The Barcza Gambit

"The Americans are planning to pull out of Iraq. This leaves Israel surrounded by hostile countries, one of them an unstable neighbour. A senior Mossad Agent takes matters in to his own hands to ensure America’s sustained presence in Iraq. A senior figure is in danger. Retribution is planned. The British Government present Commander Alec Fincham, Special Boat Squadron, with the challenge. With his expertise in anti terrorism in the Middle East, he is asked to assist with training the American forces, but is dragged in to a series of events outside his control. The more he investigates, the deeper he is embroiled, and his life is threatened, one way or another he has to take decisive action..."

Although this could be taken from a new Hollywood blockbuster, it is in fact the description on the back cover of a book called "The Barcza Gambit", a debut novel from a colleague of mine, Roger Cave. Carole and I have both worked with Roger for several years now, and have been aware for some time that he writes, so to actually see him realise his ambition of getting a book into print is something we're really pleased about.

Roger is an avid reader, a James Bond enthusiast and a self-confessed military 'nut', so the topic he's chosen for his first novel isn't a huge surprise. He doesn't hold back either, with a high body count and a major figure being assassinated, so it's certainly no Mills & Boon.

So, is it a good read? Well, yes I'd say it is. Whilst it's true to say there are parts that perhaps would be worded a little differently with more experience, it is nevertheless an enjoyable story which has been well constructed. What's clear is the huge amount of work Roger's put in to this project, and I hope it brings him success.

The Barcza Gambit is published through Lulu.com, an online publisher, and can be bought for £7.99 or downloaded for £2.50 from this link: The Barcza Gambit

Wedding photography?

Today was a 'wedding' with a difference, and I was the 'official photographer'...

At work, we were having an 'away day', where the team get together out of the office for some 'team building' activities (those lesser informed might call it 'mucking about'). This particular away day was a little out of the ordinary, even by our standards, as my team were officially joining together with another who do similar work to us. This coming together was symbolised by a 'wedding', complete with bride, groom, vows, cake etc - and I had the responsibility of photographing the entire happy event.

Of course, there were more serious things to get through too, which meant there was next to no time to take any decent pictures and the pressure told as the group shots I took of everyone all turned out to be completely over exposed, and I only realised this after it was too late. Even a little Photoshop magic couldn't recover them.

This mishap aside (well, there were other mishaps too if truth be told), I did manage to get several pictures I was pleased with, although my best shots were taken later in the day after the 'wedding' part of the day had ended and I could relax a little more.

Swimming the channel

Swimming the 22 miles across the English Channel is no easy task for anyone, but that's what my colleagues at work had set out to do for charity. Fortunately, they'd decided to do it as a relay, rather than one long swim and in Bolton too. Makes sense really.

Everyone who wanted to take part put a bid down for how many lengths they would complete. Some would swam just a few but there were a couple in the team who'd committed themselves to 200 lengths each, which is just over 3 miles. Nutters!

Carole and I were just back from holiday, and we'd volunteered to work on the support team, who would count the lengths completed, make sure the right people were in the water at the right time, and keep the all important scoreboard up to date.

I got the job of counting the 200 lengths Howard and Gary were swimming, which in truth got a little repetitive after a while. Even so, you've got to admire what they achieved as they both swam for two hours non-stop - a great effort.

Everyone else played their part too, so much so that we comfortably exceeded the 1400 total we required to complete the 'channel crossing' and raised over £3,000 for Cancer Research, a fabulous effort all round.

Next time I'll commit to doing the swim too, so watch this space...

Fancy a Garibaldi?

What do you know about Garibaldi? Probably not a lot, apart from the biscuits (but more about that later). To the Italians though, he's the top man - their equivalent of Nelson or Wellington in their list of heros. His home, which has now been converted into a museum, is on La Maddalena island, just up the coast from where we were staying, and a visit to the museum was one of the optional trips available to us. As we'd not left the resort all week, we thought it would be a pleasant change of scenery and a chance to do some shopping in the main town on the island.

