17/4/06 Back to London

Heavy hearted, (4 days goes so quickly), we headed back toward the freeway for London. So did the rest of London, the traffic was phenominal. Bottle necked the whole way. At least we were in the sports car (did I say sports car yet?), felt like the queens of the traffic jams. Managed to get back to the car rental place after circlingthe surrounding suburbs a bit (Gem was giving directions when her work called and she got distracted), and caught the tube back home. The Heathrow line terminates at a place called Cockfosters - we will have to go there one day, but that will be another story.

16/4/06 Paignton

Made it back to David's house just in time for another walk (and more easter eggs. Went through the farm again, past the beach huts to an isolated stretch of beach, with an old ruined boathouse which Sara climbed elegantly into. Headed back home just in time to catch the sunset at the beach. Went out for a few drinks in Paignton that night and then back to David's house for a cup of tea and another late night.

16/4/06 The Eden Project

Stopped at the Eden project, which is like a big botanical garden set of domes built in an old quarry, with a warm humid tropical rainforest environment, mediteranean climates and outdoor english landscaped gardens. Loved the rainforest section, even took our jumpers off. Also loved all the flowers outsite, particularly the hundreds and hundreds of daffodils.

16/4/06 Easter Morning

Spent easter morning sitting around the kitchen table chatting and munching on biscuits straight from the oven and easter eggs and saying our goodbyes (we're starting to get used to the sugar now). Posed quickly for a photo out the front, before heading off for more sightseeing (with a parcel of homemade biscuits for the ride - thanks Morney)

15/4/06 Easter Saturday night

Made it back to the farm in time to meet Gem's cousin, Mawgan and his girlfriend, Zoe. Last time I met him I was 15 and he was flicking matches at me. He was a lot nicer this time round, and not a match in sight. We cracked into some wine and Morney cooked a banquet, with a two course desert (more sugar - merangues and tirimisu), and we had a lovely cosy english country night.

15/4/06 Cornish Coast

Went for a long walk with Morney through the surrounding countryside, down to the beach at Mevagissy. The scenery was breathtaking. Couldn't quite work out why they need signs that warn people not to drive their cars into the ocean though... Guess it's so they don't get sued when people forget they shouldn't drive into the sea!

14/4/06 Streets Farm, Cornwall

After Dartmoor, we headed past St Austell (Cornwall), off the map through several narrow lanes, hedges and cows to Streets farm. Gem's dad's relatives live in a beautiful stone farmhouse surrounded by green rolling hills. They've got pigs, chickens (with baby chicks) and 2 cats (much to Sara's delight). We played with the pigs, oogled over the chickens and fell in love with the cats, before trapsing through the countryside.

15/4/06 Dartmoor

Took a drive (in the sportscar... did I mention we had a sportscar), through Dartmoor state forest. It was so beautiful, we spent quite a few hours driving for a bit, pulling over, going for walks, climbing rocks and trecking around the creeks. The landscape was kind of bleak or desolate, it's hard to describe the appeal.. That England is so packed with stimulus, even the country is full of stuff: farmhouses, hedges, animals, all packed in. Dartmoor was the first open space we saw since we got here, and we were both in such a peaceful mood driving through.

14/4/06 David's house

After tackling the freeway traffic for 6 hrs in our funky wheels, we arrived at David's house (Sara's Godfather) in Paignton. He is the sterotype charming old enlglish gentleman. Drinks tea, hums insessently and potters in the garden. At 82, and having had spent this new years in ICU after crashing his car, he was a very spritely fellow. Grabbed his walking stick and took us for a long walk around the nearby farm, golf course and beach, before coming back for a dinner of hot cross buns, fruit cake, buiscuts and chocolate. Needless to say he's a bit of a sweet tooth, (as can be witnessed by the contents of his fridge). Stayed up fairly late talking and drinking cups of tea (and coming down of sugar), so made it off to a fairly lazy easter saturdy start.

14/4/06 Leaving London in style

Hired a car from a cheap car rental at Heathrow to head off for the Easter weekend (we learned from our last experience not to attempt driving through London) and it turned out there was a mix-up with the 2 door economy car we booked, so we ended up with a Renault convertable sports car for the same price. Not normally impressed with the concept of really expensive cars, I found my attitude changing a bit when I hopped behind the wheel. We put the top down (by the push of the button), and the heater on full blast, donned sunglasses and several layers of warm clothing, turned up the radio, and cruised down the English coastline to Devon in style. Still wouldn't fork out the money for a $65 000 car, but certainly won't complain about having to hire one.

