The McMollishes in Wonderland

2010-06-28T23:04:00.023+01:00

Leaving Dover. Sorry to start on such a close up of my head (Can't remove the underline for some reason)

Malevolent goats at our first campsite in France

Some sort of interpretative dance, possibly to ward off goats

Reattaching door. Note that angle of photo gives false impression of bald spot

A very cold Normandy beach with remains of mulberry harbour

Catherine holding up German artillary gun with her head

Don't quite know what happened to my legs in this shot

The very cool Chateau Chenonceau

Henceforth known as 'The Incident'

Chinon.

Gardens at Chateau Villandry

Before the descent into the cave at Font de Gaume

The 'pothole' at Gouffre de Padirac

Gouffre de Padirac, 100m down

Kicking back at Tarascon-sur-Ariege

On the way up in Andorra

Andorra again

The frozen lake at the top

Barcelona. Chickens, anyone?

Cable car in Barcelona, heading back after our trip in it. Looks precarious.

Scaffolding of the World #738

Unstable looking arches in Greul Park, Barcelona

We had one each.

My nemesis at El Delfin Verde. 40 over par

It seems this woman is an alcoholic

The snappy production of Grease. Note how awesome the 's' is.

Famous bridge of Avignon. Entry fee: £13. Photo: free

The former papal palace, Avignon

Somewhere along the Cinque Terra

Campsite at Moneglia

The padlocks for lovers. Note the huge one on the right. Someone was trying to impress

Me not doing the 'push the tower' thing

Finally found the perfect orange gelati

You never know when you'll need one

The baby bird we rescued

Looking monumentally impressed

Ruins in the Roman Forum

Required after sweltering day touring Rome. Note sexy Scottish tan from neck down

A huge pine cone at the Vatican museum. Well, why not?

Such an awesome... thingammy

Longest hallway ever. You can just make out the far door

Michaelangelo designed double helix staircase at the Vatican

Catherine unimpressed with the Spanish steps

Trevi fountain

Huge WWI monument

Where Julius Caeser copped it

My less than useful rental bike

The Appian way with some original stones laid down a couple of thousand years ago

Lake Garda. Was cloudy most of the time we were here

Catherine finds the perfect chair at the Swarovski display

Innsbruck campsite. Cold again

Hohenschwangau Castle

Neuschwanstein

The courtyard of Neuschwanstein, with surprise prongs

Neuschwanstein from our campsite

At Munich zoo, hoping the sloth doesn't poo on her

Ah, but which one first?

Doesn't every beer garden have a giant wooden parrot?

Gate house at Dachau concentration camp. Not a pleasant place to have been in WWII

Catherine's favourite shop in Traunstein from her time here in Year 11

St Bartholomae on the Koenigssee

We will be climbing up that valley shortly

Near the top at the glacier

Catherine playing chicken with the melting ice

St Bartholomae's from a different view. Catherine is in the bottom right corner

Birthday treat. There was beer as well.

Rome

2010-06-17T12:11:00.002+01:00

13/06/2010

We cycled along the Appian way today, known locally as Appia Antica. I would have been a lot 'appia if my rented bike had gears and didn't get a flat rear tire after an hour, meaning I had to cycle back to the rental place without any cushioning from the cobblestones. Lots to see along the way and I'd like to go back one day and spend more time leisurely exploring. Some of cobblestones are originals laid down 2000 odd years ago, which is very cool. You can see deep grooves in some places where, I presume, 2 millienia of traffic has worn away the stones.

We had planned on seeing a movie after this at a cinema that supposedly shows Hollywood films in English language. It was shut, however, and showed no signs of opening up so we went back to the campsite instead. I've really enjoyed Rome although it has been uncomfortably hot. Definitely will have to come back at some stage to see some of things we missed this time around.

Rome

2010-06-17T12:11:00.001+01:00

12/06/2010

We had a bit of a sleep in today and then went into town to see the national modern art gallery. I actually enjoyed it more in some ways than the vatican museum. Not particularly fussed on the real modern stuff (who knew that a toilet bowl was art?) but some of late 19th/early 20th century was amazing. One room had works by Degas, van Gogh, Cezanne, Monet and others. Top stuff. Other rooms had works by Rodin, Modigliani, Sargeant and, more modern, Warhol and Pollock, if you like that sort of thing.

After the gallery we crammed in some Rome 'must dos' and took a look at the Spanish steps (ok but I think famous for being famous), the Trevi fountain (also famous for being famous but intrinsically spectacular. And crowded) and the Pantheon (amazing, but unfortunately added to our not insignificant collection of photos of scaffolding around famous buildings).

Home after that. Enough for one day.

Rome

2010-06-17T12:10:00.002+01:00

11/06/2010

Not much sleep last night as some Hungarians decided to park their car right next to our van, literally at arms reach, and spent up until midnight continuously and maliciously slamming the car doors. They resumed slamming at 6:30 when they got and started to get ready to go out. A pox be upon them.

We hit the vatican museums today, figuring that the weekend crowds would be significantly greater than on a Friday. Quite a big line up to get in and our Roma passes weren't valid to skip the queue. Doors open at 9am and we joined the queue at 8:30, when it was already down one side of the block, around the corner and halfway down the next. A lot of folks were wandering up and down the queue trying to flog guided tours, most seeming to want to charge €40, a €25 markup on the normal entry price. The advantage being that you could skip the queue. One gentleman insisted we would be waiting for 2 hours in the hot sun and that we'd be mad not to take up his offer. He finally racked off after the 5th or 6th polite refusal. As it turned out we entered the building at 9:20 and most of the queuing was in the shade. (I can't believe a street spruiker would lie to us!)

The Vatican museums are huge and just go to show in a way how wealthy the Catholic church is. Huge collections of Egyptian, Estruscan, Roman and Renaissance art plus stacks more. The Sistine chapel comes towards the end of the tour and, although is explictly signed to be silent and for no photos, every second person was taking photos and every 5 minutes a recorded message was played over loudspeaker in about 8 different languages asking for silence. It's smaller than I thought it would be and bigger than Catherine thought it would be. I don't know if that means anything but either way it was completely packed and we were forced to elbow your way through the crowd to move around. The Michelangelo frescoes are pretty stunning though, even though you get a sore neck from staring at the ceiling so long.

We didn't exit the museum until after 2:30 and were hellishly starving so descended on a nearby cafe selling filled foccacias. Excellent they were too. While we were waiting for them to be made, we noticed that the walls of the cafe were lined with photos, some signed, and other memorabilia of Max Biaggi. I said 'Maaaaax' to Catherine in the voice that we always use when we see the word 'Max' written anywhere, in homage to our Max the moodle. This caught the attention of a man sitting down at nearby table. His English was limited but he drew our attention to his cap, with Max Biaggi's number (I assume) on it, the 'Max' tattoo on his shoulder, and other paraphranlia. We nodded and smiled at the crazy man. We had a very brief chat about the weather and then we grabbed our foccacias and left. It was only then that it dawned on us that the man talking to us bore an uncanny resemblance to Max Biaggi, in fact probably was him. Kicking ourselves for not realising earlier, we went back to the cafe where I tried to take drive by photo, being too embarrassed to now to ask for one with him. While Catherine was lining up at the gelataria next door, I tried to covertly take a photo from outside through the doorway but the cafe interior was just too dark compared to bright sun outside.

As it turned out it wasn't Max Biaggi after all. Although he looked incredibly like him, after googling photos of Max Biaggi later this evening, I could see that the man today had much more uneven teeth. Lucky we didn't swallow our pride and ask for a photo. Would have been embarrassing and weird.

After gelati, we were getting a bit tired and decided to walk down to the Janiculum and see some of the Pines of Rome. After walking for about half an hour, the footpath we were on abruptly ended and, thanks to an unbroken high wall, we had to walk back to almost where we had started in order to go by a different route. By this time we couldn't have cared less about the Janiculum and just wanted a place to rest.

As these things sometimes turn out, every place on the map that seemed like a good place to rest turned out to be unsuitable and/or you had to pay to get in, so by a very circuitous route involving twice crossing the river we ended up at the Janiculum after all. A very tired boy and girl who arrived back at the campsite this evening.

Rome

2010-06-17T12:10:00.001+01:00

10/06/2010

It was pretty warm last night and blisteringly hot today. After such a short time since leaving freezing Edinburgh, we are now complaining about the heat! Some people are never happy. We each bought a Roma pass this morning, which gives 3 days of unlimited travel on all Rome public transport, free entry to 2 of a big selection of museums/archeological sites and hefty discounts at others. We knocked off the Colosseum before lunch and found to our delight that we avoided the huge queue and were able to walk straight in, thanks to our Roma passes. It takes bit of imagination to relate the Colosseum today to what it must have been like 2000 years ago but is still a bloody impressive building. After lunch, we tackled the the Palatine hill, had a look over Circus Maximus and then wandered around the Roman forum. No doubt about it that Rome is the place to go when it comes to ancient historical ruins.

Close by is the tomb of the unknown soldier, which is part of an absolutely huge white building. I'll post a photo so you can appreciate how big it is.

We passed the tomb on the way to a supermarket at the main train station, which turned out to be overpriced, understocked and all round disappointing.

Rome

2010-06-17T12:09:00.001+01:00

09/06/2010

We had intended to make a pitstop overnight halfway from from Florence to Rome but after working out that it was only a 300km-ish journey then decided to do it one hit. We are camped at Tiber Camping, once again very close to water, only a few metres away from the banks of the Tiber. It's a pretty good campsite, with free wi-fi and shuttle bus every half hour to Prima Porta rail station a couple of km away. From Prima Porta, it's only a 20min train journey to the centre of Rome. Have just had a quiet afternoon and evening, resting up before a few days hardcore sightseeing.

