Holiday blog

Link to more pics   the link is now pointing to the correct album!
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28th Feb and final day

The early morning snorkel revealed the usual suspects and we both managed to get a small jelllyfish sting for our troubles!  You dont get many around here but there seemed to be an abundance of "food" around and the fish were enjoying the feast

Around the water inlet Sally spotted a starry puffer fish a Very poisonous spiked fish difficult to see in this pic but I got a good video of it follow the link above 
The rest of the day we just chilled apart from an island walk around for me to take a load of pics.  Heading for the airport in a couple of hours, the resort have given us a free late checkout normally $250 and a 2 hour extension on our dine around all inclusive package!
A great holiday at a fantastic resort!

18:30 Great send off from the resort and because we are outside the usual window of arrivals and departures which is around midday until 1600 the airport is not packed with people.  We had no queues at the check in desk not security and immigration.  One slight cock up, we booked the domestic VIP lounge instead of the international but no problems as its almost empty we just paid up front.  Lazing around now until departure at 2010.
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27th and its the 7th full day I seem to be getting my number of full days mixed up dont I?
anyway its our last full day although because we are not taking off until 2000 tomorrow the resort have kindly let us have a late checkout and given us until 1400 on the all inclusive which would normally finish at 1200
Last nights sunset looked pretty "ordinary" until this ship crossed the setting point right on Q

 Last night dinner was as usual exceptional in the Ocean Grill with sally's "sea Bass" needing a good 30 minutes to polish it off

today we went on what is described as the "sandbank picnic" 45 minutes out from the resort to literally a sandbank in the ocean

not much else here but us, but we saw a small school of dolphins cruising just off shore, nice to see

Sally has a 5 star lunch with champagne of course
Nice reef just off the sandbank and there are a couple of videos on the link at the top of the blog

We eventually leave the sandbank and cruise through a rainstorm on the way back

When we arrive back at Kurumba it hasn't even rained there!
Last day tomorrow and then back to Darley Dale who have had nearly half an inch of rain in the last 24 hours - - - hey ho
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26th 4th full day
Even though i had sun screen on yesterday i managed to burn my face a bit so it was a rather  red faced person who slid into the water on our early morning snorkel

this mornings encounters include a spiny stingray

 We had just swum back into the lagoon from the open Ocean and there this largish Spiny Stingray was obviously having dug something out of the sand and was eating it. with other fish waiting around for any discarded scraps theres a short video if you follow the link at the top of the blog 

 We had earlier encountered the smaller of these 2  Black tip reef sharks and Sally snapped the pic while i was doing the video.  The larger shark (7ft ish) then cruised up to the smaller one and they both headed off up the reef.  As I got closer with the video Sally had decided they were a bit too close to her and we collided!  If you clink on the link at the top of the blog you can see a video of the resulting collision. 
We tried the Japanese restaurant a couple of nights ago

 It used to be sandwiched between the bar and another restaurant and only seated 12.  Now its a stunning over water location and seats 20.  They have 2 chefs who seem to be in competition  with each other to see who could give the best show of juggling with  their cooking bits

Ours gave a good show of blindfolded juggling!   Silly prices though and thank goodness we are on the dine around inclusive package.
Our caterpillars are still not showing any signs of turning into butterflies but no doubt they will in time   - - - -
Tom orrow we are out for the day on a snorkelling trip that's described as a "Sandbar picnic" it should be a good day.   - - - -

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24th Feb 2nd full day
Really into the swing of getting up early to go snorkelling before breakfast, as usual the underwater visibility is very good this time of year and we see 2 sharks inside the lagoon lazily cruising around the coral blocks looking for food.
As we make our way out of the lagoon into the ocean we almost bump into another shark and are so surprised neither of us gets a pic of it

This puffer fish looks a little surprised to see us and poses before heading off under the coral

 A small shoal of Bat fish

 Neither of us remember seeing this type of fish before, it could be a juvenile and might change its colouring as it matures

 A mature Black tip reef shark heads for the deep as we get near it

 Coming up to the main water ionlet for the resort and there are always lots of fish around it

 more fish inside the structure

a hermit crab complete with shell

After snorkelling, the rest of the day is spent just lazing around and enjoying the weather, food and drinks.

 The Orchid house has had a makeover 

 Seats outside the Beach bar 

 The room boy called the "bug man" when i showed him a whole stack of these but they turned out only to be butterfly caterpillars so we left them alone

a few Gecko's are on the garden walls in the evening catching the bugs

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22nd Feb Arrived Kurumba Maldives
As you get into your 6th hour of the long haul flight to the Maldives you start to think that maybe it is just too far to go for a 1 week holiday especially when you have been a number of times before.

We finally arrived mid afternoon their time and thankfully we whizzed through the immigration and bag pick up, remembering on one visit it took us over an hour to clear immigration because a "flock" of aircraft arrived at the same time.

Outside the airport you are at least shielded from the sun as you look along the long line of reps with their signs for the various resorts.  "no Kurumba" i said to Sally but we are not worried feeling sure we will see him soon.  We hook up with one of Kurumba's sister resort reps and sure enough after a quick phone call he tells us he''s on his way on the 10 minute trip from the resort.

After a very warm welcome, the guy remembers us from a previous trip, we walk the 100 metres out to the jetty and he calls up the speed boat lined up with all the others to come alongside and pick us up.

The boat guy also remembers us and asks if we want to sit up in the cockpit rather than the air conditioned room below and in a minute or 2 we are racing across the ocean enjoying the cooling breeze with Kurumba looming larger and larger.

At the jetty there's a welcome committee of a few managers and they make a fuss as the bags are loaded onto the golf trolly that will take us to our favourite room which they have managed to slot us in to.  They press us to eat their new ice cream, "Kurumba Coconut Sorbet" as we cool ourselves with the proffered ice cold face towels.

On the short trip to the room we pass one of the bar staff and stop to exchange greetings telling him we will see him later

As we arrive at the "pool villa room" we park alongside the refrigerated golf trolly from the bar where the smiling barman is unloading our bottle of ice cool champagne and the ice bucket.

So 15 minutes after arriving in the resort we are in our pool sipping a glass of champagne

Being made to feel especially welcome when we see the effort made by the room boy

It isn't long before we wander the short distance to the "sand bar" and join the small crowd to watch the sun go down and listen to the couple of jazz musicians playing quietly in the background. 

We take dinner in 1 of the 8 restaurants being welcomed by the manager who also remembers us, before having a few drinks and crashing out for the night. - - - - - - - - - 

 - - - - - What? - - - - Long haul flights?  Nah Problem!

  

You "have it all covered" then technology and gravity take over

With our departure on holiday only a few hours away we had packed and repacked just about everything and covered everything that could go wrong - - - or so we thought

I had an e mail this morning telling me my iphone top up had been unsuccessful yesterday and the balance was almost zero.   A quick check on "the net" confirmed as i expected that the details for the payment were still pointing at a credit card which had been cancelled a couple of weeks ago.

Putting in the details of the new card took a short while then i hit the button for "top up now" - - - "Declined" popped up onto the screen - - - I don't need this on the day we are going on holiday I thought reaching for my debit card.  2 minutes later it was also "Declined" - - -

To cut a long story short the old credit card refusal stopped the new card and after talking to the card people they released it

The debit card was stopped because they thought there might have been a couple of dodgy transactions but once again after talking to them that to was released.  Once these "challenges" were resolved I thought surely nothing else is going to go wrong.! - - -

Wandering into the garden to top up the bird feeders and feed the fish i noticed the pond looked a little less clear than it did yesterday and the fish were all in the shallow bit.
It turns out that a huge piece of Lakeland slate we had as part of a waterfall had dropped into the 4ft deep end of the pond.

left hand end of the pond the green bit of slate on the top of the larger bit fell in the pond. 
As it sank it hit the pond filter hose and pump so hopefully didn't penetrate the pond liner.  I pulled out the pump to finds that it had been damaged and replaced it with a spare and here's what it looks like now.

I think it will remain like this and we will have to think of another way of camouflaging the filter box covered with that bit of pond liner once we retunr from holiday.

Hey ho fingers crossed nothing else determines to "challenge" us before we depart.

Enjoy the day

Follow this link to see  our weather website

Or this one just to see  the streaming birdfeeder cam

2 hours in a nuclear bunker & time out nearly with us

USA has red faces after a nun and 2 blokes break into a nuclear facility

Not only did they break into the facility which makes maintains and dismantles nuclear weapons they wandered around it for 2 hours before being discovered.
"Officials" reportedly said "there was never any danger of the group getting their hands on any nuclear material"
Instead of saying "this is highly embarrassing and corrective measures have already been put into place to make sure this cannot happen again!" - - -

Another example of messing around with wild animals emerges here after Snake pastor dies - - - from snake bite

The pastor Jamie Coots had been handling snakes for 20 years or so after taking literally a passage from the bible.
He had been bitten 8 times before and "had never had such a severe reaction!"
The pastor had refused medical treatment on the grounds that he believed in faith healing"
His son told the local TV station "We are going to go home, he's going to lay on the couch, he's going to hurt, he's going to pray a while and he's going to get better - - - wrong sooooo wrong! - - -

The glorious summer of 2013 of which we are now paying the price for seems to have helped our population of Butterflies according to this story.

Peppered with facts, figures and some nice pics the story relates how the butterfly "bounced back" in the UK last year.  A word of warning though appears late in the article as to how the over wintering ones will cope with the exceptionally wet winter we are having.  Only time will tell.  - - -


If you like cats this group of Cat video's     from The Metro is worth a look at

quite amusing - - -







Closer to home
Yesterday turned out not to be a Kitchen Garden project day except to marvel at the skill of Amanda and her boss completing the dry stone walling job

The building on the left is an old unused stable block and the wall runs down the driveway to our terraced houses.

Our attention turned to dotting I's and crossing T's for the fast approaching "Time out" on our Maldive holiday before having an hour in the garden testing out the swinging seats discussing what we will get up to on the trip
Without a doubt there will be some strolling along this bit to the sand bar!

Enjoy the day

Follow this link to see  our weather website

Or this one just to see  the streaming birdfeeder cam

£1m vase smashed & Can I come too?

An artist smashes a vase reportedly worth £1m in a South Florida museum in protest at the museums lack of local art on display. 

The artist Maximo Caminero was seen by a security guard to pick up the vase and when told to put it down he smashed it. 

The vase's creator is AI Weiwei go on try pronouncing that name again and getting anything but weewee! Anyway if the vase was anything like the ones in the pic he should be able to whip one out in no time at all!  - - - - - 

The gene pool almost divested itself of one specimen who would not have been sorely missed when this young Chinese man jumped into the white tiger enclosure of a Chinese zoo 

 After goading the animals by leaping around and shouting at them, one ran away but the other grabbed him only to "spit him out" obviously realising he was not a "haute cuisine" offering. 

His idea was to offer his body to the tigers in order to improve their living condidtions! - - - 

Ttrainers with power laces just like the ones in the film "Back to the future" are to be on sale soon

 In the pic are "the trainers" and Marty Macfly who appears to be checking if his "Trainer tamer" insoles are in situ. 

The story relates that a developer told the website http://solecollector.com/ "Are we gonna (sic) see power laces in 2015? To that I say yes!" Could have been a slack day at R&D but no doubt they will be a popular buy - - - 

Closer to home 

The final bit of clearing away in our winter garden project was sealed with a trip to the recycle dump yesterday.  Although now that the "decks are clear" I stood there observing the scene and started imagining what I could do next "real gardeners" will know what I mean - - - 

A friend sent me the weather splash from the Maldives yesterday in an e mail 

with snow and hurricanes? Mmmmmmm  but I rather fancy the still shot I got from a resort webcam a few minutes ago for the "real picture" 

Looking pretty good!!

With only 2 days before we set off for the Maldives the suitcases are much in evidence and as usual as soon as you open anything a cat can get into it will, little Sainsbury obliged here 

It does appear though that he's hinting at "Can I come to"
He's booked into a rather swish cattery Kool4cats which he has been to before so here's hoping he'll be ok.

The dry stone wallers are back in the Organic Garden project, now officially called "The Kitchen Garden" to finish off the wall which runs down our drive so after many years of rocks falling out of it its going to look very smart when completed.
I'm not sure if there's any work going on in the garden today but I shall offer my services If I see the girls pottering.

Enjoy the day

Follow this link to see  our weather website

Or this one just to see  the streaming birdfeeder cam

Lonely bus stops & Alpaca's in the Peaks

Here's an amusing article about Lonely bus stops 

From this dull looking bus stop with its Shaun the sheep artwork to a stunning shelter on the Cumbrian coastline the article describes in detail the locations of The beauty of the UK's loneliest bus stops.






One in particular reminded me of my Army days

The pi shows a bus driving on a Salisbury Plain range road.  The area has been used for Army training going back into the early 1800's and is normally out of bounds because its used daily by The School of Artillery who pound the impact area with shells
The abandoned village of Imber who's name is on the front of the bus used to be visited by its former occupants once a year as they held a "memorial service" in the church which was the only building not used by the Army for urban warfare training.
The closing comment in the article is interesting as the writer suggests the loneliest bus stop must surely be in a big city where people ignore each other! - - -

A couple of parents are bringing up there child Max

as a boy and a girl "so he wont grow up aggressive" Mmmmm!
The mother says she hopes he wont be teased about it when he's older.

Unsurprisingly in the pic don't you think he looks a little "confused" about the whole thing? - - -







The Australians meanwhile are having an "obesity crisis" or at least they are being told they are.

This suntanned chap will soon be too fat to carry his board down to Bondi beach and when he gets there the board will probably sink under his enormous frame.
To counter this "crisis" a huge amount of money is funding a "Get Healthy" telephone service where "residents" can be put in touch with "nutritionists and trainers to create a customised healthy eating and exercise plan" - - - I tend to favour the last line of the article once again in rubbishing the idea/initiative, "I think that that's just the way its going to be and its getting worse" - - -

Closer to home
We decided to take advantage of the sunshine yesterday and walked around the "Nine Ladies" area which is the view we get looking west from the garden

We were rewarded with some stunning views but reminded of the storm damage as well

This huge tree had obviously been blown over recently

Here is the famous Nine Ladies stone circle  we were surprised at the amount of people walking but i guess like us they were taking advantage of the sunshine

On the way back home Sally spotted this and 3 other Alpaca's in an enclosure. With their curious looking faces which appear to be smiling also looked to be enjoying the sunshine.

Once back home we pottered around the garden for a while but the clouds obscuring the sun made the temperature drop considerably and we scurried inside.

Enjoy the day

Follow this link to see  our weather website

Or this one just to see  the streaming birdfeeder cam