Glasgow

Back in London for 4 days at work and then we were off again, for a long weekend in Glasgow. The week went quickly, Christine was on school holidays but managed to keep herself busy with Mel, galleries and washing! Damien was back at the office working hard for the four days.
Thursday afternoon we met at Liverpool St and took the train out to the airport for our flight to Glasgow. Our roommates from snowboarding last year were from Glasgow and at the end of the week they invited us up to Glasgow. Of course we said we would visit, but we didn’t realize it would take us over a year to organize it!
Audrey and Lorna picked us up from the airport and took us straight to a pub, true Scottish style, love it! It gets better, Lorna actually owns the apartment above the pub! After a couple of pints and a catch up on the events of the past 12mths, Audrey took us back to her place, where we would be staying (she has less cats).
Friday the girls had work, so after bit of a sleep in, we caught the bus into the town centre. It is a small city, so we did a bit of a walking tour. We started at George Square which is the centre of town, and has a number of statues. From here we wandered down to the Cathedral. This is being restored but the inside was very nice, beautiful stained glass windows and in the lower church there is a tomb and medieval arches. Behind the church was the Necropolis, an old graveyard with nice view over the city and some very grand tomb stones.
After a lovely lunch in a little café we headed to the City Chambers for a guided tour. The interior is very extravagant, marble stairways, council chambers and portraits of past mayors. It has been used in films for scenes in the ‘Vatican’. We got to sit in the Mayors seat and saw them setting up the ballroom for the ‘Sportsman of the Year’ presentations.
We had a quick visit to GOMA (Gallery of Modern Art) which has a horse statue out the front that constantly gets a witches hat placed on it, as bit of a joke. Then we got a call to be at a pub back out near Audrey’s, so we jumped on the bus and headed out to meet the girls. It was a night out to celebrate one of their friends birthdays. Sadly Lorna was not feeling well and never made it out for the evening. The night started in a busy micro brewery, The Clockwork Beer Company, where pints and pizza were consumed. Then we headed to the local Greyhound track for a night of racing, woo hoo! With only 5 dogs in each race, we were able to pick a couple of winners, roughly breaking even for the evening. Stumbling out of the dog track we visited another little local pub, an Indian takeaway joint (with fluorescent pink food, mmm…) and then back to the birthday girls place for a night cap! Strangely, Saturday morning Audrey wasn’t feeling very well! She decided to have a day in bed. Lorna, feeling a bit better picked us up, in her red mini cooper, with Candy, her puppy dog in the back. We drove north through the city and up to Loch Lomond. The drive took about an hour, through nice country side and rolling hills. We arrived in a small village, had a bite to eat and a coffee. Then we went for a walk on the Loch with the puppy! The Loch was beautiful and we were fortunate that the weather was nice, blue sky and sunny for most of the day. It was also fun playing with Candy, she loved the water and chasing her tennis ball. We had a few stops on the way home. We had a look at some Hairy Cows, coffee in another little town, climbed a mountain with views back over Glasgow and visited a friend of Lorna’s briefly. Back in Glasgow we found Audrey had dragged herself out of bed, was feeling better, but not great. After a rest on the couch and a glass of wine, we headed into town for dinner in a district called Merchant City. This is an old part of town with small buildings and alleyways, and lots of nightlife. We ate in a great little restaurant, very busy. I ate Haggis, Nips and Tatties while Christine had a Moroccan Lamb dish, When in Rome… After dinner Audrey retired for the evening, but Lorna had grand plans. We bar hopped for a little while, struggling to finish our drinks after eating so much. Then we headed to a nightclub, VIP of course, she is well connected in the Glasgow night scene. The nightclub looked amazing from the outside, it is in the basement of an old church. Sadly the interior was like any other nightclub, they had plastered over all the old stone walls and roof. We had a good night, drinking and dancing. Honestly it felt a bit like the Mt View in Melbourne (one of our locals), that sort of crowd and lay-out, although the music here wasn’t as good!
Our last day in town we headed out for brunch with Audrey. As if last night wasn’t enough I ate Haggis Bruchetta for breakfast. We then visited Pollock Country Park, Pollock House and the Burrell Collection. The house is an old mansion turned art gallery with a lot of old furniture and portraits. The Burrell Collection is a modern building which houses a museum. Lots of cool things in here sculptures, furniture, Egyptian, Greek and Chinese sections. Lorna met us in the park with Candy to say good bye, and then we were on our way back to the airport bound for London again.
We had a very busy 3 days, but loved it, there is heaps of art and culture in Glasgow as well as heaps of parks. Thanks for everything girls, from accommodation, food and drinks , showing us around and good times! See you in Melbourne next!

