I’ve cleaned up http://www.flickr.com/photos/landing/ so the images here now correctly link there (and I snuck some new ones in) although I have only finished the Alderney set so far. I should get Guernsey and Jersey done by the end of the week.

I feel so very organised. :)

I love it when a random search drops me onto a website which was not, in any way, what I was looking for but absolutely interesting in its own right.

Today I stumbled on this great collection of photographs of Alderney taken by CR LeCocq between 1900 and 1918:

http://www.cipostcard.co.nz/lecocq.htm

I especially love the shot of the lighthouse being built — I took dozens of photographs of the lighthouse. And take a closer look at the wrecks. I tend to think of them as little stories and lose sight of the fact that we’re looking at real ships and real people. These images bring that back into focus for me.

Speaking of wrecks, I read “Rebecca” for the first time which gave a very real and frightening view of the “wreckers” and the real shock and misery of a sinking ship, let alone the concept that someone might have done this to you on purpose. I’m glad I read it as I think I was in danger of romanticising the entire concept (not that I’ve seen any evidence of actual wrecking so far). It was also interesting seeing the news and the public reactions to the wreck of the Napoli and the mad rush for the loot in Devon.

Coastguard officials have accused scavengers of “sheer greed”.

Is there an implication there that on the small and very poor islands, it was a different scenario? There was a fairly recent wreck near St Mary’s that I made some notes to find out about, it would be interesting to see whether the media coverage is similar.

• http://www.jerseymet.gov.je/ with webcams of the runway and St Helier!
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/guernsey/ and http://www.bbc.co.uk/jersey/ but not Alderney. :(
• http://www.visitguernsey.com
• http://www.aboutjersey.net and http://www.jersey.com/ and http://www.jersey.co.uk/ (Have you guys ever thought about consolidating?)
• http://www.nationaltrustjersey.org.je
• http://www.flyalderney.com/
• http://www.alderney.net – I especially liked the very brief history
• http://www.alderney.gov.gg

So for the next person who does that search and lands here, let me clarify that it is Milk-o-Punch, not with an “a” as I spelled it. Si’s list of pubs is very useful although I should mention that it’s the Marais not the Murray. And no, I never did find out why it’s appropriate to steal dairy products and add rum on the first Sunday of May.

The final plan is:

4 May: arrive Guernsey (evening)

5 May: Guernsey

6 May: Guernsey (Ale and Food festival, yum)

7 May: Alderney (Milk-a-Punch Sunday, thanks to SI for the list of pubs)

8 May: Alderney (hangover recovery)

9 May: Jersey (Liberation Day)

10 May: Jersey

11 May: Depart Jersey (aw!)

Now I just need to book beds and we’re good to go!

A meal in St Anne in view of St Anne’s church.

Hike out to the neolithic burial site, followed by a visit to the Alderney Museum.

A trip on the only running railway in the Channel Islands.

Find out about the Elizabethan wreck which seems an awesome project.
See a gannet and maybe even a blonde hedgehog.

Visit The Nunnery, an old fort from Roman times used as a staging post between Brittany and Britain.

Leave the island to see Burhou if possible (served as a shelter for fishermen and shipwrecked mariners, now a bird sanctuary).

http://www.alderney.gov.gg/index.php/pid/16/more_info/7

This long-observed tradition is a drink made of milk and egg and given a little kick by a healthy tot of rum, offered by every publican on the island and often imaginatively adapted to their own recipe. The origin of the tradition is suitably blurred, but folklore has it that

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