Archive for the ‘England’ Category
Matt’s impression of the deep fried Mars bar was that it wasn’t worth waiting 10 years for…but maybe we just went to the wrong shop. Our whirlwind visit of Edinburgh was enough to make us feel as though we would like to go back there on day, but not enough time to check out all the trourist must see places. Matt, the star he is booked a hotel 5 minutes walk from the train station, so on Thursday we packed our gear…trying to protect all the grog and pressies that we brought for our friends in Sweden… and jumped on the 10am train to New Castle.
From New Castle we jumped on a DFDS boat to Gothenburg, via Kristiansand (Norway). Matt and I almost killed ourselves carting all the alcohol that Pete and Kate asked for, the taxes in Sweden almost work as well as prohibition…we felt like we were smuggling grog in across the sea border. The “cruise” was great fun…we dined in a swish restraunt…where we couldn’t understand anything on the menu although it was written in English, we saw dancing girls (and a boy), listened to the easy listening, underinspired rock group and did the whole titanic thing (Matt: “I am king of the world”). It was a beautiful experience sailing into Gothenburg, which is a much bigger city than I expected, with big bridges and a built up shoreline on both sides of the river. It was a bit unnerving that it was pitch black at 3.30pm when we arrived…and frezing cold. Not really sure how much daylight to expect…we are travelling south now, so hopefully there will be some improvement.
Tomorrow we start the Christmas celebrations, Swedish style. May everyone have a wonderful Christmas and take joy in the fact that “Man shall live forever more, because of Christmas day”. God Bless you all. Matt: “Bah Humbug”!
Hi, this is a real quick one because I am racing the clock at the internet cafe.
We left Bedford last night…very sad saying good bye to good friends! after racing down to the charity shop with our towels and bedding we raced to get a train that missed the airport station that we had to get off at. We jumped on another train and finally got to Luton airport, where we landed 8 months ago. still not British we chose the worst check in line, taking over an hour to check in. The flight was short and sweet and Edinburgh is beautiful. they currently have a winter wonderland theme park set up at the base of the cliff with the castle. It has an ice skating rink and a German market and a Ferris Wheel…which we will check out tonihgt. Today has manly been retail therapy, recovering from a hectic week of packing up and shopping for christmas pressies. We discovered that the scotts cannot cook any better than the English at lunch time, tonight we are going out in search of a deep fried mars bar…to celebrate matt’s 27th birthday.
love you all and hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas….
This is where you have to imagine “The Final Count Down” rock ballad in the back ground and a Flash animation with the world spinning and a plane taking off from London Heathrow airport, into the atmosphere, back down to earth for a quick stop over in Bangkok and pulling up at the final destination Melbourne, Australia. That’s how I pitched it to Mattie anyway…as it has taken us this long to write a blog…I don’t think fancy animations are going to be part of our site any time soon.
So finally we have broken the silence…
England seems to be exploding with colour from dusk until about midnight for the last week. I have never seen anything like it and Matt rightly asked why would a country celebrate the failed plot to blow up parliament?? The thick cloud at night reflects the fireworks in the distance and it seriously could be mistaken as a war zone at times! It really is ever so fun and Matt and I enjoyed our first Saturday night out together walking the streets, drinking beer and watching the fireworks. Part of the evening was soaking in the atmosphere, but the other part was celebrating our decision to come home and booking our tickets to arrive home in mid-January. So needless to say the night started in the Aussie pub drinking VB and Boags, and watching Australia take on the French in rugby (league or union it is hard to say…).
Our plans are to leave Bedford on the 21st of December travel north to New Castle then catch the boat to Gothenburg in Sweden. Catch the train down to Pete and Kate’s house and spend Christmas and New Year with them. On the 3rd of January we will catch a plane from Heathrow to Bangkok for some R&R, acclimatisation and to readjust our body clocks…then we will head home on the 12th of Jan, in time to enjoy some of the summer.
