London

I had a very good flight over to the UK. I managed to get an upgrade to a 'sky-couch' on the Auckland to Los Angeles leg which was brilliant. It was 3 whole seats to myself with footrests that fold up horizontal to make a flat compartment. I actually got a decent amount of sleep which was rare for me. The Los Angeles to London leg was also good. I had an empty seat next to me which made a difference.

Nicola was there to meet me at Heathrow Sunday morning and gave me a scenic tour as we drove right through central London on the way to her Blackheath house. Her mission to keep me up and awake until a reasonable hour in the evening involved a nice walk in Greenwich Park, assembling and decorating a gingerbread house, and helping her decorate her house and Christmas tree (although by this stage I was under the blanket on her couch and couldn't do much more than point at where to put things on her tree!). Will was arriving on Friday once he had finished a conference in Dunedin that he was helping to organise, so I had 5 nights staying with Nicola and seeing the London sights.

Nicola was still at work finishing her last week at school, so it was a good chance to hang out with Geoff during the day as he had finished his first UK work contract. We had a lovely time catching up and seeing the sights. On Monday we started with the Natural History Museum where we visited the Wildlife photographer of the year exhibition which was very cool. We also popped into the V&A to have a look at the furniture exhibition, finishing the day with a couple of pints in one of London's numerous pubs.

On Tuesday I met Geoff out at Stratford which is where he lives. We spent time shopping in the Westfield there which is one of the biggest urban shopping centres in Europe. We also got good views over the Olympic Park. Geoff then came back with me to Nicola's for dinner (where we ate duck and drank plenty of red wine, happy days...).

Wednesday was another big day in the central city. I was keen to do the tourist trail and take a few photos. It was another lovely mild day, I've been incredibly lucky with the weather while I've been here.

It is always interesting seeing what is on the fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square, and at the moment there is a statue of a bright blue giant cockerel! Pretty random, but kind of cool...

We visited the British Museum which I loved. It is a beautiful building with an incredible glass roof. I liked all the Egyptian stuff, plus we also saw the 'highlights' which included the Elgin marbles (very impressive) and the Rosetta stone.

Here are a few more photos. It really is a photogenic city! I do love Big Ben...
 

 

 

I know squirrels are a pest in the UK, but this one that we saw at St Paul's was really cute! Especially as a passerby had just thrown it a nut.

At the moment there is a Paddington Bear trail around London with 50 statues in total dotted around the place. It is promotion for the new Paddington Bear movie coming out soon. We stumbled across 5 of them, although I only took pictures of 4... The 5th one was painted all white with a red 'fragile' sticker stamped across it. I decided it wasn't interesting enough to photograph! Here are the others, the top one was my favourite...

 

On Thursday I had a lazy morning, then met Geoff in town a bit later. We spent a bit of time at The Building Centre which was a really interesting place. The highlight was a 12m long plastic 1:1500 scale model of London. They also had a couple of other interesting exhibitions.

After another nice wander through the city, including the whole length of Oxford street, I bade Geoff farewell. I then headed to Waterloo to meet up with Claire who I hadn't seen yet. Our first stop was the Festival hall at the Southbank centre where I wanted to go up the Singing Elevator . I thought it was brilliant, but Claire found the combination of glass lift and 'interesting' singing a bit overwhelming! We went up to the 5th floor where there was a nice outside terrace with views over the Thames.

In the foyer there was a very random art exhibition of giant inflatable bunny rabbits! Pretty cute...

Southbank had a big winter festival happening, so we thought it would be rude not to enjoy a couple of mulled wines while we waited for Nicola to come into town after her day at work. I'm sure my 'rosy' face in the pic below is due to the crisp winter's air (and not the mulled wine...) ha ha ha.

Once we were all reunited we walked towards the West End where we had tickets to go see 'Once, the Musical' which was starring Ronan Keating. I took a few pics of London at night as we went.

 You do see some very interesting sights walking through Soho...

We had a very enjoyable dinner at a Chinese restaurant in China Town, before heading to the theatre. I enjoyed the show, but thought the movie told the story better. Ronan was surprisingly good in it though.

On Friday morning I bussed and tubed across town to Heathrow to meet Will. I couldn't have timed it better, arriving about 3 minutes before he came through the gate. It was lovely seeing him after 5 days. We caught a bus straight to Oxford, and then a small local bus to his parent's in Standlake where we will now be based until we leave on the 29th December. In very exciting news, they now have broadband (Will set it up today), hence me being able to write this post.

December already

I think this is the longest I have ever gone without posting, since starting my blog all those years ago! Apologies to anyone who has been checking in for an update every now and then...