When we've been on day trips on previous holidays, we've been picked up by a large coach with air conditioning and comfy seats, however this time, perhaps because it's early in the season, we were picked up by the tour guide driving a Citroen people-carrier, with just an English couple from our hotel and three Germans for company. The guide was comfortable in English and German, and although she was perhaps concentrating on her linguistics a little more than her driving on a couple of occasions, we made it to the ferry in one piece.

The short ferry ride across to La Maddalena island takes about 20 minutes, just long enough for "due cappuccini" from the kiosk on the ferry, but when only one arrived, all I could say was "can I have another one?" (I didn't know the Italian for that). As it turned out, the man could speak English anyway, so I could have saved myself the bother.

View from the Garibaldi museum, Caprera Island, looking back to La Maddalena

The Garibaldi museum is actually on the island of Caprera, which is connected to La Maddalena by a causeway and a flimsy looking bridge, which can be seen in the photo above. In Garibaldi's day, access was only by ferry boat, helping maintain a high degree of privacy. The museum is extremely popular with Italians, especially in the summer, so although it was early in the season our guide did well to get us there just before two coaches arrived.

No photos were permitted in the museum, which to be honest wasn't a big deal as there was nothing there that was really worth snapping. The best we could do was outside, and even then I'm not convinced we had permission.

So what did Garibaldi do? He was a revolutionary, who fought battles all over Italy and beyond with the aim of unifying the country. Italians adored him, so much so that despite large bounties available for his capture, not one Italian betrayed him. The Garibaldi biscuit, it turns out, is named after him - Peak Freans devised the unique biscuit after he visited London in 1861. Here's Wikipedia's article about Garibaldi biscuits.

Sunshine at last!

Well, Marcella the holiday rep was right with the weather forecast. Although it was still a little cloudy at breakfast, the sun was soon out and the temperature rose quickly to something much more like it.

Of course, what do we do when the sun comes out for the first time? - we get ourselves a little burnt. So after lunch we decided to take a stroll further up the coast away from Cannigione, where we found a small beach and some trees for shade, a tranquil and pleasant spot. Some of the villas along the coast road were used as summer retreats for wealthy Italians, with well maintained gardens, large sun terraces and of course a pool.

Now that the sun's arrived, the whole holiday feels so much better. Let's hope the sun lasts for the rest of the week.

This evening, the hotel was offering a Sardinian buffet, full of traditional Sardinian food. Well, we couldn't resist!

Everthing on the menu was tried, apart from the Shellfish and mollusc chowder, which just didn't do it for me somehow. Thankfully the main meat dish was grilled suckling pig, rather than what was written on the menu.

Soggy Sardinia!

This is no joke - apparently the UK is enjoying warm sunny weather at the moment, but all we've seen for the last two days is pretty much uninterrupted rain!

The sun terrace of the Hotel di Falco - but where's the sun?

This is the view from the hotel terrace - normally this area would be crowded with sunbathers, but at the moment everyone's inside.

Happy anniversary - Sardinia style

I have some catching up to do (I'm writing this on May 26th), because we've been away for a week and then been far too busy since we came back to update a blog. I prefer to date each blog entry with the date things happened, rather than the date posted as this makes more sense to me when I look back, so here goes with the first posting from Sardinia:

We're in Sardinia at the moment at a little fishing village called Cannigione, on the North East coast. We arrived late on Saturday (10/5), so today's the first day we can explore our surroundings.

Unfortunately we seem to have traded the warm weather back home for clouds and quite a cool breeze here, not what we were planning for our wedding anniversary, which is today. Still, the weather could be worse, so we have been able to get out and about to take a look at our surroundings. The hotel is well appointed, the staff very helpful and most speak good English (which thankfully means I don't need to try my very poor Italian!). We've planned for a decent meal in the hotel restaurant tonight to celebrate our anniversary and judging by the food we ate last night, it should be good.