Florence

2010-06-17T12:08:00.003+01:00

08/06/2010

Today we visited the Pitti Palace, which was the home of Medici family. It now is a gallery of their art and treasures so we wandered around there for a few hours before succumbing to the need to eat. In the afternoon we visited the Uffizi gallery, one of most famous in the world. One of its most famous works of art is Botticelli's The Birth of Venus. Amazing painting but we were both inevitably reminded of the Monty Python sketch where David tweaks her nipple and her leg spins around. But seriously, folks, it's great.

Once last trek up the hillside and tomorrow we are off to Rome.

Florence

2010-06-17T12:08:00.001+01:00

07/06/2010

Catherine stayed with her family in Florence when when she was 5 and, as we pulled into Camping Michelangelo, she commented, 'I'm pretty sure that this is where we stayed last time'. I don't know how she can remember back that far. I can't even recall what happened this morning. Anyway, she's going to ask her Dad to confirm.

The campsite is set on a hill overlooking Florence and we trekked down a long staircase and steep road to get into town, all the while dreading the climb back up later. We wandered around for a while just sightseeing, including Dante's house, and went inside the Duomo, the latest in a long line of impressive churches that we've visited. We had a bit of a hunt for some of the gelataria that were mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide and popped into the tourist office for a better map. In a stroke of good luck, we noticed a sign there indicating that there was free entry to the Accademia this evening from 8pm to 11pm. The Accademia doesn't have much in it except for Michangelo's David. So we went back to camp, labouring up the hill, had dinner and headed out again for the Accademia at about 8:30.

The gallery had hardly any people in it so we didn't have to jostle our way in a huge crowd to see David. In fact, for a few minutes I was able to sit down and just enjoy looking at it with just me in the room. For me, this was one of the highlights of the trip so far, if not the highlight. David is a lot bigger than you expect and is just amazing. Much more than made up for having to tackle the hill twice in one day.

Pisa

2010-06-17T12:07:00.002+01:00

06/06/2010

Our Lonely Planet guidebook on Pisa states that apart from the leaning tower and the surrounding square, there really isn't much to see. It also says the area surrounding the tower has the highest and most densely squashed together number of tat shops of just about anywhere. It is (mostly) correct on both accounts. There are a quite astonishing number of stalls set up to sell all kinds of tourist tat, particularly 'genuine' Italian leather goods. It's amazing that they can all make a decent trade but then again there are also a ridiculous number of tourists visiting, most of who ignore the 'keep of the grass' signs to get a particular snapshot of the tower, which almost inevitabley is of their spouse/friend/other in the 'both palms up at an angle to look like they are keeping the tower from falling over' pose. A significant number of these put their hands up at the wrong angle from the vertical. Yes, that's right, the tower will now be leaning to your left if you turn to face away from it. It's not going to lean the other way just so it's always conviently leaning to your right.

The tower itself (and surrounding buildings) is actually quite beautiful and would be worth seeing even if it wasn't on a gimmicky lean.

We wandered through Pisa on the recommended walking tour and there wasn't much to see, however we came across the reason that the guide book is mostly correct: After a month of searching we found a gelataria that makes orange flavoured gelati, something that Catherine has been looking for for a long time. Actually, it wasn't strictly orange, it was 'citrus' but it was excellent. The verdict from Catherine was, 'Yep. That's it'.

Moneglia

2010-06-17T12:07:00.001+01:00

05/06/2010

We had the bright idea of hiring some snorkelling gear but struck out. We found one company that would rent us gear but only as part of a package including getting taken out in a boat to a special location. We just wanted to pootle around near the campsite and besides that their rates were diabolical. We ended up going for a semi-snorkel (without the snorkel) by just using our swimming goggles and saw a few interesting little fishies and other sea creatures. After lunch we hit the beach again for couple of hours and amused ourselves by swimming out to a breakwater and diving off it repeatedly. Great fun and probably our last ocean swim on this trip unless we are foolhardy enough to brave the North Sea later on.

A special treat for dinner by going out for pizza. Calzone, to be exact, and it was good. Not great but good and not touristy expensive.

Tomorrow we are heading to Pisa and will no doubt endure lot of windy, narrow-y, tunnel-y road before we approach anything like a major road. We were running pretty low on fuel when we got here so have filled up the jerry can at the servo in town to give Skippy a top up. Dread to think what would happen if we ran out of petrol halfway along an unlit, one way 2km long tunnel. Would not be pretty.

Moneglia

2010-06-17T12:06:00.002+01:00

04/06/2010

The Cinque Terra, in case you don't know, refers to a series of 5 villages right on the coastline and also the surrounding area. The whole thing is world heritage listed and main coastal track, about 12km long, connecting the villages is a famous walking trail. By the time we'd gone the few stations to get to Monte Rosso, the northern most town of the Cinque Terra, we seem to have picked up most of the tourists in northwest Italy. Surprisingly, not many of them alighted with us, so we assumed they must be walking south to north. The first stretch of the path is pretty tough going, sometimes no more than a goat track of the side of mountain and constantly up and down as it winds arounds the ridges and valleys. Spectacular scenery all the way, though. The very last section is a much wider, level and paved path and is known as via amore (lover's walk). There is a custom in one particular section for couples to write their names on a padlock, lock it onto the hand railing by the path and throw the key into the ocean, thus sealing their love forever. There are thousands of them.

After taken the train back to Moneglia, we headed to the beach for a swim. The water was magnificent and was enough for us to decide to stay another day, just taking it easy.

Moneglia, Italy

2010-06-17T12:05:00.002+01:00

03/06/2010

Nearly more time spent in tunnels today than out of them. I can't work out what is better: drive with sunnies on and not see too well in the tunnels, or drive without sunnies and be temporarily blinded every time you exit a tunnel. Moneglia is located not far north of the Cinque Terra and is a good base for a day trip there. After exiting the main highway we took the small road to Monegila, which is located right on the coast. The coastline here is very rugged, just a succession of steep mountain ridges coming right down to the sea and little villages crammed into narrow valleys. Very little flat ground. To get into Moneglia, you have to go through a series of very narrow tunnels right on the shoreline (used to be railway tunnels), a lot of which are one way with traffic direction dictated by a series of traffic lights that change every 15 minutes. The tunnels are also intended to be for bicycles and pedestrians although there is less than the width of the person between the lane marking and the tunnel walls. The locals drive through these at top speed, sometimes ignoring the traffic lights. A bit scary.

We were looking for our intended campsite as we approached the town when, while flying down one of the tunnels with a bus breathing down our tail, we whizzed past a gap of about 15 metres in the ocean side of the tunnel. This was signed as the entry to the campsite. Turning around was not an option.

After passing through Moneglia we came across another campsite that was similarly positioned but we were ready this time and roared to a halt in the driveway after a brilliant piece of Italian stunt driving. Il Rospo, which is the name of the campsite, is set right on the water's edge and it'd be hard to get a more spectacular location. If you took 3 steps from where Skippy is parked, you'd drop ten metres into the water (well, probably onto the rocks). Fortunately the cliff is fenced off. The water here is incredibly clear and blue so I'd say a swim will be on the cards at some stage. We walked back into town (this involved going through a tunnel, fortunately only about 65 metres long) to locate the train station for tomorrow morning, get outside of some gelati and check out the beach. Tomorrow, the Cinque Terra.

St Aygulf

2010-06-17T12:05:00.001+01:00

02/06/2010

Another couple of hundred kilometres up the coast today and on the French Riveria. Spent the afternoon on the beach, conveniently located right in front of our campsite. Interestingly, heading down the beach to the right of the campsite was a nude beach, which is not as great as it may sound. Think wrinkly dark brown leather. Tomorrow we are off to Italy and down to the Cinque Terra.

Avignon

2010-06-17T12:04:00.001+01:00

01/06/2010

Only a short trip here this morning and, after settling in to our campsite on the banks of the Rhone, we set off before lunch to see the sights. First stop was the famous (apparently)bridge of Avignon. It cost 13 euros to go on (what remains of) it, so we took a photo instead. After that we visited the papal palace, home of the popes when Avignon was the seat of the papacy. Interesting enough place, free audio guide as well so we could well understand what we were looking at as we toured around. A little bit sparse, though. At the exit there was the usual souvenir shop and as we were passing through, overheard two 60ish Aussie birds. One of them said to the other as they were browsing. 'Oh, more crap.' A succint and fitting commentary.

By the time we finished as the papal palace it was after 3pm and we were starving, so staggered up to the nearby gardens for the usual baguette, camembert and saussicon.

Afterwards, we visited an art gallery called Museum Angladon. Smallish but some pretty impressive works by Picasso, Degas, Van Gogh and Cezanne. We were both particularly taken by a painting by Sisley to the extent that we bought a postcard that featured it. Hey, big spender. Just for something else to do, we popped into a natural history museum. It was free entry but a bit sad and we had to contend with a group of primary kids on a class trip. Theres a particularly nauseating stench that arises from a small, overly warm, humid room filled with stuffed animals and 40 grade 2 children. We didn't stay long.

Palavas les Flots, France

2010-06-17T12:03:00.002+01:00

31/05/2010

Nothing particularly exciting about this place. Really just a place to stop for the night. Driving here was not particularly fun as it was high winds all of the way. You really feel the crosswinds in a vehicle like Skippy and it takes a lot of concentration not to get pushed into the next lane or into a barrier. The campsite is a bit creepy. I think we are the only people staying here who are under the age of 60 and not a couple who are blood related. (NB. Catherine's subsequent impression of a French redneck is brilliant. Make sure you ask her to do it for you). It's also a bit tired and crappy but apparently warrants security guards dressed in black wandering around the grounds. We took a short walk on the beach but just got sand blasted into our faces by the winds.

