WAIHEKE

Monday 19th January came fair and sunny as all our days in San Francisco have been. John drives us to the airport stopping en route for coffee and bagels. Sad to leave, but we're not leaving yet - we've got hours to wait even for the first, local, flight down to Los Angeles. I don't know how the time goes but it does, and then we're at LAX airport, which is very large, and surprisingly friendly. the Qantas staff say that we can check in at 2pm although the flight's not until 8.30pm. There's a long wait in the queue to do that, but it's worth it as we can get rid of our bags (why hasn't experience told us not to take heavy luggage?) - and we are officially on stand by till we find out whether we're crossing the Pacific or not tonight - and that will be much later in the day.

So it's lunch - Tom Bradley building best for that, say the senior citizens who man the travellers aid desks - what a brilliant idea for ageing volunteers - and then find a post box. Postcards are part of travelling so it's not good to post them in the wrong country. Our ancient advisor suggests we take a walk almost out of the airport to the nearest hotel. This is a great idea as it works and it fills time. Standing by is all about mental state. It is necessary to remain calm and philosophical. Some activity, even walking though the airport environs, helps.

By the time we get back from this walk it's time to get through the security checks and hover around the departure desk. The staff explain that it's a busy flight so they won't be looking at standbys until they've checked everybody else in. OK, so we wander around, trying not to crowd the desk. The flight is called and a huge number of people stand up to queue for boarding. Gradually I notice that there are other people standing by - we all seem to be trying to look nonchalant over by the left hand end of the desk, but not too close as to seem to be hassling the staff. Every now and again a list of names is called- perhaps ten names but only 3 or 4 people go up to the desk. This looks positive to the strange mind of the stander by - it suggests that some of those booked on the flight haven't turned up. Still trying to look nonchalant we edge a little closer and then retreat to just within hearing range.

Then suddenly our names are called. Others too, and there is a surge to the desk and in no time we have our boarding passes, have passed the boarding gate and are standing patiently in the plane, looking for our seats, having politely thanked the Qantas check in staff who have it all to do again tomorrow.

New Zealand

And so to bed - managed to sleep for 5 out of 10 hours. Arrived Auckland before 7am,through the airport without any fuss, bus to the ferry terminal, coffee and croissant, ferry to Waiheke island and then the whole pace of life slows, even though it's not yet 9am.

Not sure I know what happened to the rest of that day. The island is astonishingly like the perfect tropical island paradise, especially in this hot weather with the sea full of boats.

The feeling of not wanting time to go by was balanced by anticipation of the next activity. the greatest afternoon was spent fishing. 16 snappers ended their days as our dinner for a couple of days - well there were 16 but some of them went to the other person on the boat. No point in feeling sorry - it was great fun and the best dinner!

I had a go at sailing in Auckland harbour on one of the Americas Cup boats - with a few others and its professional crew of course. Even with such a strong team we couldn't whistle up the wind, so just a couple of hours drifting around hoping for a wind. We winched a man up the mast to look for the breeze, but even such sophisticated technology didn't bring it on.

Saw old friends Danda and Ulli, and Ulli took me on a journey in the imagination round the South Island - now doing the real thing pretty much on his recommendations.

Saw a tug boat race and then it was time to catch the train to Wellington - more treats in store.

The dog is Georgie. The frame is an exhibit in the sculpture walk on Waiheke Island. Oh yes and Waiheke makes excellent wine - not only that but the tasting is fun - more of that later too.

Golden Gate

A very foggy trip to Heathrow with the traffic snarled up everywhere and then suddenly we're up there - in both senses - above the clouds and in First Class. So an excellent Bordeaux for lunch and a feeling of total unreality and then we're in San Francisco.

Our friend met us at the airport and took us home to Oakland. I love the California architecture with a bit of Spanish in it, and the view - across the bay to the city. We walked and walked and walked (apart from trying cablecar travel a few times). For a big US city it's amazingly walkable and because it's hilly everywhere has a view. On this cloudless Thursday the views over the Bay were amazing, so we climbed the Coit Tower for an even better view, especially across to Sausalito via Alcatraz. The sky has a slightly wintery blue which brings out the white of the buildings in clear contrast with the green areas, and the pale blue of the waters of the Bay.

On Friday we had an expert tour of the Golden Gate Park, De Young Museum and the Pavilion of the Legion of Honour which is set on a high point overlooking the Pacific and contains a stunning collection from the Middle Ages onward of paintings sculpture and artefacts, mainly European. We met another friend for dinner in the Mission District where he lives. The restaurant had no tables but the md suggested we should wait in the pub on the corner and she would call us there. A pub in America is far more a bar where people can sit in a line than is the case in an English pub, but the atmosphere was great and the choice of drinks phenomenal. The restaurant called and I was sorry we had to rush our meal a little. Rushed back to Oakland by BART train after dinner and got home without waking up our hosts.

On the weekend we went on two different drives. Saturday to the Napa Valley where we tasted wine selling at US$80 a bottle, drove back to Oakland and bought good quality Shiraz for US$2!

On Sunday we were in Marin County across the Golden Gate bridge, eating an excellent lunch in the sunshine looking at the boats in Tiburon before heading over the the Pacific Coast for the sunset. Our hosts entertained us to the best Roast beef and brussels sprouts we'd ever tasted, and on Monday morning left at 7 to San Francisco airport to catch a plane to LA. Later the same day we planned to standby for a Qantas flight to New Zealand, but that's another story.

What makes San Francisco so loveable? It's not only visitors who fall for it. The locals themselves love their city.

Debatable Lands - Family History

LONGTOWN - 1851 to 1901

I am researching the history of the Richardson side of my Cumbrian family.

