Summer in England has arrived unseasonably late. I am not complaining, the days have been warm enough for me to enjoy sitting out on the patio reading a book watching the sun go down.
Vulcan XH558 is reaching the end of her flying days and over the weekend she flew a couple of farewell fly past tours. I was able to stand on a grassy mound at Cosford in order to watch her fly by.
We heard her before we saw her because her approach was obscured by the Cold War Hangar. All of a sudden she popped out round the side of the building, tilted her wings towards the crowd and was gone…
Cosford was heaving so we went into one of the hangars to wait for the queues of traffic exiting the site to die down. We visited an art gallery which we were pleasantly suprised to find was exhibiting a different display than usual. It was an exhibition of art commemorating WWI so all the paintings were of WWI aircraft. We spent some time enjoying the paintings, of which there were several that I would happily hang on the walls in my home. By the time we had finished viewing them the traffic had eased and we were able to make our way home.
These photos are from a previous visit to Cosford when Vulcan XH558 treated us to an aerial display before heading off into the distance.
6 Comments CherryPie on Oct 12th 2015
Filed under Faith Foundations, Holidays, Piran & Ljubljana 2015
Cherie’s Place – Thought for the Week
You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.
Rabindranath Tagore
10 Comments CherryPie on Oct 11th 2015
Our early morning call woke us at 4.20 am and we quickly showered and packed the last few items in our cases with a view to being outside ready for our 5.30 transfer that the Ljubljana representative had told us to expect. The room phone rang at 5 am and when I picked it up I was informed that our transfer to the airport had arrived so I replied that we would be down in a few minutes. Luckily I was already dressed but Mr C had to dress rather quickly.
When we arrived in reception we were greeted, as expected by Damjan who had been our rep in Piran. We found out that the pick up time was 5.00 am and that we had been given the wrong time!! We felt rather guilty for keeping him waiting even though it wasn’t our fault.
When we arrived at the airport it was chaotic and heaving with people who were in a queue of sorts winding its way to the check in desks. Someone in the queue quipped, ‘This isn’t a queue it is a mess’ which caused laughter all round. And one of the locals said ‘I am not sure what is going on today, I travel from here regularly and it is not usually like this on a Wednesday’. Looking at the flight board there were four flights due out within in half an hour of each other which would explain why there were so many people in the small terminal.
The people who had traveled with us on the transfer bus thought they were rather clever jumping the queue even though they had annoyed others in doing so. It didn’t save them much time as we arrived at the check in desk only a few minutes after them. At the check in desk we could tell by the body language and facial expressions of the lady who was checking us in that there was some sort of problem. She made a phone call and then advised us that there was an admin problem and that and there was nobody available to help her sort it out. She directed us to the help desk on the other side of the terminal and advised us that, when the problem had been sorted, we should go straight back to her rather than rejoin the queue.
When we arrived at the help desk there were two advisers, each with queues that were frustratingly long, and time was running out. We each stood in different queues to see who got there first. Eventually Mr C arrived at the front of his queue just 30 minutes before the plane was due to fly. The lady behind the desk said, ‘Oh I can see what the problem is, Manchester have used the inbound code for the outbound flight’. She added that my ticket was OK and then typed in a few things and gave us a new code to quote at the check in desk.
I handed my passport to Mr C, along with the flight tickets and we made our way back to the check in desk. We stood to one side and the lady at the check in desk exclaimed, ‘Oh you are back!’ and then to the customer she was currently serving ‘Excuse me this is urgent!!’ At this point Mr C turned to me and said ‘You will need your passport’ to which I replied ‘I gave it to you’. He was adamant that I hadn’t and sent me back to the help desk to see if I had left it there. He had me doubting myself so I went back to check…
At this point my stress levels were extremely high. Missing a flight is one thing but losing a passport takes it to another level. Of course my passport wasn’t at the help desk and when I returned, Mr C he was holding it apologetically in his hand along with the boarding passes. By this time it was only twenty minutes until take off and we were told to go through the priority security lane. Even that was slow; we encountered two Americans with all sorts of items that are banned in hand luggage. Eventually we got through and made our way to the boarding gate where we were greeted with an apology, ‘Sorry you have had problems checking in’. I was surprised that, with so little time left, that we were not the last people to board the plane. As we passed the couple who had jumped the queue earlier they advised they had had their breakfast confiscated due to it containing a large bottle of water. They seemed to think that they were unlucky and that it was a random check and I didn’t bother to point out that bottled water is one of the things checked for when going through the scanner.
We took off almost immediately after we boarded the plane and everything went smoothly after that. On arrival in the UK I went through a digital scanner for the first time. As I was pondering on the fact that I was not wearing glasses in my passport photo one of the border security guards passed by and advised me to take my glasses off for that reason. This meant I couldn’t see a thing as I was standing looking at the screen for what seemed like a very long time. Eventually the screen changed colour (it wasn’t red) so I stepped forward cautiously because I couldn’t see if the barrier was open or closed. It was open and I hastily put my glasses back on so that I could see what I was doing. Our luggage had also made it to the plane on time and once we had retrieved it, we went to find our car which was waiting for us at the Meet and Greet car park allowing us to make our way home without any delays.