Near Torroella de Montgri

2010-06-17T12:02:00.002+01:00

30/05/2010

After leaving Camping Barcelona on the 26th, we took a fairly short trip up the road to stay at El Delfin Verde, which is an absolutely huge campsite, for 5 nights. It's right on the beach and is a great place to do not very much for a while, which is what we've been doing for the last 5 days. El Delfin Verde has two bars, two take away food outlets, two gelati outlets, a creperie, a hairdresser, a performance stage, a mini-golf course, a huge pool in the shape of dolphin, a games room, a clothes shop, a newsagent/sports shop, a fishing lake, table tennis tables, basketball, tennis, badminton and volleyball courts, a bakery and a full sized supermarket. Plus at the beach there's another bar, another gelati outlet and 2 beach volleyball nets. Apparently some people stay for an entire season which is five months.

We haven't done a lot here, as planned. A lot of lazing around. Catherine thrashed me at mini-golf, thanks to me getting a 41 on hole 12, doubling exactly my total up to that point. I thrashed her later at pool. Last night some of staff put on a mini production of 'Grease'. This was just really about 5 of them dressing up a bit and doing some choreography to a backing track of the show. It's for the kids mostly, although didn't start until 10pm. We also had paella at the restaurant along with a bottle of house white. The paella was not quite what we expected as it was black. Cuttlefish ink. It was ok, though. The white wine was the most vile we've ever had and not particularly cheap at that. It tasted like vinager that had old bootlaces soaking in it. Will stick to good quality el cheapo vino from the supermarket from now on.

It's been a good rest and tomorrow we're off back into France.

Mataro, Spain

2010-06-17T12:02:00.001+01:00

25/05/2010

We explored Barcelona today, after getting a free shuttle bus from the campsite into Mataro and then a train from there. We didn't really have a lot planned but bought some all day tickets for the Metro and saw a few of the sites including la Famiglia, Guil park and the Gothic quarter. We also took a ride on a cable car and wandered up and down La Rambla, the main pedestrian thoroughfare where you have plenty of opportunities to gawk at lame street performance artists, buy a live rooster or get pickpocketed. We only did the first one.

Seeing as today was our 7th anniversary of going out, we stayed out for dinner and had tapas and some mammoth glasses of sangria. Amazing tapas. Ate far too much, though.

Mataro, Spain

2010-06-17T12:01:00.000+01:00

24/05/2010

Not an auspicious start to the day. We were ready to go pretty early, setting off for Barcelona. The car battery had other ideas. Flat as a tack. No doubt as a result of a couple of short trips and the miles of downhill from a couple of days ago. However, we had a spare battery. What we didn't have was the right sized spanner to get the current battery out. Luckily, I found a cheap wrench at the local garage. That also didn't work but I ended up just pulling the battery out of its supports.

Of course the spare battery was flat, too. As was the leisure battery.

There was no room and we were not strong enough to push Skippy for a clutch start, so we rang once again the trusty RAC breakdown service. Or not so trusty. Apparently, you only get one breakdown per trip. This is outrageous. We brought 3 months cover so we expect 3 months flipping cover. We'll be having words with RAC.

We rang up a local breakdown service, who wanted to charge 100 euros to come out. Declined. There was no-one else around camp and reception was shut so, in the absence of anyone to jump start us, I set out to buy another battery or a battery charger. No chargers for sale and the cheapest battery was 62 euros, so I went back to campsite to think of something else.

In last ditch attempt, we hooked up the car battery to the leisure battery slot and flicked on the charger from the mains. After about 20mins, I put in back under the hood and Hooray!, we had success and were quickly back in the road, although a few hours later than expected.

Two lessons: 1. Always make sure you spare battery is charged. 2. Don't automatically believe a mechanic who tells you that your leisure battery charger doesn't work.

We were heading for a campsite called Camping Barcelona, which was actually a bit north of Barcelona in Mataro. We didn't have the exact address for the campsite and spent an entertaining couple of hours driving and then walking around Mataro looking for tourist information office to help us. The tourist information office was shut (of course) despite it being a couple of hours before closing time. 'Fiesta', we were told by a couple of likely gentlemen who were hanging around the office doorway.

Cleverly, Catherine noticed a little tent sign on a map just near the office and we took a punt on heading north. Very glad to see the sign to camping Barcelona a few kms down the road.

Canillo, Andorra

2010-06-17T12:00:00.002+01:00

23/05/2010

Apart from shopping and skiing, the other main pursuit in Andorra is hiking so we decided to go for a bit of a walk up to Lake Juclar, which is the largest lake in Andorra.

The start of the walk is 3km off the main road backtracking a bit from Canillo. Skippy decided that the 3km was a bit too steep, winding and one lane-y so we parked him and walked instead. This added 6km on the round trip and was felt keenly on the way back. The start of the walk proper was up a gravelly road/stream, the road being a natural conduit for the snow melt of the mountains. After a short while we started encountering patches of snow on the path and then the path became more of goat track winding up between boulders. There were a few other hikers about but most of those had sensibly brought along hiking poles. Eventually we got a point where the path stopped and we encountered a long steep slope coverd in snow. Had to make decision whether to go on or not as we were not really kitted out for climbing up snow covered mountains. Eventually, common sense was conquered and we forged on. It was actually pretty scary. It's a bit hard to judge, but we think the slope was around 35-40%, which doesn't sound much until you're halfway up and look back to see the ground just fall away sharply. This is when you start thinking, 'Gee, if I lost my balance here and fell over, I'd go swiftly screaming down the hill until crashing into those pointy rocks at the bottom. And that would hurt. A lot.' Solution was to not look back.

On the plus side, the snow was quite soft so it was easy to dig in footholds. On the negative side, the snow was quite soft so every so often you'd sink up past your knees, making tough going. On top of that, little streams were undercutting the snow at various points so there was always a risk of breaking through it and twisting an ankle on a crevice in the rocks below.

Eventually, we made it up to the lake, which was still frozen over. Even though we were surrounded by snow covered mountains and sitting next to a frozen lake, it was still hot and good to have rest. The rest of hike was uneventful, apart from when I thought I heard a bear roaring close by (scary) and when Catherine dislodged a reasonable sized little boulder which then fell on and trapped her foot (quick thinking + strong husband + sturdy boot = no damage).

No trouble getting to sleep tonight.

Canillo, Andorra

2010-06-17T12:00:00.001+01:00

22/05/2010

A brand new country! Sort of. Andorra not actually being a country, but a co-principality. The official language is Catalan, but French, Spanish and, to a lesser extent, English are also spoken. Not quite sure what to use for 'hello', 'goodbye', 'please' and 'thankyou'. Mumbling something under your breath seems to work as well as anything.

Andorra is right up into the Pyrenees, so we were a bit concerned about how Skippy would handle the climb. Or if he would make it at all. The road up is a series of steep hairpin turns and very few places to pull over. If Skippy decided to chuck another spark plug while halfway up a mountain...

Anyway, he did fine. Just very slowly. Thankfully for other drivers, there were passing lanes every so often so the bank of traffic behind us never became too long. However, constant revving of the engine in second gear for 30 or more kms was causing an interesting hot oil smell so we had a bit of break at Pas de la Casa. Also, I needed a bit of rest after wrestling Skippy around all those hairpins. No power steering.

Pas de la Casa, like most of Andorra, is set up for two things: skiing and shopping. The ski season was over (although we were still above the current snow line, and big piles of shovelled snow was still just lying about the streets) but shopping seemed to be in full swing. Andorra has very low (or no?) sales duties so is a popular place to buy booze, cigarettes and electronic equipment. One reasonabley sized store that we passed stocked, as far as I could tell, nothing but cartons of cigarettes, stacked from floor to ceiling.

Canillo is a much lower altitude than Pas de la Casa. Cue several kilometres of hairpins downhill on a 9% gradient, mostly in second or third gear, trying not to burn out the breaks. Cue also more traffic banked up behind us.

We are staying a Camping PLA which is a bit rundown, but pretty cheap and has free wi-fi. In the (unisex) bathrooms there is constantly playing one of Andorra's two radio stations (I don't know which) whose playlist consists of American pop in about equal proportion to Catalan pop. If no-one has yet every coined the phrase, 'that crazy Catalan pop music' then I would like to do so now. It's crying out for that description.

Tarascon-sur-Ariege

2010-06-17T11:58:00.001+01:00

21/05/2010

Today was another chill out day. Slept in, did some washing. A little hut at the campsite had a map showing some walking trails in the area, some of which had contour lines worryingly close together. We chose one that was not so strenuous. It's lovely to be able to walk outside in sunshine and warmth. We had a drink at the campsite bar later that evening. Just one drink given the prices. Bizarrely for a bar in France, they didn't have any white wine.

Tarascon-sur-Ariege

2010-05-23T20:20:00.003+01:00

20/05/2010

Highlight of trip so far. In the morning we drove the short way into Cahors. Warm and sunny, perfectly cloudless day. Cahors is set in the loop of a river so is relaxed in the way that towns are that don't have any through traffic. We popped into a patisserie and had a pain-au-chocolat (C.) and croissant (G.) respectively and then sat down in the sun for a cappucino. Bliss. Afterwards, we found an indoor market and purchased: a bottle of red, 4 euros, ridiculously good at the price (almost gone now), apples, onions and half dozen sausages. All very cheap and top quality. Many other things reluctantly bypassed. These were the first markets we have been to on the trip, and satisfied me greatly. I love markets.

