Quick Update

Hi kids,

Just a quick update to let you all know that as of tomorrow we will be jetsetting around for the next month. We will have the laptop with us so some of the time we'll be able to check in and update you all but it won't be as regular. We fly out tomorrow morning for Croatia and a weeks sailing and then after that Poland, Czech, Austria and Germany.

We are both feeling better after our little bouts of food poisoning... but still, on the bright side I lost 6kg in about 24 hours... just in time to strip off on the boat in Croatia! There is a positive to everything :)

Gem has been busy packing and cleaning out our room over the last couple of days as her contract ended last Friday. I've been at work but not too busy as work is quiet at the mo. In fact I even had time to do a few new images for the header of the blog... I think there is another 7...

On Tuesday night me and Gem went and watched The Lion King. The sets and costumes are absolutely fan-bloody-tastic and the show itself is very good too... I would probably hesitate to say I actually liked Les Mis better... which I must admit I didn't think I would but hey... its a very moving powerful performance in Les Mis. Next one I really want to see is Monty Pythons Spamalot! It even has Eric Idle in it!

Last night we went to The Absolut Icebar for gems birthday 9as we'll be away for the real date). I'll let gem tell you all about that but I have included a pic so you get a taste.

Anyway, must do my timesheets as I head off home in a while.

Later all,
Duncan

Aug 13 - Aug 28

Well the last couple of weeks have been a blur, but i will try to recount them the best that i can

The week beginning Sunday 14 August was relatively standard nothing much exciting happening until Friday night (19th) when we went and saw the most intense award worthy movie this year..... Snakes on a Plane. I don't think it was supposed to be quite as funny as we found it, but it really was so hilarious. For those of you who don't like snakes though, I would give it a miss.

Saturday was a blast we went to Hamley's toy store. The biggest toy store in London, and one of (if not the) oldest toy stores. Here we started our christmas shopping woohoo, early i hear you say....? well i want to get it into the surface mail to come home to everyone.

After and exhausting effort at the toy store we went to the world famous Brick Lane with Luke and Belinda for curry. I know I know, I don't particularly like curry, but sometimes you have to step a little outside your comfort zone. Belinda and I shared Butter chicken, and Tandoori lamb, while the boys shared something that made them sweat. It was I will admit very nice.

On Sunday we met up with Luke and Bel again. Us girls went to Camden markets to continue our Christmas shopping while the boys went to see whether they could acquire (on the side of the road) some tickets to the Chelsea football game. It was a no go for the tickets so they watched the game at the pub and we reconnected later in the evening for dinner. Andy (assisted by Rhian) cooked a delicious carbonara.

Monday saw the beginning of my last week at Kings College, my time there certainly was an experience, but I did enjoy it and it was sad to leave. They did offer me more time in September but alas, i will be on holiday then so wont be able to. It was quite a busy week too with last minute shopping for bits and pieces and getting organised so we would not be late on Friday

On Friday 25 after work, we rushed to Heathrow, we weren't sure how early we needed to be there due to the recent "events", but managed to get there an hour and a half before it left. Hand luggage restrictions were not as strict so we were able to Being a little bit late we didn't get to sit together, Duncan had to sit directly behind me. Luckily for us the flight was not delayed and an hour or so after taking off we landed in Cologne/Bonn Airport. The train system in Germany was definitely easier to use than others, we bought tickets to Aachen and set about
our way. We had one change in Cologne city, the train station though large was pretty shut up given the late hour.

By the time we got to Aachen we did not toy with the idea of night buses, but instead grabbed a taxi and headed out to the campsite. It was very difficult to find, and the manager was not answering her phone as she said she would to welcome us :(

It was after 2am when we finally got the new tent set up and got to bed...yawn!

Saturday morning was a reasonably early start as we had to find where the grounds were, find out where to pick up the tickets and find the best possie on the cross country course before the riders started. The jumps were enormous there were some brush fences that if i stood behind and put my hand in the air you could only just see it over the top. We found a big jump that straddled a creek to watch the beginning of the riders, then wandered to the water complex where we saw a few stacks (both horses and riders )

The course was 6km long, had 35 fences and was ridden in about 11minutes. That means that the horses were very very fit!

Unfortunately Sonia Johnson (WA girl) had a fall, but the other aussies did ok.

