Frank Montgomery's Personal Pages
Summary of 2019
Dear Friends,
Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a peaceful New Year.
2019 was a very busy year for
me, with three trips abroad (two by bicycle, but not quite compensating for the
carbon footprint of the first one). It
was also the year I started to take the State pension (having deferred it for
four years), withdrew from my active involvement with CIHT and JBM, and received a gold
certificate from ICE to mark 50 years of membership (initially as
a student member). My unpaid contract as
a Visiting Senior Fellow at the University of Leeds also expired, so I think I
can now honestly say that I am retired, after ten years of ‘ramping down’!
I
have kept up my attendance at concerts, cinema, talks, and am still hillwalking
about once a month. But I won’t go into
detail this year, instead concentrating on the major items.
Chile. Many years ago, while perusing the excellent NASA website on eclipses (compiled by the now
retired Fred Espenak), I discovered that there
was going to be a total solar eclipse on my 70th birthday. What’s more, it was going to be a relatively
long one, and near the driest place on Earth, so viewing conditions should be
somewhat better than my only previous trip to see one (1999 near Reims, France). So the decision to go
to Chile to see this eclipse was made a long time ago. My former student Dr Lorena Herrera is a
professor at Pontificia Universidad Católica de
Valparaíso, Chile, and on a visit to Leeds University in Jan 2017 when I told
her of my plan, she generously offered to host me, and also gave me good advice
on places to visit. So it was that I
spent a wonderful month in Chile from 9 June to 9 July. Annotated photos of the trip are here, (click on individual
photos to see the annotations). I spent about half my time with Lorena and her
family in Vina del Mar, and they were the perfect hosts. We made a few trips from Vina, including: to Concon; to the
former home of Pablo Neruda at Isla Negra; and to Laguna Verde. The rest of my
time was spent in Santiago (including a day trip from there skiing at El Colorado
resort in the Andes); San Pedro de Atacama, a charming oasis in the Atacama
desert; and La Serena, from where we drove to see the eclipse at the village of
La Higuera, which was bang on the centreline of totality. Entry to the village by car was strictly
controlled, but Lorena’s friend Marcella worked in the local authority and had
been able to get a permit. My photos
were taken with a standard smartphone and don’t do justice to the magnificence
of the spectacle. Some better pictures are here.
On
my last full day in Chile it was good to meet up and have dinner with former
colleague and old friend of ITS, Prof Juan Ortuzar.
Postscript:
There were some strikes (by students) and demonstrations (by schoolteachers) while
I was there, but they were peaceful, and I got the impression that the country as a whole was peaceful and working pretty well. So it was quite
shocking to see the violence of the riots in October.
Cologne.
In early
August I spent a week in Cologne with eight friends from Leeds. Seven went
there by air and hired bikes locally, but Steve Hammond and I got the ferry
from Hull to Rotterdam and cycled there over two days. On our outward journey we stopped overnight in
Eindhoven, and on the return we stopped in Den Bosch (s’Hertenbosch).
Despite our previous peregrinations through the low countries over the
years, both these lively cities were new to us, and we agreed that both would
make good bases for future cycling trips. Our outward journey was fairly straightforward
and enjoyable, and included cycling through the Brachter Wald, which was once the
largest ammunition depot in Europe, but since 2000 has been designated as a
nature reserve, with many walking and cycling trails.
In
Cologne we all stayed in a large AirBnB villa in the
South of the city close to the river. We
were very lucky with the weather, and probably our most memorable trip was to
Bonn – we cycled there but came back by river boat.
Our
return trip to Rotterdam was more eventful, as: a) I had an attack of gout,
which made walking rather slow and painful (but thankfully had no effect on
cycling); b) we were fighting against 50mph headwinds on the second day, so had
to let the train take the strain part of the way; c) Steve had a puncture on
the last stretch to the ferry terminal, and only just made it in time! Once on the ferry I decided to walk around in
my socks, as it was too painful to wear my normal shoes. However
when we went for dinner I was told I couldn’t come in without shoes, in case
someone broke a glass and I stood on it. Eventually I persuaded the management
to allow me in, and halfway through our meal someone broke a glass!