10 Comments CherryPie on Oct 10th 2015
After breakfast, which was even more chaotic than it had been the previous two mornings, we set off towards the Museum of Contemporary History. On the way we stopped off at one of the bookshops that we had visited the previous day so that I could buy a book about the Crusades and Crusader Knights that I had seen the previous day. Purchase complete, we continued on our way to the museum. Our route took us through Tivoli Park where the trees were just beginning to show the first signs of autumn colours. As we made our way through the park, a red squirrel scampered up to me and paused a couple of inches away from my foot. I stopped walking and stood perfectly still so I didn’t scare him, he paused for a few seconds then scampered from the pathway. He then turned to look at me and paused a while longer before making his way up a nearby tree. It was a special experience which left me feeling humble and privileged.
The museum gives an excellent account of the recent history and shaping of Slovenia (as it has become today). One of the ground floor wings housed a temporary exhibition entitled ‘Coming Home’. It gave personal accounts of Slovenians who had returned home after being scattered to various battlefields, prisons and expulsion camps during 20th century wars. I found the exhibition moving and poignant. After spending some time in the museum, we made our way back to town to find a cafe for lunch. We settled on a suitable place and I chose Mozzarella and Truffle toast. It was delicious!! I need to explain that what the Slovenians describe as toast is a cross between French toast and an English toastie. It is something you need to experience for yourself to see how good it is 
After lunch we visited that National History Museum where I was able to test my skills in identifying some of the exhibits that were only labelled in Slovenian. Afterwards we made our way back to the hotel in order to pack our bags ready for 5.30am transfer to the airport the following morning. Bags packed, we freshened up and made our way back into town for dinner, along the way sitting for a pre-dinner drink. As we left the hotel we booked an early morning call for 4.20am… The hotel receptionist pulled and face and said, ‘That is brutal’.
Our choice of venue provided the meal of the week with good food and excellent service. I chose comfit of duck, mashed potatoes and fresh veg with strawberry juice as my main course. This was followed up with a ’shared’ dessert of chocolate cake with orange and almonds. The meal was accompanied by a local wine which was very palatable, as all the local wines are.
After dinner we stopped for a drink in a riverside bar before making our way back to our hotel for an early night!
10 Comments CherryPie on Oct 9th 2015
After breakfast we visited St Nicholas’ Cathedral and the Franciscan Church of the Annunciation. Both were decorated in a similar style inside. After these visits we went to look inside the Galerija Emporium department store to look at the Art Deco features of the building. There was not much to be seen on the inside so we left slightly disappointed and went on to visited some bookshops before going for a walk past the opera house and modern art gallery. We noticed a distinctive Austrian style chalet which we went to investigate. When we got closer we found it was the American embassy. As there were police and security guards outside I decided not to chance taking a photograph.
We walked on and this took us past other embassies although we did not see the British one. By now it was lunch time and I suggested that we might be walking the wrong way to get back into town. Mr C wasn’t convinced so he got the map out to establish where we were. One of the locals stopped and asked if we needed help then pointed us in the right direction (thank you). The walk back to town took us past the Roman Wall which I had wanted to see anyway.
As part of the Ljubljana package, we had been given a voucher for a free boat ride so after lunch we made our way down to the mooring point for the panoramic boat ride. As we got on board we were offered drinks and everyone remained quiet until I said that I would like a glass of bubbly. It would have been rude not to 
During the cruise we were informed that the boat had been fully hand built in Lake Bled and that it had taken eighteen months to build. We were provided with an interesting commentary as we sailed along
After alighting the boat, we stopped off at a highly recommended ice cream outlet and chose our preferred flavour, mine being blueberry sorbet and fig and walnut ice cream. We were expecting one scoop of each flavour but we were given two of each. Very decadent!! Once back in the hotel we put our feet up for a well earned rest before returning to town for our evening meal.
10 Comments CherryPie on Oct 7th 2015
After such an early start the previous day we had a lie-in to recover. It was fairly chaotic when we arrived for breakfast due to the volume of people. The breakfast itself was a standard chain hotel continental breakfast.
After breakfast we took the funicular to Ljubljana Castle where we spent the whole day. On arrival we joined a guided tour with costumed actors. The guide was very good and actors appeared at certain places along the route to play out and emphasize the history. It was all very well done. One of the things we learned was about the well and the water wheel. Originally the well had been 100 feet deep but now it was only half that depth because ammunition from the WWII was dumped in it. When the castle was used as a prison the prisoners had to walk inside the wheel (like a hamster) for ten minutes at a time to draw up water from the well. They were blindfolded whilst doing so to prevent dizziness. This gave them their daily exercise as well as performing a useful function.
Within the castle, there is a Museum of Slovenian History which we found very interesting and it helped us choose which other museums we might visit whilst we were staying in Ljubljana.
For lunch I tried to order a sparkling wine to go with a slice of Prikmurska Givanica. I showed the waiter the picture of the drink in the menu but, even so, what arrived was something entirely different! It was in a tumbler full of ice and it tasted vaguely of rum…
We walked around the outside of the castle walls and saw the Alps in the distance, glowing in the late afternoon sunshine. When we had finished our walk we caught the funicular back down to ground level and made our way back to the hotel where we quickly freshened up before going out for dinner. We chose another restaurant along the riverside but picked a table next to the restaurant that was well covered in case of a repeat performance of rain. I chose salmon with roasted veg which was very nice. Afterwards we stopped of in one of the cafe bars for a nightcap before making our way back to the hotel.
12 Comments CherryPie on Oct 6th 2015
