My Month of November – 2018 Edition
November got underway with an outing to the firework display in Oxford’s South Park with some friends, at which I singularly failed to produce any good photos. My friend got given VIP tickets, so we enjoyed chilli con carne and wine in the VIP tent before the display, which was great fun! Also in seasonal activities, some other friends and I gathered for our annual pumpkin carving, which was delayed into early November due to our busy schedules. Not my best effort this year, I fear!
My friend Lucy and I went to the Christmas Lights Festival in Oxford, enjoying the first mulled wine of the year…
…along with this ‘heliosphere’ display in Broad Street.
I enjoyed a solo trip to Rome, which I’ve written about here.
Another friend and I had a lovely day out in the Cotswolds, with lunch at Huffkin’s in Burford…
…followed by an unexpectedly delightful visit to a local zoo called ‘Crocodiles of the World’, where we got to hold a baby alligator. Steve Irwin eat your heart out!
I’ve been doing a fair bit of flying, when I get the time. I’ve completed my club check and am now officially signed off to fly PA28s at Take Flight, though I’ve not had decent enough weather to go solo again yet.
In helicopter news, I’ve been flying the R22 with my old instructor Matt to try to build up my confidence a bit with going into off-airfield sites, as well as building on my general handling skills with some fun flying around the airfield. The trickiest off-airfield landing I’ve done so far was to the Arrow Mill, a pub near Alcester.
Back on the ground, Charlbury was a blaze of autumn colour on my walks this month.
The village was also beautifully decorated for Remembrance Sunday.
I spent the last week of November on an exciting solo trip to Hong Kong, during which I ate lots of incredible food, visited as many places as possible and walked about 20,000 steps a day. I must have taken at least a thousand photos, which I now need to sort through and select some of the best ones to go into a blog post or three. For the time being, I’ll end this post with a pic of me in what became my favourite place in Hong Kong: Victoria Peak.
Lots of posts on Hong Kong coming soon!