On the road again

With winter rapidly arriving we took the opportunity to take the mini on another road trip before the snow set in and buried in the car in massive drifts. Having spent 12 months in the area in 1993, I was keen to revisit Oxford and so Krystle and I set off on a mild Saturday morning. Spring was holding in there, but not enough to take the roof off the mini. I had booked a pub room at a place in the little town of Dorchester-on-Thames, about 9 miles away from Oxford. First though we went to Oxford and took a trip down memory lane, visiting Cothill where the school I worked at is, and the surrounding area. We had lunch at a pub near the school that I used to visit and then drove back through Abingdon which Krystle liked and wants to go back to.

The pub was very nice, warm and welcoming. Our room was large and comfy and we decided just to have dinner at the pub as nights were now becoming less welcoming for travel. Dorchester-on-Thames is a tiny little town with a population of only a couple of hundred. It is really only a street, but has a large church, post office and no less than 3 places to drink. Always get their priorites right.

On the Sunday we went into Oxford and had a look round the centre of town. Everything looked much smaller than I remembered it. We took an historical visit to Oxford castle, parts of which are almost 1000 years old and was until recently used as a prison, one of its many functions over the past millennium. You actually climbed the tower, the oldest standing part of the building and got a really good view of Oxford and the surrounding area. We also ate donuts at Krispy Kreme which I'm led to believe has been part of the complex for most of the past 1000 years. So its traditional!

We headed back having decided to steer clear of the freeways, giving the little car a break. It cruises along at 100-105 km/hr but because its only a 4 speed manual starts to struggle above these speeds. That and most other cars are doing 125km/h +.

Happy Devali!!!

Hi all,

Apologies for not updating sooner, but here's what we've been up to in the last week and a bit. This week has been busy, and very noisy due to Guy Fawkes (some dude who tried to blow up Parliament a few hundred years ago) night, and Devali (some kinda religious thing where they blow stuff up). Last week we also had Halloween, which is a far bigger deal than at home. We had trick or treaters for 4ish hours so I was extremely impressed with the turnout. Anyway, it sounds like we live in a war zone as I type, and we were able to have fireworks one night.

We went to Cambridge last weekend. Had a look around on Saturday before going to the pub on Sat night. We enjoyed a leisurely trip up the canal on Sunday, before finding a pub for lunch and heading home. The boat trip was a great way to see all the old universities, bridges etc. We're off to Oxford this weekend, which hopefully will be nice too.

Thought I should answer the question everyone keeps asking too... yes it is cold, but so far I think we're coping okay. I've learnt from experience that despite there being blue sky, it is too cold to go out without a coat. I thought it was hilarious the first time i heard kids at school being reminded of the 'no coat no play' rule ... but where were their hats? I've since wondered whether this rule will get me out of playground duty.

Think that's about all for now. We've recently discovered that we can film stuff with the digital camera, but I will warn that the quality leaves a lot to be desired. If you're short of time, not reading at work on your employers time, or suffer from motion sickness, maybe give the filmed pieces a miss.

We drove down this street in Cambridge not realising it was blocked at the end.

And ended up like this:






The river at Cambridge (with the kind of boat we went for a cruise in):

A sign we saw that reminded us of the dangers of swimming in shallow canals that are easily comparable to the surf we know at home.

Our tour guide Paul who was informative, entertaining and very good at making the boat thingy go.

This is how our 'war zone' sounded. Our neighbours are either really angry with each other, or love their Devali, as this went on for over 5 hours.

This was the grand finale at our own backyard Guy Fawkes celebration.

Who Could Resist ... ?

On Wednesday night we headed to the Cambridge Theatre in London to see Kelly. Mike doesn't have kids at school this week (an inset week), and has next week off. I have this week off and go back to school when Mike has time off, so it hasn't worked out too well, but it's okay. Anyway, we went into London, found a pub for an hour or so, then saw the show. Believe it or not, Kelly appeared to be quiet talented.

Other than that, not much has happened this week. We went to dinner tonight with the year 3 teacher Mike works with, Sara and her husband Will. What could be better than a tradition English meal, in a traditional English pub?

We hope you're all thinking of us while you're enjoying 30 degree days. We're lucky if it's hotter than 10 degrees, and Mike has noticed cars are having a layer of ice form on the windscreen in the morning.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!

I know that technically it's not the 12th in Australia anymore (because you're soo far into the future), but HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!! Hope you can get your present off Mum every once in a while!!

We were speaking about Dad's this evening whilst at a pub in London with Coraline (our housemate who can't drink with the Aussies!). A little back story, Paul very generously gave us some English currency at the airport and said wisely "tuck 20 pounds in the back of your purse in case of an emergency". This advice was taken and 20 pounds has remained in the back of the purse every since... with the exception of 2 times. Two emergencies in the time we've been here!! One: no wine in the fridge on a Friday night! Completely outrageous! And two: at the pub for lunch today with no money for drinks! We've been at pubs for lunch and dinner, drinking for a cause. Cheers Dad!!!

On the way home Michael commented that so far nearly all the good English experiences have involved a pub. ie, London Dungeon was crap ... the pub we had lunch in; good. Bad day at work is directly related to a good night at a pub. Thank god for 'Thank God It's Friday'!