We did meet some horseriding royalty though. We were standing at a jump before the riders started looking on in fear and wonderment when two litte kids came to stand along side us. one was wearing an australian flag on his collar, so i asked him wear he was from. He replied "Germany" (in a thick German accent), and i said "but you are wearing an Australian Flag" and he said "ja, I am son of Andrew Hoy". Nice, if only we had been more prepared we could have had a photo and an autograph.

There will be some photos and video footage of the cross country shortly, watch this space.

Sunday was a much more reasonable start, the showjumping didn't begin until 2pm, so we had the morning to do what we pleased. That ended up being huddling in the tent, while the rain poured down around us. It had rained down all night, and most of the morning, when there was finally a lull we speed packed our tent and stuff up and headed to the stadium for the jumping. On the way we passed some driving teams which was very interesting to watch and the horses were amazing.

The course was beautiful and it was a really good afternoon, we shared a pork steak in a bun for lunch along with two german sausage rolls - bratwurst wrapped in a cheesy pastry, I had some of the first one and a bite of the second one, duncan had half of the second one and then discarded it as he didn't feel that it was cooked properly. (the relevance of this information will become clear :)

After the showjumping was finished we caught the shuttle bus back to Aachen trainstation, and then the train back to Cologne, didn't get to see very much of Cologne but judging from the church outside the trainstation in looks pretty impressive.

We headed to the holiday inn airport hotel, by this time Dunc wasn't feeling too well and had to make several stops to the toilet, I was feeling fine, so ordered room service (we were treating ourselves for our wedding anniversary) - big mistake because come three am duncan and I started doing swapsies on and off the toilet.

Needless to say the flight home to London, was not a very enjoyable one! But we got home and have spent the rest of the day in and out of bed and on and off the toilet :)

Lets just hope it clears up by Friday.

Later everyone.

29 July - 12 August!!!!!

I am back!

The last weekend of August, as Dunc said was Global Gathering, so while he and all the other housemates went off to that i had a wonderfully peaceful weekend at home on my own. I went to bed early and went shopping with Mark Radford at the Camden Road Markets (starting my Christmas shopping). Topped off with a wicked girls evening with Belinda cooking pasta and complimenting it with wine.

My job at Kings is much busier than my last job which is good, but as you may have gauged from some of my previous entries i find some aspects of the job quite difficult.

The following weekend (5+6th August) was a busy one for us. A few weeks ago we received an invitation in the mail to attend a wedding!! It was a bit of a surprise as we didn't think we knew anyone who was getting married. It turns out it was Duncan's cousin Karl and his fiance Kelly, who due to an unexpected turn of events found themselves "expecting" and therefore bought the wedding forward. The wedding was in Walsall which is a little outside of Birmingham. We hired a car and drove up for the day... why drive you might ask?? Well one return ticket was going to cost 70 pounds where as carhire and fuel came to 68. It was a lovely day, we really enjoyed catching up with the family again, and Kelly and Karl looked wonderful and happy.

We caught up with Alex after netball on Tuesday night he was in London for a couple days on a holiday - it was great to see him and to catch up on some of the Perth goss. He was thinking about taking off to Krakow before heading home... does anyone know if it happened

The ceremony was at 11 (it was a very early start - 3 hour drive, and we had to get to heathrow to pick up the car) and after that we went to lunch at a local italian restuarant, before afternoon tea-ing it at Aunty Jenny's. We drove back that evening thinking we would miss the traffic, but it wasn't to be, the traffic getting back into heathrow was heavy.

The next day was quite exciting - we went for a walk through of my next home: a gal's home is her castle.... well palace, Buckingham Palace to be precise :) The Staterooms of the Palace were open to the public and many of the Queen's dresses and jewellery from throughout her reign were on display.... quite spectacular. They provided a free audio guide which was very helpful, it was a really good afternoon. I could see myself living there...... *sigh* The only down side of the day was we were not allowed to take any photos inside.

Last week was ho hum, except for a couple of very good netball games, except for the big highlight of our month, even Duncan's I think. We went and saw Les Mis on west end. Amazing!!!!!! I was worried that I wouldn't enjoy it as much as the first time, but I think I may have even enjoyed it more. Dunc also really really enjoyed it which is saying something.... I cried - again! We will certainly be going to see a lot more theatre after that little taste although I don't know how it could get any better.

