Edinburgh on a business trip

A quick trip to Edinburgh on the company dime for me this week -- part hand-over, part team night out. Except that certain key members of the team -- namely the ones with the corporate expense account -- were either sick or on holiday, so there was no night out!

Instead, I home at 5am to get to Heathrow in time for my flight. A barrier-machine on the tube tried to kill me, but once I extricated myself it was a quick hop on the Heathrow Express to Terminal 5. I packed light -- underwear and one fresh t-shirt -- and checked-in online the night before so security was a breeze. Still had to take my shoes off (why do they do that?) and walk through a metal detector however.

The 'plane was perhaps half-full, and I was sitting in an aisle-seat over the wing. Not the worst seat, perhaps, but not the greatest -- no view, an ever-present danger involving elbows and drinks trolleys, not even some turbulence to lighten the mood. I made sure to pick a window seat at the back on my way home.

I arrived in Edinburgh -- ahh, the permanent, omnipresent odor of Scotland's capital! Somewhere between "warm wheatbix" and "vegemite toast", the breakfast-themed smell is presumably the by-product of whatever magic is being performed each day inside the distilleries to bring us the e'er humble whiskey. I followed the scent onto a shuttle bus into the city centre, then walked up the hill to the office.

Many hours later, much dejected with the dwindling prospect of free drinks and food, I left the office in search of my hotel. Across the bridges into the Old Town and I could see it -- a stone's throw away, but on a street that ran under the bridge! With no visible way down, I continued into old-town proper and wound my way 'round until I found the back entrance. By this stage I was so tired I could've happily slept in one of Edinburgh's many rabbit warren-like covered streets (called "wynds" or "closes"). Luckily -- for the more deserving homeless, if not for myself -- the hotel check-in was easy enough, even for the walking-dead (or walking-comatose). Within minutes (that seemed like seconds) I was in my small but well-appropriated room, asleep on the couch.

My stomach woke me within the hour (actually, probably my intestines ... or more truly some complex interaction of signal-chemicals through one or more of the evolved internal communication networks that our bodies use for status monitoring and control). My immediate thought -- pizza! So I trundled back into the real world for a short time, found a restaurant that would make an Italian-style pizza (thin, not too many toppings) and retreated with my booty back to my temporary pirate-cave. (The pizza, as it turned out, was not as good as it could be. But it was still better than going hungry.)

I watched some TV -- something about chimpanzees -- and drifted off to sleep early.

The next day in the office was much the same, but thankfully shorter. At 4pm I jumped on the shuttle back to the airport, waited for my near-inevitably delayed flight with resigned acceptance rather than anxiety, but eventually I was safely cloistered in the tiny world that constitutes a aeroplane seat -- seat, foot-rest, tiny table, magazines, light above and bag storage below. At least it was a window-seat, and being a British Airways flight (rather than the cheapest carrier possible -- hey, I wasn't paying!) they brought food and complimentary drinks. Although with a 50 minute flight time I barely had time for a prawn salad (too salty), cup of tea and glass of chardonnay.

HEX'd (Heathrow Express) back into Paddington Bear Station, then Tube'd home (which may invoke images of flying across the city in a Futurama-like vacuum tube, but actually involves more sitting and less flying). Back home to my baby! And the housemates, oh well.

So I've got the next couple of days off -- any suggestions on what we can do?

Off to the tennis

This weekend was fun -- we went to Wimbledon!

It started Friday. I was working from home during the day because it was The Big Implementation of our software this weekend, so I was going to work until midnight that night. (Sidebar: had lunch with Dee and Stolly at a Turkish restaurant, then went to the gym. On the way there it started to rain and rain ... Stolly was wearing shorts and a t-shirt, so ducked into a shop and bought an umbrella for £3.50. He came out looking so pleased with himself that we went in a bought one each too -- so then we skipped down the road with matching umbrellas! Oh the hilarity.)

