JERSEY: THE CHANNEL ISLAND WAY: 2: Bergerac’s Stuntman

OR:    WHAT DO I KNOW ABOUT JERSEY?

On my way to the airport with my suitcase on the seat next to me, staring out of the train windows as the rain sodden London suburbs trundled past, I thought back to a wilder time.

I had been a plant engineer in a Ford factory down on the south coast, working silly hours with a team of blokes who all worked incredibly hard and played with the same vigour. One of my colleagues was a young, quite good looking chap. His way of letting off steam was to dance until the small hours in one of the city’s nightclubs with as many of the most beautiful girls as humanly possible. To spice the night up a little, he used to take on the persona of more and more unlikely characters at each visit. He had been a deep-sea diver, a fireman (all women love firemen) an Arab Sheik’s illegitimate son; you get the picture. But his best-loved character, which he assured us all, had never failed to succeed, was Bergerac’s Stuntman.

At the time Bergerac was a massively popular TV programme, filmed on location in Jersey, which, being just to the south of Southampton, gave his credibility with the girls an added authenticity. However, do you ever remember John Nettles ever doing any stunts? It didn’t seem to bother the hordes of beauties that my friend had to fight off…

But I digress!

The flight over to Jersey went smoothly and I was met at the airport by a taxi driver who whisked me to the hotel, The Inn in St Helier, in time to meet my fellow blogger, Mark from ‘Beating the Bounds’ and Arthur Lamy, our guide for the next couple of days, at the bar. Arthur had actually written the guide to The Channel Island Way, so he was the obvious choice to take us around it.

ARTHUR & MARK

It was great to meet them both and over dinner we got to know a little about each other. If you haven’t seen Mark’s blog, you really have been missing a treat as his photography is stunning and I am sure he won’t mind me saying that he’s an incredibly lovely bloke. I am really looking forward to his take on the trip. I left all the nature photography to him as he really knows what he is doing and I am sure there will be a riot of plants and creatures over at his place, all beautifully portrayed.

I mentioned to Arthur that rather shamefully my only knowledge of his island had been gleaned from the zillions of episodes of Bergerac; the last episode of which had been screened some twenty years ago. This was possibly not the best source, seeing at it concentrated on the misdeeds of the tourists and the ne’er do wells of the island… But this was alright, as Arthur is a top-bloke and assured us that we would discover the island’s charms, beauty and history with him as our guide.

As Arthur was heading back home after a really lovely meal, he casually let us know that in a previous job he had sold John Nettles three mountain bikes.

JERSEY: THE CHANNEL ISLAND WAY: 1: An invitation

OR:   WHY ME?…

DISCLAIMER:   THIS TRIP WAS FUNDED ENTIRELY BY JERSEY TOURISM; ALL I HAD TO DO WAS FIND MY OWN WAY TO GATWICK AIRPORT AND THEN I WAS IN THEIR HANDS. HOWEVER, MY TAKE ON THE TRIP IS ENTIRELY INDEPENDENT, AS FAR AS THAT IS POSSIBLE AFTER HAVING HAD A PRETTY FINE TIME!

(ALL PICTURES & MAPS ARE CLICKABLE IN THE CHANNEL ISLAND WAY SERIES)

So, with the disclaimer out of the way, off we go!

Out of the blue, a few months back I received an email inviting me to Jersey to walk a little of the Channel Island Way. How I deserved this amazing stroke of good fortune is anybody’s guess but having assumed that they had already made a dreadful mistake and had picked the wrong Alan Sloman, I was loathe to disappoint them further and make them renew their search for the right man. And so with the speed of a rifling bullet I accepted their kind invitation before they would realise their drastic error.

I was intrigued about the venture. Who in their right mind would want a chap to stay in flashy hotels, dining out at great restaurants, who was to be flown about over great oceans and generally shown a jolly good time? Not only that, but they would be picking up the bill? Was Jersey that terrible a place that they had to persuade me to say nice things about it? And who on earth was going to take *MY* word for it, anyway?

I suppose, like a lot of the congregation, up until this point I had never heard of the Channel Island Way. Indeed, to my shame, I had only the merest flimsy idea of where Jersey was to be found; perhaps somewhere down below Cornwall alongside France?

But, by asking around, people I knew and by doing a bit of ‘Googling,’ I learned that the Channel Islands were thought of very fondly by those who’s views I trust; they had that winsome stare and the soft note in their voices as they recounted tales of happy summer breaks seemingly a long time ago…

Well then… it sounded like the dream job and so I was pretty damn smug that I had been the ‘chosen one’ and had accepted with such alacrity. As it happened though, they had picked another blogger to come along as well – a proper blogger with a good-looking blog, who wrote intelligently about stuff and had a young family and who took great pictures and, well, if we are being honest about all this, someone who was going to put my feeble efforts to shame. Oh Lord! No pressure then…

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Before diving into my time on the island, in true ‘softening up’ style, I am going to show you the little film clip below to give you a taster of what is to come.

Lifted from Jersey.com’s website. (I’m sure they won’t mind)

I promise I won’t be trying to sell you a time-share at the end of all this! Trust me. I’m a blogger. Now, if you could all move on to the next post, I would be grateful as someone else will be along in a minute to take your place here. I thank you…

I’M JUST GOING OUTSIDE…

…and may be some time.