There is so much to catch up on that I have decided to write a retrospective series that will cover Liz and my trip to Germany, and the parents’ visits, it should appear over the next few weeks or so. If there is anyone who is still checking this site thanks for still loving us.
I think that we have lost the routine of blogging…so a bit of a catch up is in order….
Please excuse any typos, I am currently doing battle with a German keyboard.
A quick recap of the last month…there was a fantastic weekend (4 days) in Sweden with our friends Pete, Kate and Olivia. We shopped in Malmo, went to a Swedish surprise party and visited an Alk park. Enjoyed a BBQ and learnt a new board game…it was a fantastic relaxing time and great to be hanging out with old friends.
We have also had some visiters staying with us in Bedford which has also broken up the manotonoy of life a bit. Matt´s brother Simon stayed with us for a week, we managed to cram a road trip into that also – to South Hampton (the Launching place of the Titanic), visiting Oxford briefly to have dinner at the Eagle and Child (Tolkien and CS Lewis´ old watering hole), saw an Abby and a couple of castles and visited Stone Henge all in one weekend!
We then had some other visitors from Oz, Richard Carron (Tommy´s little brother) and his friend Julie. They made good use of the Thames Link and travelled to London everyday to take in the sites. Which reminds us we should venture to London some day :)
Last weekend Matt and I packed the car and made our way down to dover to catch the Ferry to France. We travelled for about 11 hours reaching Antwerp and our beautiful four star hotel. My husband is such a bargin shopper! It took us a while to wind our way to the “tourist” sites in Antwerp but when we got there we were glad we stayed the distance…it is a pretty little city. We then headed off to Eindhoven, where we caught up with the Piening clan and spent a few day visiting the sites of significance to the Piening family. Phillips pretty much own that town. It was hard to find a building without Phillips written on it. We also crammed a road trip to Western Belgium into to our four days. Belgium waffles are great!!!
As we set off again our car was a little fuller, with Liz and Simon crammed in the back with all our gear – Metro Rover what a car. The German auto barns are fast and furious. We had a brief stop in Colone – visiting the Dom (and walking the 500 steps to the spire), and Liz initiated me into the H&M stores.
Our next stop Frankfurt swept us off our feet as we landed there in the middle of a huge festival. All the museums were discounted for the festival and the river bank was a sea of people, market stalls, live music, out door bars and plenty of German food (which is apparently more than sausages). The boys caught a plane the next day to London and Liz and I continue on with our German roadtrip.
That is a whirlwind catch-up and here is my obligatory promise to update the site more often…which I actually think might happen as I am back on the road again. Send Matty emails because he is probably lonley home alone…hey why not even give him a call!
Still playing catch up…
My uni friend Ali and I planned a trip to Brighton that is directly south from London on the coast. Initially we decided to catch the Thames Link train from Bedford that travels directly to Brighton without transfers (through London). We decided however that it would be cheaper to drive in our little rover. When we hit the M25 (London’s outer ring road) we began to think differently. We travelled one exit in 25 minutes and decided we would be best to get off the motorways and travel on the back roads or the A roads. Ali skilfully navigated until we hit an eight-way intersection that made us panic, we ended up heading to Windsor (the opposite direction to which we hoped to travel). We went on a nice sight seeing trip of Surrey (one off England’s posher shires) and eventually pulling over for a picnic next to a local air field…ah the serenity. We arrived in the vicinity of Brighton 6 hours later (when the train would have taken 3 and a half. Our camp ground was actually in a small town east of Brighton called Seaford, we camped right on the beach – if it could be called that, with a pebble coast line and no surf to speak of. After pitching the tent we headed to the toilet block to freshen up for our big night in Brighton.