Annotated
photos of the
Cologne trip are here.
Celtic
tour. Nothing
to do with football, but the name Barry coined for our cycle tour of Brittany,
Ireland and Wales. Annotated photos of the
Celtic tour are here.
We
got off to a bad start when our train from Birmingham to Southampton was
cancelled. (We had to take this route to
Portsmouth because it was the bank holiday weekend, and Kings Cross was closed
for engineering works.) Our later train
was crammed, and we had to stand in the vestibule for an hour and a half. On the plus side, because we were more than an
hour late reaching Southampton, we got a full refund of the ticket price under
the ‘delay repay’ scheme. The ferry trip
to Ouistreham was pleasant, arriving after dark. The following day we took a side trip to
Bayeux, going out via the coast which was saturated with WW2 memorabilia. In Bayeux we really enjoyed the tapestry
museum – the 70m long embroidered cloth is displayed in full, and
explanation of the panels is provided via an audioguide
which automatically knows which part of the tapestry you are at.
Before
leaving Leeds I had been prescribed Colchicine for my
gout. However
the side effects included nausea, so I decided to postpone starting it until I
got to France, so as not to confuse nausea with seasickness. So I started the
Colchicine the night before cycling to Bayeux, and felt a little nausea on the
return. During the night however I suffered much more severe side effects (I
won’t go into details, but it was as well I was in an en-suite
room!). So I
had to stop taking it, and resorted to Ibuprofen and Voltarol,
which worked pretty well. Nevertheless I still found walking a bit of an effort during
the whole trip.
The
Colchicine side effects had knocked the stuffing out of me, and initially I
wasn’t sure if I could continue. Certainly the planned 80km ride to Aubry-le-Panthou (visiting the source of the Montgomery name) was
out of the question. Luckily a plan B
was possible – a short 19km ride to Caen to recover, then an 80km ride to Domfront the next day, back on schedule. This worked well, and what’s more, the prebooked hotel in Aubry-le-Panthou (Le Moulin Foulon) kindly
gave a full refund.
The
rest of our route included overnight stops in Fougeres,
Rennes (two nights), Saint Malo, Saint Brieuc, Huelgoat, Brest (two nights), Pont Aven
overnight ferry, Cork (two nights), Mount Melleray,
Waterford, Fishguard, Llandovery, Hereford (2 nights, with a side trip by train
to Barry), finishing at Birmingham for the train back to Leeds. Highlights included: the hotel (Numero Cinq) in Domfront; the
cityscape and bustling atmosphere of Saint Malo; national naval museum in
Brest; exotic garden of Roscoff; cycle path from
Passage West to Cork; meeting my aunt Pauline and her daughter Fran in Cork;
Dungarvan to Waterford greenway; Brecon Beacons national park; Hay-on-Wye;
Barry Island; Rea valley cycle route approaching Birmingham from the South.
All
in all a thoroughly enjoyable trip. We had only two half-days of rain in the
whole 23 days trip, which is remarkable for Northwest Europe.
Birthday
Parties As I was in Chile on my actual 70th birthday,
and was then tied up with other matters (ok – holidays!) for a while after, I
didn’t get round to organising a party until November. Party #1 was in Glasgow on the 2nd,
at the GHA
rugby club
where 32 guests (mostly relatives) helped me celebrate, and party #2 was in
Leeds on the 30th, in the Oak Room of the Original Oak, Headingley, with 53 guests.
I hope everyone enjoyed themselves, as I certainly did!
I
went to four other ‘decade parties’ this year: Mark Wilson
(60) in May; Neill Davison (60) in August; Steve Jones (50) also in August; Barry
Hughes (70) in October). All were great
fun, and each had its own USP! Thanks again for all the effort put in.
Best Wishes
Frank Montgomery