Few Weeks in the life of Us

The weeks seem to be flying by for us over here in the UK. In fact, we are beginning to run out of weekends as we have so many things we want to do before leaving, yet only 11 weeks left. Out of those 11 weekends, we have only 4 left that we haven't planned something. Deb even had to mark things in a calendar for the first time in her life in case of double booking.

We have both been working fairly hard and are enjoying our jobs. Ed is still working for the same company and is driving over to Leeds each day to work on council estate buildings to upgrade their plumbing. He comes home every day with another story of what he has seen that day and reckons that in his last week he is going to take his camera into some of the houses to prove he is not exagerating. Seems like these people do not know the meaning of cleaning or bathing (either their houses, or themselves). Debbie is at the Yorkshire Building Society and really enjoying it there this time. She is even...shock, horror...somewhat regretting having to leave in a few months as she would like to see the project out till it's end. The project she is working on is in full swing and she is finding the very fast pace and the variety challenging and interesting, and is absolutely loving not doing desktop support.

A few weekends ago we went for a weekend trip down to London to visit Ed's Aunty Lily. Ed's other relatives visited the same weekend and stayed overnight so it was very nice to see them and spend a decent ammount of time with them all. Deb's friend from Sydney was also in London, her and her hubby had just done a 6 week Europe trip and we timed it so we could meet them at the end. We met in Oxford Street and it was fantastic to see them - and kind of wierd too as you don't expect to see people from home here at all. It was Mardi Gras in Oxford Street that same day (we missed it thank goodness) and was really packed so we found a cafe and sat in there catching up on all the news for a few hours. The following day before catching our train back up to Yorkshire we decided to have a little wander around London. We went in to Harrods with the intention of looking around, but they were going to charge us some ridiculous price to hold our bags for an hour so we flagged it. Instead we just walked and walked and followed our noses. Ended up going past the Victoria and Albert Museum and since all the museums are free now we decided to go in and see it. We were glad that we didn't have to pay because while we love museums usually, we clearly aren't educated or cultural enough to enjoy this one. The exhibits we saw were just old pots, old clothes, and wrought iron ...yes, they had a whole hall just on wrought iron (like fences and stuff!). The only thing we could appreciate was the Raphael paintings but while we both know that Raphael is famous, neither of us know any of his paintings so we didnt get much out of it. But it was free, and it was raining outside, so we didn't complain and made the most of it.

Last weekend we had our first sleepover visitor! It was very exciting! Debs cousin Shane was in the UK and he came down to visit for a few days. Deb and Shane flatted about 17 years ago when we first came over to the UK and then the next time we saw each other was in Africa (which is where Shane lives now). So it's been awhile, and we had alot to catch up on. It was very nice to see him and we enjoyed having visitors in our little pad. We have another 12 weeks so if anyone fancies a last minute trip to the UK we now have a very comfy airbed which has your name on it!

Tania and Debbie are in full swing of a hiking training mode at the moment. We have booked a campsite at the end of August in Scotland and plan on hiking up Ben Nevis. We attempted this about 15 yrs ago when we first came to the UK and we failed miserably. At the time we got about 1 km into the walk and then the weather came in and we also both had food poisoning so we used this as our excuse to abort the hike. To this day I have no doubt that Tania would have made it up but I was so shagged and so embarressingly unfit so I know there is no way on earth I would have. I am hoping that my fitness levels are alot higher than they were in those days, and that we will make it up. We are both really looking forward to it and each week we go on walks up around the hills behind Tania's house to get some hill training in.

So the next month is pretty busy with weekends booked up. We are hoping to get back over to Wales next weekend to visit Debs' family again and also for Ed to have a look around as he didn't come last time. We then have a second trip down to London which we planned so that we could tick some of the attractions off - we have 3 days before we head over to the USA but we dont want to be rushed, so we figured we go down for another weekend and get a few things out the way then. After that we are over in Czech Republic for 9 days and we are super excited about this. Deb has been wanting to go there for 15 yrs and as it was an unexpected trip for us she still can't quite believe she is going. Ed is just ultra keen on seeing his Grand Prix which is the reason we are going there - especially since the Aussie rider is winning them all lately. He now has a boxing kangaroo flag, his Australian flag, and an Aussie teeshirt so he will look the part of a patriotic supporter.

Well that's our news for the last few weeks.  We have added some more photos for you to look at  too so go check them out.