Christ knows how many calories I burned...

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...but the garlic patch is now settling down for the shortest day of the year.


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Hostel : Glasgow : Night moves

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I’ve dug up a bit out of an old travel journal.   One night while tucked up in our beds, all eight guys were woken by loud female shouting, out in the stairwell. A truly sublime pair of unfettered bosoms, filled to the quivering liquid brim with booze, burst through the door. She was atmospherically rim lit by light spilling in through the open doorway as she bounced into the room, and planted rank alcoholic kisses on the guy occupying the bed nearest the door. A girlfriend appeared and dragged our invader back to her room. A heavy, round silence closed around us and when it seemed that no more action would unfold, one of the guys on a bottom bunk got up and closed the dorm door. On another occasion, I was woken by someone moving close to my bed. Something must have been up, cause the guy that sleeps below me usually doesn’t interrupt my slumber. A head was moving around in the dark, and I recognised its silhouette as the young guy who occupies the lower bunk across the ro...
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Grape update: Jan

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The grapes have started to ripen.... Which means my competition with the birds is on. The local black birds don't seem to be concerned with how sweet the fruit is. They will happily eat the green unripe grapes. I've noticed them swallow fruit whole so I don't think they care about taste. Word seems to be being passed about. The number of visitors seems to be increasing as the month slips by. I have been protecting individual grape bunches with plastic mesh bags. Ran out of bags so tried to protect the rest with a net.       These birds are diabolically sly and managed to muscled through gaps. I've purchased some more bags and now what is left of the crop has some sort of protection. Found that the birds have now started to pull the bags off, so I'm securing them with clothes pegs.    
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Whale holiday (part three)

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I’m using the new ‘embed’ function in Google Maps, to give you guys an idea of where I was at for a week. The dark polygon approximately outlines the research area. We dropped anchor in the evenings and spent the nights nestled up against the protective curve of the island, and ranged all over the study area during the days. Click on either of the two ‘pins’ and a video should open out showing you the view from that spot. The sunset video was taken on the last night. There is a deep underwater trough which the whales use to exit the bay.
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Easter in Melbourne

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I decided I needed a change of scenery so I spent a few days down in Melbourne over Easter. Melbourne is one of those cities where I feel instantly at home. Glasgow, Fethiye, Wellington, Nuremburg, and London are other cities that I have instantly grown an attachment to. The opposite would be places such as Las Vagas which make my skin crawl. My home town of Sydney is notorious for being sunny but soulless. Melbourne is known for being cultured and damp. Good Friday morning was cold and wet and swathed in cloud when I left my flat and caught the bus to the airport. While I was in Melbourne I enjoyed three straight days of bright sparkly solar radiation. Some folk reckon that global warming is to blame for this topsy turvey weather. If this is true, then Melbourne and England will become known for being ‘fun in the sun,’ while Sydney and Spain will assume the mantle of ‘soggy Sao.’ I had arranged to meet a local I knew from the Internet in the city centre, and not finding anyone wai...
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From Christchurch I had to ‘high tail’ it...

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...up to Wellington where I was going to spend Christmas. I boarded the TranzCoastal train at seven the next morning. Was impressed to see that a free shuttle bus service was doing the rounds of the tourist accommodations, and picked me up from the hostel. Found my seat and was chatting with a couple of locals, and we all agreed that (despite the odd shuttle bus) N.Z. isn't a cheap country to travel in (well possibly it is if you travelling with British pounds or Euros.) I had some friends who decided not to hire a camper van (really popular way for people to travel around this country) this year, cause once the numbers were added up, a visit turned out to be too expensive. The locals I was chatting to wanted to hire a camper and drive around the islands, but they found it was cheaper to ‘jump the ditch’ and visit OZ instead.
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