A week to kill and a friend who came from Jersey Island, a little island much like my home island of Wiaheke, was too much of an opportunity to pass up. So in July I joined her for a trip to the island of Jersey, slap bang in the channel between Britain and France.
Dreams of a week of lying on the beach in the sun during the UK's so-called "summer" were quickly dispelled by the constant cloudy skies and rainy weather, but we were granted some clear evenings for lovely walks along the coastline, and one beautiful day which we spent visiting St Malmo in France. A short ferry ride took us to France where we spent the morning walking through the local markets, before a bus tour of the local area. We attempted to have lunch at a cafe, but after shockingly slow service in which it took 20 minutes just to get our menus (bearing in mind we only had an hour for lunch!), we gave up and ended up having lovely sausage wraps from a cart and sat in the sun on the sidewalk...much better than a snooty cafe any day! In the end we were lucky not to miss the ferry after a walk along the town walls as we were heading in the wrong direction back to the bus, only to conveniently run into the group on their way back to the ferry!
We spent another bad weather day at the Durrell Zoo, set up by the famous zoologist Gerald Durrell (whose books I devoured as an animal-mad kid). I really liked the set-up, and we got some great photos of the gorillas chilling out in their massive enclosure, as well as some cheeky meercats playing up for the camera.
Our evenings were spent eating too much food, drinking too much wine, and soaking in the spa pool under the stars...not a bad break for a busy short vet!