We've stopped tonight in the Pyrenees. One more thing that I learnt about in highschool and now I'm actually here. Totally brilliant!. We are well in the mountains now and there is still snow on a couple of them. Our pitch is literally right next to a very fast flowing alpine river (the Ariege) and the outlook is incredible. We had a leisurely stroll around town after arriving, to take a few photos and to look around. On the way back we stopped at a bar and have a cheeky drink and picked up a few essentials at the supermarket. Back at camp, we sat outside next to the river, reading, taking it easy, then dinner of snags and onions before going inside the van at 8, when it got cooler. Fantastic day.

Gouffre de Padirac and St-Pierre-Lafeuille

2010-05-23T20:19:00.002+01:00

19/05/2010

Today we set off for Gouffre de Padirac which, for the uninitiated, is a mother-of-God great big hole in the ground. Thanks to N. from TTL for suggesting to go and see this.

You can take stairs or a lift and descend 103 metres down this huge hole and then enter and smaller cave to take a guided tour along course of an underground river. Along a large stretch of the tour, the river takes up the entire passageway and the only way along it is by boat. The boats are paddled along by a tour guides, and I couldn't help but think of this experience as a kind of bizzaro Venice. The water at some points was over 6 metres deep, but so clear it looked to be only about a metre. I imagine it was pretty cold but didn't stick a hand in to find out. The cave is spectacular. One of the stalactites, still active, is over 75 metres high and the roof at the highest point is 95 metres from the floor. Over 40km of caves has been explored so far and still more yet unexplored. Recommend to anyone.

After Gouffre de Padirac, we decided not to go back go Montignac, even though we had already paid for a 3rd night. The cost in fuel and extra time in backtracking made it more worthwhile to just keep going on. We headed on and eventually pulled up at a campsite, just outside St-Pierre-Lafeuille, called Quercy Vacances. No one seemed to be around in reception, although the door was open. We could also hear a very loud, intermittent, whirring, buzzing sound coming from somewhere very close by. We eventually noticed a whiteboard sign saying that the managers were temporarily out, but to find a spot and come back later. We came back 5 times over the next few hours but never found anyone about. The campsite was pretty dodgy anyway. There were only about 5 or 6 sites occupied and the toilets/showers were down a set of stairs around the back of a building backing on to woodland. Not particularly safe and the whole site was a bit isolated. Quiet though. (NB: the next morning on the way out we finally met one of the campsite managers and paid him. We found out that the whirring, buzzing noise was the reception's computer. The guy kept kicking the computer to stop the buzzing but, not surprisingly, it eventually just crashed. Probably need to invest in a new one, mate)

Montignac, Lascaux and Font de Gaume

2010-05-23T20:18:00.005+01:00

18/05/2010

At Lascaux, you can no longer go into the actual cave where the paintings are, the exposure to air and the the diseases brought in by visitors having a detrimental impact on the paintings. However, you can take a tour of Lascaux II, which is a reproduction of the cave where the paintings are located. I wasn't optimistic, but it turned out to be pretty good. Apparently it took about 10 years to construct the replica cave, including 5 years for one woman to reproduce the paintings. Probably nearly as good as the real thing. It's quite exciting seeing the cave paintings, albiet reproductions, that I learnt about in history in school when I was 12.

After Lascaux, we moseyed along to Font de Gaume, another cave with prehistoric paintings. Unlike Lascaux, and although not as spectacular, these were the real deal. The cave paintings here date from 16,000 years ago.

Montignac

2010-05-23T20:18:00.004+01:00

17/05/2010

We pushed on down today to Montignac, which is right near the caves at Lascaux. We arrived mid afternoon and, after checking in at the campsite, wandered around the town for a while looking for the supermarket (Intermarche). It was actually quite hot and we were quite parched. Eventually, I asked at the tourist information to ask where it was. The expression on the lady behind the counter didn't give me much hope. 'Exusez-moi. Non parlez Francais. Er.... Intermarche?' Confusion. 'In-ter-mar-che?' The woman drew herself up in her seat, sucked in a great nasal hiss and haughtily exclaimed 'Ong-tair-mar-shay!'

Oui. We got directions.

Anyway, the campsite was pretty nice, althought wi-fi was diabolically exspensive. 3 euros per hour. We are booked in for 3 nights to give a us 2 full days to explore the area.

Ballen-Mire

2010-05-23T20:17:00.010+01:00

16/05/2010

Once again a new day brings a different outlook on things. While not exactly in high spirits, they're at least slightly above average with good prospect of increasing.

We received some excellent advice from our friend T. (our goto guy for all things mechanical) about the ejecting spark plug and decided just to drive Skippy and the hell with the consequences. If he breaks down again, we're still covered. At least we can ask that RAC take him to garage for a more comprehensive repair.

Today we went to Chateaux Villandry and D'Usse. Villandry we went inside. While not that spectacular compared to others, it had wonderful gardens, lake and a moat. Plus it was a lovely day to enjoy it.

D'Usse is like a fairy tale castle to look at: all white stone walls and blue turretts. However, it was 13 euros to go inside so we contented ourselves with a walk through the village, stopping at local produce centre where we picked up a very cheap and very tasty bottle of rose. The shop also had a map on the wall that you stick a pin into to show where you were from. Happy to say that we were the first from Paraburdoo and Bundaberg, respectively.

Tomorrow: further south, heading towards Lascaux.

Ballen-Mire

2010-05-23T20:17:00.009+01:00

15/05/2010

Today was not a good day. Again. We are back at La Mignarderie after picking Skippy up this morning. Old mate who drove the tow truck yesterday was at the depot to hand the keys back to us but because of the language barrier we couldn't find out 1. what the problem had been, 2. what they did to fix it and 3. how they managed to so quickly fix what seemed to be a major problem. With benefit of gestures, it seemed all they had done was to clean the spark plug and screw it back in. On top of that, Skippy seemed to be backfiring slightly. Not having realiable transport now, on top of all that has been needed to be fixed already, was almost unbearabley depressing.

So with no idea what had happened or if it was likely happen again, we bought breakfast from the supermarket and drove the couple of kms back to La Mignarderie. The mood was not good. One of us may or may not have said, 'I just think this is the end'. That person also may or may not have bought a 4-pack of pain au chocolats. If it was to be the end at least it'd be a tasty send off.

Don't really know what to do now. Possibly could take Skippy in on Monday for an inspection but, with the language difficulty and nothing obviously wrong with him, explaining what we want done will be difficult.

Not much else to say about today, apart from thatwe did some washing and went a for a walk.

Chinon

2010-05-23T20:16:00.003+01:00

14/05/2010

After such a lovely day yesterday, we set off towards Chateau D'Usse in good spirits. However, about 10km from Ballen Mire disaster once again sprang from the dark corner that it constantly lurks in. Along a straight stretch of road, doing about 80km/h, Skippy's engine made a hell of a bang followed by loud rattling, thumping noises and a horrible burning smell. I may have said something like, 'My jolly goodness, that doesn't sound too good, does it, what?'.

Luckily we were very close to a little space at the side of the road where we could pull over. I had a look under the bonnet but couldn't see anything obvious. It had sounded bad, though, very bad. Thank goodness we had breakdown cover. After callling RAC and arranging for a tow, we made use of our fold up chairs for the first time (a positive) and sat outside to wait. The driver got lost finding us, despite my excellent directions. He didn't speak any English and our French is very limited so communication with him was a bit difficult. He did discover what had happened and that is that a spark plug had decided to eject itself from the engine. It was still intact but just dangling from the lead. So up on the tow truck with Skippy. Pulling a 2.8 tonne vehicle up a slope seemed to put an incredible amount of tension on the tow cable and I was tensing up in anticipation of Skippy's rusty old tow hook disintingrating and the tow driver being cut in half by the cable whiplash. Thankfully that didn't happen.

Maybe it's a French thing, but the driver seemed to blissfully nonchalant about hurling a truck through narrow one way village streets, while carrying a very unstable campervan, while smoking. And talking on a mobile. Oh, and the truck had no seatbelts.

God knows how but we managed to get to the depot with both Skippy and ourselves in an extant state. While unloading Skippy, the driver at this stage became a bit more talkative and referred to himself as a 'froggee' and to us as 'ros-bif', which of course we vehemently denied and managed, with the aid of kangaroo impressions, to convey to him that we were Australian (ros-bif=roast beef=English).

Getting a mechanic proved to be difficult as yesterday was a public holiday and a lot of businesses were closed today as well to make a 4 day weekend. However, the RAC cover is excellent and they arranged for us to have at least 3 nights in a hotel until Monday when a garage would be open. They also arranged for taxi to take us to the hotel which was in Chinon, about 35km way, as there was no available accommodation in close by Tours. Thankfully the 85 euro fare was also covered by RAC.

By this time it was about 3pm and, making the best of things, we went for a walk to in Chinon and in particular the tourist office to see how could spend the next couple of days. We then walked back to the hotel for a rest up before heading out to dinner at a Tex Mex we had spotted.

Unexpectedly, we received phone call at about 6:45, before we'd left for dinner. It was the RAC, letting us know that Skippy had been fixed at the depot and was ready to pick up in the morning. Great news, although a little disturbing that what had seemed to be a major issue had been fixed so quickly.

