Yikes!

The guy at the petrol station insisted that I had an Australian accent. It doesn't get much worse than that. Thing is, I've lived in so many places, I can't remember what my accent is. It certainly isn't bloody Australian though.

Why I came home

I don't have much to report today, so I thought I'd post the picture that brought be back to England.

HOUSEY

Yay, On December 20th we finally completed on the purchase of our lovely little house. Unfortunately we didn't have time to move in until this weekend.

It's a cute little place with scrumptious central heating. There are 3 bedrooms, one of which is just an oversized cupboard. We also have an enormous garage.

The main bedroom had been painted with shiny blue paint and had an awful built in wardrobe. So we dismantled the wardrobe and painted the walls magnolia (definite sign of middle age).

The window is munted so we've just got a quote to replace it - 1750 pounds. Wow!

We are still getting sorted out, but here is a picture of the lounge. The far end is an integral conservatory.

Iron Men

It's Taf's birthday on New Year's day. We went for a walk in Crosby to see Gormley's Iron Men. They were amazing. 100 iron statues gazing out to sea. Some were actually in the sea and some were half buried in the sand. It was an awesome sight.

Happy New Year

I know it's a bit late, but we've not had internet for a while, so I haven't been able to blog. Not to worry, I'm back now.

We spent New Years Eve in Formby with Taf's family. It was really brilliant. At midnight we went out into the street. There were heaps of people and a person playing bagpipes. Unfortunately we had just been playing 'ibble dibble', so we had cork marks on our faces.

Stuffed

and not just the turkey. I think I've eaten the world in the past week. It was mostly pretty tasty too. We had a marvellous Christmas. It was cold, but it's supposed to be (sorry NZ). We all trotted over to my brother and sister-in-laws. S-i-l did the most amazing dinner. Well delicious. It was washed down with a few bottles of Lindauer - real champagne, not like that French stuff! My Mum had us all in fits of laughter. She is such a hoot. I thought Dad and I were going to die from lack of breath at one point.
Well, hope you all had a lovely time.
Happy New Year to one and all.

Centerparcs

Taf and I met up with our Friends SB and Dickie for a long weekend at Centerparcs. It was as if the years since we've seen each other just melted away. Mind you, none of us are as active as we used to be. The first day we only managed to paint some pottery and have a swim. They have a brilliant pool with rapids. You get thrown around a bit, but it's a great laugh.
We also manged archery and badminton - quite enough for 3 days. The accommodation was great - set in woodland. We saw bunnies, dear and robins. Smashing.
By the way, I'm the craftiest of the 4 of us and my pottery was the worst!

Europe

I haven't blogged for a while as I've been busy. Mumsie and I went to Europe for a long weekend. We were supposed to be going to the Christmas markets. Bruges was nice until it poured down. The one in Valkenberg is in caves. The queues were so long we decided to skip it. So we had a lovely meal instead. We also went to Aachen which was jam-packed. Having said all that we did enjoy ourselves and bought a few souvenirs too. Europe is soooo pretty.

Barmy

That's what this country is becoming. It's political correctness gone wrong. Some shops are putting up 'Happy Holiday' signs instead of 'Happy Christmas'. BA just banned staff from wearing crosses. There's been a big hullabaloo about wearing a niqab. In defence of my country and most sane people of all races and religions, it's complete loonies coming up with these rules. The vast majority of people seem to be happy to live and let live. Why is it always the barking mad ones that have the say in these things?
We're not allowed religious pictures on our stamps, but can someone please tell me exactly what Santa is doing in these?

Torchwood

Just a few gratuitous pictures of where it is filmed. It was good last week.

Deaf

Taf and I went to see the All Blacks play Wales at Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. We decide to catch a train. When we got to the station, all the trains were cancelled due to flooding. So we decided to drive. We also picked up a couple of lads dressed in red and took took them too. It cost the equivalent of $15 to get across the Severn Bridge - wowzer! Then the lads told us a day return ticket on the train would be about $150NZ each (it's only about 50 miles away).
Cardiff totally rocks. It was an absolute sea of red. The stadium is huge. There were 72,000 people there (which is almost 2% of the population of NZ). The stadium has a roof and I nearly went deaf when Wales scored their try. Feisty, the Welsh. Of course, Taf is Welsh and he was full of emotion when they sang their National anthem. We were totally gobsmacked that there was no haka. It really spoilt the match. Having said that, I have never seen the ABs play better.
After the match we went down to the harbour for a feed. A lot of series 1 of Dr Who was filmed there. Also it is where Torchwood is filmed. For those poor people who live in NZ and don't get Torchwood on TV, it is a Dr Who spin off. It is on at 10pm as it definitely has adult content and is by no means suitable for children. Hopefully you will get it in NZ soon. And if you haven't had it yet, series 2 of Dr Who is awesome too. David Tennant is fabulous and the end of the series was a real tearjerker. I just got the DVD box set in a cyberman head box. VERY cool.

