At present this blog is in abeyance as we have returned to NZ.
However we return to it now and again to remind ourselves of the wonderful times we had.
There are still pix from St Romaine to put up. Thanks to those who followed our travels and to the many new friends we made in Europe.

The Puffins Have Arrived!

A couple of weekends ago, so early May, Gina and I with Nick & Amy, drove the 70 or 80 miles to the East Coast to see the Puffins arriving just north of Bridlington. As is common in this crowded land we found, in the middle of almost nowhere, a beautiful RSPB Centre together with car parking for hundreds of cars, and simply no room for us. So true to form we parked on the side of the narrow road, up on the grass edge along the road from the official car park. So the positive spin is that we didn't have any parking charges to pay!

After a picnic and a nice cuppa we set off along the path to the cliffs. I found two puffins about a half mile along the path and waited my opportunity for a gap to appear in the crowd along the railings at the edge of the cliff. The others walked on for another mile or so to the RSPB telescopes. There was a good variety of sea birds and none so fetching as the few puffins in their new breeding plumage. We were a tad early in the season for the thousands that will arrive.

They are lovely little birds, which surprised me. Not that they were beautiful, I knew that from the zillions of pix in the photography mags, but that they were quite small, about the size of an ordinary seagull. I believe that these fragile creatures live at sea for the entire year, apart from the breeding season around now, and that they are usually a black/grey for most of the time.

And Nick drove us there and back, so it was a very relaxing trip for Gina and I.

The Anderton Lift, Cheshire.

My family is related through my paternal grandmother to the Gardner and Clark families who established early brickworks in Auckland's Hobsonville and New Lynn areas. The European Clark family threw up a number of excellent engineers of whom Edwin Clark was one.

One of his specialities was designing locks and boat lifts. In 1875 he was asked to design a lock system linking the Trent & Mersey Canal with the River Weaver. There is a 50 feet 4 inch difference between the two systems.

The link was needed to enable narrow boat barges to transport salt from the nearby salt mining town of Northwich to markets throughout the UK and the World.

Clark realised that, because of the huge numbers of boats which would use the locks, such a system would result in the Trent & Mersey Canal running out of water. Thus he designed the Anderton Boat Lift which, using hydraulics, lifted salt laden narrow boats from the River Weaver over 50 feet to the Trent Mersey Canal.

They were lifted in a water tight caission which was counter-balancd by another identical caission full of water which slowly fell as the it raised the boat. The lift worked faultlessly for a number of years until the polluted and salt ridden water of the Weaver finally corroded the huge cast hydraulic pistons.

In 1902 another Engineer (Sanar) designed an overhead electric gantry which moved the caissions. This worked until 1982 when the lift was partially dismantled and left to decay. Local historians later sent a petition to the government and money was given to help to restore the Lift for the tourist and local narrow boat trade. Additionally lottery money was also allocated.

The lift was restored very early in the 21st Century using stainless steel pistons, and now once again works largely as Edwin Clark designed, albiet with the aid of computers. The pistons were cast in the same German factory as Clark's original iron ones at a cost of £1,000,000 each.

Sanar's overhead system is still there for informational purposes only, as are his strengthening

"A" braces on the sides of the lift. In contrast to today's structure Clark's Lift was much simpler.

The present lift operates using Clark's original idea of two hydraulically operated cassions.

While the modern lift requires 4 people to operate it (2 computer operators and 2 lift operators on the lift itself) Clark's original lift needed only 1 man! Maybe this is an example of the contribution that Health & Safety makes to the employment figures.

In its whole history not one life has ever been lost. Clark went on to design and construct 7 more such lifts in Belgium and France.

I was able to ride down in the lift which uses the same original cassions designed by Edwin Clark. The lift is an extremely popular tourist attraction. The day I visited the boat rides on the lift were booked out and I was lucky to get the one remaining seat on one of the rides.

More Information:

www.andertonboatlift.co.uk

Book Launch in Paris

This is the first blog we have written since August 2008. So there will be a lot of filling in to do, but not yet!

BTW we will be arriving back in NZ mid november this year. The time has gone so quickly!

Sometime in March we received an email from Dave (Bib) inviting us to the Paris launch of his and Drew's book, "Roadhouse Days". Earlier there had been an Oratia launch where the book was attached to a Rocket and formally launched. The book is a tribute to the life of Dave's mother, Marge. (Drew's Aunt). In the 50's she founded, at Albion Vale, Auckland's first fine food restaurant. It is a story of love and strength in very difficult times, and it is a story of great food and the company of visitors such as Yehudi Menuin.