Earlier in the week a friend of Chris's (Joyce, who he met in Thailand) had mentioned going to the tennis at Wimbledon this weekend. It was going to be an "experience" -- queueing for hours to buy the general ground admission tickets. But we thought if we went a bit later in the day then the queue wouldn't be so long. Anyway, I went to work Friday night and mentioned it to one of my work colleagues. "Really?" he said, "Because I just happen to have some free general admission tickets ... if you want them."

Oh yeah! Talk about "who you know"! So we thought we'd turn up a little earlier than the other, then just casually stroll straight in, laughing at the poor chumps in the queue. So we figured out our route (using Google and Transport For London) and jumped on the first of three buses. It wasn't too bad -- we were on early so the bus wasn't packed, and we got to sit up stairs at the front both times (Sidebar #2: If you can figure them out, buses are a cheap way to see London. On the way back in we drove through posh Chelsea, along the river, past Victoria Station, Hyde Park and finally to Marble Arch -- all great touristy things to see!)

So we got to Wimbledon (more precisely, Wimbledon Stadium) and walked around. There was a stadium, but we were expecting something ... grander. (Also we couldn't figure out how to get in.) We stopped a passerby to ask, and he was kind enough not to laugh too much. "The tennis? Oh, that's about 2 miles that way. And yes, it's much more posh than this." Into a taxi for the last leg of our journey -- why would you lie to us, Internet?!

Once we arrived we agreed -- it was much more posh. There were also considerably more people around! At least one part of our plan worked -- we walked straight in. "Yes, here's my members-guest tickets. We know a member of the club. We're so connected. Ta-ra, wot?"



Inside it was more people, but we found seats at a couple of matches. It's cool watching tennis! Much better than on the telly... and this was at Wimbledon! For free! Heh heh.



Eventually the poor chumps our dear friends made it inside the ground, and we watched some more tennis before slumping on the lawn in front of a giant screen which showed what was happening in center-court. Quite an English thing to do, judging from all the people -- sit on the grass, eat strawberries and cream and drink Pimm's.





When the tennis was all but over, Dee and I jumped on another bus back into London (the scenic one). Got back into Marble Arch, then walked along Oxford Street towards home (about a 2 hour walk). We were tired when we got home, but we still beat Chris and Tina (who took the bus to the local Tube station rather than all the way back into the city).

Lun Dun

Long overdue for an update from the London contingent, but we've been keeping ourselves busy, if not out of trouble.

The end of last week was exciting! Phone call from Damien and Cheryl, Dee quit her job and I got an offer with another firm! We've had the flat to ourselves this week, with Colleen in Scotland visiting family, and Chris on a diving holiday in Egypt (yes, jealous, but there's plenty o' time for that). It should have been a relaxing week, but I've been working 12 and 13 hour days as we near the release date of our software. Danielle hasn't been enjoying her work for a little while now, as you may know, but she was holding out for an expected redundancy package i.e. instant "leave" and a month's pay. Unfortunately, on Friday her boss called her in to try to resolve things -- meaning he wasn't going to make her redundant! Damn, thought Dee, and handed in her resignation on Friday morning. She also has some negotiation to do, so might get her month's pay after all!

In between my long hours (and I'm not quite sure how, but working from home helped) I managed to do three interviews (the first a phone interview) with the same company, a sort-of start-up who are doing mobile banking and security stuff. All very interesting, and Java (which is my programming language of choice). The interviews went well, and I received the offer through the mail yesterday! More money, more fun, the chance to actually resigning tomorrow :-D.

What else have we been up to? Last weekend we had dinner and drinks at a Belgian Beer Café for Chris's birthday. Tried a beer called "skaldis" which was something like 11% alcohol -- very strong, but you don't really notice until about 10 minutes after you've finished it. It's lucky we were only about 30 minutes walk from home -- and I feel for Chris, who was getting on an aeroplane to Egypt the next day! Oy.

