sendeuros

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.