Bank Holiday Weekend

We have just had a VERY busy bank holiday weekend. Will had taken Friday off work for the Reading festival, so he ended up having an extra long weekend...

Reading festival rocked!!! We were very lucky with the weather. Friday it was quite overcast, but the rain held off. We (along with a lot of others) had worn our wellies. We didn't really need them for the field itself, but the women's' toilets were ankle deep in mud! Bands we saw on Friday included Little Man Tate, The Long Blondes, Gogol bordello, Gossip (Beth Ditto is mad!), Jimmy Eat World, Maximo Park, Interpol, Kings of Leon, & Razorlight. It was great having a really good catch up with my friend Nic. We usually go travelling somewhere during the summer, but didn't this year so I haven't seen as much of her as I usually would.

On Saturday the weather was gorgeous, really nice & hot. It was just Will & I, & Steve & Kate for today, & we had another really good day. There is nothing better than having a few drinks in the sunshine with good company & music...Bands we saw on the Saturday included Pigeon Detectives, Panic! at the Disco, Bloc Party, & Arcade Fire. Will & I were then torn between the 2 acts headlining the 2 biggest stages. We decided to compromise by watching the first half hour of the Red Hot Chili Peppers on the main stage, then we headed to the NME Radio 1 stage to watch The View. I'm glad we didn't miss The View, they really were fantastic. Because they were in a tent, unlike the main stage, the atmosphere was incredible. The whole tent was crammed fill of people jumping up & down & singing their hearts out. It was probably the most enjoyable act from both days. There was no time on Sunday for recovering from the excesses of the festival... It was house day! We managed to get through a long list of jobs, & slowly but surely, everything is starting to come together. We (well, mostly Will) did a lot of work in the garden, mainly mowing the whole section, including the huge patch of waist-high nettles! It's amazing how different it looks already. We also sorted out the study, hung up coat hooks, & put together a gorgeous old mahogany wardrobe that Will's dad has lent us, as well as other general clearing & sorting out. On Monday, with the help of Steve & Kate, we built our shed! It is very cool... It's just about finished, we just need to tidy up the roof felting, & then nail on some fascias. It probably wasn't the most relaxing way for Will to spend his day off, but it certainly was productive!

I'm feeling very proud of myself at the moment... Our new washing machine was delivered this morning, & I managed to unpack it & install it by myself. I've even given it a test run & as far as I can see there aren't any leaks! The only thing STILL not going to plan is BT. They are seriously starting to do my head in. You may recall that I was on the phone to them at Will's place as I was writing my last post? Well I ended up being on the phone for 4 hours!!! All we want to do is get our landline re-connected, we're not asking for anything difficult... I finally got through to a guy who seemed prepared to help me, then just as he was putting the order through, his whole computer system crashed! I've given up, & have now got Will on the case to try & get it sorted. Hopefully he'll have better luck than me!

No other news... Pre-release weekend tickets for next years Reading festival went on sale this morning, so I've snapped some up. It'll be something to look forward to in a whole years time.

Domestic bliss...

Gidday,

Not much has happened since the last post... I have really enjoyed pottering around the house the last few days, it is slowly getting sorted. Today our fridge/freezer arrived, tomorrow we have a self-assembly garden shed turning up, then Tuesday our washing machine arrives! The sky engineer is booked in for Wednesday, so I'm looking forward to having TV again. There are so many trees around our new place that we don't get the terrestrial channels. Because the sky engineer has to come out anyway, they offered a very cheap deal to get sky + installed. It'll be great being able to record things & watch anything on sky at any time... It's a good thing I'm still on holiday to get these things sorted, it must be a nightmare trying to move house while still at work.

The only thing not going to plan at the moment is BT. they are proving to be an absolute NIGHTMARE to deal with! All I want to do is get the landline connected. The guy living in the flat before me had a landline, so it should be as easy as flicking a switch & telling me my new number. I rang BT last Wednesday & they said someone would get back to me in 5 working days, which never happened. I have wasted a couple of hours today just trying to get through to someone! I'm actually on hold to them at the moment as I'm writing this... Hopefully something will come of it... The line needs to be active by Wednesday or I'll have to reschedule the sky engineer.

On Monday night we went to the cinema with Steve & Kate to see the latest Harry Potter which I enjoyed. Tuesday night was dinner at Will's parents. His brother & family also live near his parents so we dropped in on them first. They have 3 kids under 5, & we had bought them back a few bits & pieces from South America which got them very over-excited! Last night I had rugby training which was good, although I do need a lot more fitness work. We've got the Bracknell 10's tournament in 2 weeks time! I've been getting to the gym a bit lately, & will also try & do a lot next week as well.

