Portsmouth and the rest

Good evening/good morning/good afternoon to our blog friends & family:

Happy Valentine's Day for the 14th!  Happy birthday Jackson Smith!!  "-)

Gosport was the touring of a submarine that was de-commissioned in 1973 and now serves as a tourist attraction that you go aboard and see what it was like for the sailors to serve in World War 2.  It was cramped conditions, smelly with lots of buttons, knobs, valves, gauges, pipes and I take my hat off for those who served in the war on a submarine.  Our tour guide is an ex-seaman who sailed on this particular submarine and told us stories of his time on the sub and you can only imagine the sheer terror as they were fired upon.

HMS Alliance

As well as seeing the inside of the sub, our tour guide had also given us an idea what it must have been like on the sub with the engines going.  2 diesel engines running the sub, and he had a recording of just 1 engine running - I couldn't imagine what it must have sounded like with 2 because just 1 was loud enough.  The other recording was to your "dive stations", 2 blows on the horn and you were running.  Hands had to be out of your pockets as if you were bumped by something and you put your hands out mistakingly on a valve that let air out - your fellow crew members would be in danger.  So to stop the hands in the pockets, all crew wore shorts with sewn up pockets to stop any "man made danger".

65 crew on board - with not enough beds for even half the crew, if you wern't on duty you just found a place to curl up and sleep the best you could.  There was no "this is my bed" as the change over of crew just bunked into a bed that was available.  You slept in your gear 24/7 - eventually you would be covered in lice, worms etc....  No showers, everyone smelt of sweat, diesel and wot-not's....  Only when you got home on leave, were you able to have a shower and everyone knew you were home because you stunk like diesel. 

Jeff's birthday was celebrated in style in Portsmouth.  We were actually going to the science museum not far from here, but when we saw inside, we changed our minds and drove on to Portsmouth - we all agreed that Scienceworks in Williamstown was much better for hands on and price.

Had no idea what this building was, but looked amazing anyway



Fountain dedicated to Queen Elizabeth for her silver jubilee



HMS Victory at the port of Portsmouth

This ship was amazing to see in person.  We walked around this wharf area without a ticket and went into different boatsheds to see various museum pieces so it was a nice "free" day of viewing.  There were a couple of navy ships in dock as well, and was funny to see what some of the sailors get up to while docked in.  We saw two of them re-painting the ship!  In the only fashionable colour of GREY..

After we finished here, we went to see a Model Village along the foreshore which looked and felt like St Kilda where Luna Park is.  It felt just like home.  The model village was quite quaint - chloe enjoyed it but was nothing like Babbacombe Model Village Jeff & I went to in 1999, but still something cheap to see.

Model village - church & graveyard

Town centre

We had a play in the park, a lovely soft serve ice-cream, a walk on the pebble beach, visited an amusement park and by the time we had done that, it was 430pm. 

The lake across from the park - must be amazing in summer!

Jeff said that he had a wonderful day with his family, but Chloe wasn't convinced that it was his birthday as his "proper" family wern't here, but he did turn 39!

Friday the 17th was a day in London - a very expensive one just on travel alone, but I left early to see the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace and this is all I saw:

It was absolutely packed!  There were about 10 people in front of me to the gates all around, I couldn't stand on anything to get higher, I couldn't move anywhere else, I stood on my tip-toes and still couldn't see jack...  So, I might buy the DVD to be able to watch it.

Jeff went on a Royal Albert Hall tour and said it was fantastic.  The tour guide had so many stories about the making of it, to the story of Queen Victoria changing the name from the Central Hall of Arts & Science to the Royal Albert Hall, that when Queen Victoria went to performances at the RAH, King Richard's face was covered as she was so upset about his death - things like that he said were great.

While Jeff was on the tour, Chloe & I walked around to the Princess Diana memorial and was really disappointed.  It showed nothing of her life really, really disappointed.

King Richard's however - totally amazing as it should be for a King who died.

On our way back to the tube, we saw a guy sitting on an old radio playing a tuba with fire coming out of the top and I said to Jeff, what the?  it was totally fascinating - he had a lead connecting somewhere to a valve and everytime he pressed it, it was letting out a ball of fire...  so cool!

Well, that's it so far - tune into the next blog as it will be from Disneyland Paris....

Love you all,

Lis, Chl & Jeff xx