Happy birthday Damien

Happy birthday to you...
Happy birthday toooo yoooooooooouuuuuuuu...
Happy biiiiiiiirthdaaaaaay deeear Damiennnnnnn...
Happy biirthdaay toooo yooooooooooooooooouuu!

Hope you have a fantastic day, a lovely week and a terrific year.
*hugz*

Holiday in SA

We've just returned home after a great week. We travelled to Kingston on the first day via Naracorte. The second day we followed the coast road to Wellington. Dad was disappointed to find you couldn't see the sea and the weather varied from very wet and squally to fine and sunny. It was fun to cross the river in a punt at Wellington and we were lucky in having a very short wait to cross. We visited one winery then had lunch in Strathalbyn. We followed the winding roads and found Bains Rd which led us to Damien and Cheryl's. Oscar was very smiley. What a happy little boy. On Thursday, we walked with Cheryl and Oscar to the local shopping centre, a short? 1.7 kms. We should be feeling fitter. Friday we rested although the weather cleared so we weeded their garden. Went out for an all you can eat for tea at a Chinese restaurant. Pouring rain, hail and windy.
Saturday we all went to the larger shopping centre where Dad bought me a rose gold necklace for my birthday. I've been looking but not found what I wanted before. Also I bought a pair of homyped black boots, ready for next winter.( Nana gave me birthday money so now I've spent it.)
Today we left about 9am SA time, stopped at a local shopping centre where I bought a glass dragon then headed for home. Mostly fine and sunny. We had two stops for lunch and a cuppa and arrived home about 5.30 Vic time. Foxie is glad we've turned the heater back on. I'm sure he missed the heater more than us.

Kerkyra with pictures

More photos, as promised -- press play, then rollover the slide-show for the "full-screen" icon, kick back and enjoy. :-D

Actually, that's exactly what we did in Greece -- a whole lot of relaxing by the pool, a little bit of exploring in an air-conditioned car, and a fair amount of searching for decent Greek food (strangely hard to find).

The trips themselves were somewhere between average and downright horrible: late/early flights, lots of waiting, the stupidest aeroplane seat-configuration I've ever seen (so close together that you couldn't really bring your knees together!), and general chaos on the part of the officials from both Kerkyra and the holiday company, Olympic.

(Our 3am bus, 6am flight happened as predicted. What was not predicted was the hundreds of fellow passengers suffering the same situation -- hundreds of Brits with hangovers, or sunburn, or missing luggage; girls with "flip-flops" and sarongs flirting with boys in cargo-shorts and ridiculous sunglasses; families and individuals with ridiculously large, heavy luggage (what could they possibly be bringing back?!); officials with less idea about what was happening than the human cattle they were responsible for. I remember saying to Dee, "The only way to make this airport more miserable is for some of the fluorescent lights to start flickering." Then a thought struck me: "Or to fill the place up knee-high with stagnant water. That might do it.")

But once we were there -- brilliant! Brilliant despite the crummy accomodation, despite the dodgy bar-tender with his penchant for late nights, loud music and funny cigarettes, despite the narrow, dangerous roads and crazy scooter-riders. Eventually, under the brilliant sunlight, all these things took on a certain romance, a gleam -- they became as much a part of the whole experience as the smell of the ocean, the gentle buzzing of bees and wasps, the sound of our fellow holiday-makers splashing in the pool. Okay, the airport didn't, but the rest ... walking into supermarkets and buying groceries without a word of english is just, just, awesome!

So yes, we explored the entire island by car while we were there -- hiring it from a boy who couldn't have been more than 10 (his uncle came to do the paperwork, but it was the boy's sale, have no doubt). He tried to convince us to get an ATV (all-terrain vehicle) instead: a roll-cage, four chunky tyres and a 250cc engine, no windshield or floor, bucket seats ... Of course we stuck with the little (air-conditioned) Hyundai, thank you very much.

Corfu Town is the main metropolis, and we spent a day walking through markets along tiny streets, dodging scooters and keeping out of the midday sun. It's really crazy how weathered the buildings are -- I kept expecting to hear a crash and turn to find our way back blocked by rubble! We also found beaches, both pebble and sand (hot, hot sand!!), everything from "British" beaches (a whole lot of pale bodies and east-end accents) to secluded ones used by locals and those in the know.

I think the pictures say it all really.

new baby

Tamara and Ray have a new son, Charles Albert Rowland 7lb 7ozs, born 4/9/09. (caesarian again as planned.) Mother and baby both well.

Oscar's first trip to the pool

We have just gotten back from Oscar's first ever trip to the pool! It's been a bit cold and rainy this weekend, but the pools were indoor and heated, so it was quite warm when we got there.

