Wednesday 15 November

Well another week has gone by.

My new job is quite good. I think I mentioned last week I am working in the falls intervention service, it is mainly interesting but it certainly does have its moments like this afternoon. What a whop-ping-ly complex situation, obviously can't go into any details due to confidentiality etc, but trust me, you are going to want to wish me luck with this one.

The job is nice and close to home. It takes me about 25-30 minutes to get there, which is really nice considering my first job took me an hour and a half.

Last weekend was wonderful. We went back to Bruges with Luke and Belinda (who hadn't been before) and had a wonderfully relaxing weekend of eating and drinking and eating and drinking and eating chocolate and drinking hot chocolate. Two of my favourite things in the world Flemish Stew and Chocolate and one of Duncan's favourites Beer!!!!!

Our favourite little discover De Garre was still there and thriving. Obviously a favourite with the locals we tried to get there for pre and post dinner drinks although this didn't always happen as it was often packed out. They brew their own beer, tasty stuff (yes even I am admitting it) but potent. With a percentage of 11% they will only serve you 3 :) Duncan was soooo happy that the beer was just as good as he remembers it that he bought 4 glasses to bring back with us. Unfortunately for his the only place that you can buy the beer is in De Garre, so he wasn't able to bring any of that back.......

One evening after dinner we had journeyed back to our hostel (the only lo-light of the weekend) for a drink, as they boasted to be the only supplier in bruges of the recently awarded World's Best Beer. After having De Garre though we were all a little disappointed.

The food was never disappointing though - the first night we ate at this funky little restaurant which was recommended to us by our drinks waitress. Everybody had bbq ribs except me. I had venison stew! The next night we were looking for a cellary (not the green leafy kind, but the dark dank atmospheric kind) kind of establishment. Fortunately we happened to stumble across, one and not down one where the food was lovely and the service grand - the waiter really went out of his way to help us. I had Flemish Stew for the second time that day. The first time, we took Belinda and Luke back to the little bistro where we had eaten our first European Meal! The stew there was once again every bit as delicious as I remember it and I would have to say - The Best Stew in the World!! :)

Other than that we browsed the local shops getting chrissie presents. I have a certain mother-in-law who would have loved all the wonderful teddy bears that we saw......

It was a fab weekend. Unfortunately being away that weekend we missed Jamie and Brons farewell. Bron is leaving early next week and Jamie is leaving the week after. We will miss them both and it will certainly be a change in house dynamics that's for sure!! Some of them were still partying when we got home on Sunday night though, these old bones just can't party like that!

Tonight I am catching up for dinner with Jax (OT from Swans) again with her friend also. Other than that a relatively boring week is lined up. But you never know when something exciting will happen.

Later

Saturday 4th - Thursday 9 November

Hello hello,

Last weekend was the legendary Guy Fawkes night. According to my sister this is a night of bonfires, chilli, fireworks and pubs, and she was almost completely right.

We decided to go up to a beautiful little down just north of London called St Albans. This town has many claims to fame. It has a beautiful Abbey and park, is one of the oldest Roman settlements, and has what is rumoured to be the oldest pub in England. But most importantly it was the growing up ground of one of our housemates Thomson. Thomson very kindly invited us up to celebrate Guy Fawkes night with them.

So we took the train up, his dad picked us up and took us back to their house and we had chilli. The fireworks were over the lake in the park by the abbey. They were awesome - I mean sure it was no Australia Day :) but a pretty good subsitute. After dinner we braved the cold (and I mean cold the last couple of weeks the temperature has dropped a lot!!) and stood for 40 mintues watching the fireworks. My favourites were the ones that exploded in the air and floated down onto the lake and when they hit the water they glowed red floating on the surface - awesome!

After the fireworks we went with Thomson and his brothers and friends to the oldest pub in England: Ye Olde Fighting Cocks. It was pretty awesome to be having a beer/wine in a pub that has been operating back in 700's.

I started my new job on Monday. It is a specialised falls unit which is quite interesting and it also involves a lot of walking which is also quite good, especially in this changing season. Although my boss has been off sick all week so i still haven't met her.

We have had a fairly busy week I have been getting back into the gym. We have tomorrow off work and are going to Bruges with Luke and Belinda for the weekend. Sooooo excited!!!!! A little disappointing also because we are going to miss Bron and Jamies farewell which is a shame.

Well ta ta for now :)

... back to normal-ish

Well the teeth pulling went ok... had a massive amount of injections in my mouth but on the whole it was a lot less painful than I figured it would be. Only took about 45 minutes all up Dr Steve to rip the little buggers out. I had hardly any swelling and was actually eating solid food (pizza to be precise) less than 12 hours later. I'm still getting a bit of pain and eating a few ibuprofen a day but that is more from my cheek than the gums. Doesn't taste too good either as I think the holes are still sort of oozing. There is no blood but my mouth tastes kinda iron-y. Maybe Emma can tell me if this is normal. One little bit of root is still in there but he said they normally don't cause any damage and it will heal up over the top... he thought he'd do more damage trying to dig around to get to it. I was lucky and I didn't need any stitches either.

Now I just find I have to keep washing my mouth out after each meal as I get food in the holes... mmm... semi-digested food :)

...Hampster impressions...

Hi people,

Just a quick note to say there are a few new galleries on the right there for your visual pleasure. We put them up a while back now but forgot to mention it... We are still trying to get through the masses we took, but I guess thats our puinishment for taking a month off.

I might be able to do more on Friday as I recover from having my wisdom teeth out... thats right, this arvo I go under the knife and drill and pliers as they pull out three of my wisdom teeth. Not looking forward to it actually - I'm a bit of a wuss with pain, but especially dental pain. Oh well... has to be done. So I'll be Mr puffy-cheeks tommorrow...

Wish me luck!
Duncan.

October in Reflection

Well I think it is official that this has been the longest lapse so far between journal entries. Hopefully I will get back into the swing of it, although i make no promises.

So October has been an eventful month, and considering i haven't had much full time work, I have managed to keep very busy.

Duncan went straight back to work the day after we got home. I think he was tired and not very happy about the whole thing but these are the things that the bread winners do.

I have had a couple of short term jobs since I have been back. A few hours at King Edward VII Hospital which is a private (mainly orthopedic) hospital where all the rich and alot of the titled people go for treatment, i have treated lords and ladies - fancy that.

I have also gone on the Bank staff at another Private Hospital Harley St Clinic. This one does mainly Cardiac Surgery, and people fly from all over the world to have their surgery done there. Bank Staff basically means for weekends and public holidays and fill in days.

The market has been pretty slow this month, but after a few false starts it looks like that i might be in work again on Monday. Fingers crossed. There are a couple of options one in Birmingham staying with Duncan's nanny, and the other potentially here in London but i haven't heard from them yet, they are supposed to be calling me for a 'phone interview'. I had a phone interveiw with the others and they said i was set to go on Monday but i didn't want to commit until I had spoken to the others. But I am still waiting......arrrggghhh

Duncan has been to the dentist this month as has been having painful teeth. He is going back this afternoon to have three wisdom teeth pulled out, poor darling.

Other than that October has been quite a quiet month, we have caught up with Luke and Belinda and Mark and Gordo on several occasions, and they are all well. I also caught up with Jacqui who was an OT at Swans when I was there. That was good fun. She is travelling with a friend (also named Jackie) who beleive it or not is a dietician and worked with Belinda at RPH. Small world.

So bye for now will keep plugging away at the photos.

Love Gem