Snowboarding Videos

Val D'Isere - French Alps

We had both taken Friday off work as we needed to clear out our room so we don’t have to pay rent whilst at the snow. We never look forward to this as it takes ages trying to stash everything away, and then you always find more stuff. We managed to tidy the room in record time and had time to spare. Mel was also packed and ready to go so the three of us headed out for a walk. We headed to Notting Hill and had a quick look at Portabello Rd which always has lots of nice food. I wouldn’t let Christine buy anything as we had heaps of food already for the bus ride. She settled for a coffee and brownie at one of the many cafes. Time was slipping away so we headed back to DC, got our stuff and headed to Victoria Bus Station for the Snow Express at 7pm.
The first part of the journey was ok although we missed the first ferry which was annoying. This meant we had to wait at the ferry terminal for an hour on the bus. Finally we got on the ferry found a spot and started our picnic dinner. With our combined remaining food we had a bit of a feast. Cheese, dip, olives and bread topped off by a bottle of wine, to help us sleep on the bus of course.
Once back on the bus we all tried to sleep. We were lucky because the bus wasn’t full so we all managed to get two seats to stretch out on. This was good for the first couple of hours but not so great after 18 or so hours. We did manage to get a decent sleep, partially thanks to a few sleeping pills. The last part of the ride dragged. The bus dropped people off where we got off last year, to transfer to the Chamonix bus. At this point we figured we were nearly there (1.5 hr from Chamonix). Not so we were the last stop so had to make stops at a number of different resorts dropping of a few people at each. Thankfully we finally arrived at around 3pm. We wandered around Val D’Isere a little dazed and confused until check in time which was 5pm. Finally we got into our room, unpacked, got our boards organized, showered and headed down for our first amazing dinner. Sunday we slept in, not going to get a chance to do that aging for a few days. Then after a bowl of coffee (no mugs, crazy French people), we hit the slopes. Christine and I hung out on the green slopes, but were happy with the variety of beginner’s runs. Mel headed off to find the blue and red runs, to ease herself into the week. After a picnic lunch the three of us did a few runs together, Mel on her ski’s and us face planting our way down the hill on snowboards. We attempted a blue run all the way back to town, but the lower we got it was very icy and very painful. In reality, we were both quite happy with our first day, we took it easy but seemed to remember some of what we had learnt last year.
Monday morning we were up early for our bowl of coffee, and then met our instructor, Antoine. We had a rough morning. Maybe it was the early morning or maybe it was trying to impress the instructor but we weren’t as good as the day before. It didn’t help that he took us right back to basics, about 3 levels below what we had been practicing the day before. After a big lunch back at UCPA we headed out for the afternoon, which was a bit more successful. We were getting the hang of doing turns again. Over all out of ten I felt I achieved about a 4, let down by a tough morning. The evening I spent in the local swimming pool, but Christine didn’t bring her bathers, even after being reminded. We then came home to find our neighbours were French (bad), brang a sub woofer sound system (really bad) and played shit doof doof until the wee hours of the morning! Day 2, was a really good day. More practice linking the turns and then learning switch (basically riding backwards). This came fairly easy for both of us, being ambidextrous. I actually got told off in class for doing it yesterday, I didn’t even realize I was going the wrong way! Christine also had a really good day. The afternoon we tried some blue runs, visibility dropped and it started snowing. Still doing well, until the last run, where Damien did a spectacular ‘windmill’ face plant, must have looked brilliant! A dampener on a good day followed by a few more crashes on the way home, over all about 8/10. The evening did the stretching class before heading into town for the night show. There was a light show on the mountain, trick jumps, hundreds of skiers riding down the mountain with headlights on and a fireworks show. Dinner was a big seafood cook up we had a few drinks and then headed to bed to suffer through the noisy French! Wednesday was a half day, so we slept in. Last year we headed out for another full day, but this year we needed rest, old age and I have a cold. We had a walk around town, checking out the shops, ice sculptures and ice rink.