We were also meant to go to the "Flugtag" (flight-day?) in Hyde Park, for which I'd won two tickets. Unfortunately, by the time we'd found Chris a birthday present it was too late -- the traffic was horrible and the buses packed, so halfway there we jumped off and went for a late lunch instead. At the rate we were moving, it would've been over before we got there anyway.

Friday night was wine-tasting -- a charity event for "Habitats for Humanity" organised by a guy Danielle knows. It was fun, with a proper French wine-taster giving us tips and rating our abilities, but we probably shouldn't have stayed for gin & tonics, then champagne, afterwards -- it made getting up rather difficult on Saturday morning. Which meant we missed our cheap-ticket train to Oxford for a day-trip, and we balked at paying £20 each for a later train so instead went to Hyde Park and just chilled out. Hyde Park is a weird, wild area in the middle of London -- there were even people riding horses, and two guys trekked past dragging tyres as some kind of hiking training (?). After Hyde Park we saw "Happening" at the cinema -- eerie, rather than scary.

Today I've been working (I know!!) but tonight we're having a barbeque to celebrate our new employment situation. It was good -- we did the finances and decided we only needed something like an extra £130 per month to survive on our budget, and my new job will bring in more than that so Dee is free to take her time finding another role. A short-term contract, most likely.

I've got to negotiate the timings for December with my new work now, but then we'll buy our tickets back home. It will be nice to see everyone again (and meet the new family members of course :-D). Yay!

McLaren Vale Sea and Vines

Just a quick update from us.. this long weekend was the McLaren Vale Sea and Vines festival.. basically the wineries offer seafood and desserts, live music, that kind of thing. Since it's about 15 minutes from our house we figured we had no excuse not to go check it out.
Cheryl drew the short straw and was the designated driver.. although considering all the extras she got as part of their designated driver program, i'm not sure the straw was so short after all. Each winery had something different - she got a free muffin, a brownie, a cookie, not to mention all the tea, coffee or water she could drink.. And after I paid $5 for a glass (which then cost $5 to fill at each winery) she managed to score a free one of those too.
Anyway, it was a nice way to spend a lazy public holiday. So what did the rest of you get up to?

new TV

No not really.We had our aerial checked out and had set top box installed professionally. What clear reception! We also had a booster fitted because this area gets poor reception. Now our old tele looks as good as the ones in the shops and we can get the digital channels. The serviceman told us some of the new plasma and LCD ones are coming into the workshop already. An extended warranty would certainly be wise since one part of one they repaired under warranty was $4000.
Also had a phone call to say our blinds are ready and would be installed tomorrow. Yeah!!!
Hope you English exports had a great long weekend. we have one coming up in a couple of weeks to celebrate the Queen's birthday. Do you do that too?

Domain name change

I'm not sure how to do it, but if someone could change the link on the side for me that would be great. Basically the company that had my domain name has sold it to a company who has put US$1000000 on it to buy it. I'm so annoyed! Adam didn't even get an email saying that it was coming up for renewal! So instead we have gone to a different place and registered www.koffeekat.id.au Hopefully Adam will have the site up again quickly so I can keep putting photos on there, and this registry won't resell it on me.

Besides that... well, not much happening here. It was great to catch everyone on Skype last weekend, and mum has said you'll be on there again tonight, so we'll chat then!

Podcasting

Can anyone help me? I'm trying to work out how to do a podcast.

May Day weekend

Hello family,

Yes, it's been a while, but don't think that I've not been thinking of all of you. I've been working hard with Lab in a Lorry (leaving before 6 am, getting back at 4 or 5 pm... it's a tiring day!).

However, I HAVE had time to have some adventures. Maybe not as many as Patrick has had, but it's kept me busy. :-)

A couple of weeks ago I went over to Nottingham to visit my friend Bruce (photo set here). We checked out Nottingham Castle (it's like a museum), went to the oldest pub in England and spent a day at Drayton Manor.