Ballen-Mire

2010-05-23T20:15:00.002+01:00

13/05/2010

We are in the Loire valley at campsite called La Mignarderie. Not as flash as the Yelloh campsitein St Aubin sur Mer but quieter and surrounded by woodland. Today we visited a couple of Chateaux, firstly Chenonceau which was really spectacular and then Amboise.

The most striking thing about Chenonceau is that it's built right over the river Cher and you can cross from one bank to another by walking through the chateaux. Amboise is more like a medieval fortress set on a rocky outcrop. We didn't go into it as we a bit over walking around and the entrance fee was diabolical. Lovely town though. Charming even.

Bayeaux

2010-05-23T20:14:00.001+01:00

11/05/2010

Bayeaux is a charming little town. Lots of little French villages seem to invite that description. Driving Skippy along the narrow cobbled streets is not so charming. We ended up in the centre of Bayeaux and did a few loops of the same streets looking for a park before finally finding a spot a long way up a steep street about 10mins walk from the tourist office. We were there of course to visit the famous tapestry, so that was first port of call. It (the tapestry) looks like it was done by primary school children, although if that had been the case, the abundance of genitalia and decapitation depicted probably would have quickly resulted in a parent/teacher interview. Just for those of you who don't know and can't be bothered to google, the Bayeaux tapestry depicts the Norman invasion of England by William the Conquerer, culminating in the battle of Hastings in 1066.

Nowadays the tapestry it's stored in special temperature, humidity and light controlled conditions but it's had a bit of a rough ride over the years and is in surprisingly good nick considering it's approaching 1000 years old.

St Aubin sur Mer

2010-05-23T20:13:00.007+01:00

10/05/2010

Today we did a tour of D-Day beaches. The remains of the Mulberry harbour at Arromanches make the landings seem very real. The Debarquement museum was very interesting, showing lots of detail about how the harbour was constructed and other information about the landings. We saw a couple of films, showing footage from the landings, which were very powerful.

Further up the road at Longues-sur-Mer we visited some German artillary batteries. There are about 4 close together and are the only ones to have kept their guns. The guns are huge and it's easy to see what kind of devastation they caused. I wouldn't have liked to be the Germans stationed there, however. It was bloody cold and must have 10 times worse in the winter.

Afterwards we went to Omaha Beach and visited the American Military Cemetary. Seeing all of the graves lined up (nearly 10,000) makes you realise that war is a very, very stupid thing. Not a very original observation, I know, but it really hits home when you read some individual stories of people who died.

Today has been very blowy, overcast and noticabley colder than yesterday. I'm still waiting for my French summer moment.

Tomorrow we are off to Bayeaux. Really looking forward to it.

St Aubin sur Mer

2010-05-23T20:13:00.006+01:00

09/05/2010

Today has been a much, much better day. For one thing, I slept in. Even though I had to get down the ladder to let Catherine go to the shower, I valiently climbed back up again and slept some more.

The good news is that the door is fixed! Hooray! The handyman attached to the campsite gave us a hand with his drill and the door is now once again attached.

We had decided that today would be a day of not going anywhere. Resting, repairing and recuperating, mentally and campervanly. So we got a few jobs done, had some more camembert and cider and generally didn't do much. Then garlic bread and pizza for dinner.

A much better day. (Now if only we can work out what's causing that nasty knocking noise in Skippy's engine)

St Aubin sur Mer

2010-05-23T20:12:00.002+01:00

08/05/2010

Another day, another incident. It's really difficult to get into the swing of holidays and really enjoy it when things keep going wrong. Both of us are down in the dumps and in no small way, would like to just turn around, go back to England, sell Skippy and go home.

Today, passing through one of the innumerable toll booths, I drove a just a little bit too close to the left hand side barrier. There was a hideous metallic screeching and tearing sound, a brief silence and then one of those 'Oh crap!' moments. With another awful crunch we continued through the toll and pulled off to the side of the road. I jumped out to inspect the damage. It didn't seem too bad at first until the side door fell off in my hands. This was the last straw. On top of all the things that had gone wrong up to this point with the van, all of the extra money that we'd had to fork out, all of the problems and set backs that we'd encountered over the entire trip, from the months and months delay with my visa to the freezing house, to the repairs on our house back home, the debacle that was bringing Max over and having to send him home again, the dodgy Subaru, the crap jobs, this was it.

Our collective mood was almost unbearable. Appalling.

After managing to jerry rig the door with some spare wire and praying that it would hold while driving on the motorway, we limped into St Aubin sur Mer.

It had started out such a good day too.

It was late-ish on a Saturday, and given that Sunday was a holiday, finding the tools and/or equipment to fix the door didn't seem very likely to happen until at least Monday. We checked into a campsite, bought some cider and had a very depressed night. Why are we on this trip? Why aren't we back in Brisbane, in our own house, where it's warm and things are good?

France!!

2010-05-23T20:09:00.002+01:00

07/05/2010

We are sitting in Skippy (campervan), having had dinner and washed up. It's still very light outside, although overcast as it has been all day.

A few minutes ago, we watched a couple of goats sitting on a lump of concrete across the little stream running right in front of our campsite. And they watched us. Malevolently. If if hadn't been for the stream acting as a barrier, we wouldn't have stood so close. After a while they got bored and started headbutting each other until a farmer appeared on the other side of their paddock at which point they bounded off towards him in hope of a feed.

The campsite is called Le Source and is set between a woody hill and the stream. It's a very tranquil setting, much needed after a day of travelling and drama. This morning we left our campsite in Folkstone and beetled down to Dover. We left earlier than we needed to, just to be sure we were in time for our ferry and, as it turned out, we were so early that we managed to catch the 9:15 ferry instead on the 10am that we had booked. The ferry was huge, and sitting on board in the coffee lounge, it was hard to believe that we were on a ship.

Arriving in Calais, we were surprised by two things: one, no one wanted to see our passports, and two, how much easier than expected it was to drive on the right hand side of the road. We're still not sure why it is that we got from England to France without any border control, but it turned out that highway driving is not a substitute for 'real' driving on the opposite side of the road of what you are used to.

We had a bit of trouble, you see.

Things may have turned out ok, if not for a massive let down from the satnav, or Denise, as we've come to know her (it's a woman's voice, she just sounds like a Denise, ok?). We only bought her two days ago and she'd been super reliable up to this point.

We'd programmed in our intended campsite for the evening, several kilometres west of Dieppe, after getting off the ferry. However, getting into Dieppe and blindly following Denise's instructions, we wound our way into the middle of Dieppe until, halfway along a very busy road, Denise announced, 'You have reached our destination'. Well, no, we hadn't. Much hilarity ensued (not). After much swearing, u-turns, despair, winding around back streets, consultation of maps, tension headaches, reprogramming of Denise, more swearing and near misses we kind of ended up going the way we thought maybe we should have been going...ish. We never made it to where we wanted to go, but passed this campsite were we are now, way after we'd had enough of driving. By this time it was 5:20 and, after getting up and 6:30 and having been on the go all day, it was time to stop.

There's no better way to end a stressful day than a short refreshing walk to the local store for some local goodies: in this case a bottle of very drinkable vino at a very juicy price of 1.80 euros, along with a baguette and some local camembert. Bliss, absolute bliss.

Addendum:

We've sorted out our directions issues from today. A combination of not knowing how to program Denise correctly, and an epic fail on the part of Caravan Club by placing the campsite we were headed for 200km further east than it actually is. I'm going to write a letter!!!

Highland trip - with the Pares!

2009-11-22T15:50:00.022Z

August is probably the best month to visit Scotland, because you have the best chance of getting temperatures that are consistently about 12 degrees. Sure, that doesn't mean it won't rain - it is Scotland, after all. There's a superstition in the UK that, if it rains on St Swithun's day, 15 July, it will rain for 40 days - not Noah's Ark-style, but at some time on each of the next 40 days. Sure enough, it rained on 15 July and the saying came true.

Nevertheless, G's parents braved the weather and stayed with us for four weeks in August. Pretty much from the moment we decided to move over here for a few years, D&I indicated their intention to visit us. Having never been overseas before, this was a pretty major decision for them. But, in what felt like no time, we were greeting them at the airport in Edinburgh after their three day journey from Bundaberg to Scotland. They wisely chose to stay overnight in Singapore to combat the jetlag, and again in London before flying up to Edinburgh. It seemed to be a smart move, as they weren't as affected by jetlag as we were when we first arrived in Edinburgh.

D&I arrived on Thursday, and on Saturday we picked up a rental car and headed off on a journey north to the Highlands. We had booked accommodation for the first three nights of the trip, which was smart given the crowds of tourists in Scotland during August. During our first day, we drove northwest to Glencoe. G and I had been through there in April with my parents, and it was still as beautiful as we remembered, and a bit busier. At one point, we stopped at a carpark to admire the view, and a piper, obviously to capitalise on the tourists, started playing. D, excited by a genuine bagpiper, threw a few coins into his busking box and crept sidewards towards him for a photograph.

That night we stayed in Fort William at a quaint B&B, and had dinner at a local pub. [G takes over writing] That was Dad's first experience of haggis (he quite liked it) and even Mum tried a mouthful. Only one though. On a side note, I went for a jog before dinner, tackling in advance it's size, ingredients and liquid accompaniment. Going for a run at the foot of Ben Nevis was awesome. I felt like I was in one of those motivational posters (mind you, they normally have someone a lot fitter than me who doesn't look like they are having trouble breathing).

