Glorious Hamptons

We have friends in NYC who have friends. The friend of our friend owns a little piece of the Amagansett . . .a beach town on the end of Long Island in an area known as the Hamptons. The little piece of land is probably 1/4 acre with a pretty nice, but simply built 3 bedroom house. However, due to the fact that every person who makes a cool living in NYC wants one of these - the land is worth a pretty fortune. Luckily the friend of a friend is one of those few.

The Long Island beaches are LONG. It goes for miles and miles right to the end at a fishing place called Montauk. The beach is kind of like I remember Australian beaches; rough, wild and windy. The water is clean and the sand never ending. I really actually enjoyed swimming on this beach after getting used to the Agean pebble beaches for so many years.

The two photos were taken by me one morning early. I got up to watch the sun rise and the full moon fall. It was amazing. The full moon was the same one my friend Sandy passed away on back in London. God bless you Sandy. We will remember you every full moon.

We pretty well lazed around in the lovely sunshine for the most of the week swimming, eating Lobster and clam chowder and driving around town with the top down on the BMW. It was a life very different to what we know in London and will be very different to the life we are looking forward to in Tasmania.

We are lucky to have great friends to share these great times with. Very lucky.
NXX

Farewell London . . .

Thanks all for the BBQ on Sunday. . . . it was a lovely lovely way for us to leave the life we had in London with you all. We had a great time and we have Jen to thank for her creative culinary efforts and of course to spending her precious time on it. Thanks Jen and All.

For Pics of the Party - click right here to go to the shared Kodak Gallery.


It was ironic that a London "pre-planned BBQ" actually went ahead without raining. Every other BBQ/Picnic over 8.5 years if it was organized more than a few days before - it definitely rained! It was also typical that on the day we flew, the Airport Direct Taxi was late, the traffic was bad and it was rainy and grey. Typical - our last and enduring image of London Heathrow was raining and gray!! Helene Shel and I, arrived at the airport from Heathrow Express in only just enough time to check in, run through security and to the furthest gate possible (United Airlines only pay for the cheapest gates these days it seems) and straight on the plane. No chance for a coffee and snack and a little duty free shopping unfortunately. So our food intake for the day was entirely Inflight Meals. . . Hmmm. Nice. You have to pay for Alcohol on United now - at least in Economy anyways. No upgrades or Exit rows this time. . . Just bog standard economy!

We arrived at JFK and picked up Joy and Helene's mauve 1992 BMW convertible, whipped the top down, whacked in one of Sheldons 80's compilation cassettes, put on the sunglasses and drove direct out to the Hamptons. We joined Joy and all their friends at an Amagansett beach house that a friend of their's owns. The Hamptons are a lovely place - full of lovely beach houses similar to the ones found in the Northern Beaches of Sydney - minus the huuuuge SUVs and American Flags flying! We will be here for a week or so then going back to Chappaqua for a few days to sort sheldons NY Storage.

We love you all lots and thanks for your support throughout this busy time for us. It is deeply appreciated and we owe you all in ways that can't be measured.

Remember - please keep in contact with our numerous addresses and websites that we have sent you and if you change home address or phone numbers - please let us know so we can keep your details uptodate.

Greek Salad, Mythos and Calamri . . .

Me, Rose and Shel have spent the last 10 days reclining on a beach chair on the Aegean and sunning ourselves silly. What a great relaxing break. Rose and I knew this already as we had already been to the island of Symi more than a few times before in the last few years. Symi is a tiny rock island in the Dodecanesse Islands on the Turkish side of the Aegean. It is an island that used to be wealthy with sponge diving but throughout two world wars, the island didn't know if was Turkish or Italian. The "ownership" of the islands have been bouncing around for a while but it has been greek now since 1948 I believe. It's main income and wealth is now tourism of course. Apparently during bad times in Symi, a lot of locals emigrated to Australia and settled in Sydney. There are 3500 people who call themselves "Simian" in Sydney! There is even a hotel there now called "The Opera Apartments" after the Sydney Opera House.

Symi has a lovely deep harbor and attracts a lot of large sailing and cruising yachts as well as large tourist ferrys. It only has a couple of roads, two small towns and a monastery. This is why we like it. The tourists come in for the day to check out the beautiful Byzantine architecture and the jewelry shops. They come in AFTER 11am by which point we have totted off on a small taxi boat to a beach called Nanou around the other side of the island.



The beach has 50 umbrellas and sun lounges. One Taverna and plenty of goats. It is only accessible by boat or by intrepid walking types who enjoy walking down scree slopes! The water is blue blue blue clear and the mythos beer is kept cold by the locals who run the taverna.



For the time that we were in Symi, we were lucky to be present for the local Symi Festival. This meant that the local square was decked out with a stage ready to present a varied selection of entertainment for the locals and toruists alike. Our villa/apartment overlooked the main harbour and the local square, so although it took 160 steps to walk up to the apartment, we got a birds eye view of the entire stage and the ocean. This year we were treated to a Greek crooner, traditional Symian dancing, traditional Greek dancing, greek music. It was all rich with local life and tradition.

Before we got to Symi, we spent almost a day in Athens before getting on a Ferry (previously a cross channel ferry) for a 18 hour trip across the med. Athens was great, but the Ferry was a real challenge. It may have been worth paying the few extra euros to fly from Athens to Rhodes. In fact, flying directly to Rhodes would have been more sensible! But we chose to see Athens and the acropolis.



The whole holiday has been superb. We ate, drank, slept, walked, sunned, swam, read, talked, laughed and all the other superlative things people do on summer vacations! Back now in London a little poorer economically speaking, but a little richer in sun tans and well being!