London

Plane coming into Heathrow Airport. Check out the horses successfully ignoring it.

(click on image to enlarge)

Cyprus (random pics)

Bill and Lorne on the Turkish side.
Shop window on the Greek side. Actually these are kind of clever. Dont think I could get them home though....
Transformers!

Shane would appreciate the folded paper birds in the picture above. (click to enlarge) This, by the way, was Christmas Eve.

The Cypriots like their flags. I think it is a competition...the Greeks put up a flag, the Turks put up a statue...
Competition was around a couple of millenia ago as well. these are fourth century roman mosaics. Don't worry, I will write a whole essay on this day trip!!!

On the main drag (Ledra Street) this is a tree covered in ribbons, and pictures of soldiers who went missing during the invasion back in 1974. Their memories are still fresh.

The checkpoint is just ahead. It is a border crossing in the middle of a city. The te big blue tarps up ahead are sort of hiding the damaged Ledra Palace Hotel. The 1974 "troubles" makes for quite an interesting story.

On the North side, there are plenty of nice sites to see. This was a Lusignian church which was mined for stone.
I thought this was a fitting picture. Everything is the same, but yet, a little different....

There is an awful lot to see and do on a two week trip to Cyprus, and it will take awhile to put it all into some sort of order. However, I think I can make some interesting little travel essays. I'll try to keep them short and interesting. However, most of the armour and military stuff is on my other blog.... http://southtowerarmouringguild.blogspot.com

Regards from Lefkosia.
Bill

Nice scenery from a canal boat

Please click on these images to enlarge. Above, wild ducks. Below, sheep.


The towpath is not a bicycle path. Those gates keep wheeled vehicles out of it. The bollards in front are to tie up after locking through, you are not supposed to tie up to them overnight.





The mile posts. Let me know how darned far I have to go. There is one every mile. They were removed during the war so that the invaders would not know where they were. Yeah, like invaders will be working their way up a canal at four kilometers per hour.

A stately house..
And if I ever saw a subject for a painting, this would be it up above.

Pesky little guys.
Woke us up one morning nibbling on the weeds hanging off the hull.

And two great bulls locking horns. The people didn't seem to be scared of them. I know I would have been....that was a lot of beef.

Leeds armoury still....

Me and my sexy love o m' life, Brown Bess.

I will be doing a lot of postings regarding the Royal Armoury museum on my armouring blog. http://southtowerarmouringguild.blogspot.com

This blog will be about the city and the fun times I have in the cities I am staying in.

Leeds, England

Even walking to the armouries in Leeds is an adventure. Above is the world famous Dhalek building. I am sure it has a different name, but the locals all know it as that. Now I be looking for Dr. Who.
This canal apparently makes it as far South as Liverpool. They were dug by navvies. The name "navvy" is a diminutive of the word "navigator", specifically a person who creates a navigatable canal. Later on, they became the special group who built rail roads. Remarkable sub group...some were nearly pagan, many did not speak the language. They had their own churches, schools, and other forms of a viable society because they were always outsiders everywhere they went.
Local boy who made good. That would be the, um...the Black Prince.

Here in Yorkshire, the roads are "gates" (from the scandanavian word "gatta", a thoroughfare, the gates are "bars", (they bar the way), the bars of course are pubs. Squares are numbered around the square, however they often infil the public square with buildings, with alleyways called snicketts (from the sound of the hobnails on the paving stones) and ginnels (you ginnel around in behind the pub to find the lav, mate.) They call this the English language without so much as batting an eye. There are some streets you find everywhere....Water street, wharf street, market square, and there always seems to be a "Boar Street".
A random street scape in Leeds.
And a pretty building on Boar street.
The Dhalek building can be seen from half the city.
as we walk up to "Brewer's Wharf". I think the pile of stuff in the distance is a statue of pile of barley stalks.
though your guess is as good as mine.
The walk along the canal is very pretty, and occasionally there is a lovely little footbridge.
The signs tell you where to go. The top sign makes one think.
So you walk past the lovely little canal boats. These are "narrow boats".
And a pretty coal fire on board seems to imply a coziness which is quite at odds with the damp +2 degrees outside.
At last we get to the museum. It all used to be in London, but hey, they have enough stuff down south, its time the north gets a piece of the pie. This museum of course is the whole reason I am here in Leeds at all. Well, that and the fish and chips....
Benches with the trade skills and armour names on them. And a luverly bronze 6 pounder in back.
And we have made it. The most magical place in the city. Maybe even in the riding. I decided to just start at the top and work my way down. Went through two complete sets of batteries today....expect the same tomorrow. The Royal Armoury Tower of London Exhibit in Leeds, England! Oh my!

Malta

In no particular order.... The above picture is of our hotel room. Pretty swank! Below is all that is left of Hal Far airfield. A lot of Canadians fought and died during WWII flying out of this airfield.
Below is a picture of the tent city of migrants encamped on the old runways. Not a prison, they are free to come and go. But it is a bit of a blot on the landscape. The migrants are all illegals, and they all want desperately to work and have a good life, and they just can't. There is simply not enough work to go around. It is a problem. One that most people around here don't know how to solve.

Below is a picture of Republic Street at dusk...just as the Christmas lights came on. they go way off into the distance. Marvelous!


A Maltese bus. A leyland from 1956. The interior is fitted out in Mahogany and that stuff they used to make countertops out of during the fifties and sixties. It is the owner's pride and joy, the coachwork just gleams. Rides like a truck though!

A mall in Paceville has a walk of fame. This is the handprint of Allan Shaw, a crewmember of the USS Ohio. I recommend googling the story of the USS Ohio...its QUITE a story!

Looking down from my balcony, seven stories below is this old basement on the beach. Who knows...it "might" have been a gun emplacement, or it "might" have been a place where the owner kept his fishing nets. Who knows! Nobody around here does, thats for sure!

A closeup of the above bus.


And another view from my balcony. Not as foamy in that picture as it is right now...the wind has been squalling for three days! The ocean is really nice and clear though. You can see down fourty feet in a glass bottomed boat.

London

The Elgin Marbles

Me and my new friend.


The Crystal Skull. That is to say, THE crystal skull. The magic one of legend. Its true, your feet stop hurting when you stand front of it. So it must be magic.