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Marg took me along to Wild World – The Cat Stevens Story for my birthday. This was a fabulous way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
From humble beginnings as a teenager growing up in London's West End to his rise as a teen star, Wild World – The Cat Stevens Story took us on a spoken word and musical journey through Cat Stevens' battle with tuberculosis at just 19, his resulting discovery of spirituality and a near death experience drowning. Bearing an uncanny resemblance to Cat Stevens, both physically and vocally, London-born Paul Dillon, tells the incredible story from the 60’s & 70’s. From Cat’s teenage years, a tear-away at school, followed by his first song-writing contract at 17, to his first recording contract at 18 and all the way through to his current lifestyle and change of name. When in the late 70s the cult legend suddenly abandoned his musical career after a short decade of celebrated global success. We heard the unforgettable songs of Cat Stevens, performed by Paul and accompanied by his band, The Tillermen, and shared the emotion of this fabulous songwriter’s amazing story. It’s all set to the soundtrack of the amazing life performance of over 20 unforgettable songs like: ‘Moonshadow’, ‘Peace Train’, ‘Wild World’, ‘Where Do the Children Play?’, ‘So Very Young’, ‘Morning Has Broken’, ‘Father and Son’ and many more… A great birthday treat.
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Janet and I are currently in Greece. We left Calgary Wed last week and and spent a few days in Athens. For reasons unknown to us, Athens has been trashed-talked by many people but we had a great time. Our accommodation was good, we took in all the sights and enjoyed some excellent restaurants. It was a great start to our vacation. We then flew to our feature destination - Santorini. We are staying in the town of Oia, which is perched on the cliffs of an ancient volcano. The setting is incredible with stunning views of the remains of the volcano, the Agean Sea, great sunsets, lovely villas and other dwellings, blue skies and hot weather. Oia is away from the main town of Fira, which is the focal point for all the cruise ships and the masses of tourists. We are staying in a traditional Santorini 'cave' villa and look out onto the water with Fira and the cruise ships across the way. The atmosphere is very relaxing - the biggest decisions of the day are when to get up in the morning and which restaurant to select for dinner. I keep passing out in the afternoon at siesta time and will be totally comatose by the time we leave, regretably, next Sunday. The remainder of our vacation next week will be spent in Amsterdam. The main reason for the visit is to catch up with my aunt - my father's sister, who is our last remaining Dutch relative. She lives in a small town north of Amsterdam and I haven't seen her for over 20 years. No doubt, it will be an interesting visit.    Make sure you check out the additonal piece in the previous post as I had missed some of the travels in the UK.  Well our last night in Glasgow, it's on the plane to Heathrow tomorrow afternoon and straight through to Melbourne from there. Since our last communique we've done about 2500 kms and pretty much circumnavigated Scotland. After leaving Edinburgh we headed north over the Forth Road Bridge (ar'la Golden Gate Bridge size and style) to St Andrews, through Dundee and ended up at Pitllochry which is about in the center of Scotland and absolutely gorgeous. Once again we've done a million things seen about as many Castles and been into many nooks and kranny's including Balmoral Castle. Well folks that's about it, l think we're nudging about 2800 photos in the Cannon so yes there is a fair pictorial diary to be sorted on return home. After 6 weeks it's time to head home, you can only sightsee and dine out so much. Home is sounding a pretty good option! AL & Av. LEFT BELOW: Falkirk Wheel. An absolute engineering marvel to move Canal Boats between the height difference of two Canal systems. RIGHT BELOW: Dunottar Castle on East Coast south of Aberdeen pictured below. I've concluded that wherever was the most inhospitable, highest, out of the way place is where you'd build your Castle back in them there old days.   The UK bitOur trek continues and we have today arrived in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was a 7 hour drive from the Costwells North on the M6 through the Lakes Districts. Fortunately we didn't deviate off the freeway given reports of shootings that were coming through on the radio, and now we know why there were some rather high speed Police cars whizzing by us on the freeway. Anyway pleased to report that despite 12 dead and many wounded we're OK and not involved, terrible.......enough said. Well our few days in the UK were enjoyable, but personally l was happy to move on. We arrived into Bath on a long weekend along with the rest of the best of the British! So nice though it was the crowds were overwhelming. Fortunately we were staying in the superb Bath "Priory Hotel" which was an oasis, and a haven to return to. Bath is certainly well worth a visit, and the old Roman Baths a must see. However the Cotswell area was far more laid back and the country side beautiful. We stayed at a small town called Broadway in the Lygon Arms Hotel, pronouced Liggon! Having been built in the 1500's the building has to be seen to be believed. I got up a gallop getting from the bed to the bathroom, such were the floor angles, before tripping over the 18 x 6 piece of timber acting as the original entry step and cracking my head on the 5 Ft something head clearance doorway. Anyway all good stuff, but so old it was spooky, with sealed off doorways and thin narrow corridors and wooden latches still on the doors. I think it's called atmospheric, but my vote was medieval scary; and l'm sure haunted! A dinner venue was a drive to Castle Combe and dine at the local pub. Regretably there was only ONE miserable parking space left in town so l had no choice but shoe horn the Mondeo in, in true European "touch parking style", it was a fine effort but l still wince at the thought! Back touch, forward touch, l'm sure you get the picture......... agh! Anyway all in a good nights fun but my crew at home would be shaking there heads and l'll no doubt be chastised on my return, and rightly so! Visited Shakespeares birth and burial place (another bloody Cathedral) of Stratford-upon-Avon yesterday, and had our first rainy day in 4 weeks but can't complain. Currently 10.30 pm Wednesday June 2nd and now twilight in Edinburgh. Speaking of which Mrs Co-pilot had her 5 minutes of glory when we reached the center of Edinburgh CBD and road works prevented entry. The GPS WAS STUFFED, so out came the map and the navigator checked her Longs & Lats before taking temporary command, thank god this was only short lived and sanity soon returned but l'm sure the storey will go down in the annals for ever after!   Well 4 nights, 3 full days in Edinburgh and we've given it fair coverage. According to the locals we struck the best weather week of the year, with warm clear days and temps in the low 20's. You could pick the locals, they were the ones in Shorts and T Shirts, and were either white, red or two tone and nothing in between. The parks were full of people laying in the sun, however the rain did move in on Saturday afternoon with some heavy showers. This morning (Sunday)forecast is for a high of 13 so seems we did get the best of it as we head off to explore the North of Scotland, which is completely unplanned and nothing booked. We've covered most of the key attractions in Edinburgh. All in all we've enjoyed our time in Edinburgh. However the roads are terrible and they could do with better cleaning of the City. In summary, visited Edinburgh Castle, Holyrood Palace once Charles moved on, Rosslyn Chapel (Da Vinci Code fame), Royal Yacht Britainia, Botanical Gardens, Tour of the old Underground City, Scotish Parliment, the Nelson Monument, the Firth of Forth suspension bridge, (stunning and on a par with Golden Gate Bridge), walked the Royal Mile, and visited a plethora of other assorted places including the odd Scotish Bar or two!    LEFT: Entrance to Edinburgh Castle which is being setup for the Tattoo.
CENTRE: Royal Botanical Garfens, the Water Lillies were amazing, infact the whole gardens were superb and an absolute credit. We thoroughly enjoyed our time there and it was free. RIGHT: Thought we'd have a few friends on board Britainnia for dinner, Dinned onboard for Lunch and even used the Royal Loo ! |