We caught the surf express that travelled along the coastline affording us great views. As we approached Brighton my preconceptions of this coastal town were blown out of the water – it was a huge sprawling city. We spent an hour or so walking the coastline taking the glitz and glamour and tackiness. It appeared to be a big destination for buck’s parties and hen’s nights which kept us entertained. We ate at a local pub, drinking a bottle of Australian wine and catching up on the details of Ali’s recent trip to Turkey, Croatia and Greece. We then walked over to Brighton’s famous pier that embodies British seaside tackiness, with roller coaster, merry go rounds and stands testing you skills with the odds hopelessly stacked against you. We enjoyed some Belgium waffles and then walked backed to the train station for a good nights sleep.
The next day we packed up and jumped on the seaside express. We spent some time walking though the boutique shops and trash and treasure shop. Brighton has great shopping and bargain hunting, as it has a diverse community (all sorts of “alternate” lifestyles) there are a good variety of shops.
We dragged ourselves away from the shops to do some sight seeing. We visited the Royal Pavilion, which looks like it should be in India next to the Taj Mahal. This palace of similar vintage as Chateau de Versali, an era of decadence for royalty, was built by King Richard IV the son of “mad” King Richard III. The facility was built primarily to have huge parties in. King Richard IV isn’t remembered as a great king and the palace fits in with the Brighton tackiness as the Asian architecture and interior design was reproduced by those who had never been to Asia so is a mishmash of the east meeting the west.
Ali and I headed back to the car via the shops not looking forward to the potentially long trip home. The traffic was fantastic and I arrived home to my husband by dinner time. After being together every day for six months it was nice to have a period of missing each other (even though it was only one night), as they say, absence makes the heart grow stronger.
Life has settled back into a routine which makes it a bit difficult to find exciting material to keep our loyal readers entertained…(well that’s you mum and I talk to you twice a week anyway). The weeks are flying past, over the last three weeks we have treated ourselves to the theatre, going to see Miss Saigon, which was fantastic and making me believe that we are going to be visiting the West End of London a few times before we leave.
Last weekend we packed the car with our new tent and lilo and headed up to Sherwood forest to see what this Robin Hood legend was all about. Needless to say my childhood fantasies of Kevin Costner leading his merry men were quite removed from the reality. I have since discovered that the majority of that film was shot in Ireland. We visited the old oak the place that Robin Hood and his men legendarily met and the church where Robin and Marian got hitched. Across from the church we found a great cafe and an English man that can really make coffee (he had spent 3 years living in Madrid and 5 in Africa) we had a great chat with him and he excited our dreams of future travel. Strangely he had been a middle level manager in an ISP and decided he was sick of playing with the numbers on excel spread sheets. The next day we visited Nottingham with our camping compatriots (Ang and Warrwick). Nottingham was a really nice medium sized city with a really young feel. It has a bit of a rough reputation but we were given no reason to feel unsafe. We visited the man made underground caves and learnt the process of early day tanning leather. We then visited the local gaol and had a tour much like that of the old Melbourne gaol. It brought us a bit closer to home as the last exhibit was about transportation to the colonies. The back ground music was the early colonial music that I remember Grandad Harvey used to listen to.
I still am working at the same post – which has provided me some security as a locum. The team I am working with is currently 4 people down and with holidays and sick days there have been days when I am the only person in the department. So needless to say that work is hectic and the days pass quickly. Getting a glimpse at the NHS (National Health Service) has made me realise that Kennet was a pussycat compared to Thatcher and that investment in public infrastructure is so important. The building in which I am working is literally falling down around us. When we were interviewing job applicants on Friday a small drip from the ceiling began to hit the applicants shoulder, a few minutes later eventuating in the ceiling collapsing. Apparently it is a pretty regular occurrence, raw sewerage flooded the department last Christmas. So as the Psych department await a new building the NHS is paying hundreds of thousands of pound patching up the pipe system which is reportedly beyond repair. We have a man employed to run each tap in the building for 5 minutes each two times a week. The absurdities make my mind boggle and make me wonder if I am that far from Asia.
Last night we a had a staff function, Christmas in June, which was novel for most as it was “so hot” (21 degrees). It was great getting to know all my work colleagues a little better, I am really happy to have landed with a great bunch of people (and yes I have to say that because they’ll probably read this).
