Well its been a while and I'm planning to do some adventures, for the rest of the year. I am heading for Newark on the 7th to do a 'shake down' my caravan has sat all Winter, and I'm planning to go to Amsterdam in a short while, same as last year. The idea being to ensure the whole 'kit and caboodle' still works. One thing I have never mentioned on this blog before is, I am legally disabled.
Both my body and my brain no longer function 100%, I damaged my lungs because I was addicted to nicotine and paid a lot of money to give myself COPD, and around 11 years ago, I had a stroke that disabled my right side somewhat, I lost fine control functions on my right hand side, I can make big movements with my right side functions, no problem, I have problems doing the millimeter movements.
So anyway on Saturday I'm making an expedition to Newark, trying to plan it all out.
I start tomorrow, by loading my scooter into my car, I have photoed this kind of thing before but I will do it again, the point being is, when the scooter is in the car the first page of the story gets written. Newark is a historical city Newark battle.
Well the scooter is in the car on this Good Friday. All ready for the off tomorrow.
Thursday, 5 April 2012
Tuesday, 9 August 2011
Caravan to Poland Epilogue
Home again, happy but feeling really knackered.'
One last job, stow the caravan at Barrow
Only one thing I forgot was, to remove the extended mirrors.
One last job, stow the caravan at Barrow
Only one thing I forgot was, to remove the extended mirrors.
Monday, 8 August 2011
Caravan to England Monday
Stowed scooter and hitched caravan, in torrential rain, the sight of Lisa holding an umbrella, sheltering herself and Angie, whilst Angie wound the caravan legs up, with the pair of them giggling stays with me, wished I had of had the presence of mind to get a photo.
Set off for Hoek van Holland to sail on the Stena line ferry to Harwich. I am now typing this live whilst sailing on the north sea. The ship has satellite technology which enables blogging afloat!
The beautiful ship that bought us back to England
Set off for Hoek van Holland to sail on the Stena line ferry to Harwich. I am now typing this live whilst sailing on the north sea. The ship has satellite technology which enables blogging afloat!
The beautiful ship that bought us back to England
Caravan to Holland Sunday
Stowed the scooter, hitched up. Paid the bill and hit the autobahn south west with the plan being, to stay at the very nice site I had stayed at in Arnhem, as things turned out we ended up at another camp site, more about that later.
Berlin has the equivalent of London's M25 called the Berlina Ring after a good while on that, we were directed onto the E30, by the faithful Tomtom, christened by Angie, Jeremy.
Berlin has the equivalent of London's M25 called the Berlina Ring after a good while on that, we were directed onto the E30, by the faithful Tomtom, christened by Angie, Jeremy.
Caravan in Berlin Saturday
Went with Angie and Lisa to explore Berlin and especially to see what is left of the Berlin wall.
One of the things that becomes apparent from dividing a city by a vast and terrible wall, is how silly things get, you are not even allowed to photograph the souvenirs.
Quite amazing really, now the wall has become a metaphor for the past, and is used to display metaphors.
One of the things that becomes apparent from dividing a city by a vast and terrible wall, is how silly things get, you are not even allowed to photograph the souvenirs.
Quite amazing really, now the wall has become a metaphor for the past, and is used to display metaphors.
It's 50 years ago that the wall was built, Spiegel the German newspaper have done a feature on it. A tunnel builders story.
Saturday, 6 August 2011
Caravan in Berlin Friday
Woke up about half six and of course no internet, which meant no BBC radio 4 :( So at seven I went to reception to buy more Internets and was told I would have to wait 'till eight when the boss came in, back to the caravan for another cup of tea, then tried again this time I met the boss and he sold me two hours of 'Net time but this time, this meant separate slips of paper for two separate hours, ah the penny has dropped.
At last I could listen to radio 4 and catch up with the news, and what news! America's credit rating has dropped!!!! The world has had the same economic system since Breton Woods in 1971 when America ditched the gold standard and instead made the dollar the reserve currency for the world, another name for this is 'the fiat currency', this function used to be performed by the Pound Sterling, but since WWII meant that, the UK was no longer the world economic power it once was, it no longer operated as reserve currency. Muddling along using gold as fiat currency, is a bit cumbersome because gold is rather heavy. So countries started to use the Dollar as a trading currency instead, this worked fine whilst America had a healthy trade balance. The world's commodities are bought and sold in dollars, wheat, oil, etc, etc. If the dollar was devalued, the world's drillers and farmers would be paid less. Which is why America and the rest of world, need a new fiat currency.
Once China became the world's manufacturing giant, and America was in the situation of importing much more than it was exporting, the pressure to devalue the Dollar grew and grows still.
Many people are suggesting a basket of world currencies, could be the reserve currency, this would work fine, except when it comes to people who use the Euro. It was very noticeable how cheap things were in Poland, except when it came to road fuel, road fuel in Germany is cheaper than road fuel in Poland or the UK, this is easily achievable if a currency can be revalued up or down to balance it's economy in terms of exports and imports.
This is the problem with countries within the Euro zone, they cannot revalue their currencies because they all use the same currency.
Using gold as a fiat currency is a guard against inflation, because if you only print the number of bank notes in circulation in relation to the amount of gold a nation holds, you don't risk, adding 0's to denominations, or printing lots more notes to cure economic problems, gold keeps things financially disciplined.
Economic behaviour that causes inflation, such as can be seen in Germany before WW11 causes massive social damage.