Back on the slopes we had a mixed afternoon. I was struggling early but the instructor helped, by challenging me to go faster and do smaller tighter turns (5/10). This helped, as there was less time to think about what I was doing! The rest of the class was attempting to do 180 jumps. Struggling with standing up I was busy with my turns, but Christine gave it a shot, and came off second best, landing awkward on her hip. The snow was good today after 12 hours of light snow. Mel, who can ski, but hasn’t had lessons before has been doing the black runs and traversing the whole resort. She says she is enjoying the lessons which is good to hear, and is learning new skills, going off piste and through saloms and moguls. Dinner as promised by Helene, our friend in the kitchen, was a local specialty. Bread, cheese, cured hams and traditional stew. This is to go with the Salad bar, cheese table, buffet mains, dessert table and ice cream fridge that is on offer each night. The food in this place is amazing, you always walk away happy but wishing you hadn’t eaten quite so much. Thursday was a fun day. We headed to the top of the resort and snowboarded on the Glacier. There was fresh powder everywhere, nowhere near as icy as you expect the glacier to be! This part of the resort you can ski on all year round. Finding a bit of confidence in the soft stuff (yesterday I just sank), and taking the instructors advice to ‘embrace the speed’ I provided the class with another spectacular stack. We were boarding from off piste onto the piste for a bit, building speed and then off up into powder. That bit was fine, but seeing the rest of the class had stopped on top of a 2m lip of powder snow, I maintained the speed to get over the lip, planning to stop on the other side. I didn’t realize that it was a sheer drop on the other side of the lip and ended up sliding 10m down the mountain, on my face. I was fine, it was all soft powder, and everyone was laughing when Christine pulled up and asked, ‘where’s Damien’. Overall it was a good day prob a 7 out of 10.
We had lunch in a restaurant in a cosy little ski town, it was so nice. Sadly we didn’t take the camera that day, possibly a good thing given my big slide earlier in the day. It was a shorter afternoon, Christine stuggled again today feeling a bit sore. Afternoon at the UCPA helped cheer her up, Crepes and chocolate sauce. Mel and I headed to the pools again for a recovery swim. The girls then hit the town and didn’t make it home until late. Friday was our last day of classes and was exciting as we were boarding from Val D’Isere to Tignes another resort nearby. It was no surprise that Christine struggled and only boarded for about an hour. After some narrow runs to get to Tignes we headed up and spent the morning dong blue and red runs. Lunch was at the UCPA Tignes. We did a few more runs after lunch before heading back to Val D’Isere. Definitely the best day yet possibly a 9/10 and no major stacks to report back. Friday night everyone from the boarding classes gathered for drinks before dinner which was fun, nice to mix with everyone off the board. Then it was another great dinner, drinks, its Christine’s Birthday. She was very surprised when Helene, our friend in the kitchen, brought out a birthday cake and everyone in the UCPA sang. After dinner we headed out on the town for a few drinks to celebrate. The decision was tough, sleep in after a night out or hit the slopes for a few hours, possibly the last time we will do so in the French Alps. After possibly our last bowl of coffee in the French Alps, we braved it and hit the slopes. Christine joined us minus the board, which meant we had our own personal photographer. Mel and I did a few runs, modeling for Christine before heading off to some of the easier runs with better snow, for one last blast. It was another good morning, just cruising. At the end of the week I’m definitely happy with where I finished, but am a bit disappointed that I didn’t learn to jump and didn’t get to ski home. We then rushed back, returned our gear, cleaned or room, ate lunch, had a last walk around the town and boarded our bus for the long ride home. It wasn’t too bad on the way home. The drivers put on two dvd’s for us and we slept ok again.