We have a few thing coming up to be excited about, we are flying to Paris to catch up with Liz and then travelling down to Barcelona with Ang and Warrwick. We have planned another trip in July to fly over to Sweden and catch up with Pete and Kate. And of course Pauline and Henry (Matt’s parents) are arriving in Birmingham on the 31st of July!
As always thank you all for the news from home, it always bring a smile to our face and reminds us about why home is the best place in the world. The Aussies cricket team are touring here and are copping bad press for their poor performances. Don’t think that we will get to Lords (as the tickets are pretty sewn up), but we might catch them somewhere on their tour.
After a quick look at the auctions on Saturday we jumped in the Rover and headed on a road trip to Manchester to see Philippa’s uni mate Ang and her partner Warwick. The car handled the four hour trip without any problems, although it did struggle to keep up with the speeding BMWs on the M1.
Ang and Warwick kindly put us up in their spare room and prepared a marvelous seafood dinner on our first night. I was initially apprehensive about eating fish (as I usually hate it), however it was absolutely delicious. Following dinner we headed into the city to see the Chemical Brothers, live in their home town.
The concert was absolutely awesome! Starting with “Hey Boy, Hey Girl” they played a mix set, covering all their albums. “Piku” was everything I had hoped for live, you could literally feel the base vibrating through your bones and messing with your t-cells (perhaps that’s what did it?? – it was that same song that blew up my speakers in the Sikma). I was a little disappointed that they skipped “Setting Sun” and the final encore absolutely ruined the show – they played what appeared to be random noise for at least 20 minutes at full blast, annoying everyone around us (some people even walked out); what where they thinking? The video and lighting where brilliant and really enhanced the show (gives you something to look at other than a couple of nerds pressing buttons and tweaking knobs). Overall we all had a great night, I think they went the extra mile for their home town crowd.
After waking up at some un-godly hour (or should that be after sleeping in for those who are actually working) on Sunday we meandered to the bus stop for the Ang and Warwick tour of Manchester. The city centre is a bizarre mixture of modern and classic architecture. The more recent buildings exist thanks to the clearing of land by Nazi and IRA bombing. We spent the majority of the afternoon looking at tents in all the camping stores as Philippa has decided (and I have begrudgingly agreed) to go camping, starting with Sherwood forest in Nottingham next weekend (I hope we look poor, as I don’t want to be robbed). We had a late lunch at “The old Wellington Inn”, a popular old pub; now, when I say old – I mean it – the building was built in 1548 and first licensed as an Inn in 1830. I was lucky enough to run into the renowned Manchester hospitality as I was exiting the pub; three drunk local giants blocking the exit refused to move – forcing me to navigate through the crowd to another exit. Later we met up with a couple of Ang’s friends who had come to visit for the weekend from London. After a game of hackey-sack and dinner we all retired early, still recovering from the night before.
The following morning we all loaded into our cars and headed for a short road trip to the Yorkshire Dales. After scoring a free parking ticket from another visitor who was leaving early, we had a lovely stroll through the Yorkshire Dales National Park. National Parks in England are somewhat different to home, there is no forest! We basically walked through a lovely bit of countryside, complete with lambing sheep, a flowing river and traditional stone fences. There was a beautiful active old church located in the middle of the national park, apparently it was built over 800 years ago! Lunch was beautiful in another old pub, once we managed to find a place that was open and had space for six people. Upon our return back to Ang and Warwick’s place we quickly ate dinner and headed off to a small pub to see Aussie singer Missy Higgins.
After waiting outside for what seemed like aaages for the doors to open, I proceeded to the bar to order a coke. I was finally served 45 minutes later (and was ready to start throwing punches at the girls trying to push in). Apparently everyone in the audience was familiar with Missy’s music, however when the support act started – I think a good 90% of the audience (myself included) thought it was her. I think she needs a little more publicity as nobody knew what she looked like! Unfortunately by the time Missy started to play, Philippa and I had to get going (as we had the long 4 hour trip home ahead of us) – we only managed to stay for 4 or 5 songs. Although I only knew a couple of her songs, the show was really fun and intimate – looking forward to hearing more of her music.