Drayton Manor was so much fun. It's a fun park with roller-coasters and rides). As you can see from this photo, some of the roller coasters had loops and corkscrews and they were so much fun!
We made the mistake of going on the water ride early in the day - so I spent much of the day with a wet behind. At least the speed of the other rides helped dry me out.. although it was a tad chilly. *grin*
I think we ended up going on almost every ride.. we even went on some rides that were designed for kiddies (heheh.. oops).

Anyway, it's taken me a long time to upload even these photos.. I'm in the process of uploading the Paris photos.. but that's another story that will be told another time. *grin*

*big hugz*

hi i think it's time i updated the bandwagon. i now have a new msn just for family and my close friends it is: Fairy_Girl2000@hotmail.com because im never on the other one. over the dahlia and arts i won $20 for a poem on friends.

Gardening

Damien and I did a bit of gardening today. We've started a vegie patch in one of the corners, a little herb garden in another area, and also planted a couple of native shrubs. It was a lot of fun! Hopefully the weather is nice again next weekend so we can work on it some more.



The vegie patch - baby spinach, chives, mixed cos lettuce, leek and peas.







The 'herb' garden - marigolds, strawberries, basil and carrots (only seeds at the moment)

Clare Valley

Hey all, just another quick update from me. This weekend to celebrate our anniversary Cheryl and I visited Clare Valley. It's a nice little wine area further north from Barossa, probably two hours out of Adelaide. You can see the photos here.
Clare Valley is known for it's bike trail, the Riesling trail, so in the spirit of the thing we hired a couple of bikes and went cycling. Rather than stick to the trail, which is flat and easy and boring, we went for the more exciting so-hilly-you-think-you're-going-to-die loops instead. At one point we were a bit confused as to where we were, but we found our way eventually. We probably rode about a 20km round trip, stopping for lunch at a winery along the way. We had plans to cycle to more wineries but unfortunately the weather had other plans, catching us in the start of a deluge that continued the rest of the day and most of the night. Still, we got to enjoy staying inside in front of the fire toasting the occasional marshmallow, so i'm not about to complain.
As well as the cycling we also got to Mintaro, which has a hedge maze (and giant chess!). Cheryl beat me to the centre of the maze, but I won the chess game, so we had to call it a draw.
Anyway, that was our long weekend. What about you guys?
P.S. Cows!

Happy Anniversary

Happy Anniversary to Damien and Cheryl.

Lots of love from Mum and Dad.

The card is in the mail.

Kingston

Hey all,

I thought i'd do a quick update. Last weekend Cheryl and I drove down to Kingston with Sam and Carlie. Sam's brother Josh and his girlfriend Belinda have gotten engaged, so there was a party there. Of course we couldn't visit Kingston without a stop off and standard pose at Larry the Lobster's place :)
We stayed at a really nice Beach house with five others, so it was a full house. It was only after we made two guys share a small futon that we realised there was a second double bed mattress under our bed. Whoops
The party was great fun, lots of beer (but I was designated driving, so I just got to enjoy the drunken dancing later), huge amounts of food.. Bel's mum didn't emerge from the kitchen until well into the evening :) And the next day we were invited around again to share in barbecued bacon, eggs and tomatoes. We drove home on Sunday and Sam and Carlie flew out that evening. I don't think I've recovered from all the food yet.
There's a few more photos on my flickr stream.. although most of them are of the giant lobster :) There were photos from the party as the night progressed, but I think everyone is hoping they never make it onto the internet..

I love my mobile phone

Yes, it's true. Why else would you have a mobile phone if not to take those on-the-spot photos :P
Here's a few I've taken over the last few months...
Trinity and I went to the park after dropping the car off at the mechanics. You don't take the camera out when you're going to the mechanics, right... but you do take your phone!


Here we were out shopping at the Marketplace. Why would I have a camera? But the phone was perfect for catching Trinity's enjoyment of a choc chip muffin when we stopped for a break.

And finally, a day at the pool. Adam never came with us, so it was great to be able to take a photo and send it to him so he knew what he was missing LOL