Tomorrow we're off to the Reading Festival!!! We have tickets for the Friday & Saturday. Tomorrow there are 2 other couples from school as well as us, plus 5 other assorted friends. Saturday it's just Will & I, & Steve & Kate. My friend Nicola is coming down tonight so I'm looking forward to seeing her. Razorlight & Ash are headlining the 2 main stages tomorrow, then on Saturday it's the Red Hot Chili Peppers & The View.

New Home

We are now fully moved in, I LOVE the new house! Huge thanks to the 'boys' who helped me with the move, cheers Curto, Ben & Scottie. It all went smoothly, even though it was a bit of a mission at times. We've put Will's couches, bed & lovely big oak table into the new place, so there was a 3-way move between my old place, Will's house, & the new place. As you can see above, the garden is a good size (for the UK!) & has loads of potential, but it's going to take a heck of a lot of work... We are planning on putting some raised vege beds down the far end by the fence (Will's domain!), a shed in the bottom right corner, then I'll have the area around the patio for my nice flowers... I'll include a few shots of the interior once we've got it fully sorted. There are still lots of boxes waiting to be unpacked... It is so nice having the extra space, as my last flat really was on the 'cosy' side. It is lovely & quiet as well. We are down a long wooded drive, & it feels a million miles away from school (it's actually a 10 minute stroll through the woods...). It'll be great not having the students living all around us.

I don't really have much news to report, the whole week has been spent getting the place sorted. We've got a new fridge/freezer being delivered on Thursday, & we need to buy a washing machine in the next couple of days. I used to use the one in the boarding house, & Will has one but it's quite old & he's going to leave it in his house which he will eventually rent out. Other than that we are pretty sorted, although it's taking a while for BT to get our phone connected. It's bit of a pain because I can't get Sky TV & broadband installed until I have a land line. I really want to watch the France/England rugby game on sky tonight, so I kind of invited myself to Curto's... He then invited me for dinner as well, so it's all good!

Thursday night Steve & Kate had us round for dinner, which was lovely. It's great only having to walk across the horse paddock to get to their place now. Last night we had our first overnight visitors... My friend Jon & his wife Lorenza had flown in from Canada. They were only planning on dropping in for a cup of tea on their way to Wales, but their plane was delayed for 9 hours! They were too shattered to drive another 4 hours to Wales, so stayed for dinner then crashed for the night. They have invited us to their house in Canada for Christmas, so we shall see... It's quite tempting, they live right on a ski hill in Kimberly, BC, so Will was quite excited about that!Will is away in Nottingham this weekend playing at a Korfball tournament. They are camping, & I don't know what the weather is like up north, but it's pouring with rain at the moment here!

Home sweet home...

Our last few days in La Paz were very enjoyable. We spent lots of time eating at our favourite restaurants (3-course dinners for 2 quid!), & browsing the markets. I loved the markets in South America, we bought back loads of stuff with us, but I could easily have filled another bag or two...

On our last day we hit another fiesta! This was quite fitting really, as we also had a fiesta the day we arrived in La Paz. It was Independance day, & was pretty manic! There was a huge street parade to the main plaza, & the Bolivian flag was flying everywhere... We had walked to the American airlines office to check a few things regarding our flight (mostly, what the baggage allowance was!) but of course it was closed due to the national holiday.

Our flight home on Tuesday went well. The La Paz to Miami leg with American Airlines was fine, but the Miami to Heathrow trip with Virgin Atlantic was really good. A nice new bright & airy airplane, good service, good food, & great in-flight entertainment added up to a very enjoyable flight. I do rate them as an airline.

We touched down at Heathrow at 9am on Wednesday, got our baggage & cleared customs VERY quickly (for Heathrow!), practically walked straight onto a departing Railair bus for Reading, got a cab straight away, & pulled up at Will's door at 11am. We were feeling OK despite the 6 hour time difference, & a couple of days without sleep. I even went to rugby training that night! Initially I was only going for social reasons, to catch up with the girls, but I was feeling so good I decided I might as well train... I was so stiff & sore I could barely walk for 2 days afterwards, but that's a different story! When I turned up I found out I had been awarded the coach's player of the season award, & was runner-up in the player's player award, so that was a really nice surprise to return home to.

