Watch hunting with empty pockets.

When I paid £75 for a return flight to Geneva I didn’t factor in that a pizza over there was £27 and a pint £11.So what started off as a cheap trip didn’t stay that way but then it was a watch tour and generally looking at things that actually I couldn't afford. Nothing new there’s I do that most days.

Anyway the valley north of Geneva is called the vallee de joux and is the home of many famous Swiss watch manufacturers so I thought I would take a look around and squeeze in a train ride to a rainy Annecy.

Got the bus from the airport and had a lovely air bnb which I booked literally the night before at a discounted price and it was right by the castle in the old town in an ancient building up 77 stairs. 77 down too which was no fun if I forgot something.

I just adore wandering a town with my camera and it’s funny how you get used to a place in a couple of days as if you have lived there for years knowing the shortcuts, shops and places you can get a good calzone.

Don’t ever visit Geneva and leave without a look around the Patek Philippe museum. It’s full of gems. Three floors of tiny mechanical masterpieces some for the wrist some for the pocket. All beautiful things.

So I wandered about with one of my vintage wind up Longines on and felt quite at home.

Can we talk about Rodri

It was 8.50.The cut off for applications for the 2023 European cup final was at 9pm.Would I be given a £600 ticket? Would I get battered on match day and never be seen again?I pressed apply.

The rest is history and remiss of me not to tell about it but here it is.The best 6 days of my life.

Pegasus airline turned out to be a bit of a shambles but threw me alongside one of the funniest people I’ve ever met who as I found out later was actually the Queen of Burnage and as we approached Istanbul we had to cuddle the empty mini bottles together so they didn’t go flying themselves all over the plane.

The chaos continued in the Taxi into town. I took three taxi rides during my stay each one thoroughly dangerous so much so it wasn’t funny.

In one piece just at sunset I arrived at just the best accommodation in Europe.

Overlooking and quite literally too the Sokollu Mehmed Pasa Camii Mosque.

I had booked this with care as I had fallen in love with the pictures online and boy oh boy did it not disappoint. Abuzer and Nur…the owners were on floor one and on arrival I was sat down and fed royally. Tea was made and conversation via google translate was free and easy, very easy with these two gorgeous human beings and then it was time and I’ll never forget the view as I entered the flat on floor three with my own huge balcony overlooking the floodlit Mosque 15 feet away.

Two days wandering, looking, photographying and eating Turkish delight followed. Then it was Saturday and City were in the European Cup final.

I’d ended up with a £160 ticket and i’ll be brief here as the day, result aside was a mess ending up with a walk through Istanbul at 4am…if my mam knew the motorways I had to cross and dodgy areas I went through she would be livid..It was like that film “the Warriors” but City had won the cup. I actually missed the goal but as I found a kebab house at the bottom of the street and had a beer Gillingham at Wembley seemed a long way away.

Two extra days, one a ferry trip to Asia and it was back home.

A few paragraphs tell a tiny slice of those 6 days. It was memorable. But we should talk about Rodri. He scored in Istanbul

Oh to be at Beamish on your day off!

One of the few upsides to being your own boss is that largely you can do what you want.
So when i turned 60 (no he isn’t,he can’t be) I decided to work a bit less..20% less through the week and no weekends.
My 20% off was today and commenced with a lie in and then bacon sandwiches which were only just plural as the problem was rasher numbers as in 4.
I lay one slice out and cautiously spread just enough special sauce and positioned 3 well burnt rashes on it two big side facing left,one, in the middle facing right as you do.
Perfect. So leaving a problematical single bit. Clever boy he cut one slice in half and folded the slice of loveliness in two and I was in double figures Sarnie speaking.
Then it was off to Beamish.
I visited there just a few weeks ago and looked for pictures and though I took some I wasn’t happy with many but this week I was seeing large and clear through my Fuji again with the 35 but a zoom is coming soon.
What a place Beamish is.
Imagine the vision of its creator Frank Atkinson to have stood on that spot with his vision in his head.He could not have imagined what is there now.
Brilliant and £15.50 yearly membership for old fogeys like me.

Until next week then Beamish.

Russian Salad and Fuji’s in Barcelona.

It was supposed to be a cheap two days in Warsaw but that was given the the thumbs down by Connie “I want to go to Barcelona”and a quick shout upstairs to our Sarah made it 3 for 4 nights and the most expensive 4 nights I’ve ever had.

Its not that the place was expensive not like say Amsterdam where a tenner a pint was normal but the food was so nice we just ate and ate and ate mostly Russian salad so much so that I consider myself quite an authority on it right now especially on the ones that had garden peas in them and Gaudi of course whose work my wife loved and I didn’t love as much but I must admit that stepping out of the downpour and into the light of the Sagrada Familia was something I will never forget even though it cost €100 to get in there but book online as the ques were as long as an Ederson goal kick.

Moaning too much but really going abroad is for taking pictures.Sure nice wine and food but essentially it is about being free to make pictures. Barcelona was a Fuji trip with the X70 which I took out largely at night and a XT-20 with an 18-55 zoom. I was trying to get my hands on a 1.4 23mm but couldn’t get one in time and I still miss my big Nikon on trips as I can use it blindfolded something I will never be able to say about a Fuji but they are smaller and less obtrusive when in the street and the teeny X70 is a joy.

Here are a few from the four days two of which were sunny two rain and thunderstorms. What a place it is with its old town streets right next to ten beaches laid back style and amazing tapas.Its flat so you can ride forever or hire an electric scooter which my wife didn’t allow me to do.Thanks Connie.

If you do go there and head to the pubs in the Gothic quarter you will see D.Silva is better than Messi scrawled on blackboards in pubs..it was me.

Dalemain Car Show in the rain...Heavy rain...Persistent Heavy Rain....ALL DAY TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS

I first got my GTV 17 years ago, the latest in a long line of Alfas I’ve owned.

In all that long time it, not she, has never missed a beat. Regular cam belt changes and servicing has been repaid with fault free performance from day one until now.

My wife ran it for many years but as she got older she got smaller and ended up having difficulty seeing over the wheel so I bought her an open-top Micra and the GTV was garaged from then on for the winter months and used when I could in the summer.

It gets lots of comments and I was expecting a few on my first venture into the classic car world last Sunday at the gorgeous Dalemain house in Cumbria.

I must say surrounded by 911’s, a De Lorean, Lotus Esprit and many many others it looked amazing and I was actually proud of it sitting in the rain and looking flawless too as the water covered every little scratch that my wife had put on it over the years.

The pics below are a few with a Fuji T-20 from under a brolly. The fuji isn’t weather sealed but did a fine job in recording not the lovely cars but the not so lovely weather and the effect it had on them and their owners.

DaleRain

Walking in the rain with the one I love.

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