Initially we took him into the baby pool. I'm sure mum and dad can guess his first reaction - he kicked around like he was in the bath :) However after a bit of that I think he realised he was somewhere different, and spent the remainder of the time studying everything he could with a detached expression of mild curiosity.

The pool we went to has these weird mushroom things which rain water down, and he rather enjoyed that. It also has a sea creature which sprays water from it's head and he really tried to grab that water, even though it just made it spray into his face :D

After a bit of a play in both the baby and the kids pool (he was a bit weirded out by floating I think) we changed him, wrapped him up and he instantly fell asleep. He's still asleep now that we're home :)

We didn't take any photos at the actual pool, but there are a few shots of his cute little outfit on flickr and facebook, so check them out :) He looks very tall in that first one..

Kerkyra, Greek Island

Our second-to-last day in Kerkyra today -- we fly out at 6am tomorrow morning -- and we're at our first Internet cafe, trying to operate a Greek keyboard and drinking a tasty local beer ("Mythos"). It's been fun, relaxing and very hot, even with a pool at our doorstep and a coastline full of various beaches. When we get home I'll try to upload some photos!

One slight problem with our flight tomorrow morning, of course -- we don't have a room tonight! Standard practise for this particular "package holiday", apparently: we checked out today, and a bus comes to take us to the airport at 3am tonight/tomorrow morning. Package holidays from Britain are not all they're cracked up to be, that's for sure. No wonder the Brits are always complaining...

We flew in a week ago, and we're bussed from the airport to our "resort" -- and the word "resort" has to be in inverted-commas for the simple reason that it was the most basic room and facilities any of us (Dee, brother Chris and I) have ever seen. Including the complete dive we stayed at in Amsterdam! Two narrow beds for Dee and I and a camp stretcher for Chris; empty cupboards without handles; an electric hot-plate which electrocuted me twice; undrinkable tap-water (so they say -- we've been boiling it and it tastes fine); a smelly toilet (you don't flush the toilet paper here, but rather drop it in a bin... good practise for China, where they do the same thing).

But on the positive side: a balcony with an awesome view across the ocean to the Greek mainland; a bright blue pool for early morning dips (and you need 'em, it's 36 today); friendly (enough) bar staff selling cheap Mythos, Ouzo (more about that later) and chilled local wine. So, despite our dismay at finding neither drinkable water nor anywhere to buy some we arrived at 3am on the first night (again, the package holiday standard) we were all feeling positive when we woke late the next morning.

And overall it's been quite a positive stay! We hired a car from the very start, so have been able to explore the island -- from Canal d'Amour in the north to the seedy little nightclub town of Kavos in the south -- and find some really good beaches (Issos -- seems to be the locals hangout). We drove one day into Corfu Town, the main metropolis, and almost drove off Mount Pantocratos one day too, but mostly we've just been relaxing. We're all kind of keen to get home now, however -- the heat gets to you in the end, and we're all brown enough (even after putting on sunscreen twice a day!).

But yes, photos and maybe a little more detail when I have longer on the Internet!

Please Help Me

Can you please help me with an assignment im doing on the globe theatre and romeo and juliet?

Crossbows and winos

I wandered down to the Tower Of London from work one lunch-time last week, planning to mingle with the tourists and pretend/imagine I was one of them. Instead, I stumbled upon a demonstration of archaic weaponry! (Hopefully you can see the video above?)

Last night we had a nice, grown-up wine-tasting session at Vinopolis, a massive wine centre near Borough Market. We started with a "How To" session, where the most patronising (matronising?) woman I've ever seen outside of a kindergarten children's show taught us the basics of wine-tasting (hint: don't just knock it back in a single gulp, then belch loudly and ask for another). *Slurp-slurp-slurp* "Can you hear the noise I'm making, children? Can YOU make a slurping noise too? Big slurps for Madame Winey, that's riiight."

When M. Winey had finished our lessons we were let out to play with the other kids. We walked from table to table, exchanging tokens for tiny glasses of champagne, chardonnay, pinot noir, then onto reds: cabernet sauvignon, merlot, rioja. The tables were arranged by theme -- usually location, but there was a "premium" table all by itself -- and our tokens gave us 3 champagne tastes, 5 wines, 2 premium wines. To round out the reds, and because 9:30pm was approaching, I swapped two of my tokens for a tiny glass of madeira -- a bit like port, and delicious! Sweet and honeyed, with hints of burnt timber... or so I deluded myself!

