Tag Archives: florida

Summer Is My Favourite Time Of Year

Posted on by
7

When I look back at my life, it’s easy to see why I readily admit that Summer is my favourite time of year.

I grew up at the seaside, just outside of Bournemouth on the south coast of England, in a small village called Lilliput, right on the edge of Sandbanks, which is now one of the most expensive places to live in the world.

There we had a beach hut, and since my Mum didn’t work, up to the age of 15 I spent every fine day of the summer months at the beach.

Years later I spent some time in New Zealand, where I learned to Scuba Dive, and also spent a lot of time in the ocean, either diving, snorkeling or just enjoying the beach.

For 12 years I traveled extensively in the Caribbean for work, where I had the opportunity to snorkel and dive again, and more recently I spent 3 years living in South Florida, where of course the beach and ocean are right there close at hand.

It’s not just the beach life that I love of course, it’s the ability to be outside much of the time without freezing to death. 

Florida in particular gave me the opportunity to take up walking, and to work out get fit for once in my life.  

I never felt better than I did during my last 2 years in Florida, but sadly since returning to the UK the often inclement weather has limited my ability to go out and exercise as much as I would like.

So naturally I am excited about flying back to Florida tomorrow for two weeks, and look forward to enjoying some sunshine and heat, even if summer in Florida does mean frequent thunderstorms and high humidity.

This article was written on the subject of “Summer” for the blogging group GBE2.

Article Summary 13th September 2010

Posted on by
Reply

This is a list of articles that I have written on Associated Content in the last week, I hope you will take a look at them and also enjoy them.

I write on a number of topics, usually it depends on what comes into my head on any given day, so it could be a travel story, memoirs from my life, something from the daily news, or even a poem inspired by something.

This is what I have published in the last week, enjoy:

If you enjoy my writings, poetry and photographs, why not register with Associated Content, and then you can get an email every time I publish something.

Now that I am back into writing I already have a number of additional articles published.  You can also Click Here to see my latest articles, rather than wait for the next summary posting.

Article Summary 30th August 2010

Posted on by
Reply

This is a list of articles that I have written on Associated Content in the last week, I hope you will take a look at them and also enjoy them.

I write on a number of topics, usually it depends on what comes into my head on any given day, so it could be a travel story, memoirs from my life, something from the daily news, or even a poem inspired by something.

This is what I have published in the last week, enjoy:

  • When the drink driving restrictions were brought into the UK in the 1960′s, it changed the eating and drinking habits of much of the population.
  • There must be 20 or more Blue Tits that come to visit the bird feeders in our garden every day. These are just a few of them, enjoying stocking up on peanuts.
  • Whether it’s a headline in a tabloid newspaper or the subject of an article or web page, a catchy headline can often make you wonder just what the article is about. So what is this article about you might wonder?
  • For anyone interested in the exploration of Space, the Space Shuttle program or the International Space Station, a visit to the Kennedy Space Center is something that is literally out of this world.
  • This weeks edition of Offbeat News has some really weird stories, including a woman with a mortal fear of bananas, a boy with his head stuck in a toilet seat, a wizard brand of condoms, and a swarm of bees surrounding a police car.
  • Welcome aboard our tour of the Rocket Garden at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. These are some photographs of rockets from the late 1950′s and early 1960′s, the Mercury and Gemini programs.
  • Why are there so many strange bird names I wonder. I can understand the Blackbird being called as it is, because it’s a Black Bird, but why is a Robin a Robin for example.
  • This is a poem about the wonderful fall colors, the orange, red, yellow and gold hues that the Maple leaves turn in the Midwest USA as Summer comes to an end.
  • One of the most interesting parts of the Rocket Garden was the various plaques that showed the development of new technologies in engines, launch pads etc, throughout the 1960′s and up to the first Moon Landing.
  • This is an entry for Karen’s Writing Challenge: Judy’s head had become cluttered and so she left her office and headed off to the local park
  • The Rocket Garden at the Kennedy Space Center has some really unique items from the Apollo program, like an Apollo Capsule, Service Arm and White Room.
  • The visitor center at Kennedy Space Center has some maps that show the layout of Cape Canaveral, the buildings, launch pads, and landing zone etc. There is so much more there than you would have imagined.
  • In this part of the tour of Kennedy Space Center we take a tour of the launch pads, and see some of the lesser known pads used to launch unmanned missions, and also the launch viewing area.