**WARNING** Our post are officially crap because our lives are no more interesting than they were at home (we just drink a little more). We officially love our housemate Coraline because "she no speak no English no good" but she knows how to say #$%@!!!

Life's More Fun When You're Driving A Mini!!

Well some of you know by now, but others don't. Mike and I have recently purchased one of the coolest cars in Britain. We searched high and low for a warm, non leaking, reliable care and ended up with this:

It's sooo cute!! We're currently accepting name suggestions cause nothing seems to fit just right.

Home Sweet Home!

I've been meaning to put some info up about where we're living since we arrived... Basically our house is a little like the Big Brother house (minus the cameras). We vote people out, we get surprise housemates and certain topics cause heated discussions (like what to watch on tv, and more recently how we should kill the mouse that has appeared in the kitchen).

Jim and Jan own the house we live in, but they live in the country. Their adult children live with us. Katie (their daughter) and Ben (Katie's partner) are permanent housemates, Geoff (Jim and Jan's son) is another permanent housemate. For the first month we were here the youngest daughter Maria also lived here, but she'd been evicted to university in Leeds. Jo, a friend of Katie's was also here for a few days, but she's gone back to Devon. Jack (Jim and Jan's cat) also resided here, but he's since gone to live in the country with Jim and Jan. Confused yet? Katie and Ben are in their mid 20's, and expecting a baby in February. Geoff is 23 (I think) and runs a building maintenance company that he's just started.

The next housemate (who arrived about 3 weeks after us) is Nick. He's a thirty-something, P.E. teacher. We've recently found out he's leaving at the end of the year to move back to Wales. It's too expensive for him to live in London as he's driving back to Wales every weekend anyway. He and Mike love talking sport just to annoy everyone else!

The next arrival was Coralina who arrived last week. She's from France and is over here to work as a language assistant at the same school as Nick. Two days after Coralina's arrival was Agnetha who's from Germany. She too is working as a language assistant at the same school. Both Agnetha and Coralina are 22. Elsa, Coralina's cousin, was here for a few days and will be back to visit every couple of weeks.

Everything's pretty good and we all get on reasonably well. We can also go a few days without seeing people too which helps. Last week we had a French Crepe night where Elsa cooked dinner for us all. We followed dinner with a French film, can't say I'm too fond of subtitles. We all headed to the pub one night for Coralina's birthday one night which was nice too.

There's 8 of us at the moment, and most night's dinner is spread over three sittings. The washing machine never seems to stop and there's never space to dry clothes if it's raining outside. You practically need an appointment if you want a shower before 9am as we only have one shower.

This was taken at O'Gradys, our local pub;

Next to Mike is Agnetha and Ben. Opposite Ben is Geoff, Katie, Coralina and Elsa. Nick couldn't make it.

Mike and Jack (don't show Monty mum!).

Photo's of our room:

Living room:

Kitchen:

Backyard:

Let's see how this blog thing works and the London Dungeon suck!!

The title sums up the theme of this post. This is my first time at posting and all I can promise is I won't write as much info as Krystle, or be anywhere near as entertaining. Krystle has obviously done all the posts so far, while my role has been a participant and spell checker. But I'm off the bench now (footballing metaphor cause I'm currently watching the Premier League preview for today's games, so much football not enough time!) and ready to play a starring role. I don't know how to do photos though and I don't think we took any anyway.

So my job is to report on our trip to the London Dungeon and it was without a doubt our most disappointing experience so far. We had seen it the previous week on our bus tour and thought it sounded interesting. We booked our tickets on-line during the week for a 3.30pm time and what was labelled Fast-track and headed into London on the day with the sun shining after a fair bit of rain during the week.

We arrived at London Bridge station and walked past the Dungeons where the queues seemed reasonable and went to find our obligatory pub lunch experience. I'll digress briefly to comment on how good we have found the pubs here. Foods always been good, enjoyable atmosphere and bottles of wine with prices that make buying it by the glass inconceivable. The pubs here don't believe in ice buckets so you find yourself drinking quite quickly to finish the bottle before it gets warm.

After we had our lunch we walked back to the Dungeons to find a massive queue for the Fast-track line. We had to wait a good hour in this line despite having paid for fast entry. We tried to get our money back rather than wait but the staff were unfriendly and unhelpful. Once inside (with more queuing) the exhibits ranged from mildly entertaining to just plain dull. For a place that bills itself as being scary, it wasn't really. Having people jump out at you and shout at you gets a little tedious after a while. Krystle was a little more jumpy than I was but I don't think she was that scared either. The exhibits finish with one of those rides that lift you up and then suddenly drop you, which is supposed to simulate your head being chopped off or something equally tenuous. It was actually scary though because they drop you in complete darkness, but we left very disappointed and a little more wary of visiting lame touristy attractions.

The next day we had lunch with our landlords, Jim and Jan, and the rest of our housemates, which was quite nice. Later we went into Leicester Square and saw a movie (that Chuck and Larry one). Tickets were over thirteen pounds each, so again seems aimed at taking as much money from tourists as they can. Great cinema though, with the only comfier seats we've experienced probably being in Gold-class.

That's it from me then, normal transmissions will resume soon!