30 bays - part 1

There is a fantastic challenge on this July in Guernsey

'30 Bays in 30 Days'

which is in aid of Les Bourgs Hospice.

The idea being that you are trying to swim every day in the sea in a 

different one of our beautiful bays and beach.

And with my new passion for sea swimming, it was a challenge that I couldn't turn down when my friend Claire asked me to join her.

July 1st, Vazon (1)

The opening group swim, think the organizers are amazed at how many people have got involved, 

upwards of 350 people

Its rather a powerful moment swimming in such a large group

July 2nd, Grand Rocque (2)

My friend Bente is over from Norway for my 40th, so we all head down to the west coast for crab, a swim and a beautiful sunset

July 3rd, Shell Beach (Herm) (3)

Gorgeous weather and a day off, so took Bente over to Herm and totally vegged out on Shell!  Water as always colder than Guernsey, but still good, know its not technically one of my 30 Bays (as wrong island), but lets not split hairs!

July 4th, Petit Bot (4)

With Bente, Claire and Emily, on way to collect another uni friend Cat from the airport,

 loved been surrounded by the towering cliffs.

July 5th,  Saints Bay (5)

Grey and miserable today, nearly didn't swim, but gave my self a stern taking too and got on with it.

Angela joined me, we had the bay to our selves apart from a lovely chatty lady from Edinburgh.  Swam the width of the bay, and the weather made it feel really wild, we were both really glad we made the effort.

selfies on the slip way at Saints Harbour

July 6th,  Havelet (6)

The morning after my 40th birthday party and the perfect hangover cure!

July 7th,  Fermain (7)

This was my local beach growing up, Angela and I walked the cliff path from town,

 another stunning day, being to get rather used to them!

and climbed down to the moorings out at the edge of the bay, 

Beautiful swim, felt and looked almost Mediterranean

Swam in to the beach to meet Claire and Emily and back again, and saw rather large jelly fish with long tentacles (swam round that!), definitely longest swim so far and definitely the best!

modelling my very fetching but very practical Guernsey wrap!

The Passionate Cocktail Bar is buzzing!

The Passion Flower in my garden is going crazy and all the bees are flocking to it and seem slight punch or should I say pollen drunk!  You find them staggering home across the patio on all fours, telling all there friends just how much they love them!!!!

Hail to the Hail!

Our biblical weather continues!

On a Saturday morning we were forecasted thunder storms, but the hail storm that arrived at the same time took as all by surprise!!!!

The stones were massive some at least 1cm across!

And then the rain that followed produced flooding in town, with fountains gushing out the drains, chaos.

Sorry cant work out how to turn this video round.....

So now we have had earthquakes, hail and floods, just need to wait for the loctus.... 

On another thought,  read last week that in some parts of France up to 80% of the grape crops have been ruined due to hail, having witnessed this, totally can understand why.  Think wine might be rather expensive next year?

OK, Hands up, who has heard of Asparagus peas?

Ok, who has heard of Asparagus peas?

Well I certainly hadn't, but when I was choosing veg seed to plant this year, I wanted to stuff that I couldn't get easily in the shops, things like golden beetroots, purple carrots, berlotti beans 

and then I found these funny looking peas the texture of a bean with 

the subtle flavour of asparagus and easy to grow. 

Sold to the women in a lot of blue!

And they are easy to grow, the deep dark red pea flowers 

mature into the strangest shape pea/bean I have ever seen

We steamed them last week with the green beans, but it was for too long and they were soggy but asparagusy!

So today they are going in a pork stir fry

Sorry about the steam!

Delicious, but have gone too far the other way, they need cooking a little bit longer next time, well it is all a bit learning curve isn't it?

For those of you who weren't in Guernsey last Friday!

Was in the Tapestry Gallery last Friday just before 1pm when what sounded like an explosion went off upstairs, the maintenance guys were charging around checking that we were all ok 

(especially worrying as we are a historic building).  

And the general consensus was that it had felt like a sonic boom!

 Like in the old days when Concord flew over head. But what had caused it?

Well alittle later we discovered it had been an earthquake, 

I mean really an EARTHQUAKE, in Guernsey!!!!

Magnitude 4.2! That's the biggest since 12 April 1933 which was 5.2.

And the epi center was just south of Jersey, but don't worry we are all ok,  

And the internet jokes were up and running in minutes!

Tower to Tower

Today was the Guernsey Alzheimer's Tower to Tower walk, this is a charity that is very close to my heart as they gave my Dad and me a huge amount of support.  so every year Chris and I help with the registration, and are always wowed by the generosity of Guernsey people.

There are 15 Martello or loophole towers along our coast (all numbered),

 to protect us from those dastardly French!

It started at Tower 12 on Vazon, and our walkers headed along the coast, dogs in tow past 5 more towers (it should have been 6, but number 8 got blown by the Germans) and finishing at Tower 5 called Nid de l'Herbe, no idea what that means think I should look it up sometime!

It was looking very pretty, all decked out in massive bunting, not sure what the original soldiers would have made of that!

It was a ladder climb to the first floor and then if you were brave enough a ladder straight up to the roof

It was very windy, and suffer a little from vertigo, but knew the view would be amazing, so gritting my teeth I climbed up, and out through the hatch, and knelt for a moment before sticking my head above the parapet.  Too windy!!!! So my camera went up instead.

wow, it was worth it, this is looking west out over L'Ancresse

Then East out towards Herm and Jethou

Then with very wobbly legs I climbed down and had a much needed strong black sweet coffee with the volunteers waiting to cheer the walkers home.

Then back to our car the other side of the tower feeling very guilty we hadn't walked, and paused for a moment by this hulking lump of German concrete and wondered what on earth it was?

Well when I got home I looked it up, and it turns out its part of a stone crusher that crushed and graded granite for use with in the island fortifications, which I think brings us full circle from the 18th century loophole towers to the 20th century occupation.