This weekend:
Friday night - very quiet movie night
Saturday - Shopping!!!!! We bought a tent for camping, and some other little things that will be useful for our trip. Aa-nd we joined the gym! Yay, we have been feeling a little lazy lately so have decided to do some exercise. The gym is a 10-15 minute walk (or short bus ride) away so we went down and joined as there is not joining fee this month - bargain - did some exercise and then rewarded ourselves with ice cream and chocolate tee hee, oh well small steps.

I guess tomorrow we will do some more christmas shopping. We will probably be at home until around 10-11am *if any of our parents would like to call us!* Depending on how late we get to bed tonight we could be home later, never know your luck in the big city.

Til then

love Gem

Quick Update

Hi everyone,

Sorry we haven't got anymore galleries up yet but the laptop has been away getting repaired... we managed to trip on a cable and pull out the headphone socket a bit so the audio is a bit wacky. You get a combination of sound from the headphones, the internal speakers or both depending on where you wiggle the jack :) Nothing too major but we wanted to get it fixed before we go away.

Speaking of going away, have people at home seen all the news with the British airports? Hopefully it will all be over before our next flight so we don't have to queue for ages and we are allowed hand luggage... well hand luggage other than your wallet and passport in a clear plastic bag :) We fly out to Germany (Cologne to be precise) late on Friday the 25th so it should have all blown over by then. We are out of Heathrow too where they have been canceling about 40% of flights so hopefully ours won't get cancelled too!

Speak soon and don't carry any suspicious looking bags!
Duncan :)

Remember me?

Hi kids!

I thought "I haven't written in the blog in aaaages" so I might take this quick opportunity while I'm at work trying to look busy waiting for the end of the day to put in a post.

Sooooo, things that have happened recently.

1. As you might all be aware from one of Gems posts I have gone full time. Its a slight drop in money, but I managed to wrangle enough for myself that the salary brings enough in to cover our costs here, our mortgage back home, and allows Gem not to work. Not that she is going to not work, are you dear, but as the physio market is much more up and down there is a greater chance of her not being in work. Though now she has a new portable (luggable more like it) massage table she can lug it anywhere and earn money that way. Got a few people at work interested and even my bosses woman who has just come out of hospital after being knocked off her motorboke and breaking a leg and her elbow.... Anyhoo, even being fulltime I'm really not being locked into anything. I made it clear that 4 weeks a year were not long enough for holidays as we are not here to work, we work so we can travel, so I'm allowed to take time off without pay once I have exhausted my annual leave. Actually, all of September will be taken as time off without pay so thats good... means I still have some holidays left to use before the end of the year.

2. Speaking of holidays - we have 2 more planned other than the September trip... we are going skiing in Austria for a week one the week before Christmas, and we are also popping to Germany for a weekend (how odd does that sound? Popping to Germany! For a weekend! Ha!) to watch 2 days of the World Equestrian Games. It is only on every 4 years and is sort of like the World Cup of horses.... can't wait to see the Brazilian horses play soccer...

3. I bought a new digital camera.... a Ricoh Caplio R4. Its a 6 megagpixel jobbie with a great zoom on it. 7.1 optical which runs from 28 to 200. So I get a nice wide angle to a decent telephoto zoom. Also has vibration reduction so you can get much better shot by hand (no tripod). Best bit though is that all this is squeezed into a tiny body. With the new lens configurations they are doing nowadays, you can avoid the big bulky shapes so its great to just slip in a pocket. Its just 26mm think and only 135g!

4. Last weekend I went to a massive electronic music festival called Global Gathering. Oh my lordy it was amazing! 45,000 and over 150 DJ's... a weekend of camping, music and a tad too much booze :) I have taken pictures and I hope to put them up soon. For anyone who is into electronic music, take a quick lok at the site and click on the lineup tab... you'll be amazed at the quality of people they get here... you'd never get anything like this back in Perth.

5. We got a lot of birthdays coming up this (missed) this month so we'll have to get those cards flying! So belated/early Happy Birthdays to Ethan, Sam, Caleb, Nannie, Kate... I'm sure I'm missing more but I don't have my calendar with me :)

Anyway, it's home time now so I'll talk later. I'll try and get the Global Gathering pictures up soonish and maybe get a few new images for the header... maybe something suitable British

Bye kiddies!
Duncan