Day Out: Burpham Court Farm Park

On perhaps the coldest day of the year so far, Sara decided that it would be a fabulous idea to walk about in the mud and sludge at the Burpham Court Farm Park in Surrey. I interpreted this to mean that my beloved almost-three-year-old godchild Keira was tired of being cooped up indoors and so we readily agreed.

It was so cold today that we noticed that even the ducks were cold! Before we disturbed these two their heads were completely tucked under their wings.

Still, they do look healthy and that is what impressed me the most about Burpham Court - all of the animals looked really healthy and well looked after.

Some of the ducks seemed to be involved in a biathlon type of event which involved swimming across the pond, running around it and swimming back across it again. They seemed to be very intent upon their purpose and it was interesting to watch their ritual!

We were quite taken by the geese as they were so majestic and they had such beautiful blue eyes. I think these might be West of England geese with the grey-headed female and the all-white males.

We wandered into a barn with many sheep and their little lambs. The sheep seemed to like Keira but they did not like me and my camera! Still, I got one picture of a little lamb. Keira's nickname is Lambchops and she was very intrigued to meet the real Lambchops.

They have llamas at Burpham Court and these animals are not shy! There was one scary moment when we were certain that one of the llamas was going to eat Keira's Teddy but it all seemed to end alright.

Did I mention it was cold? After visiting the llamas (and teaching Keira to say "llama" and not "banana") we visited the goats. Sara and I had great fun at this stage trying not to get into mud up to our ankles.

At 3pm we were lucky enough to catch up with Farmer Bob as it was time to bring the goats and the llamas in and feed them. First he involved all of the little children in collecting the animal's buckets and putting them in the right pens. Then he took them on a tour of the chicken coops while they looked for any eggs.

Then all the little children helped herd in the goats and the llamas so that they could eat.

Burpham Court is a rare breeds conservation park and I was really interested to see some rare breeds of pig and goat there. Despite the cold, it was a really nice opportunity to introduce Keira to life on a farm and for her to interact with animals on a deeper level than just a petting farm at a funfair. The animals are in excellent condition and the whole experience is just long enough to keep a small child's attention before they spot the playground at the end. I'd definitely consider going again in the summer as I imagine it might be nice to stop off in the tea garden for some refreshments.

I'd also like to keep an eye on developments at the place because the farmer has been given quite the legal runaround by the National Trust and Guildford City Council. They certainly need support!

Jamie's Phuket 2008 - The Best Bits

Time is money, so they say, but I disagree. Time is life, time is love, time is all you need. And there is never enough. Not enough time to do all you want, not enough time to spend with loved ones, not enough time to spend with friends, and not enough time to update blogs! Thus, on the last day of January I will make a review of 2008.

What appears on Jamie's Phuket depends on what we do, where we go and how much of that precious time I have. I would love to blog full time and write something new and exciting every couple of days, but family comes first, and work takes up most of the week, so do bear with me. I hope that over the last 2 ½ years this blog has been of some help, the original aim, and still the aim - to show the real Phuket, not only the beaches and tourist hangouts. 2008 was a good year, and 2009 promises much. So let's look back at what was blogged last year...

In January, my favourite Phad Thai shop was blogged.. and this little roadside local shop has now made the Lonely Planet! Thai food is great, but I admit to being English, and sometimes need some English Food too...



I have a vague aim to blog all Phuket Temples... 2 were added in January - Kata Temple (on the back road near Kata Beach) and Wat Naka (near Phuket Town).

February - a rare treat at a very nice restaurant called The Ninth Floor in Patong, not our normal kind of place, it was a company dinner. Great food... Next up - a visit to Chalong Temple Fair (which has also been on for the last 10 days).

The floating restaurant at Bang Rong on the east coast of Phuket was blogged - one of our favourite quite places... as is Buddha Mountain, where the Big Buddha is slowly nearing completion. We wrote our names on a piece of marble which I assume is now part of the statue...



March - we visited the Weekend Market which is near the aforementioned Naka Temple on the edge of Phuket Town. We also visited the Phuket Food Festival held at Sapan Hin in the south of town.



There was a little piece about Phuket Weather, although for much more information on the weather, then my Phuket Weather Blog is the place to look.

I was making a point to blog different parts of Phuket Town during 2008. In April I headed to Sapan Hin for a look around...



