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Canary Islands 28th Sept to 12 Oct 2023

We arrived in Southampton  where we stayed 2 nights at the holiday Inn and did some shopping there but in the afternoon I went off to see the Air Museum of the Solent. Flying boats started in 1913 and ended in the 1950s.  From London you had to take a train to Southampton the Laker River harbours. The Solent is between this part of the coast and the Isle of White between Pourtsmith and Poole. The boat makers realized that working with boats, wood and  canvas that they were skilled at and could produce the airplanes. Because airports had not been built and everywhere they needed to go had a place of smooth water. I923 the first passenger service began. In 1940 the main Spitfire factory was bombed but the machines were saved. Lord Beaverbrook  the head of supplies and munitions, insisted that they find a quick solution so they transferred the machine tools to the surrounding factories and within 5 days the parts were being produced and the planes were being assembled elsewhere.  The lead
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Oxford Folk Music Festival and visit to Oxford Transport Museum 2023

   We flew to Heathrow by El Al on 13/4/23 and took the coach to Oxford. Astrid made the booking some time ago. The purpose was to visit Brenda but she passed away, so it left a vacuum in our visit.   The folk music festival was very good and took us to many venues in Oxford where  the concerts were, at the Quaker Society which is a building in the middle of the city but when you go through to the hall there is a large colourful garden in between. The Old Fire Station has been turned into a theater with a restaurant. The third venue where  you had to book the concert was The Wall in Summertown which includes an art gallery. Other places you could arrive at causally and enter free  were at the covered market but it was very drafty and poor escustics where we sat. The library at the Westgate Shopping Centre also had a concerts but the most interesting place was the Blackwell Book Shop where you have to walk through the whole store and up old wooden steps to finally get there on the top f
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Oct 2022 Cruise to Atlantic Spain and France

  28th Sept at the crack of dawn we took a taxi to Ben Gurion Airport and with 2 hand luggage suitcases were able carry  on to  the plane.  The El Al Dream Liner jet has a very good TV and movie program so it kept most people busy during the flight. The guy next to me had been in Israel in the Irish junior soccer team that lost to Israel the night before. Astrid could look him up by the tattoos on his arms Aaron Connelly has played for Brighton/Hove for 7 years. Through Booking.com Astrid arranged a taxi to Southampton as the coach was not running at a  suitable time. Just as we got onto the highway a truck hit the back side of our wheel which burst , the hippie looking driver stopped to show his papers. Our driver a Pole named Conrad  phoned his sister Viola to take up on the journey but she hardly spoke English. Southampton I walked through the old walled city of Southampton and visited the Tudor museum there, a building so old that it is all bucked and a fortune had to be spend to r
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Trip to Hereford Hay on Wye festival 2018

  19th May 2018 we watched the wedding of Prince Harry and Megan Markle.  20th May left Israel on Easy Jet an flew into Luton where we stayed the night at Holiday Express and the next day took a coach to Oxford.  The driver stopped at High Wickem for a 2 minute smoke break and I found out that this is Buckinghamshire and has a big student population as the Buckingham University is there. Visited Brenda and Frank and walked to our rented flat and then bought enough ready food for 3 days. I always think that the English bathroom is too big and a waste of space. A great pleasure  about England is that is that it is always green and at this time of the year there are some very big trees in bloom. Oxford is a bicycle city and most people wear helmets. There is a bike hire system and you can leave the bike anywhere in the street and it has a self locking system when you sign out. Astrid was at Boswells and they gave her an out of date 10 Pound banknote and denied it was from them and we had
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Our holiday at Upton on Severn and family visit May 2020

  Our trip to England after Covid  May 2022   On Thursday 28th  we flew EL AL to Heathrow.  It was very easy as we only took 2 small suitcases and hand luggage so did not have to wait at the counter we walked straight through to security.  An organized taxi took us to Upton on Severn in Worcestershire where we stayed at the White Lion, a Pub and Inn started in Tudor day 1510 and Tudor style with hand hewn beams in the walls and ceiling.   Our room was an outside room facing the beer garden, unfortunately this is where the smokers were . We were lucky to get this as it was not available when Astrid booked initially at another B and B further away.  Astrid happened to find this cheaper with a full English breakfast. It must have just become available when she looked on Booking.Com. We got our festival tickets which were kept for us from 2 years ago.  There was a  display of concertina and accordions both as collectors items and for folk musicians mostly of Italian descent. On the way the
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Adriatic Cruise 2017

