|
Number of lost souls:
Guernsey Bellringing Trip - October 2002
A general overview of the Guernsey Bellringing Trip, which was undertaken during October 2002 follows. The usual mis-array of photos is below that.
DIARY
Date |
Synopsis |
| Sunday 20th October | Arrive in Portsmouth and Southsea with the family who are spending their half-term week decorating my brother's lounge. I'm not sticking around, although demonstrated an ability in pulling off duff-old wallpaper (not that it needed any encouragement). |
| Monday 21st October | Train journey to New Milton where I am meeting up with Frank and Margaret who live there. The three of us will be travelling to Guernsey on Wednesday, but in the meanwhile there is a chance to catch up on events and for me to "grab" their local tower at Milford on Sea. |
| Tuesday 22nd October | A chance to see New Milton, Milford on Sea and Lymington in the rain and mist as well as a chance to not see the Isle of Wight due to the aforementioned rain and mist. Rain stopped and we visited Burley which is a village in the New Forest where the wildlife roams free and there are a number of shops apparently engaged in Witchcraft. Weird. Tried to get to Hampreston practice but later discovered it was on Thursdays and not Tuesdays. Resulted in being driven around Bournemouth trying to work out how to get to a tower there (I can't read maps, a situation exacebated when it's dark and I can't see the map). Got there eventually and grabbed there as well. |
| Wednesday 23rd October | Got to Southampton airport in loads of time. Having only ever flown from Manchester before this was an experience as you probably could get Southampton airport inside Manch many times over. Flight was calm and quick. Hire car awaited us, a Ford Fiesta of unknown age (we never really understood the registration system) although it only had a couple of thousand miles on the clock. Mind you, you can't exactly drive far on Guernsey. Got to grips with the highway code in force on the island. Failed to get to grips with the fact that the map provided didn't really match the roads we were using. Found a pub and had some food and tested the local brew. Going well so far. In the evening we joined the practice night in the Forest region which was good fun. Discovered some other visitors from Cheshire were also visiting at the same time, so the practices were somewhat enlarged. |
| Thursday 24th October onwards | Discovered that the Hotel couldn't do a cooked breakfast. Rained a bit to begin with but the weather soon bucked up a lot so we started on our whistlestop decimation of Guernsey's tourist attractions. We covered the following in an order I can't quite piece back together (plus much driving around the island): Occupation Museum (excellent) Silver and Silver Smiths (interesting, but designed to extarct money from punters) Woodcarvers (as above) Herb Garden (it was shut) Strawberry Farm (a bit like the Trafford Centre only much smaller) Clockmaker (a place to buy clocks which looked excellent, although how one gets a grandfather clock through customs as hand luggage, I'm not sure) Little Chapel (a minature chapel covered in fragments of pottery) German Underground Hospital (a network of underground caves dug out by forces captured during WWII. I'm led to believe the hospital on Jersey is more informative with exhibitions etc. This was pretty minimalist) The Hollows and Cliff-Top Shop (closed when we went past during a period of being very lost) Freesias by post (flowering plants in their non-flowering stage as far as the eye can see) Military Cemetery (One of the most tranquil and peaceful places I've visited. Very moving) Pleinmont Tower (Gun tower erected during WWII in the style of 1960s office architecture) Guernsey Pearl (a place to part with signifacnt amounts of money if you're into pearls) Griffins Grotto (gift shop for the masses) Folk Museum (looked good from the outside, but it was shut for winter, despite the large number of people wandering around the gardens) Telephone Museum (shut) Model World (a small shop crammed full of model railway stuff and blokes oggling over it. One of my lesser-good finds) Guernsey Candles (make candles, watch others make candles, buy candles) Oatlands Village (another "craft" centre designed to take money from the punters) Goldsmiths (and yet more goldsmiths - a seemingly popular pastime despite gold not generally being found on the island) Guernsey Museum (quite interesting, plus an exhibition involving a number of security cameras which I sort-of understood, but couldn't see why anyone would want to exhibit it) |
PHOTOS
 |
 |
 |
 |
| This was the view from the hotel. Not bad for late October. |
German guns at the entrance of the Occupation Museum. |
Desipte the appearance, there was a daytime shot of the coast. |
There are several German towers on the Island. I like the colours in this picture. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| After all, it was a bellringing trip and there are four ringable towers on Guernsey. This is Forest, a 5.5cwt six.near the airport. |
This is St Peters in the Wood, which is west south west of the airport and is a 11cwt ten bell tower. |
This is Vale, in the north-east of Guernsey. The second six bell tower on the Island, weighing in with a 6cwt tenor. |
St Peter's in the centre of St Peter Port, an eight bell tower with a 21cwt tenor. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| This is the "Little Chapel" and is covered in thousands of pieces of broekn plates, although nobody seemed to be able to explain "why?" |
More coastline, looking towards St Peter Port. The weather was in the proces of clearing and was nicer than the grey-skies suggests. |
This is a monument which was rebuilt after WWII during which its predecessor had been dismantled by the occupying German forces. |
On Sunday 27th October a storm blew into UK waters, resulting in a few flattened trees and the entire public transport system giving up. It was nice in Guernsey, albeit 100mph winds. |
 |
 |
||
| A standing stone (with a face) in an unmarked field, although reference was made on the map. Visited in a whistlestop tour of the whole Island on Sunday 27th October 2002 | And just to prove I do take pictures of people, here are Frank and Margaret who I travelled with during the stay. |
(C) Simeon Farrington 2004