And then... highlight of April has to be Songkran! I have learned over the years that you have to be in a Songkran mood to enjoy the day. So we enjoyed it!



Phuket has more bloggers you know! In April there was an honorable mention for the Phuket Bloggers - if there are more, do let me know!

May - we left Phuket for a while - holidays! My wifes family is in Chumphon, on the east coast about 400km from Phuket. Further up the coast is the very nice little town of Prachuap Khiri Khan, which I enjoyed visiting. Must blog Chumphon one day too!

Back in Phuket we enjoyed the views from Rang Hill... and found a great restaurant on the north side of Phuket Town - Pak Nam Seafood.



June - meant to be low season but of course the weather is mostly nice. A couple of places to mingle and exercise with the locals - Bang Wad Reservoir and Suan Luang Park.



Phuket is trying to head more up market. Yes, it's got a lot of package tourists, but the luxury market is expanding... Nothing left for the budget traveler? Wrong! I wrote a little something about Phuket for Backpackers.

July - we started with another little local temple - Wat Thepnimit (which is just outside town), and later in the month I blogged Wat Sawang Arom, which is close to Rawai Beach.



Also at Rawai Beach... Nikitas Bar is a Phuket legend. On the beach, small and friendly, good prices. We like!

In July, using TripAdvisor as a guide, I wrote about the Top 10 Hotels in Phuket - this page has become one of the most visited on the blog.

August. At the end of August, Phuket Airport was closed for a day and a half by the PAD. We did not think at the time that the same idiots would do the same in Bangkok. It was a very confusing few days at the end of the month. I tried to do a kind of "live blog" with updates for a few days.

Earlier in the month, the Big Chicken restaurant was blogged - and we have just been there this very evening!

I also took some time to look around Kata Noi Beach.



Oh, back in January I mentioned the Phad Thai shop being in the Lonely Planet - in August I did a little review of the Lonely Planet Phuket Encounter Guide... and was glad to note they mentioned this blog :)

Our kids love the Phuket Butterfly Garden - we've been a few times. It's on the edge of Phuket Town.



September 2008. The year seems almost done... Now and then I add a recommendation for a Phuket Hotel. So in September I added Burasari and Katathani.

I finally blogged something about the Similan Islands, which really was the reason I stayed in Phuket. Great diving.

And then... my absolute favourite Phuket festival started at the end of September. This is something unmissable, something totally unique. The Phuket Vegetarian Festival. Every year I try to see something new, I started with the food...



And into October... the Vegetarian Festival is awesome. If you can be in Phuket at the right time, BE HERE! You cannot see anything like this anywhere. I was in blog overdrive for a week...

• Kathu Shrine
• Jui Tui Shrine
• Vegetarian Festival in Kathu Village - including face piercing



The firecrackers when the procession left Kathu village were earbursting. This is an experience...



And I took more photos of the Vegetarian Festival in Phuket Town. I love it! I also posted some videos of the festival...



As if October could not get any better.... we flew to Phi Phi. Yes, flew to Phi Phi. There are seaplane flights with a company called Destination Air, and I was asked to write something for them. No payment but at the last minute I was able to get the whole family along for the ride. A great afternoon.



November - into the high season for us divers... I took some videos at Phuket Aquarium, praised the abundance of Fruit Stalls, and we celebrated Loy Krathong...



I took my daughter to school - well, an old school which has been turned into a museum in Phuket Town - Thai Hua Museum... and on the edge of town, not far from our house, we found a great new noodle shop specialising in Kuay Jap style noodles.



I have learned something - there are always new adventures to be had, new places to explore close to your own doorstep. It's too easy to turn on the TV, easy to eat at your favourite restaurant, and I am guilty of this too. I thank this blog for making me get off my sofa. Phuket is a great place, but is often rather misunderstood. I love it here, and have no plans to leave.

December - I admit to being far too busy to write much save for some stuff about high season weather in Phuket and a review of the very nice Amari Coral Beach Resort.

The end of December marked a turning point. It has now been more than 4 years since the tsunami... What did I write? Fear not for the future, weep not for the past. Bring on 2009. It has already been brought. Hope January has been good for you. Hope the next 11 months are good too. Keep reading Jamie's Phuket!

Road Trip (North): Liverpool part 2

Previous post: Road Trip (North): Liverpool part 1

So after planning our route for the day, we headed straight down into Mathew Street to see the club where The Beatles first played back on 21 February 1961.

