Cameron Highlands - The Scenery

Not having a four wheeled drive vehicle or an ancient Land Rover,  practically every scene photographed in the High Lands has to clip a tea plant or a polythene tented market garden.

 But anyway, here are the best I could do.

 Even with the veg factories, the views are beautiful.

This shot was taken from as high as we could get in our hired Hyundai Matrix, every vehicle we passed had the occupants looking down at us.

Ruth

Ruth

Today is the day of Ruth's funeral in London.  Ruth, the bestist of friends for the past 50 years. The most appropriate tribute to Ruth, I feel, has to do with travel, Ruth's abiding passion.

Ruth and Jennifer a top The Duomo, Florence (2001)

Ruth and Jenny, my first wife, were undergrad roommates in Wydrington Hall, University of Birmingham (1965), rooming for two years, which I think set an all time  record for a blind pairing of freshers. Birmingham Uni. is where Ruth and I first met, life long friends after that.  Apart from visits to each other's homes in the UK, we also took off on something like 11 holidays together.  Here are a few photos from our latest trips together.

On the Mongolian Steppes (2007)

Mongolia, a wild place where you can hear birds fly, with hardly a fence to be climbed in all of its 1.5 million square kilometers.  Ruth and husband Richard spent a week in the capital, Ulaanbaatar , with Gek and I just after winter's end.

Tiananmen Square, Beijing (2007)

From Mongolia we all flew to Beijing, at the time the city was preparing for the 2008 Olympics.  Getting a lot of TLC it was.

The Forbidden City, Beijing (2007)

Love this photo of Ruth, consulting her travel guide in the Forbidden City.  Travel guides take up a large part of Ruth's bookcases.

Singapore City from Mount Faber (2009)

Singapore with son Toby.  Matching t-shirt a complete accident.

Chinese/Vietnam Border (2009)

Our Vietnam holiday took in Hanoi, Halong Bay and here to north, Sapa.  Very strange border this, almost entirely deserted with no cross-border traffic on the bridge.  Guess they are not the best of neighbours then?

Lake Kenyir, Malaysia (2010)

A driving trip around the north of Malaysia.  Here at Lake Kenyir's lake-side bungalows where monkeys scamper over the roofs, monitor lizards prowel the grounds and hornbills eye you from the tree tops. Fabulous location which we had almost entirely to ourselves.  A very relaxed Ruth here.

East Coast Malaysia (2010)

The beaches along Peninsular Malaysia's east coast  and the South China Sea.  Deserted.  Shame about the hats.

E & O Hotel Esplanade, Penang (2012)

The E & O Hotel, Penang's Raffles, for a bit of style.  Lots of the good and famous have stayed here over the years, including Noel Coward, Douglas Fairbanks, Herrmann Hesse, Rudyard Kipling, Somerset Maugham, Sun Yat Sen, among others.

Suffolk House, Penang (2012)

Suffolk House for afternoon tea is a must do for any Brit visiting the Pearl.  Marvelously restored very early 1800's Georgian style home to the British colonial governors of Penang, built on the site of Francis Light's nutmeg plantation.  Raffles was here in 1818, you know.

Sutton House, Hackney, London (2013)

Our last picture together from Gek and mine's last visit to the UK.  Ruth and Richard's place is always has first and last bed for the night on our UK visits.  Rest in Peace Ruth.

Lunch at the Bellevue.

 Again, our party of 5 had the hotel balcony to ourselves.  The hotel was once  residence of Mr. Halliburton, the first Sherriff of Prince of Wales Island (Pulo Pinang) and dates back to the early 18th century under the British East India Company, hence the site was named Halliburton’s Hill.

 Nice and cool, under and behind all that foliage.

 There are quite a few old-colonial style bungalows dotted around the hill.

Some in not so good repair, just waiting for some TLC.  Would I had the money.  I would not need twelfth scale no more!!!!  Love them.

Indian Summers in Penang

Here the Channel 4 trailer prior to the March launch.

Here one of the two bungalow complexes used by the film makers.  The old Craig Hotel was built by a Scotsman, Captain J. Kerr, who had leased a plot of land and erected his bungalow named The Crag here in the late 1800's.  Looking good for its age, I have to say.

A pull back to give you an idea of the view from the bungalow's balcony.  Marvelous.  Quite a few Penangites will be seeking a view of this series, given that the films 'extras' were drawn from its streets. One third of the Pearl's 800,000+'s population is of Indian decent.  

The Beginning of the End of old Bayan Baru

 Today the piling machine arrived in dribs and drabs.  First the feet,

 followed by the body.

By the end of the day, a complete machine.  Fortunately for us in 1-Sky, this is push piling machine, not the knock-knock type which would have been a pain in the ear hole

The old Bayan Baru is slowly disappearing as more and more people vacate and knock down their homes.

A new artistic departure?

Gek with some of her latest works, a miniature Turner Series in oil on canvas.  Still a few more canvases to christen but at least the frames are ready.  No pressure, honest.

In the back room, the Degas Series, water colour on paper.  How did the wandering monk get in there?

 Monkey, his colleague on the quest, clearly does not appreciate impressionist art works.

Both our favourite so far is Gek's impression of Turner's 'Yacht Approaching the Coast, 1840'.  I did not make the frame.  Don't you just love them?

Where Art meets Craft, Gek meets David

Gek now has a gallery to call her own, even if it is in 1/12th scale,

 with her name in silver over the door.