The next day was mostly wet. Good coffee drinking weather. It wasn't cold by Scottish standards, but not particularly warm. We drove up the Great Glen, stopping in at Fort Augustus to show Mum and Dad the locks in action. We didn't linger over Loch Ness and decided it was a bit too miserable to visit castle Urquhart. Dad and I did get out at the carpark and attempted to peer over the hedge to have a look at it (you have to pay to get in, and they do a pretty good job of making it difficult to see it unless you do so). Mum declined the excursion. It was pretty wet and she's not silly.

We headed further north and turned off to the west before Inverness. Lunch was at a little place called Beauly, in the car, in the carpark of the local firestation, overlooking a field with a cow in it. Yep.

Ullapool was pretty, with most buildings painted white, but quite busy. After settling in to our B&B and resting up, we tramped around for quite a while looking for a place to eat that wasn't a) massively busy, b) ridiculously expensive or c) both. Ullapool, for heaven's sake!

The drive the next day around the northwest coast was amazing. Around every bend a new vista would open up. Craggy peaks, green valleys and countless lochs with islands rising out of them. The photos can't do it justice. It was hard to concentrate on the driving, particularly with being single lane nearly all of the way. Whenever another vehicle was coming towards us, one of us would have to pull over in a designated passing place to let the other go by. This sometimes involve reversing for a distance, and once reversing up hill while a tourist bus bore down upon us, right on the edge of a cliff.

We did a detour along the way to a place called Achiltibuie, as we (that is, me... I mean, I) wanted to visit the Achiltibuie Smokehouse. Before finding the place, we erroneously detoured up a couple of very narrow lanes in a nearby village, slowly chasing bunch of raggedy, panic stricken sheep to great comic effect. We stayed that night in Thurso. The lady who owned the B&B was inspiringly unwelcoming, but it was a nice place.

The next day we stopped in at Dunnet Head, the actual northern most point on the UK mainland, not John O'Groats as widely thought. We also stopped at John O'Groats: a truly cheesy, soul-less little spot, where you can pay 20 pounds for the privilege of having your photo taken next to a signpost indicating your location (i.e. the (supposed) northern most point in the UK). The signpost is roped off and, according to numerous warning signs, taking a photo of the signpost from outwith the roped of area and not paying 20 pounds is liable to engage the wrath of the official signpost photographer.

We pootled down to Inverness, the west coast not particularly exciting us. It was only after visiting the tourist office that we fully realised the folly of not pre-booking accommodation in Scotland during summer. As it turned out, the nearest accommodation was Aberdeen. So at 3pm, after having been looking forward to a 5-10min drive to a B&B, we were off for another 3 hour trip. Not happy. On the plus side, our accommodation in Aberdeen was a very well priced hotel with a great little bar downstairs, which was a kind of mini-nirvana for this tired and grumpy driver. For some reason, the Guinness they had on tap was exceptionally good, although I had to have second one to be sure it wasn't a fluke. We didn't bother venturing any further afield for dinner.

We headed west the next day and, at the advice of a jovial tourist info employee at Banchory, we investigated the falls of Feugh, where Dad got some great video of salmon jumping up the falls. It was an amazing sight, and we were all impressed at these mighty fish trying to jump up the very fast-flowing water. It was rare that we saw one of them actually make it any distance up the falls, and not get knocked down again. They were all so valiant, and it was hard not to admire their bravery to just keep hurling themselves up the river again and again.

A short drive later we went to Balmoral Castle, the Queen's official residence in Scotland. It was not open to the public at that time of year so we contented ourselves with a slow drive by, snapping off a couple of furtive photos of the front gates and a flock of suspicious, stony faced police officers. We also saw there our only red squirrel of the trip. Of course, no trip to Balmoral Castle would be complete without a trip to Queen Victoria's local, the Royal Lochnagar distillery. Just popped in to buy a bottle.

From there, we drove home.

Nothing much more to say about that. It was good to get home, but I think we all had taken back with us images of the north-west highlands, and would love to get back up there again.

Blogger is being extremely slow to upload photos, so here are a few to keep you going.

G with some wonderful flat rocks, perfect for skipping across the water at Ullapool.

In front of the misty mountains north of Ullapool.

A stormy island in the middle of a loch.

In the freezing cold river at the foot of Ben Nevis. Gosh, it was cold.

So, where were we..?

2009-11-22T09:33:00.009Z

So.

It's been five months since we've updated the blog. This has largely been because it's been a busy five months, and once we lost the momentum of regular updates it was hard to get back on the wagon. Plus, uploading photos takes forever, and as we have so many to share it wasn't an appealing idea to start the process.

A quick run down of the past five months would look like this:

A trip to London for G's birthday, including seeing Wicked on the West End.
A trip around the Scottish highlands.
Enjoying the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (including a fabulous celebrity sighting).
A weekend in Ayr, possibly during the worst weather all summer.
A week in Wales and south England.
A long weekend in Paris.
Having M&B stay for the weekend.
Having G's parents stay for four weeks.
Having C's sister H stay for seven nights.
Having friend P stay for the weekend.
Going to an awesome Coldplay concert in Glasgow.
G changing jobs.
C quitting her job (really).
Going through an arduous house hunting process, then deciding not to move after receiving a drop in the rent.

Anyway, that's the short story. Now for the long version.....

Yorrrrk!

2009-06-09T18:05:00.021+01:00

Beyond 'Ecky thump' (and that might have not even have been from Yorkshire), we didn't really know much about York. But the Lonely Planet guide raved about how lovely the city is, and we'd heard similar comments from people who have been there. It's only 2.5 hours from Edinburgh, so a few weeks ago we woke up early and hopped on the 8am train from Waverley station. There was a very loud hen party across the aisle from us, which generously shared their awful taste in music with everyone in the carriage.

We had looked for accommodation on the internet the few weeks before hand, but had no luck aside from the very high-end hotels, so we decided to turn up at the tourist info bureau at the train station and find a room through there. However, they told us that the perfect storm of an English long weekend, school holidays and a Roman Festival meant that there were very, very few empty rooms in the city. We watched while the tourist lady made phone calls to various hotels with no luck. Finally she managed to locate a room in a B&B about one mile from the city centre, which was a relief. She told us it was the 'last available room in York', which may have been an exaggeration, but we weren't arguing.

First stop was the B&B to drop off our bags, but on the way we had a treat. As previewed on the train from Edinburgh, York seemed to be hen and stag party capital that weekend, and ahead of us on the footpath were several men wearing only mankinis:

Under the ruse of taking photos of the nearby city walls, I managed to capture for posterity (for some reason). Click on the photo above for a larger image, if you dare... During the whole weekend we encountered many other stag and hen parties. Noice.

The B&B we were staying in was about three terrace houses knocked together, and our room had a four poster bed.

The room was stuffed full of odd bits of furniture, mismatched bedclothes, about a million pillows, while several other rooms that we walked past were overloaded with ornaments, knick-knacks, stuffed toys and dolls. It was a bit like AD's house, so we felt right at home.

Next stop was York Minster, which is touted as the best gothic cathedral in the UK. It lived up to the hype and more, and we were relatively happy enough to part with the hefty entrance fee. The undercroft had a tour of the foundations of the cathedral which was a great display of the 2000 year history of the site. It had orginally been a Roman garrison, which was demolished and a wooden church built on the site around 1000 AD. This was also razed and a stone cathedral built on top, which was later knocked down and the current York Minster built in its place.

The cathedral truly is amazing, with fancy ceilings:

Statues of lounging bishops:

The world's largest stained glass window, which is the size of a tennis court (this is actually a life-size print hanging in front of the window, which is currently being restored):

Impressive columns and perspectives:

Grotesque gargoyles by the hundred (this guy has his fingers jammed into his eyelid and mouth):

We made the trek up to the top of the tower, which is 275 steps up a very narrow and winding stair case. 275 steps doesn't sound that much when you're on the ground floor, but at about step 123 you rethink this assessment. But the views were spectacular, even if we were all fenced in to prevent people from jumping from the roof. This is the view halfway up (or down) the cathedral:

Outside the Minster we were lucky enough to spot an "authentic" "Roman" "parade", complete with Celtic prisoners:

After the Minster, we headed off to the one place in York we couldn't miss - Betty's Tearooms. There was a queue outside with about a 30 minute wait and it was a bit pricey, but gosh it was worth it. We ordered the Yorkshire tea, consisting of two fruit scones, Yorkshire cream and strawberry jam, but didn't expect it to arrive in such style:

It was just so posh and elegant and typically British. I've never felt more like a character from an Enid Blyton novel, even though there weren't any servings of tongue. The queues outside suddenly became more understandable. It's no surprise that at random times over the past few weeks, one of us will say "Mmmm, remember the food at Betty's..?" and we'll both start to drool.

After cramming in the 1 million calories of afternoon tea, some gentle exercise was in order. The original Norman (or Roman? can't remember) city walls still surround the old city, although some sections have been demolished. Nevertheless, it is still possible to walk about 3.5 miles on the walls themselves, which is pretty flash.

Taking a break halfway through the walk:

G climbing the stairs at one point:

Roman ruins partway along the wall:

The next morning, the B&B hostess was a bit miffed when we turned down the full English Breakfast (bacon, sausages, fried eggs, tomato, mushrooms and hash browns) in favour of cereal and toast. We certainly didn't need to add a further 1 million calories to our bodies after the outing to Betty's the day before. Avoiding the glare of the hostess, we checked out of the hotel and left our luggage at the train station (for a pretty steep £10 per bag) and walked back into the old town to the Jorvik Centre. York was the site of a Viking settlement about 1,000 years ago, and the Centre, which is right in the middle of the old town, shows archaeological finds from digging that has gone on since about 1975. There's a ride that takes visitors through a reconstruction of the viking settlement, complete with authentic odour (it would not have been a pleasant place to live, if the smell was anything to go by). One of the models depicted a man, with a particularly contorted facial expression, sitting on a Viking lavatory. We thought this rather odd, as it's not usually something that is shown at ye olde reconstructions. However, as we entered section with display cabinets and posters providing further information about the Vikings, the reason for the straining man became apparent: there were four separate references to the euphemistically-named 'Jorvik stool', which was dug up by some lucky archaeologist. The Centre seemed inordinately proud of this relic from a by-gone era, but I'm not sure how many of the visitors shared the joy.

