Being Mrs C

A Polish interlude...

I have a much more exciting reason behind the latest blogging interlude. Mr C and I have just returned from a fantastic long weekend in Poland where we saw our dear friends C & D marry.

There are many tales to tell of a beautiful wedding, delightful Polish countryside and a journey on a red London bus. At the moment though there's a pile of washing to tackle and work to prepare for tomorrow morning. I promise I will return to fill in the gaps and hopefully share some pictures.

Tallinn

A post of few words today.

Mr C and I spent a lovely weekend in Tallinn with his work colleagues. Most of our time was in or around the Old Town which is a fine example of a medieval town complete with fairy-tale towers and town walls.

Strong Russian influences were also very prominent. This cathedral was built to remind Tallinn of the Tsarist rule from Russia in the early 1900s. As you can see though the weather didn't always oblige for my photographs.

The journey up to the top of the Town Hall tower certainly made my legs burn, especially since the depth of some of the steps is so great. The view from the top is well worth it though.

In amongst all the traditional town buildings are some slightly strange architectural sights. I'm not sure of the story behind this one, but the strong Egyptian, slightly art-deco look attracted a fair bit of attention.

This restaurant window box made me smile as we walked through the old town.

The art inside our hotel was a little strange though. All the corridors, and apparently all the rooms, had different pictures featuring this strange character in railway surroundings. The hotel was next to the train station. but beyond that I'm lost for an explanation. Having this one hanging above our bed was quite surreal!

Helsinki

As promised, a first instalment of our recent trip to Helsinki and Tallinn.

The mysterious ways of airline costings meant that we actually flew from London to Helsinki first, before continuing to Tallinn 24 hours later by boat. So, a whole 24 hours in Helsinki in which to unwind from work, whilst also making sure that we got to see all the key sights. 

Helsinki is one of those cities that most people have heard of, but it isn't really a big tourist destination, and people don't instantly connect it with a specific site like they do the Eiffel Tower with Paris.

A walk round on the first evening certainly showed us that there were quite a few interesting things to see. These "gremlins" guarding the entrance to a shop intrigued me somewhat. There was a pair on the other side who looked slightly different. I'm not sure if there's any sort of story behind them or anything like that.

 

Most photos of Helsinki seem to feature the Helsinki Cathederal which is one of the most prominent buildings on the Helsinki skyline.

Quite disappointingly though inside is so plain and stark while that it is quite a let down for such a prominent building.

Although it doesn't stand quite so proud the Uspenski Cathederal provides somewhat more external interest through the rich brick red colours that we caught shining in the bright evening sunlight. We never did make it inside though so I've no idea if the interior provides more to see than the Helsinki Cathedral.

One church interior that really caught my imagination was the Rock Church. Mr C has a fantastic habit of picking things out of the guide book that I've overlooked, and this was one such gem. 

From the outside the church really looks more like an entrance to some strange bunker type place, but inside it opens up into a fantastic light space. Natural day light was flooding through the glass between the copper dome roof and the rock walls.

The church was "built" in 1969 by being created out of the rock that surrounds it. I really had no idea what to expect when we entered, but it was truly beautiful. The addition of a young woman playing some classical music on a grand piano only added to the beauty.

After the rock church it really did make some of the other sight seem a bit, well, dull by comparison. The train station has a certain style to it that I imagine Central Station in New York to have. The two statues holding globes on either side of the main entrance and particularly well know and look fantastic at night when the spheres are lit.

One advantage of being so far north is that in the middle of June daylight hours are so very long. Mr C and I were able to wander the streets for a fair while after dinner, thus extending our sightseeing window. The photo below was taken at about 11.30 in the evening as we walked back to our hotel. The sky became a beautiful pink colour as we approached this lake and we soon found ourselves part of a small group all admiring the effects of the sunset on the water. Beautiful.

Did you miss me?

Sorry for the absence. This time it was somewhat more exciting that just life getting in the way of blogging. Mr C and I have been over to the Baltic and have visited Helsinki and Tallinn within the last week.

As seems to be usual for us our return journey yesterday involved a cancelled connection, a six hour wait in Copenhagen, delays landing in London due to thunderstorms and a nearly lost bag! In total fifteen hours from leaving our hotel to arriving home. As you can imagine I'm a tad shattered (not helped by the fact that we both went back to work less than twelve hours after landing) so apologies for not instantly having photos and holiday tales for you - but soon, I promise.

The train triangle

It's been a busy couple of days this week. Work has taken me up to Scotland for a series of meetings and I had some wonderful train adventures in the process.

It didn't start off so well though yesterday morning. As usual, I left plenty of time to get into London to go to Kings Cross where I was due to catch my first long distance train north to Edinburgh. I started to get worried as my little train from St Albans suddenly slammed on the brakes less than half way to London. I got even more worried when the driver came on the tannoy and apologised for the sudden stop and said that he was investigating the reason behind the train automatically putting on the emergency brake!

To cut a long story short, after a change of trains at Mill Hill I made it to Kings Cross with just 2 minutes to spare! Running with a small suitcase, laptop bag and handbag whilst wearing a big winter coat is no fun at all.

The journey up the East Coast Mainline was really quite stunning. The section between Newcastle and Edinburgh in particular was amazing. We were lucky enough to get a wonderfully clear patch of weather and as the train went along the Northumbrian coast presented us with a wonderful blue coloured sea with crisp white wave crests easily visible. I found myself at one stage stood to get the best possible view and transfixed by the scenery in front of me.