Coming's and Goings!

Carly, our Canadian house mate, is heading off to OZ, so she decided for her last hurrah to have an international dinner. This was pretty cool as everyone bought a dish from a different region. We were a bit slack and made nachos, but the problem was we had been online booking stuff for the way home and lost track of time. We basically missed the mains and have the nachos ready for the dessert course, opps. No one seemed to mind although we missed out on Chris’s stella pork chops which smelt amazing.

Sun - Spitalfield Mkt, brick lane with New Mel
We headed to Spitafields markets with with Mel2 who is new to the house. She is friends with one of the other girls and is from Malasia/New Zealand. We had the intention of getting some sort of memento of our time in London. Spitifeilds generally has a bit more arts and crafts stuff than a lot of the other markets. The only problem is that Christine is so fussy! She likes lots of the clothes, handbags and jewelry but not the art works. Very frustrating! My favorite part of the market trip is always lunch. We headed over to brick lane where they have a food stalls with Moroccan, Thai, Indian, Vietnamese, Japanese, Greek you name it. The problem here is there is too much choice and everything smells great. It takes ages to decide what to have and then your never sure if your happy with what you have or if you should have got something else. Sampling everyone else’s is always good though.

Chinese New Year – Mel (new) Sun 6/2/11
London’s celebrations of the Chinese New Year is supposed to be the biggest outside of Asia so we decided it was worth having a look at. Mel came with us to Trafalgar Square where there was an opening ceremony with crackers and a lion dance. We unfortunately stood downwind of a homeless man, a mistake we won’t make again, but this was the only place we could see from. The whole square was packed! There were lots and lots of speeches of notable people in the London Chinese community saying how fantastic it was to have so many people there, boring! Finally the firecrackers began, lots of cracking and smoke. There was another ceremony of dotting the dragon’s eyes then a dragon dance which was kind of cool. The best part of the whole fiasco was the Lion dance. This consisted of a couple of guys under the one costume jumping across raised platforms. It was quite impressive.
We left Trafalgar Square and headed to the stalls to try and find some Chinese food. After fighting through the crowds we managed to find some awesome Chinese Pork Buns. These tasted home made and defiantly filled a hole. We continued on our way and got stuck in the crowds. There were just so many people, including mothers with massive prams, that it was hard to move. There were people pushing to get through but there was nowhere to go. We decided that Chinese New Year in London was way overrated and started to try to head home. We finally made it out of the masses and onto the tube ready to head home.

Mon – Mel (Brisvegas) arrives Heathrow
Our friend Mel from Brisbane who went home before Christmas last year decided she wanted to come back to London to see out her Visa. Christine’s B’day trip to the French alps put a bit of a firecracker under her and she made the decision to come with us. Christine, working near Heathrow airport, was able to surprise her at the airport so they had a long catch up on the way home. I had made a huge Curry the night before so it was leftovers and wine for dinner. It is great to have Mel back as we have been missing her heaps. Deans Court wasn’t the same without her.

The Missing BBQ!

On Sunday, Christine had to complete a risk assessment for the Natural history museum as she was taking a group of students there the following Thursday. We were lucky enough to go to the David Attenbourgh Theater for a talk and an interactive presentation. These were pretty cool especially the interactive one that looked at the ‘tree of life’ and showed how we are actually related to bananas. The museum is very interesting and has lots of specimens from all over the world so it is always fun to spot the Aussie. We found Wallabies, a Tawny Frogmouth Owl and Kingfishers. The dinosaur section was packed as usual but we managed to do an express tour and run past the animated T-Rex.
After a couple of hours it defiantly time for a coffee as Christine dragged me over to the Victoria and Albert Museum. The coffee shop there was the first museum coffee shop in the world. The rooms are all decked out in designers from back in the day. Christine wanted to sit in the William Morris room but it was full so we had to sit in the massive Gamble room. It looks like it could be a ballroom. After coffee and of course cake, we headed back to DC.
Australia Day – No BBQ!
Sadly London (or at least DC) put a dampener on Australia day this year. Last year we had a great night and hearty Aussie BBQ which was enjoyed by all the residents including the Frenchies and token Kiwi Chris (who did his best in green and gold)!
A few Fosters were consumed as well as Christines hamburgers (not allowed to be BBQ’d) and a few salads and other dishes in a communal feed. It was a night for reflection and counting down the days until we will be home, or at least out of London! It was also a bit more subdued, possibly as there are less aussies here at the moment. It was a nice night but the BBQ taste of the burger was missing!

The highlight of the week was definitely Friday, after work I had a beer with Sam, a guy I work with. I then met Christine at Covent Garden to see Blood Brothers. This was another musical that we had got tickets to. It was one of the best shows we have seen. Based on a story of a woman with a number of kids, who has twins. She gives one away at birth. The story is about how the two boys grow up and cross paths at different stages of their lives. It had great singing, high energy acting and a great story line, leaving you on the edge of your seat.

Cambridge

We have a list of places in the UK that we want to visit before we leave, and the good news is that it is getting shorter and shorter. Some places we have come to the realization that we wont be making it to, such as another trip to the parts of Cornwall that we missed and the Lakes and Peaks districts up north, simply as we are trying to work as much as we can, and these places require at least 4 days and a car. That said, we did Oxford recently and this weekend we made a day trip to Cambridge.

Saturday morning we were up early and out the door before breakfast was even served. We had train tickets from Liverpool St. After the hour and a bit journey we strolled from the train station toward the centre of town. Along the way we had a brief stop in a nice old church and at Downing College, which is one of the smaller colleges.
Our next stop was at Christs College. This is another nice old college, bit bigger. All of the colleges have nice buildings and gardens. This one had a Charles Darwin garden, as he studied at the college, which Christine enjoyed.