Following that close encounter, we nipped over to the Shambles, which is the oldest part of the old town. The streets are very narrow and winding, and have many touristy shops. We of course succumbed to the tourist-aimed chocolate shop and had one sweet each, paid for by the £1 coin found on the footpath that morning. Hooray for observation! We came across a market, but it was just like the kind of market you could find anywhere so we didn't linger. Soon it was time for G to depart for a tour of York's oldest, traditional brewery and for me to look for some shoes as mine were becoming increasingly less comfortable.

G reported that his tour was good, but as he was the only person on the tour it was a bit strange. Wanting to interact with the guide, he responded to some of the things he was saying and asked questions, but it quickly became clear that the guide wasn't happy departing from his prepared spiel. But the free pint of beer that was thrown in with the tour price seemed to do the trick and make things better.

We met up again for lunch, and then wandered down to the river to hop onto a cruise boat. The weather was the best we've seen it in the UK - sunny, warm, blue sky, with little chance of rain. The boat was busy, but we managed to snag seats on the top deck. The trip was around an hour, and motored downstream into the countryside. The boat passed the residence of the Archbishop of York:

and the Terry's chocolate orange factory....mmmmm...:

The highlight of the boat trip, however, was undoubtedly passing two young men on the river bank, one of whom had obviously just been for a dip in the water. As our boat passed, the swimmer stripped off entirely, bringing the total of naked bums seen in York to three. It caused quite a stir among the boat passengers and more than one person quickly took photos, though I'm not entirely sure why.

Making the most of the sunshine, we had a bit of a lie down in the botanic gardens until our train was due to depart. Not surprisingly, the gardens were packed with people with the same idea. (And to show that we have completely forgotten all of the slip-slop-slap advice that was drummed into every Queenslander from a young age, the next day we were both sunburnt. Although to be fair, no one expects to get sunburn in England.)

A few more random photos...

Ye olde house (note the period Pizza Hut next door):

Think this is Clifford Tower? There were lots of aggressive geese on the grass outside:

The really old town hall, about 600 years old or something similarly impressive. Naturally, we arrived two minutes before closing time:

Prague: The photo evidence

2009-05-30T19:37:00.006+01:00

Here are the promised photos of Prague. I've tried to make them larger than the photos in previous posts, but I'm not sure how successful it's been.

This is us outside St Vitus' Cathedral at Prague castle. Note the amazingly blue sky in the background - our first really good weather since leaving Brisbane seven months go!

This will hopefully give an idea of the huge crowds of tourists at the castle. Click on the photo for a larger image (if the experiment to resize them hasn't been successful). There were thousands and thousands of tourists around.

A random building in the old town. Think it's a theatre or a restaurant, or possibly both.

Statue of King Wenceslas in his eponymous square. I didn't see this in the flesh, as I was having a nap back at the hotel due to my horrid cold.

Megan and Brett at the Prague brewery (with the stinky person at the next table).

The interior of the Estates Theatre, all ye-olde and decorated. Very cool.

The chandelier at the Estates Theatre.

View from the castle gardens of the winding streets down to the river.

On the Charles Bridge, early morning. Another day with blue skies! The castle is in the background - that might be St Vitus' Cathedral...?

The Old Town, with the Astronomical Clock on the lefthand side. Note the crowds of tourists.

Kafka's house. Pretty cool building, even without that claim to fame.

The Astronomical Clock in action. It has lots of random dials and hands and pictures. No one really knows exactly what it all means.

View of some fancy buildings from our boat cruise.

View of the Charles Bridge from the opposite bank. Note the crowds of tourists.

A statue near the Kafka museum. Yes, the figures are doing what you think they are doing. You can even text a word or name or phrase to them and they will spell it out for you; the perfect gift for someone who has everything.

Prague Spring

2009-05-26T19:48:00.015+01:00

This is a belated post as we went to Prague (and promised a blog entry) some time ago. Anyway.

It was a long weekend and we took off an extra day to give us a good break.

On the Thursday evening we flew to Altenburg airport. Just one runway, next to a tin shed and serviced only by Ryanair. There didn't see to be any physical restriction to wandering off out of the airport once stepping off the plane, I guess they rely on people doing the right thing in a country where law enforcement officers and other security personnel carry big guns. Really big guns. After the usual scare when immigration lingered worryingly over my passport, we jumped on a bus to Leipzig where we were staying that night. (Getting to Prague via Leipzig was much cheaper and gave us more time to sightsee). I had thought I might get a chance to sample a specialty Leipzig beer known as Gose. It's made with coriander and salt. Sounds digusting but would have been worth trying for novelty value. Unfortunately, we never really got the chance as we were well ready for bed when we arrived and didn't have much time in the next morning to go beer hunting.

The train trip to Prague was lovely, as the line runs much of the way next to the Elbe River at the bottom of the valley. It was a lovely sunny day and we passed through loads of little villages strung out along the river. Our carriage was quiet, luckily as it turns out, as the next carriage along had a group of several German lads, presumably off on a stag weekend, who were very loud, drunk and stinky, and clogging up the aisle. I had to squeeze past der Chappie who was pouring another glass from their keg.

One thing about Prague: there are an awful lot of smokers and it's not against the law to smoke in a public place, as far as we could tell. The lobby of the hotel we stayed at got pretty rank at times while we were there. Eating out was a particularly hazardous exercise, and not just because the Czech love their stodgy, carbo-loaded meals. The highlight was when we had coffee in the hotel cafe, and were the only people in a room with about thirty tables. Another couple came in and sat down at the table right next to ours. And proceeded to smoke their incredibly disgusting cigarettes. We moved into the next room, receiving a semi-glare from the smokers when we explained to the bemused waiter why we were leaving.

Megan and Brett were accompanying us on this trip and we were due to arrive in the evening sometime. We didn't know when exactly so decided to have dinner (we were pretty ravenous). We went to a semi touristy place (English on the menu, but Czechy sort of food and not touristy prices) where I had, as it turned out, the best beer and the stodgiest (think potato dumplings and heavy bread) food of the trip.

The next day all four of us walked to the castle and were confronted by a sickening abundance of tourists. The castle area covers a huge area and contains many buildings, including St Vitus' Cathedral. You can walk around for free but have to pay to enter the buildings, apart from the Cathedral. Almost all of the buildings had huge queues to enter and the cathedral's would have been an least an hour, probably more. We went into one building that was not quite so crowded, which housed 'The Story of Prague Castle'. It was quite good, not least because it wasn't busy, although C. did get told off in loud, broken English by an official for touching a wooden door (apparently it was old, or some rubbish like that).

We decided to come back later that afternoon, in the wistful hope that the crowds may have died down, and trotted off to look for lunch.

Afterwards, with me grinning the grin that only a man who has just eaten 8 grilled chicken wings can grin, we went on a very touristy boat ride on the river. It was about what you'd expect. Earlier we had seen a very surprising sign in the river, warning not to swim because of the sharks! I asked the guide on the boat about that and he said that some years ago a dead shark was found in the river and the sign was put up just in case. It turned out that a restaurant near the river had had a dead shark flown in to be part of a display and had thrown it into the river afterwards. I'm not sure what was more improbable, the sign or his story, but either way, something smelled fishy and it wasn't just the shark.

As we about to de-ship, C got loudly told off for the second time that day for briefly sticking her arm out from the edge of the boat. Whatever, man!

Poor old C was not having a good time regardless, as she had been fighting a cold all week and was now exhausted. She returned to the hotel for some much needed rest while M, B and I continued on. We went back to the castle and visited a few more of the buildings/sights but unanimously decided that they really weren't worth it. The queue to the Cathedral was still diabolical so we left it for some other time.

Dinner was pizza at 'sit down on the street under a tent' type of place, notable only because the waitress spoke no English (it's amazing what you can communicate with smiles, nods and pointing). We're pretty sure she thought we were French.

Anyway, C. now takes up the story.

The next day, after breakfast in the incredibly busy hotel dining room (which probably housed about ten different bus loads of tourists), we headed out to the Old Town. The first stop was the Charles Bridge, which is one of the most famous tourist attractions in Prague. We had seen it from the other side of the river and from the tourist boat the day before, and the crowd on it was so thick that it was at a standstill. This was partly because one half of the Old Town end was blocked off by scaffolding, but it was still incredibly clogged by tourists. But because we were there pretty early, we managed to walk on it relatively speedily. It would have looked a lot more attractive without the scaffolding, but it was still lovely.

Then we headed into the proper parts of the Old Town, led by B who seems to have Google maps built into his brain. We saw the astronomical clock, which is weird and cool and large. It was about 10.30 when we arrived, so we settled in with some coffee to wait for the 11am chiming of the clock. The lonely planet guide warned that the display on the hour would be short, bizarre and somewhat of a letdown, and it was all three. The highlight was undoubtedly the strange 'raspberry' sound at the conclusion of the show. I'm not sure the huge crowd that had gathered at the base of the clock was entirely convinced, but anyway.