In the 19th century they lived in Longtown, Cumberland, about 10 miles north of Carlisle. My grandfather John ('Jack') Richardson had often told me that he was born in Longtown so once or twice I have been for a visit to see if I can find anything out. Usually I have been diverted to the Graham Arms for lunch because the old men sitting on the bench on the green never seemed to have much to tell me. Once I went with my father, once with a girlfriend, and once with my entire MBA class from Strathclyde University. We had been on a day out by coach from Glasgow to visit a Philips TV factory on Tyneside and I persuaded the driver that the Graham was the best place for lunch. It wasn't bad that time, but my memory of the earlier lunch with the young lady was of food so tasty that I suppose other appetites were satisfied at around the same time. So the class suffered a bit from my fantasy memory of succulent food of the very best with French wines, but there was probably nowhere better and anyway we were students.

The only serious effort made to try to trace the family was on the visit with my father. We sat down with the old men on the bench on the green. They remembered Jack Richardson, they said, but he came from Brampton. We didn't like the sound of this. Having believed for so long that Longtown was our ancestral home the idea of transferring allegiance to Brampton was not on. No, said my father, it can't be the same Jack, and that was that - off to the Graham Arms (for the first time) and a teetotal lunch (for the last time).

Longtown is a little town just a mile or so south of the border with Scotland. As it is now it was created in the 18th century, laid out by the Lords of Graham (hence the name of the pub), in the first lengthy period of peace in that area for many centuries. Lawlessness had been the rule prior to that time as the reivers from both sides stole cattle, murdered and pillaged, among them Armstrongs, Hendersons, Routledges, and (even) Richardsons. Surpisingly for such quiet people, all those names exist in our family tree.

Just north of Longtown were the 'debatable lands' where the border had not been fixed and on which there was no agreement as to whether they belonged to Scotland or to England, even after most other similar issues had been agreed upon. In these debatable lands lived outlaws of all sorts including some of the reiver families. It became law in both England and Scotland that bona fide citizens of either country had the right to pillage, murder, or steal from anyone who had settled in the debatable lands. the inhabitants were considered all round to be vermin, or even game.

This issue was settled at the time of the union of parliaments, and building a town for the first time for centuries looked like a good idea. It would be interesteing to know how the lords of Graham came into possession of the land, but their family researchers can no doubt tell us.

The first record I have so far found of the Richardson family in Longtown is in the 1851 census. This was a period of great change. The railway network was expanding fast and Carlisle suddenly became a major junction and depot. Both Carlisle to Glasgow lines bypassed Longtown on their way north but ten years later, in 1861, a station was built at Longtown on the Waverley Route between Carlisle and Edinburgh. The Industrial revolution was in full swing and the change from a textile industry based on homeworking artisan weavers to the factory system is visible in the family history.

In 1851 at 18 Bridge Street lived George Richardson, then 43 years old, a handloom weaver, with his wife Jane, two sons John (18) and William (12), two twin dughters Ann and Elizabeth (7) and a step daughter Mary Gordon (4). In order to help with the finances there was a lodger Jas. Murray (22), an agricultural labourer. George is recorded in the census not just as head of the household, but as having the status of 'master' which meant that he was his own master and not employed, not a 'worker'. Both John and William were handloom weavers.

The next time we meet the family is in the 1861 census. The railway arrived in that year and handloom weaving was a fast disappearing occupation. It looks as if factory work was not for everyone and in any case the nearest mills were in Carlisle. So George appears as a railway labourer. Later the family dispersed around the North of England, with a later George listed as a boarder with a family in Hebburn on Tyneside working as a shipyard labourer.

My father kindly gave me a family tree some years before he died. It has no dates but at least the names of the various generations have helped me to check against the census results that I am looking at the right Richardsons. As anyone from north of Lancaster knows, the largest number of Richardsons are found in the counties now called Cumbria and Tyneside, so it's important to trace th right family.

By the time my father was born his father Jack was living in Carlisle, employed in a textile factory as a maintenance man. I keep trying to find out more about my grandmother Mary Ann, Jack's wife. It may not be so easy. She came from a family called Ward. When I was a child my father took my brother and me on a holiday to Ireland. We stayed in the north, at Holywood near Belfast, but took a day trip to Dublin. At sometime in the afternoon we walked to a church and my father tantalisingly said that this was where his mother had been christened. I seem to remember that there is a photo of it from that time, so I haven't completely given up trying to find out more about her and her family.

But in 1916 the public records office in Dublin was damaged by fire and many records were lost, including Mary Ann's birth record, so that church must be the only answer.

There are lots of loose ends. Although there was a census every 10 years the family disappears in one survey, only to re-appear in the next. So where were they? Or wasn't the census as thorough as it looks?

I must find that photo.

California, New Zealand, Australia and China 2009

Planning-10th January

We say we don't do any planning but a thin folder of essential items has grown on my desk - e-tickets, real old-fashioned paper air tickets, maps , insurance documents, and a list of things to get done before we leave next week on Wednesday. And of course we will be staying with a number of kind people on this trip so an agreement about arrival time and date has been needed.

There's also a growing feeling that I need to plan things for immediately after getting back in March - the flat to look at and re-rent, and the boat to get ready for a busy season. None of that is really urgent but for some reason everything needs thinking about before a long trip.

Maybe it's mpre important than ever to get away at this time of year but the economic situation is so bad that it feels a bit privileged to be able to do it. It would be even worse to be able to do it but then not go for some silly reason.

So on the 14th we are off to San Francisco, confirmed booking, probably First Class, so let's enjoy it while we can.