These pix will give you a flavour of the Paris launch which was a crazy informal affair attended by family, other Paris restauranteurs, wine experts, publishers, magazine writers and a fine collection of Paris based Kiwis.

Dave had conceived a brilliant plan to ensure a spectacular launch.....

He and I were to string a line across Rue de Seine, between Drew's two restaurants. Thank God they are opposite each other!! A pulley would be attached to the line and a small plastic aeroplane attached to the pulley. The book would then be attached to the belly of the plane.

Drew & Dave making adjustments to the plane in Drew's apartment

At the book launch the plane with the book underneath would cross the road above the traffic,

crash through the open window of the Restaurant Cosi, and deposit the book on a table in front of the guests.

Additionally it would trigger a special Harre mechanism which would automatically pull the cork out of a bottle of Champagne!

Harre working on the Harre (non-patented) Champagne cork puller.

(Automatic trigger version).

However the devil is always in the detail and Dave's plan kept evolving on the hoof. As temporary right hand man I literally couldn't keep up with Dave's lightening grasp of situations and thus his need to make sudden and constant changes to the method. Bloody chaos, but it worked brilliantly!

Our first challenge came as we tried to string a line across Rue de Seine from the first story of both restaurants. Luckily at 9.00am the traffic was not at its peak and we managed to get the line across without entangling it in a car or worse, in a motor bike or bicycle. Next came the first test. Dave obtained a small but heavy pan from the "Fish" kitchen and attached it to the pulley.

With him in the Fish kitchen and me in Cosi on the other side of the road he let the pan slide across. Quelle horreur!! The pan got stuck in the middle of the road, one story up. Cars, and cyclists proceeded about their business below unaware of the possibility of sudden unconsciousness.

We jerked the line to try and free the pan. Dave suddenly disappeared into the kitchen, the line slackened and the pan dropped. The inside of a French prison flashed into my mind, but the pan stopped falling about 2 metres above a lovely convertible mini. Saved from a rat infested dungeon. At about this time Tid informed us that she has seen neighbours in apartments opposite phoning and look worriedly,at us. You know the tune: Thy run them in, they run them in etc etc ....Gendarmes. But no gendarmes appeared.

Tid, Toni & Hugh preparing the Cosi window for the launch.

Note the steep angle of the line coming down from Fish across the Rue de Seine!

Luckily Drew has an apartment on the fourth floor above Fish so we rigged up the line from there down to the first floor window at Cosi. There was huge fall on this line and the pan fairly sped across. - Success!

And so it was. The launch went beautifully, the guests were in wonder at the sheer ingeniousness of Dave's solution, the book rocketed through the paper covered window, the champagne popped its cork, short speeches were made and "Roadhouse Days" officially arrived in gay Paris!

Hugh, I and the waitresses folding towels in Fish afterwards.

What a weekend! I shall never ever forget it. The company and hospitality made it a privilege to be there. The high jinx was a bonus, but best of all Marge Harre is in Paris with Drew, and in Auckland with Dave. And with considerable style!

Addendum: I had obtained a Kevin Kilsby ceramic Pukeko (life size) from NZ and had tried to send it to Drew almost a year ago. The bird was returned in the post for some unknown reason. So I put it in my suitcase and took it with me. Somewhere the pukeko and its legs became temporarily parted, so it is known as the legless pukeko. Drew has named it "Parry" and it sits on the Bar in Fish La Boissionnerie and surveys the scene. So my grandfather "Baa", (a surveyer), has at last arrived in Paris too, although I must say that I never saw him anywhere near legless!

My sister Judith on the right in her garden with another expert gardener Barb Harre, our cousin from NZ

The North York Moors Railway.

The day after the walk to Whitby we had discovered a vintage railway line which just happened to have a special day of steam train travel and music. So we hopped on and hopped off etc etc and generally had a glorious day soaking up sun, excellent York bitter and the fabulous playing of some sixties bands. The Shadows forever!

Robin Hood Bay & Whitby

We have had a few days off and so we set off for Robin Hood Bay on the East Coast of North Yorkshire, between Scarborough and Whitby. BTW "The Villa" in RH Bay is an excellent B & B. The coast around here is full of fossils and many dinosour fossils have been found and some displayed in the local natural history museum. But essentially it still feels as if it is a fishing village, built, like Staithes and Whitby, up a valley and then pushing out into the North Sea with a huge and new sea wall.

Our main objkective was to walk off a huge full English breakfast by treking along the cliff top from RH Bay to Whitby. Part of the Cleveland Way, this section of coast is spectacular and rivals anything at home especially when the weather is superb!! We hope these pix give a little flavour of the walk.