The ground floor is to display her Chinese Art, with the first floor reserved for her European art.  My bit is at the back, the cafe, the kitchen and the toilet.

Back on the Pearl

Now back on the Pearl of the Orient and ensconced on the 19th floor of our 1-Sky apartment, it is back to playing with miniature house settings as opposed to renovating life sized rooms.  And aren't I the untidy one?  As a toolmaker, this should never be but getting in the mood needs clutter!!  Mind you I always retract the modelling knife blade before I lay it down, no need to ask for trouble.   Picture frames are in demand at the moment, as Gek is into painting in miniature.

Book - The Story of Archaeology

Well, I did say we were making the best use of the Singapore National Library!!  Archaeology first came to my attention when our family visited Skara Brae, a 5,000 year old  neolithic stone-built village in the Orkney Isles, when I was but a young boy  This book connects the human timeline across our the planet, making it clear that peoples everywhere were doing it for themselves but in very similar ways.  Recently  'cave art' in Indonesia has been dated to around 40,000.

"It was previously thought that Western Europe (Spain) was the centerpiece of a 'symbolic explosion' in early human artistic activity, such as cave painting and other forms of image making, including figurative art, around 40,000 years ago," said study leader Maxime Aubert, an archaeologist and geochemist at Australia's Griffith University. "However, our findings show that cave art was made at opposite ends of the Pleistocene Eurasian world at about the same time, suggesting these practices have deeper origins — perhaps in Africa before our species left this continent and spread across the globe."

Or was it a parallel development in human tribes that could not possible have been in contact with one another,  as shown by later parallel developments out lined in Justin's book?  Hummmm.

Book - We shall fight on the beaches

Histories again.  Two quiet different conflicts but both with one of our  European neighbours.  A very detailed setting out of the preparations taken in the UK against the threats of invasion, much of which can still be seen along the southern English coast in the form of old castle works and pillboxes.  I particularly enjoyed the telling of why defences were laid out in the the way they were, often second guessing the likely actions of our enemies built on intelligence gleaned from diverse sources.  It was ever so , as today the country sets up it's defences of a different nature against terrorist attacks..

Book - Previous Convictions

In the days of yore I used to read Mr. Gill's pieces religiously every weekend in the Sunday Times and I am sure I have read this book before, but couldn't swear to it.   Previous Convictions book is a selection of articles he wrote from assignments he undertook both at home and abroad.  He doesn't go where the average tourist goes and with his sharp awareness of the environment around him, his writing puts you right there with him.  The article on Haiti  had me disturbed for a couple of days.  BUT,  I would never have put Mr Gill and Mr Clarkson, of top Gear infamy, in the same room never mind on a 'holiday' together.  Truth is stranger than fiction,

Book - George Orwell

Being back in Singapore, Gek and I made very good use of the National Library.  First up to read, Bowker's Orwell.  I have read other Orwell biographies but this is the first one that really gave me a feel for the sort of chap George was beyond the 'he did this, he thought that'.  You will have to make your own mind up but Bowker highlights the contractions in the man, a man playing at being a tramp, a colonial policeman or a soldier at different times but never really being any of them.  Still, makes for a full and interesting life assuming as many characters on this world's stage as you can handle.

Singapore Home

After a weeks worth of scrubbing & polishing and new day and night curtains hung to frame the view, Regent Heights is ready for our return.

Sofa View, Singapore

Balcony it has not but view it has all the way into Malaysia.  Within 12 hours of arriving in the apartment Gek and I had the same thought - why don't we move back here for the last 9 months of our Asian stay?  OK, why not?  June should see us set up in Regent heights again ahead of moving back to Wales in early 2016.  The only constant in our lives seems to be change!

On The Road Again

On the way to Singapore by Aeroline coach via KL, with a nights stopover at the Corus hotel.  One of the twins from our hotel room window.  Good stopover all in all.  Met with two Gallery curators to try for a place to set up the FACES installation, one a no-go but with the other, we are on a list of other exhibitions being considered for 2015.

Gek's Third Solo Exhibition - Video Maker.

Choon Ean setting up to video Gek explaining the art.  We hope that we can use the results to perhaps persuade another gallery in another town to host the installation so that we can take the show on the road.

Gek's Third Solo Exhibition - Official Opening

The Exhibition's official opening was on the 19th, a Sunday coinciding with the street outside the venue being closed for weekly 'fun of the fair'.

Gek kicked off  the event with much deserved thank you gift of one of Gek's water colour landscape paintings to the organiser, Choon Ean.

A tour of the installation led by the artist followed, starting with the paintings of some of Gek's many friends.

The Emotions section  perhaps has the most abstract of the paintings in the show.

Visitors on the day include friends Yong Tai, Yoong Koy and Choo.

Gek's Third Exhibition - Seven Ages

Life's ticket is one way for all of us.

Gek's Third Solo Exhibition - Emotions

What makes us Human, emotions.

Geks' Third Solo Exhibition - One Race

African, European, Asian, Indian faces. Multiple FACES, one RACE.

Geks' Third Solo Exhibition - Friends

Gek and her friends form the first of the four sections.  Interesting feature here is the back lit oil paintings of me ---- back lit feature is the special interest, not me!

Gek's Third Solo Exbition - Open

Gek as the receptionist with all eyes on her.