Don't mention the Ashes..

..just don't

Chester

I met my sister-in-law today in Chester for a spot of shopping. She is great company. We spent 2 hours in Marks and Spencers without getting bored. We also fitted in 2 coffee breaks, lunch and half a pint of lager. I've got my winter wardrobe sorted. (S-i-l was a bit ashamed of what I was wearing even though it was designer wear from Aussie! Apparently you can't wear light green in autumn in England, especially not with trainers).
Anyway, Chester is BEAUTIFUL. It has a lot of tudor buldings which are beautifully preserved. It has a million shops and they are all lovely. The architecture is magnificent. By the time we left, the Christmas lights were on - pretty. Of course, I forgot my camera, so here is someone elses picture.

Bath

Tafs and I went to Bath on Sunday. It is a beautiful city. You half expect to see ladies in long dresses and men in top hats strolling around. They have put up very elegant Christmas decorations in the street. Even the normal chainstores look olde worlde. On top of all that, the autumn colours are spectacular. One building was covered in bright red ivy. (of course I didn't take my camera). We had a lovely wander round. Almost made us glad to be back.

By the way, my Pa had to have 4 screws put into his elbow. He has the world's largest plaster cast at the moment. Still he seems to cope (under the watchful eye of my mother).

Poor Daddy - update

I went and saw the olds at the weekend. Dad is looking a lot better, but still couldn't do much with his left arm. Bit of a problem, him being a south-paw. Mum is having to be his left-hand woman. She's doing a sterling job.
They went to hospital for a check up yesterday. The outcome is that Dad has to have an operation to pin his elbow. The doctor said he should have had it done the day after his accident. Bloody national health, leaving a 67 year old man to suffer agony for nearly 3 weeks.
Mind you, my brother broke his elbow about 25 years ago and was treated at the same hospital. They decided it wasn't broken (after waggling the arm up and down to see if he had any movement). They sent him home to spend the night in agony. Next day when Mum marched him back up there, they decided it was broken and needed to be pinned. He now bears the worst scar I've ever seen.
So please can I have your good vibes again, this time for my Pa?

41

I was 41 on Halloween. I had such a lovely day. I had heaps of emails and texts and phone calls. It is lovely that so many people remembered. I also had a couple of voicemail renditions of "Happy Birthday to you". At least Wanda did it in tune!! I also had a homemade card from some dear friends with a poem written especially for me. It was so beautiful, but I didn't cry.
Taf and I went out for a Mexican meal in the evening. It was such fun, that I'm going to do it all again next year.

There'll be bluebirds..

..over the white cliffs of Dover. We went on a trip to France on Staurday. Mainly to buy booze which is half price over there. I did manage to ask for a shopping bag in perfect French (must have been perfect, she gave me a shopping bag).

We went on a coach with people from Taf's work. They were drunk and loud, but good fun.
We stayed overnight in a grand old hotel in Folkestone. I'd forgotten how much old stuff there is in the UK.
I also bought choc and Winnie-the-Pooh shaped pasta.

My poor Daddy

We were going out for a curry Saturday night. Mum was baby sitting JJ. G, K, Taf, Dad and I were going out. We went to the pub for 1 drink and then started to walk to the restaurant. We were walking along a poorly lit road when my Dad tripped. It looked like he was going to be able to save himself, but then he got his foot caught on the kerb and went down really hard. He hit his face on the kerb and landed on his elbow. We helped him up and he insisted we should carry on. Luckily my bruvver is a super cool first aider. We got Dad under a street light and his face was a bit of a mess. He then admitted he couldn't move his left arm. So Taf and G took him off to casualty whilst K and I went back to tell Ma. Poor Dad, he's broken his left elbow. They've put it in a half cast and he has to go back next week for a full one. In the meantime, he can't do much as he's a left hander.
It was horrible watching him fall. It seemed like slow motion, but we couldn't get to him in time.
My baby bro was well impressive. He should have been a medic.
p.s. JJ is now walking and melting the hearts of anyone who sees her.

Wildlife

I'd forgotten there was so much wildlife here. Tafs and I spotted an urban fox the other day. I bet they hate the changeover from plastic bags to plastic bins.
Up at Pops house in the summer, a bat flew into our bedroom.
In Formby last week, we saw 5 RED squirrels. They were busy storing nuts up for winter. They are a lot cuter than their grey rellies. We've also seen badgers, but unfortunately only as road kill. There are a lot of birds. Pigeons are everywhere and give me the creeps (dunno why). We have heaps of magpies in our street and they make an amazing noise.
We had a plague of crane flies (daddy-long-legs) this year and poor Taf had to spend ages catching them before I'd go to bed.

Try to be positive

Although we really want to go home, we both still want to try and make a go of it in the UK. We have only given it 4 months, so it's early days yet. We're trying to be positive. So, one positive thing about Britain. It's autumn now and all the roads where I work are lined with trees. I love shuffling through the leaves and the conkers.
mmm not a bad start.