartering skills in the souk :-). A lovely wind down to what was a fantastic holiday...

Sunrise, Boxing Day

Sunrise, Boxing Day
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Boxing Day - Karnak Temple

On Boxing Day we had to sadly leave our felucca's and head off to Luxor - doubly sad for some of us as it meant we were rapidly approaching the end of our trip :-(.

In the afternoon we headed off to Karnak Temple which I absolutely loved. This was one of the real highlights for me as the area was just so huge, and there was so much to see and take in. For those readers who have been to London and remember 'Cleopatra's Needle' on the Thames - that was taken from Karnak and I saw the spot where it should have been...

Also fascinating was seeing graffiti being pointed out 3-4 metres above us, and being told that when it was written that was where the sand had come up to... And to still be able to see the colours of some of the painting that was down thousands of years ago - it was just phenomenal. Hard to describe really - but I thought it was amazing.

We took caleshes (horse drawn carriages) from the hotel to Karnak - entertaining ride as some of the drivers had a pretty loose approach to obeying the traffic signals!

Scenic scrabble, Christmas eve

Scenic scrabble, Christmas eve
Originally uploaded by Megan Shields.

Doesn't get much better than this...