  27 May 2017 At Ben Gurion airport there was a man who had a problem getting out of passport control, he told us afterwards that every country he visits he has the same problem as his name come up as a wanted criminal has a similar name. His wife was English born but he came from Gugerat, Pakistan and his daughter was spending 3 months in Nablus as she had done a degree in Arabic and was improving her speech. 28th May stayed 2 nights at the Best Western Linton Lodge in Oxford. This was a very comfortable place with good food but the toilet was weird, there was not enough place for long feet so one had to sit diagonally on it and there was underfloor heating, so at certain hours you could not stand on the bathroom floor tiles barefoot. We had a lot of time to chat to Brenda and Frank and they took us to for lunch. From Oxford we took the coach to Bayswater in London and stayed with Minne and Lionel Fry. Wed31st May Saw the play at Lyttelton theatre "Ugly lies the bone" of
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Our travels in Israel in the Covid period

_ Tour to the Gush Etzion settlements with the SA Immigrants  Society 14 Nov2021 On the bus there we got an explanation of the history of the Etzion block which today consists of 4 kibbutzim and and towns with othe settlements combined population of 100 thousand. Today it is a bedroom villiage of Jerusalem. Between 1948 and 1967 this area was occupied by Jordan and from the Jerusalem border you could see it the landmark being a big ancient oak tree.  Today this Oak Tree is the Symbol of the Etzion Winery. In 1927 Yeminite Jewish immigrants came there, it was given the biblical name Migdal Eder but there but fled in 1929 when the Arab Riots began. This was Jewish National Fund property and in 1932 Holtman from Germany gave money to restart the settlement and so it was name after him Etz(wood) Etzion. The origenal settlement were Kfar Zion  (founded in 1943), Massuot Yitchak  (1945), Ein Tzurim  (1946) and Revadim (1947); 1948 The block was regarded as the first point to protect Jerusale
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Our trip to the Negev 2020

Visit to Boker Valley farm not much in a year without travel The Corona lockdown has meant that we have been home this time for 4 whole weeks and Astrid booked to spend 2 nights during the week at Boker Valley Farm on Tues. Wed. 27th 28th October 2020. We arrived there at 3pm taking the directions that they gave us but it would have been easier continuing on road 6 to get there as you have some very dangerous drivers in the south and it is not pleasant being overtaken on a barrier line. Still on the main Nitsana road you see a small sun shining in the distance and when we got close we realized  that this is the Ashalin solar power station.  On the way home  we drove past this and I found out that it is a white elephant and an ecological danger. Apparently when it was built in 2014 it got a 20 year contract to provide power to the Electricity Corporation cheaper than the coal power stations but by the time it came online in 2018, cheaper new gas was available from Israels gas fields in
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Japan Cruise 2018

  Japan Cruise 2018 Tuesday 25th Sept 2018  Took off from Ben Gurion at 10pm. in a brand new Dreamliner. You could smell the newness of the plastic and everyone seemed to be coughing. Every seat had a touch screen TV and the flight was 10 hours over Turkey, Uzbekistan and China. We landed in Hong Kong at the airport which was the last big project done there by the British. From HK we had a 4 hour flight to Tokyo on Cathay Pacific and the pilot had a strong South African accent, not surprising as SA Airways went bankrupt. The first thing you notice at the Tokyo airport is the toilets which have temp controlled seats and a spray for men and douche for women all with temp control. Even urinals are better designed so you don't leak on the floor.  . 27th Sept Breakfast at the hotel you can look out and see dozens of trains and you see the walkways to get you over the streets to the overhead railway or down to the metro. We walked to the fish market where we saw huge chunks of fresh tuna
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