We travelled over to Glasgow last night and after another meeting this morning travelled back down to London via the West Coast Mainline (hence the train triangle). The scenery today was very different to yesterday's. As we passed through the Lake District the sky contained both bright blue patches and very dark storm clouds. The threatening rain clouds gave the hills a dark appearance, but yet the next peak could be bathed in bright sunlight at exactly the same time. I've never spent much time in the Lakes, but now feel that I must do so. One of my colleagues has previously researched travelling up to the Lakes by train for a weekend and informs me that a hire car can be collected at Oxenholme station. It's very tempting.

My only regret of the whole trip? Forgetting to take my camera with me!

Port Isaac

The centre of our stay in Cornwall was the delightful fishing village of Port Isaac. Here we rented a little cottage from the National Trust for our stay. 

The Birdcage - centre of picture

The Birdcage was really like no other cottage that I've been in before. It is split over three floors and the main body of the house is though to be over 200 years old. On the ground floor you open the door straight in to the kitchen. Off to the side is an extension containing the bathroom. A very steep set of stairs takes you from the kitchen up into the lounge and a further set of steep stairs goes from there up into the double bedroom.

Despite being tiny it is very much perfectly formed and the Nation Trust do a fantastic job of keeping the place in tip top condition. everything we could need was there and despite being in a slightly windswept, exposed position, the cottage provided a lovely snug place to come back to.

Then again it's very hard to complain when these are the views from your bedroom windows.

One thing that Port Isaac has become famous for over the last few years is as a setting for the ITV series Doc Martin. I was very pleased to see that the village hasn't become a shrine to the programme and in fact, without the aid of an internet connection, Mr C and I were struggling a bit to confirm exactly which of the cottages was used as his surgery in the series. For those in any doubt it can be half see as "Fern Cottage" at the right-most edge of the below photograph.

The village of Port Isaac is idyllic and still has much of the old fishing village charm. There were some signs of catering for the tourists though - in particular the lovely little shop owned by Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen's wife Jackie. It provided a lovely little bit of holiday shopping for nice things, whilst not distracting from the surrounding village.

Entrance to the harbour

An example of a traditional fisherman's house

Silence is golden...

Apologies for the blogging silence. As Liz has pointed out in the comments I left on a bit of a cliff hanger sitting in the dark following a power cut one evening. That threw all my plans to pot and hence I wasn't able to tell you about our planned long weekend away.

Mr C and I have just returned from a wonderful break in Port Isaac, Cornwall, where we've been celebrating our first wedding anniversary. It was a truly perfect trip with the most amazing weather for March. There is so much to tell you about, including cliff top walks, National Trust properties galore (including the one we stayed in!), the Eden Project and a wonderful anniversary spent at The Lost Gardens of Heligan. My camera is packed full of photos and assuming some of them are any good I'll be posting them here. In the meantime though there's a mountain of dirty washing to conquer!

Britain by train

This week I seem to have been sending most of my time on trains, or in meetings. Out of the five working days this week I have only been in London for one, and am again elsewhere tomorrow. I often have meetings away from my main office, but not normally so many in a week. 

Being constantly on the go is very tiring in itself and hence I decided to travel everywhere by train this week, rather than driving as I often do (mainly as to save time admittedly). As well as the obvious carbon benefit over driving I do find that there are many other advantages and disadvantages compared to just jumping in the car. 

Going by train does at least mean that you can do other things whilst travelling. Several of my journeys have involved travelling with colleagues and I have to admit that it's been quite nice getting to know them outside of the usual office environment. There's been time to read and knit as well, but strangely the thing that I've enjoyed most is having some time to look out of the window at the scenery going past and daydream. 

The biggest disadvantage has to be the limited routes and timetables meaning that extra time has had to be spent actually making the journey. St Albans is to the north of London and therefore on two days this week I've had to go into central London and use the tube to get to the other station that I am travelling out of on the mainline trains. The same then goes for the return journey in the evening. Very frustrating. Also, as I'm someone who hates being late for anything, I've had to leave super early to ensure that I've been in time for meetings. Quite often a train will be due to get in only just before the meeting is set to start, so I've had to get the train before to allow for any delays (and the possibility of cancellation). Where changes have had to be made there have been quite a few cold waits on bleak platforms. A thirty minute wait for an Abbey Flyer from Watford Junction tonight is a fine example of this. After a 6.21 train this morning to ensure I got to my destination on time it left me feeling very weary for the last leg of my journey.

I have travelled with four different train operating companies so far this week and the quality of the service they provide seems to vary greatly. Some trains have been efficient, on time and clean, whilst others have been late, decrepit and dirty. On one intercity service I had to find the guard train manager to ask him to take a toilet out of service as it was overflowing. His comment when I explained the situation: "well no one else has complained". Amazing!

Compared to other countries that I've travelled in the train service here in the UK is very poor, and incredibly expensive to boot. Why do we seem to get it so wrong? The service appears to be getting worse and worse, yet I'm confused as to why it is so difficult to get it right. If this country wants to encourage people out of their cars and onto public transport then I think they've got a lot of work to do to make it a pleasant alternative.

Another day of train travel tomorrow - I just hope it's a good experience!

Would you shop here?

I'm always amazed at the obsession with "celebrity" that seems to go on and how some shops and restaurants try to cash in on this. Outside the Belvedere Palace in Vienna we saw the following adverts on a lamppost.

The question has to be, would this make you shop here?

Newspaper sales

I was fascinated to see something like the above on many lampposts across Vienna. 

Luckily my guide book provided an explanation: it seems that this is the way in which newspapers are sold in Vienna. People are supposed to use the small plastic bit as a honesty box and then take a paper from the plastic bag. The guide book also told us that everyone in Austria was so law abiding that they always pay before taking a paper. It was quite interesting therefore that the only person that we say taking a paper did so without paying!