Autumn

Hello all...

I know I've been slack with keeping this updated lately, blame it on the hassle we are having trying to get Internet into our flat. It STILL isn't sorted! Be warned, this post will be a biggie... There's lots to catch up on.

Below I've posted a few pics of my walk to work, it's a gorgeous time of the year with all the leaves turning. There have been some crisp sunny mornings when mist rises up off the lake & looks spectacular. The clocks went back this weekend, so I now walk home in the pitch dark!

I enjoyed my week off over half-term, although as usual it went far too quickly. I did however pack a huge amount into it. Lots of time was spent in the garden, so that is now looking good. I did manage to plant 200+ bulbs, so hopefully it will all be worth it come the spring... Thursday night a group of us from school went to 'the dogs'. Will & I managed to win a bit, but we weren't as successful as HBB who had a very good night. Friday night was a dinner party at Ric's which was most enjoyable. A lot of very good NZ sauvignon Blanc was drunk that night. Even Will couldn't resist, & he had to get up at 5am the next morning to drive to Nottingham for a Korfball tournament!

On Saturday morning I headed into London to meet up with my friend Denise (Wayne's sister-in-law). Her & her husband Craig are living in Italy at the moment, & Craig had organised the weekend in London for Denise as a surprise for her 30th birthday. We had a nice day wandering around with another of her kiwi friends, & went on the London Eye. The London Eye was very cool, even if it was a typically dull grey London day, so the visibility wasn't the best. I now want to go on it at night time with Will & see the city lit up. Around Christmas would be nice with all the extra lights around. We then met up with a few others & were cooked a very nice NZ lamb roast dinner at another of her friend's flat.

On Sunday I had rugby, & it was a top of the table clash between the league leaders Thurrock, & us. Unfortunately we lost 5-0 in a pretty brutal match. It certainly was physical, & I woke on Monday morning barely able to move. It is now Tuesday evening & I'm still in a lot of pain! I do love it... really...

It is 6 weeks tomorrow till the Christmas holidays begin, & Will & I have booked to go to Canada. My good friend Jon has a house in Kimberley, 5 hours drive from Calgary, right in the heart of the Rockies. Him & his wife have kindly invited us to spend Christmas with them there. Will is excited about all the skiing on offer, & I am quite keen to try some cross-country skiing. As most of you know, I don't really do things that involve going fast downhill... It should be really nice, we fly on Saturday 15th December, & are back on Wednesday 27th. We will then enjoy a late Christmas with Will's family.

That's about all my news... Well done if you made it to the end. Bit of a marathon effort, but don't say you weren't warned!

Almost half-term

I thought I'd post the last existing pictures of Will & his beard... I did like it, & it did make him look like a 'real' professor...

This half-term is flying by, only 3 more days till I get a week off. Am not planning much, have rugby, so can't really get away. I'm looking forward to sleeping in, pottering around the house, & catching up with a few friends.

Apologies once again for the timing between posts, our broadband box STILL hasn't arrived. It is well overdue, but there has been a lot of disruption to the postal service through strikes lately. Am really looking forward to being online at home again, I really don't get much time at school.

Bit of a bugger about the rugby... It's been a very strange world cup. The staff at school have actually been pretty good about not giving much stick to us kiwis, I think they genuinely felt sorry for us! If England do take it out on the weekend though they'll probably be pretty insufferable for a while! From the sounds of things, I'm quite glad to be out of NZ at the moment. I was hoping the loss would have a big effect on the NZ economy & the dollar would crash, meaning I could send a whole lot of pounds home & get a really good rate for them!!!

My rugby team is going well, we had a good 24-0 win over Footscray on the weekend. It was right over on the other side of London, so was bit of a mish to get to. It took us about 2 hours to get home with all the traffic on the M25.

The house is still coming along nicely, bit by bit it's slowly getting to how we want it. Will has done a huge amount of work in the garden, & has nearly finished the second big raised vege bed. The stables we live next to have said we can have as much horse manure as we want for free, so will probably get some over the weekend & dig it in. Hopefully that will give it enough time to rot down before the planting season next spring. We've been getting a bit excited over seed catalogs lately, planning what we are going to grow!

Better go, it's heading towards 6:30pm, so no sort of time to still be at school...

Time is flying by...

Gidday,

This is just a quick post to reassure people that I haven't dropped off the face of the earth (because I know you were really worried, NOT!). My only internet access at the moment is at school, & usually I'm too busy to update my blog. Things are about to change however... I now have a new laptop, to replace my old one which got frazzled in the amazing lightning storm a few months back, & we've finally got around to ordering some broadband for the flat, which should be up & running within a week or so.

Things are going really well here, school is especially good, & I'm enjoying all my classes. There is only 2 weeks left till half-term, so I'm looking forward to a week off.

Masque of the Red Death last Saturday was good, but I enjoyed Faust more. It was very similar in concept, with the audience all wearing masks, & wandering the building at will, stumbling across the actors as they went. One very cool bit was when we followed one of the cast through the back of a wardrobe, where there was a secret passage which took you into a new room, via the fireplace. My biggest gripe was that the plot was even more fragmented than Faust, so half the time I didn't have a clue what was going on. The attention to detail on the set however was very impressive. My favourite place was a Victorian music hall where you could take your mask off & relax. Will & I were sitting there, chilling out & watching an act on the stage when one of the actors came over, started interacting with us, & poured us a shot of vodka each!

Not much else going on really... Will has finally shaved off his beard which he started while travelling around South America. I'd forgotton how baby-faced he was!!! I've got before & after photos, but I'll put them on at home once our broadband is sorted. Last night we bought a new mattress for our 4-poster bed. We've been making do with my old one which is a king, but the new bed is super-king, so we've had a foot-wide gap. We were hanging out for a sale (you know what I'm like!) & managed to pick up a lovely pocket sprung one for half-price. It is going to take up to 4 weeks to be delivered though, so we'll be making do with the old one for a while yet.

I have a good social weekend coming up... Tonight is a hot-tub party with the rugby girls, then tomorrow night we have a staff social in the common room to watch the All-Blacks/France game. On Sunday my rugby team are playing Ealing away.