The next hour or so we strolled around the town. There were a number of art stores that Christine had a look in, we found some markets bought some Spanish Meats for dinner. The art shops we were half looking to buy an art work as we have been in the UK for so long. It was also just an excuse to warm up as it was pretty cold. We discovered some nice pieces but they are all so expensive when you are in a tourist town. We stopped in a nice café for lunch.
After lunch we headed out along the river and ‘The Backs’, which is a series of gardens and parks. These were nice, although it was a bit chilly. It would be very nice in the warmer months. We saw lots of bridges, and punts on the river. We decided it was a bit cold to give this a shot.

Christine’s favorite part of our time in Cambridge was Kettle’s Yard house and gallery. This is the house that Jim and Helen Ede lived in during the 1920s and 30s. Jim had been a curator at the Tate Gallery in London and collected lots of art from many of the artists he met there and became friends with. The house has been left as if they were still living in it and people are welcome to explore or sit and enjoy the many rooms. It was full of interesting furniture, ceramics and glass ware not to mention the paintings and sculptures. Some of the most famous artist represented were Miro and Henry Moore.
Partially so we could go to a nice Cathedral and partially so we could go to Kings College, for free, we went to Kings College for the Evensong. This is a Church service with a full choir in the evening. The cathedral is very big, old and very nice. The service was lovely.
With the colleges, galleries and cathedral out of the way, we headed to the pub to finish our day. We spent some time and ate in the Eagle which is an old pub with 5 or 6 cozy rooms. During WWII it was a popular hangout for the air force, and they have preserved graffiti and signatures on the walls and roof from the soldiers. On the way back to the train station we stopped for another beer at the Bear, a really small and a bit dingy pub.

Off to Chicago, for the Night!

After a busy week working, we were happy to see Saturday roll around. We had tickets to see a West End play, 39 Steps. Unlike most of the shows we have been to, this one was not a musical. It was a comedy with a small cast, only 4 actors, but very clever as there were many characters.
The story follows the main character who meets a lady at the theater, who turns out to be a spy. She warns him about the 39 Steps which is a weapon for world domination. The next morning she is found dead in his apartment. He flees from London to Scotland, running from the police, whilst looking for a doctor that the spy had been going to see to pass on her message. The doctor turned out to be helping the people who wanted to use this weapon, so he then had to escape from this doctor. It was very clever and quite funny, in a slapstick sort of way. After the show we headed to a pub for a few pints and then dinner in Soho which was nice.
The following week after a few days back at work we were off to another show. This time it was Chicago, which I had been looking forward to seeing for a while, as we have heard a lot of people enjoyed it. All of the tickets we bought were cheap, £25 for second row seats at Chicago and £15 for the other shows.
Unlike 39 Steps, Chicago is a musical and a big production, 20 odd people in the orchestra and probably 20 odd in the show. It was amazing and had a bit of everything, singing, acrobatics, dancing, comedy. It’s a true story about the 1920’s, in Chicago obviously. Show girls that end up in prison. They get a good lawyer and escape with lenient punishments. But it really is the amazing singing and dancing that makes it so good.
With their yearend still not complete, Damien had to work another weekend. We did manage to get to Jade’s 30th birthday at her place in Angel. Damien worked with Jade in his first contract role, and we see her every now and then. She is really sweet, originally from Mornington way she says (really Frankston). She has been in the UK for over 5 years and is quite settled here. We had a really good night, and met a few new people which was nice.

2011, A Walk in the Park!