12/4/06 Dr Who

Caught wind that Dr Who (aka Tom Baker) was making an appearance at a shop at Covent Garden. Unfortunately so did hundreds of other Londoners. After taking the day off work and queing in a freezing line of hundreds of geeks for 4 hrs, Sara and Jen finally got their precious minute with him. Slightly older than he was in his colourful scarf wearing hayday, but every bit as charming, the girls were absolutely smitten and would do it again in a flash. Gem was not so devoted so went to the TATE modern instead.

8/4/06 Clapham Common

One of the nice things about London is the commons (parks) that are everywhere. No-one really has back yards, but there is a common at leat 10 mins walk from most places, were everyone goes to run, play footy, play with kids, walk dogs or just lie in the grass. Our local one is called Clapham Common, and it's massive. Taking advantage of the not so freezing weather, we decided to go down to the common and play a bit of frisby and footy. Was in excellent spirits because on the way out the door Gem just recieved her final piece of paperwork saying that I am now a registered nurse! (means I can work in ICU again, and I get a massive pay-rise to 17.50/hr, compared with the 6.17/hr I have been earing as a HCA for the last 2 weeks) - mail comes on Saturdays here, also good.
So ran around, kicked balls, threw frisbys in the fresh air and sunshine. Found a cute puppy that comandeered our ball, so we played with him for a lttle while. Tried to take a photo, but he ran away at the last moment. There's a photo of Sean, the ball and the place where the puppy was a moment ago.

Unfortunately all the fresh air and excercise was undone Sat night when we went out to Soho and drank till 4am. We made it home on night busses, but feel absolutey terrible this morning. Hopefully we'll be able to pull ourselves together by tomorrow morning.

6/4/06 Spring

Well it's slowly starting to warm up. The clouds are not quite as omipresent, and all the flowers are starting to bloom. The daffodils are amazing and they are spouting up absolutely everywhere. It's not anywhere near what you'd call warm yet, but's it's not quite as freezing.

4/4/06 Static

So I get home from work and do some laundry. As I mentioned you have to put your clothes in the dryer. I had just undone a couple of plaits in my hair, then took the clothes out of the dryer and the static was incredible. The clothes were giving me so many shocks that all my hair was standing on end. It was quite fun being so charged up, because I could chase Sara around and give her static shocks. Who thought you could have so much fun doing the laundry!

2/4/06 Jen's birthday - curry night

Well Sara outdid herself in the kitchen yet again. It was Jen's birthday today, so Sara cooked up a curry feast to die for. Butter chicken, beef vindaloo and heaps of sambols later, everyone was thoroughly stuffed and blissed out. (Gem made the chappatis)

1/4/06 Mish Mash Party

With a whole stack of people recently moving in to Mish Mash (Australian's are now outnumbering everyone else!) we decided to have a bit of a housewarming party. Had an excellent night. We polished off the rest of our duty free bourbon (still have a precious little bit of bundy left), by losing at drinking games, so the night got pretty messy in the end. But the best thing was... it was so easy to get home afterwards! No last tubes or night busses to worry about, just one flight of stairs (which did in fact pose some minor difficulties).

1/4/06 Borough Markets

The weekend was off to a pretty grim start. We woke up to discover all 6 toilets in the house had "out of order" signs on them. Desperate and busting, someone realised it was April Fools Day, and that Susie from upstairs had played a nasty prank on us all. (apparently she even had Delroy - the caretaker, in the bathroom with a plunger, trying to unblock them!

After we finally went to the toilet, we headed out to the Borough markets to check out the local fares. There's rows and rows of stalls, where they sell all sorts of food. Breads, cheeses, smallgoods, olives, veggies, alcohol.. even dead rabbits and smoked pig's heads. There's so much tasty stuff, and heaps of free tasters along the way. You don't even need lunch, you can just walk around tasting everything till you're full. The place is so crowded and everything smells so good.

Fun as it was, everything was pretty expensive, and we didn't actually end up with anything we intended to buy, so capped off the afternoon back at the local Asda (supermarket), to get the stuff on our list.