Reading about the Weimar Republic and the massive social damage that the hyper inflation caused, explains why the German people elected someone like Hitler.
(end of international economics rant and back to travel blog)
So anyway once the two hours had been used up with my usage, Lisa and Angie's use, I went back to reception to buy more 'Net time, this time I explained to the manager how I had mistakenly bought a ten hour block, not knowing it could not be split and he kindly gave me 4 separate hours to compensate me, and just to make the point - I have created most of this content using them!
So after tea and breakfast we set off for the centre of Berlin to explore, we have taken many photos of Berlin which will be uploaded to this blog later on, then this blog will be given a polish.
At last I could listen to radio 4 and catch up with the news, and what news! America's credit rating has dropped!!!! The world has had the same economic system since Breton Woods in 1971 when America ditched the gold standard and instead made the dollar the reserve currency for the world, another name for this is 'the fiat currency', this function used to be performed by the Pound Sterling, but since WWII meant that, the UK was no longer the world economic power it once was, it no longer operated as reserve currency. Muddling along using gold as fiat currency, is a bit cumbersome because gold is rather heavy. So countries started to use the Dollar as a trading currency instead, this worked fine whilst America had a healthy trade balance. The world's commodities are bought and sold in dollars, wheat, oil, etc, etc. If the dollar was devalued, the world's drillers and farmers would be paid less. Which is why America and the rest of world, need a new fiat currency.
Once China became the world's manufacturing giant, and America was in the situation of importing much more than it was exporting, the pressure to devalue the Dollar grew and grows still.
Many people are suggesting a basket of world currencies, could be the reserve currency, this would work fine, except when it comes to people who use the Euro. It was very noticeable how cheap things were in Poland, except when it came to road fuel, road fuel in Germany is cheaper than road fuel in Poland or the UK, this is easily achievable if a currency can be revalued up or down to balance it's economy in terms of exports and imports.
This is the problem with countries within the Euro zone, they cannot revalue their currencies because they all use the same currency.
Using gold as a fiat currency is a guard against inflation, because if you only print the number of bank notes in circulation in relation to the amount of gold a nation holds, you don't risk, adding 0's to denominations, or printing lots more notes to cure economic problems, gold keeps things financially disciplined.
Economic behaviour that causes inflation, such as can be seen in Germany before WW11 causes massive social damage.
Reading about the Weimar Republic and the massive social damage that the hyper inflation caused, explains why the German people elected someone like Hitler.
(end of international economics rant and back to travel blog)
So anyway once the two hours had been used up with my usage, Lisa and Angie's use, I went back to reception to buy more 'Net time, this time I explained to the manager how I had mistakenly bought a ten hour block, not knowing it could not be split and he kindly gave me 4 separate hours to compensate me, and just to make the point - I have created most of this content using them!
So after tea and breakfast we set off for the centre of Berlin to explore, we have taken many photos of Berlin which will be uploaded to this blog later on, then this blog will be given a polish.
Caravan to Berlin Thursday
Set off for the long stretch north west to Berlin arrived 6ish, dropped the legs - home again!
The site is on an island under the flight path of Berlin airport. It also has a hotel so Lisa and Angie can have some comfort and I do not have sleep in the car.
The internet arrangements of this site seem a bit convoluted, not like the campsite in Dresden which had really fat pipes and a log in system that threw me.
Basically when we arrived, the site attendant told me to get the caravan parked up then come back and he would sort out the WiFi for me. When I returned he told me that the 'Net is one Euro per hour, so thinking about ten hours would be enough connection time we would need for the whole of the two nights we would be staying at the campsite, he gave a bit of a funny look, took my ten Euros then returned bearing a slip of paper, with the login letters and password, then he hit me with it, the time was to be used up all in one go!! As by then it was around seven in the evening and I was dog tired from the long drive up from Krakow when it got to around 11 I was ready for bed and had wasted five Euros.
Sitting there getting the 'Net sorted, I heard a strange sound that made me jump. Opened the door looked around nothing, trapped my thumb in the hinge, ouch. Later on the same odd sound happened again, this time I had a look around, noticed a young lad on a bike were they throwing things at me I thought? Then I looked down and saw loads of acorns on the ground, ah mystery solved, the caravan was parked under an oak tree and the sound was caused by acorns hitting the roof of the caravan.
The site is on an island under the flight path of Berlin airport. It also has a hotel so Lisa and Angie can have some comfort and I do not have sleep in the car.
The internet arrangements of this site seem a bit convoluted, not like the campsite in Dresden which had really fat pipes and a log in system that threw me.
Basically when we arrived, the site attendant told me to get the caravan parked up then come back and he would sort out the WiFi for me. When I returned he told me that the 'Net is one Euro per hour, so thinking about ten hours would be enough connection time we would need for the whole of the two nights we would be staying at the campsite, he gave a bit of a funny look, took my ten Euros then returned bearing a slip of paper, with the login letters and password, then he hit me with it, the time was to be used up all in one go!! As by then it was around seven in the evening and I was dog tired from the long drive up from Krakow when it got to around 11 I was ready for bed and had wasted five Euros.
Sitting there getting the 'Net sorted, I heard a strange sound that made me jump. Opened the door looked around nothing, trapped my thumb in the hinge, ouch. Later on the same odd sound happened again, this time I had a look around, noticed a young lad on a bike were they throwing things at me I thought? Then I looked down and saw loads of acorns on the ground, ah mystery solved, the caravan was parked under an oak tree and the sound was caused by acorns hitting the roof of the caravan.
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