So I thought that it was the start of summer on Saturday. The sun was shining, the birds were flying about (pidgeons, but they still count) and the squirells were making brief appearances. Sarah and myself decided to make the most of this sunshine so we decided to head off to the massive Hyda Park at the end of Oxford street. It was glorious. The sun was almost burning, people were out and about, the sun was shining and it just felt really nice in London. We sat inthe sun in the park on the soft green grass, until I started to get a bit of a reaction to the grass, probably brought on by the years of toil in the garden maintenance industry. So we set off and picked up some anti-histamines and some eye drops to help my cope with the grass.
Back to the park to a more sheltered position amongst the trees because the sea breeze had come in. We sat there in the sun until the clouds came across and then decide to go home. It turned out that Both of us had caught a bit of the sun and both of us felt a bit warm that evening. But it was worth it.
Sunday, 27 April 2008
Wednesday, 23 April 2008
Strike! Strike! Strike!
Tommorrow ther wil be a strik by some of the teachers across London. This I was amazed to hear was the first strik for 21 years. Well its all about Pay, and as it turnes out I will not be able to get paied fopr that days work, or will I be able to get into the school, which is a bit of a moot point considering I would be donating my time and effort.
Hopefully the Sun will be shining so I can make the most of the day off, YaY!
Hopefully the Sun will be shining so I can make the most of the day off, YaY!
Summer at last?
Tuesday turned out to be a fantastic day for the sun to shine and at last I had thought that Summer had arrived. I SMSd Alex and he asked wether the weather had turned or not and at that point in time, I guessed that it had. But this morning I woke to the gentle grey cloudy skies that had recently dropped a few rain drops on the city of London. Enough I to settle the dust and clear the air a bit.
Now all I am left with is the grey skies again. It is unbelieveable how different you actyually feel when the sun is shining. All I can think of now is the comments that the fellow staff members had made about summer; "Summer is not guranteed", "That was your summer Edwin, we are already into Autumn again", "we were wanting global warming to arrive, but not his type of global warming".
Oh well all I can think of now is a fantastic trip to Nice, where I will see SJ for a little while and be able to soak in the amazin MED sun for a couple of hours. And of course there is the day off tiomorrow.
Now all I am left with is the grey skies again. It is unbelieveable how different you actyually feel when the sun is shining. All I can think of now is the comments that the fellow staff members had made about summer; "Summer is not guranteed", "That was your summer Edwin, we are already into Autumn again", "we were wanting global warming to arrive, but not his type of global warming".
Oh well all I can think of now is a fantastic trip to Nice, where I will see SJ for a little while and be able to soak in the amazin MED sun for a couple of hours. And of course there is the day off tiomorrow.
Thursday, 17 April 2008
OMG I am 26...
For my birthday we went to Manchester. We took a slow train from the Lake District that seemed to stop at every lamp post along the way. We had tickets to Jose Gonsales concert in the Opera House (a bit different from Sydney). The concert started off in a slightly different way but it was really great. Jose' Gonzales played a great set with pretty much all the favourites as well as a couple of suprises (one by Kylie). The hotel we stayed in was a bit fancy with the biggest bed in the world and breakfast was really good too. Sarah had out done herself in the selection of this Abode. In the morning I had a few cards to open and a (rather small) birthday cake, how appropriate that it had 'Gramdpa' written across it.
Monday, 14 April 2008
A week in the Lake
First week of holidays. Yes, finally here. After a dissapointing end of term drinks with the rest of the staff, I was up early and off to the Diff where I would meet up with Sarah and then set-off to the Lakes District.
Well it sort fo got off to a not so good start, with the bus ride to Cardiff taking around 3.5 to 4 hours. OMG what a horrible ride, no leg room, a rather large person sitting next to me that didn't appreciate the fact that I was supposed to have a whole seat, but basically the length of the journey (yes I know, just trawling for sympathy, you can almost hear the violins). The train is much more preferable.