We started the year with a day at Hampstead Heath. This is another big park, just north of London. It is a bit more hilly than other parts of the city, giving views back over London. It is a wealthy area, back in the day when London had drainage and sewage problems (some of which still exist at Dean Court Hotel!), the wealthy moved to Hampstead, as all the water drained away. It is also supposed to have a clean water spring, which meant that fresh water was available, while the dirty water drained away. The park is mostly unmanicured. It has open spaces, sections of forest and a number of lakes, which are apparently used for bathing in during summer! In the middle of the park is Kenwood House, an old mansion. After a coffee to warm up we visited the house which is full of old furniture, ornaments artwork and has a nice library. In the yards of the house are a couple of sculptures by Henry Moore and Barbra Hepworth. As always around 4pm the sun disappeared and the cold set in, even more so, meaning we had to leave the park and make our way back home to get ready for the week ahead. Luckily I had booked some theater tickets late last year for January, giving us something to look forward to in the short term!
We have also been spending a bit of time thinking about what is next for us, once we leave the UK, which we are looking forward to doing! We have booked some flights and decided that our 2011 travel plans will include Istanbul, Greek Islands, Italy, Germany, Austria, Czech and a stopover in South East Asia on our way back to Melbourne. We’re not sure what we are more excited about, travelling again or finally being back in Melbourne! As always, there are so many more places that we would love to visit, but time has run short, we will just have to come back some day! For the record, I’m planning on going to the Melbourne Cup this year, if anyone wants to join us. Its amazing how many people from outside Australia have heard of this race, I’m sick of having to say I’ve never been!
The week at work turned out to be busy, very busy. In fact the next few weeks have rolled into a January blur. Working late nights and weekends as the company is a bit disorganised and unrealistic with their month end and year end deadlines. Nether the less it is all helping the savings for our travel to come in the next few months!

Christmas and New Year

Given that my Christmas markets trip was cancelled I planned a couple of things to keep me entertained. The first item on the agenda was a visit to the Victoria and Albert museum which Brian had been raving about. This was certainly an amazing place. There are just so many artefacts from all over Europe including a room full of casts taken from monuments. There were carved columns from Rome, Celtic crosses from Ireland, Nordic doorways, whole cathedral doorways, it was quite amazing! I was also impressed with the collection of mosaics, some of these looked like oil painting until you got close enough to see the individual pieces of coloured stone inlayed together. There was a huge collection of cloth samples centuries old from all corners of the Earth. A display following the history of jewellery design and much more. It is a place you could visit many times and find something new and amazing again and again.

I also planned a day trip to Hampton Court Palace with Angela, one of our housemates. This is where Henry the VII spent most of his time. There was still snow and ice around so we were unable to visit the gardens and the hedge maze which was disappointing. The buildings were very interesting and gave a bit of an insight to how the monarchy must have lived centuries ago. I loved the star studded ceiling of the church and the grandeur of the formal rooms.

Christmas was spent at Deans Court with all the other ‘London orphans’. The owner supplies masses of food which is always appreciated. We had turkey, pork and heaps of veggies followed by fruit mince tarts and Christmas pudding. Much of the food had to be thrown out as it was not cooked properly by the managers, meaning a week’s worth of leftovers was nonexistent. The managers had organised a ‘Secret Santa’ which added to the fun. We got Casey a beer helmet which reduced her to tears of joy, she really likes her cinder. Damien received a cool beanie and I got some stuff from the body shop. The day began very civilised but due to the crowd, everyone was pretty drunk by about 6pm. Casey had to got to bed after enjoying her new helmet too much and Chris was subjected to nail painting after falling asleep on the couch. It was a fun day but we are both looking forward to next Christmas back in Melbourne with our families.

On Boxing Day we avoided the shops and instead headed to a couple of galleries. The first was for an exhibit called ‘the art of the Album’ which Damien had wanted to see for a while. It was a retrospective on the album covers made by one photographer and was quite interesting. Next stop was the National Portrait Gallery for the ‘National Gallery Photo Portrait Prize’. This was a wonderful, diverse collection of portrait photography from posed dramatic compositions to very informal candid shots.

Damien spent New Years eve back at work but met me and a few of the girls in the city. Us girls were late so Damien spent some time in a pub waiting for us. We headed to ‘Jamie Oliver’s Italian’ restaurant for dinner then planned to watch the firework display on the Thames. Dinner was ok but not as good as when we last went. The city was very crowded, in fact too crowded and the Police had started to block off streets so there would not be too many people on the river banks. It was all a bit confusing and eventually we were all separated. I had an Ok view of the fireworks but it never is the same when you’re alone. I think next year it will be a quiet house party without all the fuss.

So it is now 2011, the year we head home to Melbourne. We are both defiantly looking forward to seeing everyone and settling down to grown up lives with clean kitchens and bathrooms. New Years day was spent in our room. Damien wasn’t feeling very well for some reason and I wasn’t very impressed with the mud he bought home from Hyde Park on his shoes, which ended up in our bed. The 2nd of January was more active with us catching a train to Hampstead Heath and having a long walk. This is a lovely area where the rich people lived back in the days before effective sewage as it is on a hill above the once festering London and has it’s own water source. There are a couple of nice view points in the park that give views of the city, but again we were more impressed with all the dogs out and about. Getting a dog when we get home is defiantly a priority for both of us. We had coffee to warm up then headed into the Manor House. This was nice and warm so it was a bit of a shock to the system when we emerged from the house and felt like the temperature had dropped about 5 degrees. This made the decision to go home very easy.

