Tag Archives: van

Ice Cream in Winter — By The Sea?

When Mark and I met in London at the beginning of 1994, I commented one afternoon on an activity that the Brits engaged in — quite regularly — that I considered to be quite odd behaviour given the weather.

That activity? Eating ice cream — LOTS of it — usually in cone form — in the dead of winter. No matter how icy the temperatures were, we saw people in every city we visited perched on a ledge eating an ice cream cone or sitting on a bench at the seaside doing the same thing. There might be ice on the roads, occasionally even a smattering of snow, but there they sat, bundled up to the eyeballs and eating an ice cream.

What I found even odder, and sweetly funny, were the people who would drive to the seaside to purchase their ice cream from a mobile van or a beachside hut and then sit in their car with the heater running as they gobbled it down whilst watching the icy waves crashing upon the seashore.

Even on the coldest winter day, British people seem to love to go to the seaside to sit in their heated cars, staring at the crashing waves in freezing temperatures, and eat an ice cream cone.

The lighthouse at Whitley Bay, a seaside town near Newcastle UK, on a stormy winter day.

So here we were on a wintery day two years ago in the north of England, at Whitley Bay on the seacoast just outside of Newcastle. The wind was so high that afternoon that it knocked me sideways when I got out of our own vehicle! The second picture that is just of the seaside and the lighthouse is a more accurate idea of how bleak it was that day. Absolutely no one was game to sit on those seaside benches to watch the waves on that particular afternoon. Brrr!!!

But back in the parking lot — yes — the Mr. Whippy van was doing a good business. The lot near the lighthouse was full of people happy to sit with their engines running and the heater on as they ate their ice cream and watched the crashing surf beyond. Crazy, eh? Or just sweetly eccentric perhaps.

Re-Settling Into Australia: Stage One — New Wheels!

My posts have been a bit thin lately because we were recovering from jet lag at the beach in Sydney, then driving from Sydney to Melbourne over a 2 day period, and now we are in the beginning stages of settling into life in Australia again.

Stage One — New Wheels. We purchased Mark’s preferred vehicle today — a Volkswagon Transporter T5. As we took the test drive, I was slightly nervous because it felt simply HUGE after the much smaller Ford Transit Connect that we had enjoyed so much in Europe. Ah well — I’ll cope. And he’ll be the one driving it 99% of the time. I’d prefer to walk, take a tram, or (perhaps!) even buy a new bike and start wheeling around whatever neighbourhood we settle into with my lovely French wicker basket on the front handlebars.

Now isn’t this the most thrilling post you have ever read from me? (smirk!)

Back soon with some travel pics and articles later in the week — really!

Prepping For A Winter In Europe

Just in case, mind you — just in case we can’t find steel cut porridge oats or my particular brand of shampoo or Mark’s all important wholefoods peanut butter in France or Italy or wherever we might be in Europe, we have done a bit (!) of shopping and placed almost all of it into stackable snap lid bins. Add a bicycle, a ladder, a few wooden boxes of tools, all of our luggage, clothing on hangers, and our bedding (we do love our own Egyptian cotton bed linens and down filled pillows) — and we are going to have a very full van! But now we can head back across the English Channel on the ferry this weekend in a much more organized manner.

Snap lid bins to help us organise what we travel with

Mark has spent part of the last 2 days lining the back of the newly purchased diesel van with a hardboard-plywood decking followed by new carpeting. That should make everything quieter and easier to load in and out of the back in the months to come.

Back of the van lined and carpeted and ready for travel

I’ve finally broken down and purchased an iPhone as a work tool whilst travelling and writing/photographing. And until I explored the APPS area of the iTunes store, I really had no idea how comprehensive the programs on offer were. I have spent a couple of days loading my selection onto the phone — so I’m ready to go.

Selection of APPS for iPhone

Need to run — my label-maker is about to get a workout!

A Wanderful Life

The Neverending Journey

Tag Archives: van

Ice Cream in Winter — By The Sea?

Re-Settling Into Australia: Stage One — New Wheels!

Prepping For A Winter In Europe