Possibly the most successful band of all time, The Beatles played 292 appearances at The Cavern Club between 1961 and 1963 and it was at the club that they were discovered by Brian Epstein. Their last appearance was on 3 August 1963, a month after they recorded "She Loves You". Brian Epstein had promised they would return one day to play at the club but then Beatlemania exploded all over England and there was no way a tiny little club like The Cavern could have accommodated them anymore. And it is tiny - heck, I don't even know if the whole of Mathew Street could have coped with the phenomenon that was The Beatles.

The Cavern Club today has been designed to resemble the original club as closely as possible and it still functions as a live music venue. The bar staff absolutely did not even bat an eyelid as we walked in with our cameras and took some pictures. That's okay - I've stopped for drinks there before so I know I haven't always just been a camera-wielding flash-tourist.

The Beatles aren't the only famous band to have played at The Cavern or to have hailed from Liverpool so I took the opportunity to snap the Wall of Fame and a nice young man that was sitting there. (That is Mister Emm for those who don't know).

The Cavern is attached to the boutique arcade, Cavern Walks. They have a Vivienne Westwood store there and they had a sale on. Unfortunately, spending £350 on a cardigan is not my idea of a bargain so we moved on swiftly. It is worth walking through Cavern Walks to get a picture of the Fab Four in action though.

Next it was time for a visit to the pier head. Just as well as it was shaping up to be a stunning day. I'll have to update about that on the weekend though - it is definitely time for bed!

Phuket 91.5 FM Radio

Back in England I used to listen a lot to the radio. My favourite shows were hosted by the late great John Peel, and by "Whispering" Bob Harris, along with a blues show hosted by Paul Jones on Radio 2. I also liked Mark and Lard in the mornings on Radio 1.. good for listening on a drive to work. Yeh, I used to be a radio fan. Indeed (little known factoid) back in 1988/89 I even hosted a 2 hour Saturday evening show from 6 - 8pm for about a year on U.R.Y (University Radio York). Holy Cow... I just Googled URY and there is a website with my name in it! Had not thought about that for many years!

• University Radio York Alumni

Anyway.. enough about the old days! I will admit that I have been very much a CD person for the last 20 years. I listen to the music I choose. My computer has 11,000 tracks to choose from. Radio? Pah!

But last week I received an email that made me turn the radio on again. Yes, good marketing! There are quite a lot of radio stations you can listen to in Phuket, but largely for local people rather than foreigners or local foreign residents.. of which there are rather a lot in Phuket. So, the email from Phuket 91.5 FM had some effect - a new website, live streaming so you can listen online.. well, I had to click! And turned on the radio on the way home (I drive about 25 minutes each way). Rather oddly, the first song I heard in the car was Always look on the bright side of life.. from Monty Pythons Life of Brian. You know... If life seems jolly rotten, there's something you've forgotten - and that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing!



So I have tuned my car radio to 91.5 now. Yeh, some music is not my style, but in the last few days I have heard old rock, Thai rock, jazz, dodgy old pop songs, makes a change from my CD collection! You can click on the banner above to open a "mini player" and listen online to Phuket 91.5 FM

I contacted the radio station as I was interested to have a look around their studio, which is located in Patong on the "back back" road winding along the hillside, officially called Hasip Pee Road. Good views over Patong from up there.





One of the owners met me. The studio tour was fairly rapid - this is not the BBC! The main broadcast studio was a computer and one control panel. Changed a bit since my days as a DJ - we had faders and turntables and tape decks and CD players - now it's all done by computers!



The station has only been running for about 9 months, and they are aware of the need to expand the music library - I was assured a major expansion is coming soon. Also, more live shows are coming soon - at the moment there is a lot of computerised broadcasting. I visited on Sunday morning.. but right now there is no breakfast show. The studio was empty, but broadcasting nonetheless! They also have a small production studio for making ads and voiceovers and promotional videos. Even though it's new, 91.5FM is "the" radio station for Phuket. Have a listen right now!