The Snow Arrives!!!

Prague
So the school holiday arrived, I rushed home to get sorted before a very early morning the next day. Brain, another teacher, and I had planned and amazing Christmas markets tour that began with Prague, a day in Vienna then a few days in Budapest. We were both pretty excited to be heading off the next day until Damien got a text message from Easy jet. As it was snowing, and nothing works in London when it is snowing, our 6am flight from Luton was cancelled. We took this in our stride and rebooked for a later flight from Stansted. Ever optimistic, I packed my bag whilst watching the heaviest snow I have ever seen fall outside my window. We checked the flight status online one last time, it was still scheduled. Brian and I headed off to Liverpool St Station where we caught the Stansted Express. This turned out to be a longer wait than we anticipated and we were glad we had allowed extra time to get to the airport due to the weather. We should have taken this as a warning for what was to come but we were still both feeling optimistic about our trip as we froze on the platform watching the snow melt from the stationary trains.

Finally, after a couple of confusing announcements and platform changes, we were on our way. The train was quite full but it was nice to be out of the cold. We admired the winter landscape of frozen lakes, white fields and families building snowmen from the warmth of the carriage. Then the train had arrived at the airport, had just checked the flight status again on Brian’s I phone and were reassured by the website claiming our flight was still scheduled. This relief was short lived as we discovered soon after that our flight, along with all Easy jet flights had actually been cancelled! It is a strange thing to look at the website which states the flight is scheduled alongside the information screen which told us otherwise. By this point we were both a little annoyed as there were no Easy jet staff in site, in fact the airport terminal looked deserted of staff. There were hundreds of people milling around trying to work out what to do next but not anyone to give information. Brian and I did what any disappointed person would do, we headed for the nearest bar.

Whilst this was a good idea at the time, we were both feeling irritated, disappointed and hungry it may not have been the best idea in retrospect. We did have an ok time but when we got back to the train platform a couple of hours later there was mayhem! All the people who had come out to the airport for cancelled flights, along with all the people who had their flights grounded at Stansted which was the last London airport to close, were trying to get back into central London. What made matters worse was the fact that the trains were not working very well due to the weather, remember nothing works in London when it snows. We spent the next couple of hours chatting to strangers on the platform whilst we waited for a train. We met a German girl who had been trying to get home for three days and a family from Florida who had a connecting flight from a different airport. We didn’t feel so bad about missing our holiday considering we intended to be in London for Christmas anyway. After a couple of hours on the freezing platform, and again with confusing announcements directing people to other platforms, we finally made it onto a very crowded train. We were relieved again to be out of the cold but soon became frustrated as the train broke down twice! We did finally make it back to London and are still waiting for a reply to Brian’s very stern letter about the lack of staff and organisation at the Stansted train platforms.

Meanwhile, Damien being Damien decided he wasn’t going to waste a day off by waiting for me to leave on my holiday. He headed out into the country to go walking in the blizzard! I was very relieved when he arrived home in one piece and very jealous that he had a lovely day out when mine was quite frankly lousy.


Damien Walk, Pluckley

Despite the weather and Christine leaving for Prague today, I got myself moving. The night before I had checked out a really handy hiking England website and decided on my plan of attack. After breakfast, saying bye to Christine, visiting the internet cafe to print the walking instructions and catching the train to London Bridge, I was ready to take the train out of London, a bit later than I had planned. The guy at the ticket window warned unless travel was essential he advised against it, they weren’t certain the trains would run all day due to the snow. But some times you just need to ‘take a gamble on the weather’ so I bought a ticket, jumped on the first train and hoped for the best.
Well I am happy to say that today has changed my opinion on English people, somewhat. Maybe it was my mood, or maybe it was the individuals I met, but today I met the nicest English people I have ever met!

As the train rolled out of London Town, the snow continued to fall, if anything it got heavier and heavier. Unusually, for the first part of the journey I had a carriage to myself, which was nice, I enjoyed my coffee and read the printout of the walk I had bought with me.
The train ride was only supposed to take an hour but took well over this, due to the weather. In uncharacteristic fashion, this did not annoy me! After about an hour the train pulled into Tonbridge, a place I had never heard of, but was quite busy. I had finished my reading and the next part of the journey took another hour, but again this did not upset me. After Tonbridge I got chatting to someone who had just got on the train. Turns out she had been in London for the week with exams, then had a work party somewhere near Tonbridge the night before and was gradually making her way home to Canterbury. She was lovely and we chatted most of the way until finally the train arrived at Pluckley, and I made my way off the train.

