15 Minutes of fame - with Subtitles (名声の15 分 and 15 Minuten Ruhm)

So this is going to sound JUST a touch geeky.... but as we were (sort of..) in the area and it was the first visit from the new A380 to Dulles, we thought a quick trip to the airport would be in order.

Dulles (and Airbus and Lufthansa) didn't exactly make it easy - not publishing the arrival time ("sometime after 9" was the best we could find). Eventually I found that the plane would be arriving just after EIGHT (55 minutes away and 50 minutes drive away).

Anyway, long story short - drove to Airport, went up to the top of the car parking (with stories to Lisa about "this is where the Snowy Owl was.."), park, got out, one BIG plane immediately landed right on the runway next to us.

It's certainly an impressive machine and there was a small crowd had gathered to take a look.

Which brings me to our subtitles.... There were a couple of Television crews there.

First we were approached by the Japanese crew (TV 乗組員) which Lisa neatly sidestepped and directed them to me (:O - my only previous experience of "being on the telly" was the ultimately edited-out Blue Peter session in 1967).

So we were laughing about that and returning to the car when the German TV crew invited me ("and zee whole family!") to be interviewed.


After all those nice words I think we're owed a tour (I wish!)




For our fellow travellers who like big planes here's an impressive Airbus video - ahhhhh one day :)

St Patrick's Day at our house

The first two pictures kind of sum up the gathering on Saturday (and yes that IS Jameson, Harp, Murphy's AND Guinness behind the sobering Irish Coffee).

The food table had a stock of traditional Irish Brie and Swiss Cheese (!) but the Corned Beef (yet to arrive, in the picture...) lent authenticity to the fare.




With Celtic Music on the stereo and Irish flags on the flag pole (and elsewhere!) the party was underway.

Jerilyn and Allie easily won the prize for most enthusiastic personal adornment





A house full of victims (aka friends,old and new) joined the celebrations including Derek and Levi - in town from Iowa for the weekend and seen here with Deanna - and Pat 'Chickie' Boylan - posing with Lisa and Rob.

Despite the implications from top photograph, on Sunday morning the flag wearing young ladies were off to the airport at dawn, the Iowa contingent were out impressively early to do the tourist rounds of DC and Chrystal & Rob were off birding in a bracing (damn cold!) wind

UK Trip - part 3

The final leg of our UK trip was a long talked about weekend in Norfolk with Jack and Paula. Being the tourists, we arrived back from Dublin at 10 and took a leisurely drive up to the cottage at Burnham Overy.
Poor Jack and Paula had to work and so left Watford for the 3-4 hour drive around 5. By this time of course the weather had deteriorated to hard driving rain for their journey. Not only that but Jack then enthusiastically cooked a pasta Dinner....


Here's the mill just outside Burnham Overy on the coast road that most of the best birding sites are nearby and up and down we drove for much of the weekend.
Pre-Breakfast on Saturday Jack and I headed for Titchwell (in the rain...), but the weather cleared and after bacon and eggs we had rendezvous with some more old friends.


As the expressions here show, the wind whipping off the North Sea was cold but we spend the morning with Gary Elton (ex of South Oxhey, Jack's partner in Birding London, and the serious birder here actually LOOKING at the sea) and David Russell (Jack and my co-author on the Tring Book, and without gloves). Both Gary and David are resident in Norfolk so we had plenty of good local information about the whereabouts of local specialities (some of which cooperated and some of which didn't....)

One species that wasan't where it 'should' have been the first few times was the local Little Owl. Revisiting the tree on Sunday, Jack picked out a very obscured bird. We were looking at the top of the birds head (all that was visible initially) when a second bird perched in the tree giving wonderful views, Chrystal's first Little Owl.


Norfolk has a healthy Barn Owl population and we saw three of this increasingly rare species in the south of England.
We walked in Holkham Park, had a pleasant pub lunch (from a somewhat bizarre 'lunch menu') and visited Cley.
As often the case, we overspent our birding time budget and only just managed to find some meat for Sunday lunch in a rapidly 'closing for the evening' Holt. In the event Sunday lunch was a wonderful Pork roast. Before lunch Jack, Chrystal and I birded locally, finding the owls and some other species including a field of Pink-footed Geese.
Jack and Paula left in (again!) deteriorating weather for their journey south on Sunday.
On Monday Chrystal and I had another calm drive down to Heathrow ready for our flight home on Tuesday
It had been 'spring' in the UK. Birds were singing and displaying (including bizarrely Great-crested Grebe displaying on the sea).
The flight captain announced a temperature beneath freezing point back at Dulles. Overnight it snowed a couple of inches. During the following week the temperature here was 81 degrees and now its back down to 29 degrees (and ice/snow/freezing rain or something / everything in between...)


Still spring birds have arrived here too although goodness knows what the insect eaters will find to eat for a few weeks

Catching up, Part 2 - Dublin

Here are some of our Dublin pictures from our week in the Irish Capital.

Highlights included Chrystal's first (and many subsequent) Guinness, our Ulysses walk around the streets of Dublin, the highly recommended Guinness tour and many historical sites around the city (The Gaol, Croke Park [DESPITE the Rugby result a few days previous], Ha'penny Bridge, the Post Office etc).
Walking is always the best way to see a new city although we cheated with taxi when we ran out of stream or the weather threatened. However we did spend most of Tuesday following a walk that Chrystal had downloaded to her iPod, following the route of Leopold Bloom around the city.

It rained a bit (actually quite a lot, one day in particular!!) but but we had a BLAST! of a time.

Our traditional Irish fare consisted of Curry, home-made chicken pie (thanks to our friends Dervela and James), Indonesian and finally some (Irish traditional) Boxty, and of course many Guinness.

We never did make it out of the city - the suggested trip to the mountains started too early (for this is a town where breakfast is served until 11! :) ) and we were taking it easy this week. Maybe we'll do the grand tour next time...

SLAINTE!

Playing catch up.... Part 1

Having been away for the best part of two weeks we've slipped a little behind and have a bit to catch up on.
So here's the first instalment of our trip.
The first leg of our UK trip was the big surprise 18th birthday party that had been planned and arranged by June, Rhiannon and Robyn for months and somehow kept largely concealed from a puzzled Elliott. So Family and Friends gathered at Selsey Village hall ready to greet the victim as we drove, supposedly to a celebration dinner. The first picture is of Elliott 'in the spotlight'.




We'll post many more pictures soon but here are a couple of shots, firstly of the 'Coconut Princesses ' (Rhiannon and her friends Emily, Kiera and Sarah) after watching too many movies and secondly some of the 'catering'