The long trip home was rather uneventful, except for winning £4.00 on the pokies at the road stop! Nearing Bedford, we got off the motorway and navigated our way through the small surrounding towns for about 30 miles – unfortunately due to the slow speed limits in the area, this section of the trip took us nearly an hour (Philippa found out from some colleagues the following day that the motorway goes all the way directly to Bedford and would have saved us probably 45 minutes), doh! Finally, walking in the door at about 2.00AM, we managed to set off the alarm – I slept till lunch time the following day! Phew, what a weekend – had a ball – thanks Ang and Warwick for the great time!
We bit the bullet this weekend and decided it was time to get ourselves a car. Partially because we are off to Manchester next weekend to visit one off my uni mates and watch some live music (Chemical brothers and Missy Higgins). I don’t think that you miss your father’s so much as when you are looking for a car and trying to work out whether it is worth our hard earned £250.
We looked at a few private sale cars, but weren’t really impressed. There is an amazing amount of rust in the cars here, I think it is because of the salt they put on the roads during winter to break up the ice. So you guessed it, we returned to our trusty aucton house two doors down and bidded on a little Rover Metro 111…which we hoped would go :) When cars are sold at aucton here they are generally sold with MOT (road worthy) and Tax (rego), so we kinda felt a bit confident about its condition. We got to start it and look over it before the aucton, and there didn’t appear to be any unusual noises. After sales tax and credit card premium (how odd buying a car on credit card) I think we were out of pocket £274. Our insurace cost more than the car!
It was great getting behing the wheel after 4 months. Our first destination was Tesco a huge supermarket where we purchased a few bits and pieces to fit out the car. A place looks a lot different when you are driving around, one way streets are suddenly significant and you are trying to find speed limit signs.
We collapsed after a long day of talking with insurance companies, organising parking permits and negotiating English roads. At least they drive on the same side of the road as us. We sat in front of the televion eating leftovers and Matt’s home made pancakes and watching Eurovision. I never thought it but the experience is definately hightened being in a country were we can vote. How does Israel get grouped in with Europe?? Anyhow I took my right to vote very seriously and judged all the performances on originality and entertainment value. Denmark got my vote – the guy had an amazing resemblance to Crown Prince Fredrik and I thought that he is almost an Aussie, so I kept the voting in the family like the rest of Europe does.
Anyhow…I think that it is road trip time…don’t forget to give us a buzz on our new number. Will upload some pictures of the car soon.
Phew! I Don’t know where to start! How about “I’m sorry for taking so long to write a post!” I have been sitting here for 10 minutes trying to come up with an excuse – unfortunately there isn’t one!
The past four weeks have been rather exciting, and boring at the same time! Although we haven’t seen any great sights or visited any exciting countries, it has been nice to unpack our suitcases and settle down for a while!
Well, following on from the previous post – we moved into “home” the following day. Somehow we have managed to score a three story, four bedroom semi-furnished terrace house right in the centre of town! At first we where a little worried about renting a place as all the real-estate agents didn’t want to know us (before they will rent out a place, they require proof that you have been a resident for two years); as luck would have it – the boss at Philippa’s job agency was looking for a tenant for their house and was happy for us to move in immediately without all the usual security checks! We had to share the place with a few girls who where studying at the local university for a few weeks (which was fine, except for the mess) – but now we have the place to ourselves! The only downside is the place is up for sale, and theoretically it could go at any time!
Philippa was offered the job she previously mentioned and has been working at the local hospital full time (about a 10 minute walk away) since. She seems to be enjoying it, although she is finding it hard to get back into work mode! That said, she is doing better than me – I have barely even looked for a job, let alone applied for any! I am a kept man!