What with moving home, marital changes and the Grandad thing, there hasn’t been a whole lot of ‘outside’ going on here at the blog for a while. That’s not very good for a blog supposedly about the Great Outdoors. (I think that’s where it started, at least… but you don’t come here for all that nonsense, surely?) But if you do, every now and then have unhealthy desires for lung-fulls of fresh air, boot-fulls of peaty water and nostrils full of midges, then this blog might be just the place to visit in the upcoming posts! I do so hope I have fibbed about the midges, though…

*drumroll*…..

I am off to foreign parts tomorrow to try out a hitherto little-known walk. Well, when I say ‘foreign’ the parts are not exactly “Johnny Foreigner” foreign: In fact the natives speak the King’s English. Very well, I believe. Indeed, there should be no need to stand at full height at the bar and demand “GIN AND TONIC, PLEASE!” very slowly and loudly to order one’s snifters.

No, Gentle Sir and Kind Lady: I am off to somewhere Jolly Civilised – And the capitals are rather important here.

Next stop, Gatwick Airport, tomorrow!

I’ll be back soon with thrilling tales of men shirts and the like.

BIRTHDAY ANNOUNCEMENT

I am delighted to announce the arrival of LYRA VICTORIA SLOMAN.

Congratulations to Oli & Nicole. Lyra came into the world this morning at the West Suffolk Hospital at 6:47am after an eleven hour delivery. She is a healthy young girl, weighing in at 8 lbs 4 ozs . Nicole & Oli must both be exhausted.

Both Nicole and Lyra are doing well. Time keeping is obviously not Lyra’s strong suit as she arrived ten days later than expected! It’s a girl thing…

I am a Grandfather. Can that be right?

GEAR REVIEW

DISCLAIMER: I shall make it clear at the very outset that this item has been supplied free of charge to me to test and I am not expected to return it after my exhaustive testing regime. In fact, it’s mine now. All mine. I am at liberty to say what I like about it, when I like and how I like. Did I miss ‘who I like’ about it? Perhaps. But I’ll get to her later…

I should say that I was particularly pleased to accept this product as I had been on the look out for something of it’s ilk for a little while now. That fact may well may be reflected in my review of the product, so you will just have to take it on trust that I will be as honest as I can possibly be about its features and benefits.  /END OF DISCLAIMER

 

Some may say that this particular item is indispensible on the hill: Perhaps no trip can really be counted a success without its regular application. I have known entire expeditions to the furthest flung corners of this earth’s most remote wildernesses to founder, through lack of foresight in acknowledging simple human frailties; the wants and needs of its members.

So: Help is at hand. I hope you find this review of assistance in attaining Nirvana on your next outing to the Great Outdoors.

The test sample arrived in good order – the packaging was not damaged in any way and the delivery service – Parcel Force WorldWide – delivered it in the stated 24 hour delivery time frame that was required by the sender. I opened the carton with care so as not to damage the contents:

So far so good. I then carefully extracted the parcel from within the carton:

I was pleased to note that the sender had protected the review sample with great care – a lightweight inflated cylindrical jacket that may well itself take an automatic spot in my gear selection for future expeditions.

With even greater care, I removed this second layer of packaging to reveal the item as it would be found on the gear shop top shelf:

 

CLICKABLE IMAGE

Deep joy and wonder of wonders! I had been sent the special celebration edition. Sound out the trumpets. Set all the sails! Give the crew a celebratory flogging. Drag out the deepest full immersion bathtubs; Indeed - extra pinching of house-maids’ bottoms!

For the technically minded, this vital piece of equipment’s features are listed as follows:

• Highland Park Distillery
• Single Cask
• Cask type: Refill Bourbon
• Cask Size: Hogshead
• Cask Strength: 57% vol
• Filtration: Non chill filtered
• Distilled: 1997
• Bottled: 2010 (Aged 13 years)

I will get to the benefits a little later, in a subsequent review.

Grateful thanks to Rachael & Rod for supplying this for review.

A NOTE TO FUTURE GEAR SUPPLIERS: More like this, please….

TRIPPING UP TRUMP?

We should all pause for a moment to reflect on Poor Donald’s dilemma.

You see, Donald is investing a lot of time, money and reputation in building a beautiful new golf course. He chose a wonderful spot by the sea-side near Aberdeen for his project. He enlisted help from his good buddy, Alex to get some dirty little protesters pushed to one side. After all, it was a wonderful investment opportunity that would bring fantastic wealth to the local people. Alex thought it was a grand plan and so he backed Donald.

Donald didn’t like the look of his neighbours and so he planted trees all around them so he couldn’t see their tatty little hovels and they couldn’t see the sea anymore either.

But then, along comes another plan, one of Alex’s actually, to create yet more investment opportunities and wealth. In August 2010 the Queen awarded exclusive rights to Aberdeen Offshore Wind Farm Ltd to develop The European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre, out to sea, right in front of Donald’s golf course. This innovative project has a grant award of up to forty million Euros from the European Union. It’s a deployment centre to test and demonstrate up to 11 next generation offshore wind turbines plus other related technology.

More information can be found HERE

Now, Donald isn’t happy. Donald thinks that this will spoil his view of the sea-side.

What does the congregation think Poor Donald should do?