The last few days have been all about sorting our new house. I have to be out of my current place by the 15th, so there's not much time at all... We've spent the last 3 days painting all the rooms, & it is now looking really good. The previous occupier (a single man) had decided to paint the bedroom & lounge dark brown! We've gone for nice light neutral walls throughout, as we have enough cushions/throws/wall hangings etc to add lots of colour. I've never painted inside rooms before & have been really enjoying it. Tomorrow I'll do a bit of cleaning up & start moving a few things in, then Tuesday will be the big proper moving day. Then it'll be time to tackle the garden! It is lovely being away for 5 weeks, coming back, & still having 3 weeks of holiday stretching out in front of me... Poor old Will was back at work on Thursday!

By the way, I've finally succumbed to pressure & signed up on facebook. If any of you out there aren't on my friends list yet then let me know...

The Salar de Uyuni

On Tuesday we headed off on our Salar adventure. We first had 3 hours in a bus to Oruro, before boarding the train for the 6 & a half hour trip to Uyuni. The train was very comfortable, & we had a great sunset on the way. We got into Uyuni at around 10:30pm & went straight to our hotel for a good nights sleep.

The next morning we set off on our 3-day jeep adventure. Along with Will & myself there was a Belgian couple who had just finished med school, a couple of kiwi chicks who had thrown in their jobs to travel South America for a few months, plus a husband & wife driver/cook team. Our Toyota Land cruiser wasn't too bad to travel in, & was certainly in a better state of repair than a lot of the jeeps we saw! To say this was a budget trip however, would be a huge understatement... It only cost 85USD each for the 3 days, including all transport, meals & accommodation, & we did get what we paid for... The food especially was very ordinary, usually rice or quinoa, tomato & cucumber, plus some sort of meat. We did get nice (if very salty) vege soup at dinner though.

Our first stop was the Salar de Uyuni itself. It's the worlds largest salt flat & covers 12 000 square km. It used to be a prehistoric lake that covered most of southwest Bolivia. It was very freaky, just blinding whiteness as far as the eye could see.Next stop was Isla de los Pescadores, aka Cactus island. This was a very surreal stand of giant cacti in the middle of the salt flat. We had a good walk around the island while the cook prepared our lunch.After lunch we visited the salt hotel (no water or electricity, just a llama dung burning stove & every single thing, including the building, furniture, beds etc made from salt). Then it was several more hours of driving to our accommodation in a tiny village called San Juan. The lodging was very basic, & there was only electricity for a few hours in the evening. We did however find the only pub in town & enjoyed a couple of drinks before dinner. After dinner it was a couple of hours of Texas hold 'em poker (playing for grains of rice we managed to steal from the kitchen!) till the electricity ran out & it was time for bed.

The next day was spent driving through some unbelievable scenery. We had deserts, volcanoes, blue lagoons, red lagoons, flamingos... Pictures really do tell a thousand words, so here goes...The red lagoon (Laguna Colorada) below was where our accommodation for the second night was. We were at 4300m, & it was freezing! Our smiles in the photo below belie the fact that we're actually freezing our butts off!!! It was absolutely stunning though.
Our lodging that night was described in our itinerary as primitive (the previous night had been basic). We pretty much had a concrete room with 6 beds in it. This was the night that nobody was looking forward to, as the temperature was known to drop below -20 degrees at night.
It wasn't actually too bad... In the communal area outside our room we had a wood-burning stove to huddle around. We had also found a shop buying cheap Bolivian red wine, & in a moment of kiwi ingenuity, realised we also had left-over mandarins from lunch, sugar, plus Cinnamon & clove tea... In other words, all the ingredients you need to make mulled wine! We managed to get across to the cook what we wanted (I think I forgot to mention that our driver & cook only spoke Spanish!) & they delivered the goods... It was brilliant, we were the envy of the other groups staying there as we drank our hot wine & played some more poker until the lights once more went out on us at 9:30pm.

The next morning we were on the road at 5:30am, & it was FREEZING!!!!!! We drove through some very strange geothermal terrain, & made it to some natural hot springs by breakfast time. Will went in for a dip, but I wasn't brave enough... It was warm enough actually in the water, but I couldn't face getting out & getting dressed in the cold. Naturally there were no changing rooms or anything as civilised as that...This was a long day of driving. After breakfast we continued on to Laguna Verde, then dropped the kiwi girls off at the Chilean border, before the long trek back to Uyuni.We got into Uyuni at 5pm after hours of dusty bumpy roads. We had a fantastic pizza dinner (a lovely change from rice!), before our 8pm 12 hour overnight bus back to La Paz. Tired & smelly we arrived back at our fabulous hostel & promptly collapsed in bed for several hours of kip.

This is pretty much the end of our trip. We have a couple of days chilling in La Paz, spending our remaining Bolivianos at the markets, before flying back to the UK early Tuesday morning.