It's not the amount of wine (as each glass was a mouthful at most) but the fact that you're sucking air through your teeth and coating your tongue with the stuff. So we were all feeling pretty "mellow" by the time we walked into the Bombay Sapphire Bar for a complimentary gin cocktail (I had a delicious one made with pear-juice ... but I like gin. Dee had a different one and didn't like it!)

So after all that you might think we were done for the night. You'd be right, but we still had two free tastings of rum to get through! Actually, that's not quite right -- we had two rums each ... but as you might imagine, some people (*cough*Tina*cough*) didn't actually want their rum, so it was more for meeeee!

(I think the major enjoyment I get from drinking rum is pretending I'm a pirate. Considering all the wine, gin and champagne I'd already consumed, it was just lucky for everyone that I didn't actually start singing a sea-shanty and hopping around on a wooden leg. "Yo-ho-ho an' a bottle o' rum!")

Anyway, I've just uploaded the pictures from this, and the weapons demonstration, to the ever-entertaining Life In London photoset!

Ahn-nyung-haseyo

Hello from Korea!

It took us a very long time (7 hr flight to Dubai, 3 hr stop-over, 8 hr flight to Korea) and we were all tired by the time we got here. Fortunately, we were met by two lovely Korean lads with a sign (as you can see) - they even pushed our luggage trolley for us. It was hot and humid, so we waited inside until the bus arrived to take us to the hotel.

There were some hassles with check-in - we'd been put into twin rooms so Lea was sharing with a spanish woman we'd not met. Unfortunately, we'd been put into smoking rooms, so they STANK!! peeeewwwwwww!! We asked to change rooms - Becs and I were moved straight away, but because Lea was sharing with someone, they said she needed to ask her "room-mate". No one had her number, we'd not met her and it was all becoming a bit much for us to deal with - especially after no sleep for 24hrs, so I asked if we could get a triple room. After much to-ing and fro-ing between the hotel and the organisers, they put an extra bed in with Becs and I and we're all sharing. Gareth is still sharing with a spanish man who doesn't speak english, but he said it's all fine. :-)

I've got more to tell about the Korea Science Festival, but I'll leave that until next time - hopefully I'll be able to get online again while I'm here. I'll just say that I'm keeping busy - not much time for sight-seeing yet, but we're going on a tour tonight. :-)

Hope everyone is well.
*hugz*
-d-

Photos photos everywhere, and all the boards did shrink

For those of you who have been waiting patiently for the photographic evidence of our trip to sunny (actually quite freezing cold) Bendigo, here they are in all their glory. We took a lot more, but trust me, these are the best ;)

Happy Birthday Cheryl

Happy birthday beautiful!

I would have posted this yesterday but we were in transit.

And so ends the triumvirate of birthdays ;)

Bon voyage, Dayna

We'll be thinking of you in Korea this week Dayna. I hope it is a fantastic experience for you and lots of fun even if it is work.
Lots of love
Mum and Dad

Happy birthday Trinity

Happy birthday Trinity.

Have a great day.

Lots of love and cuddles from Nanny and Poppy.
xxxxxoooooo

Happy Birthday Mum!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM
aka Mother-dear aka Mummy aka Nanny aka Ann aka Lady Ada aka Ann Of Green Gables aka The Dread-Pirate's Wife!

Hope you have a lovely day! On behalf of all of us, thank-you!!

Have a drink on us.

I can stay in the country, huzzah!

About 2 months ago my entry/work VISA for the UK expired; two weeks prior I sent it away for an extension. Today I got my passport back and breathed a sigh of relief!

It's hard to believe it takes so long! I mean, they certainly took my money quick enough -- that was taken out of my account before the first biometrics interview. Worse, the application form warns that it can take up to 90 days, and that if you need your passport back before then they will cancel the processing altogether. Luckily for me, I was entitled to stay (and work) for as long as they had it, but with our next holiday coming up I was really quite worried I wouldn't be able to leave the country -- after Wales, we realise it will actually be cheaper to fly and stay in Europe than to drive around Britain. Which is of course ridiculous in and of itself, but what can you do?

I'm still not home-and-hosed yet, as the biometric ID card (which replaces a rubber-stamp in my passport and must be carried along with the passport) is being delivered separately, but at least I can leave and re-enter the country now.

We're "last minuting" our next holiday, as Dee's brother will be with us and we want something cheap and fun -- suggestions? So far I'd like to see Morocco or Greece, Dee is talking about Ireland (although I've already been there!) and Chris (her brother) will take whatever he gets *grin*. Especially since he's doing a 'round-the-world trip in Business Class thanks to about a billion frequent-flyer points.

This has me reinvigorated about a big trip next year, too -- Budapest, Poland, Russia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore.