Tag: History

Sailing to Alderney on a tall ship called Queen Galadriel 

July 9th 2010 is  a date that comes up on my computer pictures timeline for a wonderful visit from Portsmouth to the Island of Alderney on a tall ship no less when I was 34 some 14 years ago now. 

Queen Galdriel – The Cirdan Sailing Trust
(https://www.cirdantrust.org/queen-galadriel)

Alderney is the northernmost of the inhabited Channel Islands. It is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, a British Crown dependency. It is 3 miles long and 1+1⁄2 miles wide. The island’s area is 3 square miles, making it the third-largest island of the Channel Islands, and the second largest in the Bailiwick.

Smb1001, CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, via Wikimedia Commons

I was staying in supported accommodation in Chepstow in South Wales at the time of the trip to Alderney, after having come out of a hospital stay, due to struggling with my mental health back then. Though I am pleased to say that that was the last time I spent time in hospital due to my mental health and had I not been staying in accommodation in Chepstow I would never have been invited to sail on the ship. 

I was well on the way to recovery when this trip to Alderney took place and it really was a great adventure and a real privilege to go there on the working tall ship. I have just spent the last two hours trying to work out the name of the charity that we sailed with and also the name of the boat. Which I am pleased to say I found out eventually.


It turns out the boat is called as already mentioned in the title the Queen Galadriel and was originally built in 1937 in Svenborg, Denmark and was named Else first after the Captain’s daughter. She traded as a cargo vessel around the coasts of Denmark and Norway, initially as a motor sailor but after 1956 under motor alone. In 1983, she was bought by The Cirdan Sailing Trust and went into service, renamed the Queen Galadriel. The Ciridan Saling trust still run her today and groups or individuals can still pay to go on trips with her. 

Back in 2010 the weather was stunning when we sailed out to Alderney, really hot, but with a cool breeze on the ship so you did not really feel the heat too much when sailing. Alderney was such a lovely place to visit also, with the beaches there being really special as well. 

The Waterboys – Fisherman’s Blues (High Quality)

Huwspace blog 3 years old today

Well I am still here and really enjoying being a part of a blogging community. I have done a few screen shots to show some stats about what has been viewed on the site over the last 12 months and which locations around the world were viewing the posts from.

I am pleased that my top posts are an eclectic mix of politics, perspective on society my own life and family.

Map showing which counties view blog

I love that I can view blogs from people from all over the world and see there posts as well as they have a chance to see mine.

I still think what we have all been through over the last few years is crazy and speaking as a person that has personal experience of mental health difficulties I think if this decade was a person it would have been sectioned and heavily medicated by now so much so that it would be a dribbling wreck unable to identify the day of the week let alone the year that it was causing chaos within. 

Good old blighty or err cough, cough, splutter, splutter, Great Britain really is a little broken at the moment. I remember when the last labour government got in the 1990s they had huge plans and a vision for good old blighty or err cough, cough, splutter, splutter, Great Britain! Though it all went to hell in a hand cart eventually due to a global markets crash and with London’s stock exchange being at the heart of global business markets when the markets coughed the whole of the British economy caught a cold, and by the time that that financial recovery was underway Corona Virus reared its ugly head and battered blighty further.  

Well in 2010 the Conservatives gained a form of power and they had the not so genius ideas of austerity cutting services and support to the bone and calling for a referendum on our membership of the European Union which led to us leaving the EU and the Conservative are still in the middle of attempting (with ease) to dismantle any and all useful social, economic and environmental protection for citizens of the UK in order to cut so called red tape or as I prefer to describe it shaft people and planet for a few lousy pounds more in profit to themselves and their former school chums who are now in business.

Conservative Party Manifesto Commitment

 The Conservative seem to have an obsession with a race to the bottom of the quality and functionality of society and will do whatever they can to cut corners in order to save a penny and make a further quid (£) in profit.

In the new year here in good old blighty, errr cough, cough, splutter, splutter Great Britain we are presently living though a very serious health crisis in the NHS hospital system. Many news papers in the UK were reporting today that there were 500 deaths each week presently due to the failures of  our government to resource, plan and manage our health system during a major crisis not just down just to flue & covid, but also a lack of beds for patients and lack of staff resources and and an inability to recruit enough health staff and those poor souls working in the NHS are overworked and underpaid and their are simply not enough of them to nurse and treat patients or beds in hospital for patients or social service to support and discharge patients to once fit to leave hospital.

Hopefully this is all fixable but will take years and a serious resolve and financial input to fix and will not be done overnight or through gimmicks or political sound bites. Sadly the lack of fixing and investment shall also continue to cost many lives, Conservative blood money you might say.

Emeli Sande – Read All about it, Part III