The snow is so pretty, especially from the warmth and comfort of the train. As I stepped off the train it was blizzard like (or as close to a blizzard as you will find in England). I started my 4 hour hike, knowing I only had about 4.5 hours of daylight left. The first part was hard going, because of the snow. The instructions talk about gravel roads and crossing fields, which is made difficult by snow covered ground and 10-15m visability. At point 3 of my 45 point hiking guide I very nearly turned around, having no idea where I was or which direction I was supposed to be headed (standing in a field, not seeing a fence in any direction). It was at this point that I was cold too, I had all the right gear, thermals, snow socks and ski jacket, but after being on the warm train the first 30-40 minutes was cold.
I kept going, for a while I had didn’t know where I was but figured I was going in the right ‘general’ direction. After skipping a few points, I made my way back onto the hiking guide instructions which was re assuring, and about 30 minutes later the snow calmed down and eventually stopped. This meant I was able to see and walk faster, warming me up so I was no longer cold.

For the next 3 hours I enjoyed walking through fields, paddocks small towns and small country roads. There was orchids that the walk went through, views over snow covered valleys and forrest with snow covered trees. The small towns were lovely, small churches and not much else. Part of my plan was to turn the walk into a bit of a pub crawl, but this didn’t eventuate. The first pub ‘The Swan’ I skipped and kept walking, as I had left a bit late I wanted to get at least a bit of the way into the walk, then the pub about ¾ of the way through I got to a bit late. Instead I grabbed some cans of beer and kept walking. Just down the track I found a seat with a great view of the valley and fields all covered in snow. I sat ate a banana, bag of chips, drank my beers and enjoyed the winter sunset, at 4pm!
From this point I had to head down in to the valley and back up the otherside. This was made difficult by a slight wrong turn, then back tracking I found myself in the middle of the fog which dropped into the valley quite quickly after sunset. So I was back where I started, in the middle of a field with no visability. I continued through the fog, and made it to the other side of the valley, from here the walk was along country roads back to the train. For the first time since I got of the train, I actually saw other people. As I walked I chatted to a couple of guys, both out walking their dogs, heading in the same direction. My last stop was going to be the local pub in Pluckley, ‘Dering Arms’, but would you believe, on a Saturday afternoon it was closed! Instead I headed back to the train station and waited on the platform, hoping the trains were still running!
I had to wait about half an hour, but the trains were running which was good. Instead of running all the way back to London, the train was terminating at Tonbridge, about half way. At Tonbridge there was a train on a different platform about to head to London, but instead I decided to have a wonder around town.

It was nice yet the same as every other town in some ways. For a start it was covered in snow and ice, had a small river running through the town. There was an old castle and cathedral which I walked around before finding a small pub on a side street. I got a seat by the open fire, a pint of Guinness and dried out for an hour or so. Sadly the pub didn’t do food, so I still didn’t get to eat.
I headed back to the train station, past the high st shops and chain restaurants. The staff at the station had no idea. There was no information on the screens, and the guy in the information booth would look at his screen every time someone asked him something, only to reply ‘I’m not sure when the next train will be’ or he would say things like ‘we just need to wait for a train to arrive and ask the driver where he is going!’.
After waiting about half hour I headed back over to the ‘information’ guy. The girl in front of me asked about London, so I didn’t have to, he still had no idea. We got chatting, her name was Rachel and she was lovely. A school teacher at Tunbridge Wells, a nearby town, she was trying to get to London to see her sister for dinner. She had driven to the station, and was about to head out to the car to drive to London instead of wait for the train. She had offered me a lift which was very generous. Moments later two trains rolled into the station, and we were advised to take one of them to another small town, which would then have a connecting train to London. I didn’t know any different, so hesitantly, we got onboard, not knowing if there would actually be a connecting train or not.
Luckily there were connecting trains and we did end up back in London reasonably quickly. Rachel had invited me to dinner, since I hadn’t eaten still, but I thought I should get home and out of my wet clothes. We said goodbye and headed off from Victoria Station.

I had had a long and enjoyable day, the snow was so nice and being out of London is always great. I had met some great people and for once, delays with trains had not even annoyed me! Sadly as Christine had the camera to take to Prague, I did not get any photos of the countryside covered in snow.