If you enjoy my writings, poetry and photographs, why not register with Associated Content, and then you can get an email every time I publish something.

Now that I am back into writing I already have a number of additional articles published.  You can also Click Here to see my latest articles, rather than wait for the next summary posting.

Article Summary 29th March 2010

Posted on by
Reply

This is a list of articles that I have written on Associated Content in the last week.   If you enjoy Poetry, Photography and other written works, I hope you will take a look at what I have published:

If you enjoy my writings, poetry and photographs, why not register with Associated Content, and then you can get an email every time I publish something.

Christmas In Florida – Part 1

Posted on by
1

I apologise to our family and friends for taking a long time to get around to working on the photographs of our Christmas Holiday in Florida, but this is the first of several articles about our trip, Debbie and I hope you enjoy it.

Clicking on any photo will open a larger version in a new window.
Maximise the window to see the photo full size.

The Journey

We left Southampton the day before Christmas Eve, a very icy day in the South of England, and headed up to Heathrow Airport where we spent the night.  We had decided that it was better to drive up earlier, rather than risk bad weather, traffic jams and breakdowns, especially as we were flying out to Florida on Christmas Eve.   Debbie managed to get us a good deal for a night in a hotel plus parking for the duration of our trip – she is amazing at finding good deals online.

We  hadn’t been able to get direct flights to Miami from London, since Christmas is a very busy time, and the flights were almost all fully booked, and if not the remaining seats were horribly expensive.  With my only having got a job a month earlier after 3 months out of work, we had to make do with a cheaper option, and we managed to find a good connection with American Airlines changing planes in Raleigh/Durham in North Carolina, which worked out well.

Debbie was really stressed about travelling to the USA, since the last time she came into Miami she got held up for 15 hours in Immigration, but this time all went well, with the immigration officers in Raleigh waiting for her and having read her file before we arrived.    On then to Miami, which had worried us, since we wouldn’t be landing until about 9:30pm at night, then had to pick up our rental car and drive 15 miles up to Hollywood Beach where we were staying.

The flight landed on time however, and since we had already gone through immigration, we just had to pick up our bags and get a shuttle to the car rental location.  It was nice to get an upgrade to an SUV, however we did have problems with it later, but that’s another story, and we got to the motel about 11pm.

I had called the owner a few days before to tell them that we would be a little late arriving, and they left the room unlocked with the key inside.   More about the Motel later, but by now I am sure you are desperate for some pictures, so I will begin with a walk early Christmas Morning on Hollywood Beach.

Christmas Day On Hollywood Beach

The beach had quite a lot of seaweed on it from the storms of the previous day, the sky was rather ominous, and there were some good waves coming in, as we took a much needed walk along the beach after having sat on airplanes so much the day before.

There were also a lot of jellyfish washed up from the storm, which look like plastic bags.  I am not sure if they can still sting you when dead, but we weren’t about to touch them and risk it.

 This is the Motel that we were staying at, and as you can see it’s right by the beach.  It’s one of the older style Hollywood Motels, with a number of rooms above a row of shops.  No p0ol, but a great terrace where you can sit out and watch the world go by.

You can get an indication of just how many people go to the beach on Christmas Day, even when it’s cloudy, by looking at these pictures below.  You also see some rather strange sights!  I’m not sure whether all of these people were living or not, some looked remarkably like Zombies…

 

This is the view from the terrace at the Motel.  You couldn’t really ask for a place that is closer to the beach.  People even took Christmas Trees to the beach and sat around eating and drinking, and even the Lifeguard had a Santa hat on!

After a fairly quiet day of recovering after the long flight – we didn’t get to sleep until the equivalent of 5am UK time, we went out for a nice Italian meal in the evening at a restaurant on the boardwalk.

Much more to follow in the next installment of our trip to Florida.  We hope you enjoy the photos, and next it’s Boxing Day and we get to see the girls…