I was born in Lancashire, England, and if it wasn't for the constant rain, I'd probably still be there. It's a beautiful green country, and the ducks just love it :-)

My parents must have felt the same way as in l952 they left their rain gear and headed west with all the other dissatisfied "Limies", heading for Canada.  I was only five years old at the time, and we traveled on the Ocean Liner, Queen Mary.  My biggest memory is sitting on a deck chair, eating sugar coated hard candy out of a small tin with a friendly passenger, while my poor mum was downstairs, green with sea sickness.  The memories of my trip on the "Queen Mary" twelve years later are more memorable.
The Queen Mary was and still is a posh ocean liner, however it is now a tourist trap down in Long Beach, California.

The Canadian winters are very cold, and there was loads of snow for all my friends and I to have snowball fights with. I used to make snowballs for my little sister to put in our freezer, drove our mother into orbit. After a new snowfall, my friends and I would use the next door neighbors steep driveway to slide down, which would end up turning the snow into ice and didn't make the owner a happy camper, as he couldn't get his car back up the drive.

Oh, and one other memory is going to the 'plunge', as my uncle would call it. I believe it was on Bloor street. The reason I remember that place is because my uncle was a good diver, and he'd go way up to the top of the concrete diving board. He cajoled me into going up, when I got up there, I have to admit to feelings of sheer terror. The big decision was, should I let everyone know I was a bit of a coward and back down the ladder, or jump.... I chose to jump, and I shouldn't have, landed on my side... ouch... believe me that did take the wind out of me, and I'm sure the crack was heard for miles :-))

Seven years later my parents moved to the golden streets of sunny California. Some of the places that we lived in were Buena Park, that was when Knotts Berry Farm really was a farm. While living there, we would drive to Huntington Beach, where the first McDonald's opened up, when the burgers where only 25 cents. Also lived in South Pasadena, where the little-old-lady came from :-) For a short while we also lived in Whittier, and Las Vegas which was way too hot and everywhere seemed to be infested with cockroaches.

I love to travel and see new places, and feel that traveling and getting to appreciate other cultures is the fastest way to broaden a persons mind.  That makes me think of a saying " the trick is to have an open mind without letting your brains fall out".   My daughter just came back from a 3 month trip around Thailand, with so many interesting stories to tell.  She really has got the itchy feet now, and plans to do this for a few years.  It's only financially possible because she/they stay at WWOOF (Weekend Workers on Organic Farms).  The idea is that you work for your keep, usually 2-4 hrs a day.  I should get around to writing more about her travels, and I can highly recommend it to anyone in the position of being able to "pick up their bed a walk"   :-)  Stacey is off to Alaska now to work at a fish packing plant with five of her friends.  Their long distant plans are Hawaii next, then Australia.

I've been fortuanate enough to have traveled through most of Europe, England, Scotland, Wales, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Spain, also been to the Seychelles, off the coast of Africa, where I found the clear, blue/green-warm sea was one of the most beautiful sights I'd ever seen, and where I also had a shark scare, but that's another story. In America, I've been up-n-down the Pacific west coast of America, and just a bit of Alaska. While traveling, I enjoy museums, art galleries, walking along sandy beaches, watching the wild life, anything to do with the great outdoors, water of any kind, sea, lakes, streams, boats. My idea of heaven is a warm star-bright evening sitting next to a roaring open camp-fire on the beach, with a good friend for company, and as an added bonus a cut-glass with a touch of 'Hennessy Brandy', somehow a plastic cup just doesn't seem the same ;-/ Life just doesn't get much better than that.

Now I live in Redding, Shasta County (Northern California), where the weather is beautiful 9 months of the year from fall to spring. In the summer it's horrid, gets up into the 100's. So like so many other residents, I try to leave during those hot months, and spend a lot of that time over at the coast, near Orick which is about 30 miles north of Eureka. We put the RV (travel-trailer) right on the beach and it's heaven on wheels. I'll watch the fishermen that are doing the wholesale catching with these nets that are held together in a 'V' shape, and the nets funnel the fish down into a narrow point. After they get a good sized scoop of these fish that come in on each wave, when they are running, the fish that is:-)),anyway, they then dump these scooped up fish into the back of their trucks. On a good day they will fill up the whole bed of their pick-up truck.

I've heard different names for these fish, down southern California, they were called Grunion, not sure of the spelling. If it's warm enough, and the wind is down, in the evening I'll make a camp-fire outside the RV.

It's a pleasure to take my little cocker spaniel, Lydia, for a walk up and down the beach a few times. Read lots of books, fiction like D. Koonts, but many books are about things that I'm interested in, like herbal books, and last time I took my Science book, which I didn't really get into. I got an interesting book by Richard P. Feynman, the physicist that discovered it was a simple O-ring that was responsible for a gas leak that blew up the shuttle. He also won a Nobel Prize. Anyway, this guy has written a few books, and the one I enjoyed the most was "Six Easy Pieces". He was also a brilliant instructor who had the knack of making things interesting by drawing an analogy to real life. For instance, he wrote "if an apple is magnified to the size of the earth, then the atoms in the apple are approximately the size of the original apple." The book was funny too, as he was known to be a prankster. Another one of his humorous books is "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman".

For a few weeks during the summer, I usually go to visit my sister and family in Hermosa beach, and my Brother  and family in Washington State, who is in the Navy and goes out on the Nuclear Subs.

I did get the opportunity to tour one of the nuclear Submarine's that my brother was stationed on. He has been stationed on the one that was used to make the movie "Hunt for Red October".

Last summer I went to England for eight weeks, and I sure could write a book about that. :-))

Wow, are you really still reading this, you sure deserve a brownie, or should that be sympathy ;-/ And to think the heading is a 'bit' about myself, well by now you will have figured out that I tend to get carried away :-))

Oh well, I'm on a roll now so I might as well tell you a story about when I was fortunate enough to stay on a sheep farm in Scotland.
Also, it was very entertaining going to the farmers sheep-auction in scotland and the auction pub afterwards.

Ok, I know that no one can still be reading, but my fingers won't stop typing, and I can't end  this introduction without telling you a little story about going to church, for the first time in donkey's years, with my life-long friend, Irene, who immigrated from England 4 years ago.

The other is about my memorable trip over on the Ocean Liner, Queen Mary, when I was 17/18 yrs old. I'll add them as separate links.

onwards.......  :-)).
 
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