Got to Cardiff and as it turns out Sarah had had a pretty big night out on the town. Well not my falut that she had had a bit to drink, so the sympathy didn't really flow.
She met me at the train station and from that point till we were nearly to the Lakes I was designated driver. In Sarah's words "She didn't really think this through". Oh well not to complain. The trip was uneventful and thanks to my superior skills at putting the car in the right direction, and a heavy right foot, we may have made it to the lake district in record time.
Well. The scenery was spectacular. The cottage was situated alongside the road out of Grasmere but also at the base of the Lion and the Lamb, as well as down the road from the travelers rest. I guess that both Sarah and I were relieved to arrive, me to have a break from the driving and Sarah from the continuous stream of "is it that one, is it that one..." I kept directing her way. The cottage was built over a hundered years ago, and it turned out to be a pretty good deal, 90 pounds a week plus electricity. It's a three bedroom place with two sitting room and about 5 DEGREES most of the time. The fact that it was built over 100 years ago also meant that it still was back in the 19th century. No heating, weird carpet, tiny fireplaces that didn't give out that much heat and tiny beads. Oh well, it still was a steal.
We spent the week in the lakes district checking out the local towns in the area, Grasmere, Ambleside, Kendal as well as a few of the pubs and outdoor camping stores that they contained. The weather was not as friendly as I had planned, but to my delight we were lucky to have a bit of proper snow.
The snow continued throughout the night and when we both finally got out of bed the next day all the hills around us were covered in the white stuff. It made the scenery even more spectacular.
On Tuesday we spent the day trudging along the alcok Tarn walk. This was in fact a nice and easy walk that took us away from the town of Grasmere and up into the hills that surrounded it. The heavens opened up ahlfway through the walk and we were hail rained upon for only a short while, enought to lower the temperature for a while, but we continued along neverltheless.
Another highlight was our hiring of some bicycles for a nice pleasuarble ride around windermere. They proved to be a great idea, hiring the bikes, but they were slow mountain bikes that coundn't coast for all the gold in the world. So they were great for going along the flaat but not so great for going up hills. It was still a great idea to hire the bikes. We followed the suggestion of the hire man and made our way along the back roads towards the lake, then across the lake via the ferry. I felt a bit ripped off by the ferry, apparently they had doubled the price without even changing the signs and this only became apparent when you were half way across the lake. Oh well, we were a bit of a captive audience, so we payed. We continued along the far side of the lake until the path seemed to go up hill. That was where we decided to turn around, witha bit of encouageemnt form the icy haily rainy weather. Once we got back to the other side the sun decided to come out and shine, so I rode along the foot path and kicked a few swans inthe backside before they could turn around and bite me. good fun.
Near the end of the week we went on another walk around Elterwater. It was a fantastic walk - a bit longer than we anticipated but the scenerey made it worth while. Very picturesque. That was the last of our walks as the end of the week came around far to quickly and we had to set off on the journey home. For Sarah it was back to work but for me it was the start of a week sitting on my arse not doing any dishes.
I did however get to climb one mountain. Me at the top looking back towards Grasmere.
Well it sort fo got off to a not so good start, with the bus ride to Cardiff taking around 3.5 to 4 hours. OMG what a horrible ride, no leg room, a rather large person sitting next to me that didn't appreciate the fact that I was supposed to have a whole seat, but basically the length of the journey (yes I know, just trawling for sympathy, you can almost hear the violins). The train is much more preferable.
Got to Cardiff and as it turns out Sarah had had a pretty big night out on the town. Well not my falut that she had had a bit to drink, so the sympathy didn't really flow.
She met me at the train station and from that point till we were nearly to the Lakes I was designated driver. In Sarah's words "She didn't really think this through". Oh well not to complain. The trip was uneventful and thanks to my superior skills at putting the car in the right direction, and a heavy right foot, we may have made it to the lake district in record time.