I'll start with chicken news, as there has been a few changes since the last post... Of our original 3 hens, we only have Florence left. She is pretty old and slow now, but managing to hang in there. She has done her dash on the laying front, but has earned the right to happily see out her retirement free-ranging around the property. Here she is in all her glory...

 

And chilling out in her favourite pot...

When I last posted, we had recently got 2 new 'babies'. Unfortunately, one of them suddenly dropped dead one day, just leaving Amy. The most annoying thing is that they had only started laying a week or so earlier! It is bit of a mystery, we found her just peacefully curled up in the spot where she used to dust bath, with her head tucked into her wing as if she was sleeping. Here are a couple of pics of Amy. She doesn't seem to be missing her sister too much... I don't know what it is with chickens and pots, but they love them!

So, because we were down to only 1 'layer', a few weekends ago we did a road-trip to the Wairarapa to pick up 2 new 'babies'. We've named the newbies Jen and Chloe, and they are super cool, super chilled out chooks. They were tame right from the beginning, so had obviously been around people quite a bit from a young age. They get a bit of grief from Florence and Amy (the pecking order well and truly coming into play), especially at meal times, but it doesn't seem to bother them.

Amy had been laying an egg a day in the nesting box, but was obviously a bit put out by the newbies as she stopped as soon as they arrived. A couple of weeks went by and we started searching high and low in the garden to try and figure out where she was laying. One morning Will saw her coming out of some long grass. He went to investigate, and lo and behold... We tested the eggs and they were all fresh (Amy had chosen a nice cool spot underneath a hebe!) so we've been enjoying using them and giving them away to friends.

The social hub of our garden (for the birds that is!) is the bird bath that my nana gave us as a house-warming when we bought the house. It is always a hive of activity.

Even the chickens have been known to drink from it, although the newbies need to realise that they are just a little bit too big to actually land on it!

That is enough chookie news, you are probably also wanting to know how Will and I are getting on! Will is especially good, having recently being promoted from Senior Lecturer to Associate Professor at Victoria University. I am really proud of him, it is well deserved because he works so incredibly hard.

I'm also all good on the work front. I've recently taken on a responsibility for the school timetable, so that has been keeping me busy the last few weeks! The women who has done it for many years at school is retiring at the end of the year so I've been working on it with her this year, then will have to try to remember how it all works next year, eek!

Unfortunately, things haven't been quite so rosy on the sporting front... 10 weeks ago I managed to slip in the shower and do some serious damage to my knee. To be fair, it is the same knee that I have already done ACL and MCL damage to from rugby and badminton respectively... This time it is currently looking like I might have torn my meniscus. I've been through the long process of A&E, GP, weeks of physio, back to GP for referral to orthopaedic surgeon, then initial appointment with surgeon. On Tuesday I have an MRI scan, then a follow-up appointment with the surgeon on the Friday. I fly to the UK on Saturday, so at least I'll know where I'm at before I go. It might be a case of surgery in the new year. The timing was pretty lousy as I did it the week before my badminton club champs. I was looking forward to trying to defend my doubles and mixed doubles titles! I hope the new winners appreciated the nicely polished cups...

 

As I've mentioned in earlier posts, every now and then Will and I try to have a special 'date night' on Wednesday nights. Last Wednesday we went to see Spiegelworld's 'Empire' which was an amazing show. A mix of circus tumbling, comedy, burlesque and vaudeville. See here for the NZ trailer. The show was held in a 'spiegeltent' which was a gorgeous wooden big top with stained glass windows that had been put up on the Wellington waterfront. The whole show was absolutely brilliant, but these guys were phenomenal. However, the opening act was Will and my favourite. I'd highly recommend the show, although it is probably best not to take children... For instance, at the beginning of the show we were told that photography is allowed, but no flash photography because 'we don't want you to f**ken kill our acrobats!' Here are a few (sans flash!) photos from my phone.

 

 

I'm back at school Monday and Tuesday, but it'll just be working on the timetable. I actually taught my last class for the year last Tuesday. As mentioned earlier, I'm then off to the UK on Saturday. I'm flying over by myself as Will has to help run a conference in Dunedin before joining me in the UK 5 days later. I'm looking forward to catching up with my London based friends, then once Will arrives we'll head up to Oxfordshire and spend most of the remaining time with his family. We fly out on the 29th December for Hong Kong. We'll spend a night with my brother before heading off on a 2-week Vietnamese adventure which I'm enjoying planning at the moment. We arrive back in Wellington mid-January.