I'm training on Guernsey this week. My first visit to the island, and in many ways it feels more English than England, yet with a taste of France. A midweek crossing on the "Commodore Clipper" brough me here, 7 hours from Portsmouth. Commodore Clipper is a smaller ship than most of the cross channel ferries that I'm used to and is short and squat; she bucks and heaves a bit even in what looked like fairly gentle seas - I have to say that's a good thing for me, as it helped lull me off to sleep. Others weren't so sure - there was a lady across from me who was telling folks that she was concentrating on the TV to avoid being sick!
The two main Channel Islands are Jersey and Guernsey - each around (I guess) 10 miles long. And there are smaller islands too - Alderney (where I've been before), and Herm and Sark, famous for "The Dame of Sark" and its lack of cars. They're just a few miles off the French coast, and were the only part of the UK to be occupied by Germany during the second world war. There's a number of museums here that recall those times; many are close for the winter, though, and I haven't had a chance to get to the others as I'm here to work and I'm doing so all day.
St Peter Port on Guernsey is the Island's main town, and where the ship berths. Our hotel is just a few hundred yards away in narrow back streets, ovelooking the picturesque harbour. Parking there is nonexistant (I brought the car to carry about 10 laptops for my trainees to use during my course - for "normal" people public transport would be MUCH more sensible!) and in a touch of irony, the hotel's best offer was to "park back at the ferry". Some excellent fish restaurants, where Lisa and I have eaten the two evenings so far.
Good hotel - most importantly it's got a wireless hotspot so that we can work from here, but the kippers are good at breakfast, the old Georgian building is giving us a few ideas for fine tuning of our place of a similar age, and our room is spacious.
Before we arrived, I had heard that the speed limit on the Island's roads is 35 mph and I felt this was a bit cautious. Having seen the roads, I think it's about right. If you're familiar with driving in both the USA and the UK, you'll know how roads get narrower in the UK - well here on Guernsey it's another step. The busiest roads are still just country lanes that snake around the island, with high walls, hidden gateways from houses and blind corners at every twist. You're lucky if you can actually get up to the 35 mph. Oh - and fuel, I note, at between 40p and 50p per litre; I do need to fill up before we return to the UK overnight tomorrow.
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The Channel Islands have a curious status; they're part of Great Britain, yet not a part of the European Community and much of their activity is centred on being a tax shelter. Even in January, they're busy. And on our return, we'll have no passport control, but we'll go through customs as if we were coming in from the USA with a 145 pound per person limit. And, yes, I have special "duplicate list" paperwork to allow me to carry all my tools of trade without getting hit for a further 17.5% VAT as I try to re-import them into the UK.