Well. The scenery was spectacular. The cottage was situated alongside the road out of Grasmere but also at the base of the Lion and the Lamb, as well as down the road from the travelers rest. I guess that both Sarah and I were relieved to arrive, me to have a break from the driving and Sarah from the continuous stream of "is it that one, is it that one..." I kept directing her way. The cottage was built over a hundered years ago, and it turned out to be a pretty good deal, 90 pounds a week plus electricity. It's a three bedroom place with two sitting room and about 5 DEGREES most of the time. The fact that it was built over 100 years ago also meant that it still was back in the 19th century. No heating, weird carpet, tiny fireplaces that didn't give out that much heat and tiny beads. Oh well, it still was a steal.
We spent the week in the lakes district checking out the local towns in the area, Grasmere, Ambleside, Kendal as well as a few of the pubs and outdoor camping stores that they contained. The weather was not as friendly as I had planned, but to my delight we were lucky to have a bit of proper snow.
The snow continued throughout the night and when we both finally got out of bed the next day all the hills around us were covered in the white stuff. It made the scenery even more spectacular.
On Tuesday we spent the day trudging along the alcok Tarn walk. This was in fact a nice and easy walk that took us away from the town of Grasmere and up into the hills that surrounded it. The heavens opened up ahlfway through the walk and we were hail rained upon for only a short while, enought to lower the temperature for a while, but we continued along neverltheless.
Another highlight was our hiring of some bicycles for a nice pleasuarble ride around windermere. They proved to be a great idea, hiring the bikes, but they were slow mountain bikes that coundn't coast for all the gold in the world. So they were great for going along the flaat but not so great for going up hills. It was still a great idea to hire the bikes. We followed the suggestion of the hire man and made our way along the back roads towards the lake, then across the lake via the ferry. I felt a bit ripped off by the ferry, apparently they had doubled the price without even changing the signs and this only became apparent when you were half way across the lake. Oh well, we were a bit of a captive audience, so we payed. We continued along the far side of the lake until the path seemed to go up hill. That was where we decided to turn around, witha bit of encouageemnt form the icy haily rainy weather. Once we got back to the other side the sun decided to come out and shine, so I rode along the foot path and kicked a few swans inthe backside before they could turn around and bite me. good fun.
Near the end of the week we went on another walk around Elterwater. It was a fantastic walk - a bit longer than we anticipated but the scenerey made it worth while. Very picturesque. That was the last of our walks as the end of the week came around far to quickly and we had to set off on the journey home. For Sarah it was back to work but for me it was the start of a week sitting on my arse not doing any dishes.
I did however get to climb one mountain. Me at the top looking back towards Grasmere.
Thursday, 3 April 2008
Holidays at last, (sigh)
Tomorrow is the last day of the school term, so that means that tomorrow the school will shut early at about 2pm, and then the teachers can go wild and hit the pub. At least we don't have to go far, literally across the road. It is just the start of the beginning of a couple of weeks of R & R and on Saturday will catch a bus to the 'Diff' before heading off with Sarah to the Lakes district, which hopefully will turn on the fantastic weather. Fingers crossed the al will stay clear and calm as the weather is set to drop to snowing and horible on Sunday. But what I know about weather is that good always follows the bad so the sunny weather will eventually follow this setback in the weather. OMG I have turned into a whining pom, only talking about the weather.
Congratulations to SJ as I just go off the phone with her, hopfully it didn't cost that much. I have my fingers crossed that all goes well and it seams that Sarah is also sending her love and congratulations.
It has been such a hard slog and finally the holidays have come around really quick! I am alsmost relaxing...
Congratulations to SJ as I just go off the phone with her, hopfully it didn't cost that much. I have my fingers crossed that all goes well and it seams that Sarah is also sending her love and congratulations.
It has been such a hard slog and finally the holidays have come around really quick! I am alsmost relaxing...
'Moovin on up...'
Well I am mooving up the property ladder. Well up is the key word. I left my enormous sun drenched room and took a cut in the amount of rent that I would have to pay, yay! My new room is a bit smaller, with a cupboard and a low ceiling, but with two differnt windows, wich let ample amounts of light into the room. This is good but basically I am downsizing and saving some money.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)