• Phuket 91.5 FM Radio Website
• Phuket 91.5 FM Facebook Group

Road Trip (North): Liverpool part 1

I can't believe it has been a week since I last updated and I apologise for that. I've been sick with an incredibly sore throat and an irritating cough that doesn't let me get much sleep. 'Fed up' and 'exhausted' are the terms that would best describe me right now. The worst part is that this is all caused by the remaining dregs of the flu virus and nothing can be done for it except to treat the symptoms. My Dad is suffering from the same thing and wasn't even able to watch the match at the pub today! Big shout out to my Dad then and I hope we both get better soon.

On 27 December we went to my favourite city on the whole planet - Liverpool. From the time I was about 18 months old until just before my 9th birthday, we lived in St Helens which is a town situated right inbetween Manchester and Liverpool. We moved to South Africa in 1982 and I cannot begin to describe how much I missed 'home'. The city of Liverpool reached mythical proportions in my mind as I dreamed time and time again of returning to England. There was always the danger of a Great Gatsbyesque experience and that when I eventually did return in 1989, it would somehow disappoint. But it didn't.

I wish I was back in Liverpool, Liverpool Town where I was born.
There ain't no trees, no scented breeze, no fields of waving corn
But there's lots of girls with peroxide curls and the black-and-
tan flows free,
With six in a bed by the old pierhead and it's Liverpool Town for me.
- From "I Wish I Was Back in Liverpool" by Stan Kelly and recorded by the Dubliners

It's incredibly hard for me to put into words what it is about Liverpool that I love so much. There is something for everyone there with the history of the Beatles, museums, galleries, music, pubs, the heavy shelling in WW2, the pierhead and the stories of Irish immigrants, trade and commerce and the incredible strength to carry on. For me personally, Liverpool was the town that my Dad and I walked around time and time again as we visited all of the pubs and got to know each other again as adults. Hopefully some of the photos in these next couple of posts will communicate my love for this city and explain my glee at it being a nice sunny day that day.

As you come out of Lime Street Station, you see St George's Hall, one of the finest examples of neoclassical architecture in Europe. (I was told that it was the biggest but I can't find a link for that online). St George's Hall is part of the World Heritage Site at Liverpool and it is a Grade I listed building. As a former property manager, perhaps I find this more interesting than most people!

The hall has just been restored and was reopened in 2007. Apparently it is amazing inside but we didn't see anything to suggest that it was actually open to the public that day.

Liverpool was the European Capital of Culture 2008 and the city really caters towards tourists. There are sign posts and map boards everywhere and a street vendor gave us a tourist map for free! Liverpool has also really changed since last I was there and it was difficult to decide what to show my in-laws. In the end we decide on taking the Beatles tour and then heading down to the pierhead and the Albert Dock. We came back up through the brand new Liverpool One district before going home but unfortunately did not make it to St Luke's Church this time. St Luke's is a bombed out shell of a church that still stands in the centre of Liverpool - maybe I can go back in the summer and do a bit of a WW2 tour.

Well, all of those exciting travels will have to wait for during the week as I am about to fall asleep right now!!

Uptown Restaurant (Phuket Town)

I admit to getting stuck in eating routines sometimes. We have a half dozen favourite places to eat (if we are not eating at home) and sometimes it seems I have lost all sense of adventure! Well, on Friday night, my wife and I managed a rare evening out without the kids and we ate at the Natural Restaurant in Phuket Town, we will go back and it will be blogged! Then on Saturday, we went with the kids for lunch at the Uptown Restaurant also in Phuket town.



Uptown is a popular lunch spot for locals, the menu is quite extensive but they specialise in noodle dishes. There were a lot of tom yum noodle dishes and other soups without noodles - we had one of these, called Kao Lao.

 

Uptown Restaurant is on the street corner opposite the Thavorn Grand Plaza Hotel, about 400m south of the bus station. We noticed it was popular with local office staff, there was a crowd in from the nearby Kasikorn bank and a couple of families having a Saturday lunch out just like us.



Here's some of our lunch. I had a Phad Thai Hor Khai, we had drinks (ice tea, ice chocolate), kids had some fried chicken, total bill was... 270 Baht. That was for 5 dishes plus drinks. I do believe we'll be back soon!

 



• Uptown Restaurant location on Google Earth

I admit we have been a bit lazy and not really explored places to eat in Phuket Town, but it's time to try some new restaurants this year. There are a few places up on Rang Hill for example, and the well known Dibuk restuarant in the old town. Phuket Town is the place to find more local food, though I do still want to blog some pizza! I think this blog needs some feeding :)