Setting up the house has been fun! We have had to purchase sheets and doonas (duvets here), knifes, forks, pots and pans etc etc. We seem to purchase a new knick-knack every time we go down the shops (which is only 1 minute walk away). About two doors down is a huge auction house that holds a mixed auction every Saturday – we have been a regular attendee every week for the past four weeks and have managed to accumulate a TV (the big one previously mentioned was one of the girls), a broken portable phone (doh!), a push bike, an office gas lift chair, two really good portable phones and a box of 10 Kensington Locks (for laptops). I was really disappointed when the lot of 90 MP3 players and 37 packs of smokes went higher than I was prepared to pay! Next time, hey!
The rest of our spare time has been filled with watching Freeview Digital TV (so much better here, over 15 extra free channels – better than the Channel 7 test logo back home), eating out at the multitude of pubs within short walking distance, going to the movies etc. Philippa has also been attending some modern dance classes with Alie – she can really cut the rug now! Oh! I also got the internet/phone connected – ADSL 4MB Unlimited – W00T! Speaking of which, I have set up a VoIP phone which gives us a Melbourne (03) number here in England (therefore, if you are in Melbourne you can call us for the cost of a local call) – send us an email if you want the number (just don’t call when it’s the middle of the night here)!
I am woefully homesick and cannot wait to come home! I would love to be at the Star Wars premier with all my mates tomorrow – but I guess it won’t be long until we start traveling again! No ETA yet – but 12-18 months is what we have decided (well, Philippa decided :P).
Better run, Philippa just rang and is walking home from work – she wants to go to the market to get some veggies (today is pay day! Oh how we love the mighty £).
I love you all heaps and miss you a great deal! Make sure you e-mail or call or send a carrier pidgin or something soon!
Our last day we spent with Pete and Kate we did the all important visit to Ikea – yep it is pretty much the same as at home, but a lot more of the products make sense in the Swedish environment – especially the meat balls that they sell in the cafeteria. We caught the speed train the Ryan Air airport about 100km from Stockholm (and didn’t get a chance to see Stockholm this time, we’ll just have to go back to visit it). Ryan air is about as budget as you can get – the chairs are primarily made from hard plastic! We arrived in Luton (near London) exhausted and made it to our guesthouse, what an adventure that turned out to be!
The guesthouse owner had overbooked the accommodation, so he offered us his room, which we took – as my recruitment agency had prepaid for three nights and it seemed like a waste of money paying to go elsewhere. We were directed out to the back bungalow, which was a real bachelor pad. This bachelor however had a thing for purchasing clothes, and, other than the bed, you could not see any of the furniture as it was all covered in clothes. We found about 1 meter square to put all our bags, we were almost too scared that our belongings would merge into the chaos that surrounded them. To top off the clutter situation, there was about an inch of dust over everything. After viewing the bathroom, we decided that we were in England now and we only needed to bathe once a week! The owner was such a top bloke though, we felt as though we couldn’t really complain.
We spent the next few days visiting medical centres (trying to get Matt seen as he had a really bad ear ache), checking out the real estate and hassling my job agency. We finally made it to London on the Friday and did the monopoly board tour, while trying to open a bank account. So we have had our highs and lows this week. It looks like I have a job, which is great – cannot believe how easy it is, and we were homeless for a little while and shelling out the dollars (which don’t convert to pounds to well) waiting for temporary accommodation to be sorted out. I also caught up with the uni crew that are over here – there are about eight of my peers here, we had a baby shower for Kerri (for those that know her).
Looks like our home is going to be Bedford for a while. And tomorrow we are going to move into our new place, which is fully furnished, with a big screen TV (I think that was the selling point for Mat).
We have uploaded heaps of photos from Hong Kong and Europe for those that are interested in using the internet inappropriately at work.
Love yall and looking forward to your correspondence. And yes… I’m soon going to get tuff on you guys who have promised e-mails and haven’t delivered yet!