After breakfast we had a stroll into the village centre to take a look round. It's fair to say there isn't much to Cannigione, there's a few shops and a couple of supermarkets, and several restaurants look interesting enough to try as the week goes on. There are plenty of boats in the harbour, but I've had to position the photo carefully as the harbour area is being redeveloped at the moment. All in all, the town looks like it hasn't geared itself up yet for the tourist season, and one of the hotel staff seemed to confirm this by explaining that this was the first week they'd re-opened after the winter.

We met the holiday rep this morning, but unfortunately there isn't any good news about the weather until Wednesday, when we're promised some sunshine. In the meantime, there are a few trips available to tempt us out, so we'll see what Sardinia has to offer us.

Our new pet leopards

Not content with cat-sitting next door's feline friend the other week, Carole really has gone too far now and adopted three African leopard cubs. There really isn't room on our small back garden for them and I'm sure they won't fit through the cat flap either...

Cute, but just imagine the size of the litter tray!

The three cubs are Sami, Nimira and Alam, and they were found abandoned in the Sudanese bush. They are now looked after by the Born Free Foundation, who rely on donations to support the animals' well-being.

We heard about the Foundation through the Project Africa appeal Carole's team were involved in at work. The prize for the latest competition was to adopt two lionesses, and although we didn't win, Carole felt that it was a worthy cause and anyway the leopards looked cute.

A Chevin in Otley

Would it rain or stay fine? Should we stay in, head for the coast or go inland? Choices on a bank holiday are normally more straightforward than this (ie the rain decides for us), but as the weather forecasters didn't seem to know what it was going to do today or where it was going to do it, we had a decision to make. One option was to head to Formby for a walk along the beach and a look at the red squirrels, but the crowds usually head to the coast on a bank holiday so this didn't seem such a good idea.

Instead we decided to try to follow a walk published in the local newspaper which was centred on Otley over the border in Yorkshire. The author of the article often depicts 'strolls' around the countryside and usually overestimates the distance considerably. So when this walk was described as 5 miles, we guessed it would be more like 3 or 4 and fairly leisurely to boot. Hmmm, perhaps not...

Clock tower, Otley town centre

The clues were there of course - it does mention a steep path, and a 'surprise view', but what we hadn't appreciated was that the 'surprise' was that the slope of the path was unrelenting straight up The Chevin, the biggest hill for miles around.

It's steep, but at least there's steps!

Anyhow, we made it to the top eventually, had our lunch on the top and marvelled at the view, which was less than spectacular due to the haze. Even so, it was much more civilised than we'd imagined with ice creams for sale (and very good they were too).

The Chevin, Otley

The path back down was less dramatic and we were soon back in Otley, where, once we'd recovered, we took a pleasant stroll by the river in the sunshine. On the map the walk turned out to be 3 miles at most, but the hill made it feel like 5!

Check out my walking blog for the route: The Chevin: the walk

Sunday lunch at the Derby Arms

The Derby Arms at Thornley near Longridge has to be one of our favourite places for a meal out, so a couple of weeks ago, just for no particular reason other than it seemed a mighty fine idea, we decided to book in for a Sunday lunch.


We've eaten at the Derby several times in the past and each time thoroughly enjoyed the food and service. Recently they were the subject of an in-depth article in Lancashire Life magazine, who acknowledged the owners' 25 years in charge and commended them for their sourcing of local produce.


Judging by the way we all cleaned our plates, the Derby is certainly a place we'll return to soon!

Dad was less mobile than usual (your own joke can be inserted here). Seemingly he'd pulled a muscle in his leg whilst brewing up the night before. Not sure whether he was pulling our leg with this tale. but the limp was certainly convincing even if it didn't stop him 'checking the weather' on a few occasions during the meal. I'm sure you'll be fit again soon!