We then wandered to the Estates Theatre and bought tickets for that evening's performance of 'Rinaldo' by Handel. The Estates Theatre is old, and was where Mozart personally conducted the premiere of 'Don Giovanni'...pretty impressive. After wandering through the Old Town some more, we had lunch at a Sushi Station-type place, though with a much faster-moving conveyer belt. It was a bit like a competitive sport to get the plates out of the display case in time. After lunch, I headed back to the hotel for another nap before the theatre that night. G, M & B went to St Wenceslas Square to see the sights, and then to a ye olde brewery/pub for some Czech beer. Apparently I was lucky to miss the brewery, as the party at the next table included a gentleman to whom deodorant was clearly a stranger. Not fun.

We met back at the hotel then headed off to the theatre. It was such an experience, as it was such a beautiful theatre on the inside. Picture period films with scenes set at the opera. The theatre is always about six storeys high, with lots of private boxes, a decorative ceiling, and a giant chandelier. The Estates Theatre had all this, which was pretty spectacular. We weren't able to find four seats together, so M & I sat together at the end of a row while the gentlemen were halfway across the theatre. We were lucky that we were in the front row and could lean onto the railing, as otherwise we would not have been able to read the surtitles (which were in both Czech and English). 'Rinaldo' was well performed and the singers were great, but the plot itself lacks excitement. It's as though Handel had written 90% of the show, then realised it was premiering in one week so hastily finished the story off with a "they all lived happily ever after" conclusion. None of us knew anything about Rinaldo, so we were all surprised when the second act came to an end and nothing seemed to have been wrapped up. Let's just say, when we realised that there was a third act to come, we seriously considered leaving at that point and looking up the plot on Wikipedia to see how it ended. But, we put the hard yards in.

After the theatre, G and I decided to have a bite to eat at a restaurant in the main square. It was so much nicer at night, all lit up and mostly empty of tourists. However, they all came flooding out of the woodworks at 10.57pm to gather around the astronomical clock for the 11pm chiming. How disappointed they must have been to realise that it only chimes between 9am and 9pm.

The next morning the breakfast room was considerably quieter, as most of the tour buses had already left for the day. We lingered over breakfast, as it was rainy outside and we didn't fancy going out. But eventually we did, checking out and leaving our stuff in the luggage room. We popped back to the castle, and were amazed to see about 30,000 fewer people there than on Saturday. We joined the queue for St Vitus' Cathedral, which was about one fifth the length that it had been, but was still about a fifteen minute wait. It rained the whole time we were waiting there, which was unfortunate as we didn't have umbrellas. I'm not sure if it was my foreign accent or the fact that I had wrapped my scarf over my head, but the weird old man in front of us in the queue kept turning round to stare at me. It was unpleasant. He must have been German.

St Vitus' Cathedral is extremely impressive inside, huge, with giant stained glass windows. It was well worth the wait to see it (though we may not have thought that if we'd spent an hour in the queue). After the cathedral, we wandered through the streets below the castle and found a cafe for some coffee. Megan and the waiter didn't hit it off for some reason - he was very brusque with her when she asked for tea instead of coffee for the coffee-and-cake deal, and then spilt some of the tea on her leg, burning her. She did not leave him a tip.

After making our way back to the hotel, we said goodbye to Brett, who was spending another few days in the Czech Republic and was heading off to another town. Shortly afterwards, M, G & I hopped on the airport bus, which stopped outside the hotel. G and I both validated our tickets upon entering the bus, but for some reason M forgot to do so....and was busted by a Czech transport inspector for not having a valid ticket. She suggested that if she leant slightly forward in her seat she'd be able to punch the ticket in the machine, but he refused this offer and ordered her to pay a 700 koruny fine (equivalent to about $45). The most annoying part was that we could hear other people validating their tickets in the machine after they saw Megan had been busted. He didn't care about this, as he had snagged his victim for that trip. Megan didn't have the money on her, so he said that was fine, he'd follow her into the airport and wait while she got the money from an ATM. And he literally did follow us into the airport and stood by while she got the money out. The fine plus the experience with the waiter did not endear Prague to Megan. (And, to add insult to injury, Brett was fined later in the week for being in a slow, all-stations train when he only had a ticket for the fast, express service. So the moral is - make sure your public transport tickets are valid in Prague!)

We said farewell to an irritated Megan, and started the first leg of our two flight journey home. This involved flying from Prague to Bristol, then Bristol to Edinburgh. The first flight was on Ryan Air, which is not a boutique airline. We sat across the aisle from each other, as you can't book seats, and for some reason my row had about ten centimetres less leg room than G's. Fun. Our second flight was with EasyJet, which is like business class compared to Ryan Air. Nevertheless, we were pleased to get home after a long day of travel.

Photos of Prague to follow, as well as a description of last weekend's trip to York.

Yeah!

Photos as promised from previous post

2009-05-09T21:08:00.013+01:00

Hi y'all.

Yeah, yeah, we promised photos a while ago and hadn't delivered...until now! We went to Prague last weekend, which was good (and bad), but will write a proper entry on that at some stage. Here, however, are photos from our travels around Scotland and the Highlands.

This is Traquair House, a ye olde stately home that now has its own brewery. Unfortunately, we didn't read the info about this place before going there, so we arrived about two hours before it opened. So, no beer for G and no history for those with more esoteric interests.

The entrance to Stirling Castle, which is a pretty big tourist attraction, but quite decent. Some crazy tourist had climbed on top of the wall and was walking around, oblivious to the guards yelling at her to "Come down from the wall!" They were angry with good reason, because if she'd fallen, the end result would not have been pretty.

This is a random (to us) cemetary outside the castle walls. While G & I were walking along the outer wall, we noticed a bunch of teenagers just to the left of the cemetary mooning the passing traffic. Noice.

I'm pretty sure this guy was paid to dress up in costume and talk to the tourists. Pretty sure.

Pretty gardens and tree in front of the Grand Palace, which was shut for renovations. Boo.

A windfarm in the hills overlooking Stirling. Scots are pretty environmentally conscious folk, so these are a common sight across the countryside.

Castle Urquhart (Oo-roo-ku-tay), on the banks of Loch Ness.

Loch Ness, with no sign of the Monster.

Yet another breathtaking view in the Highlands, this time near Ben Nevis. The mountain we were on was about half the height of Ben Nevis.

The sign says it all, really.

This is the view from our B&B at Fort William, overlooking Loch Linhe.

The remains of a random castle at Fort William. Can't remember its name right now, but it was old.

G. 'falling' off the outcrop, in Glen Nevis, at the foot of Ben Nevis. It was a single track road out to the foot of the mountain and it was really busy. It must be madness at peak times in summer.

Stream at the foot of Ben Nevis. The streams were running very strongly due to melting snow.

This is (I think?) Loch Linhe. The water was amazingly clear, and the road ran alongside the Loch for its length.

G investigating the local water life. He found a crab!

Beautiful scenery, near Glencoe.

Dad at a pond at the side of the road, at Glencoe.

Me and the Pares, outside of Glencoe.

Photo taken from the car. Really like this shot.

Coffee break on our road trip. Check out the size of those coffees!! There were many Shakespeare stops that day.

We went for a walk at Killiecrankie when a burly man in motorbike leathers stopped us to ask if we wanted to see a steam train, as there was one coming along the track in the next half hour. He was not the cliched train spotter, but he was really, really excited when the train came along.

Me, looking kind of unimpressed, in front of a mountain.

Melrose Abbey, with mountainside with gorse on it in the background.

Ruins of Melrose Abbey. It would have been cold there during the winter.

The Falkirk Wheel in action!

In search of Nessie

2009-04-25T17:31:00.010+01:00

Hi, it's G. here.

Spring has well and truly sprung in Edinburgh and all the various Spring cliches are dutifully parading about. Birds are twittering energetically, trees have sprouted zillions of deliberately green leaves and the grass in our yard is now about a foot tall. I'm going to have the crack out the mower from the shed sometime soon. With some reservations, however, as it one of these 'no-wheel, floats on a cushion of air' type electric mowers that seem to be very popular over here. It's like the mower from the future. (Note: since I wrote the preceding paragraph, I have done the mowing. Also, I broke the mower.)

The days are also getting ridiculously long - it's not fully dark until about 9:30pm and I'm having trouble dealing with it. Having grown up and mostly lived in a place a lot closer to the equator, so much day seems unnatural. I just can't get my head around it.

The great thing about Spring, though, is that we are getting some cracklingly great weather. The Easter weekend and the following weekend were spectacular, and we were fortunate to have Ma and Pa Mc. stay with us over that time and so some really nice driving trips were had.

On Good Friday we went to a place called Pitlochry, re-christened by Kitty as 'Dud-lochry', which is located about 30 miles north of Perth. The weather hadn't quite turned it on for us at that point, which lessened the appeal of the countryside somewhat, although we still passed through some lovely country. Pitlochry itself, although little more than village sized, was quite busy and touristy in a sold out commercial type of way, hence the renaming. Having parked in town (and having to pay for the privilege) we walked to a hydro-electric station on the river nearby. I'm not sure why now, exactly, but it had a fish ladder for salmon, with an explanation of how it worked, so now I finally know. I'd had visions of seeing salmon hurling themselves upstream, shimmering in the sunlight, however was disappointed because a) the fish travel underwater through a series of chambers connected by pipes and b) it was overcast.

Travelling further north, we came to a place called Killiecrankie, where a famous battle had been fought between red coats and jacobite supporters in the year something or other (look, this blog is for entertainment purposes only. If you want facts, go to wikipedia. Or whatever). There was a visitor information centre near a lovely gorge, so I asked the lady behind the counter if she had a map of the walking trails nearby. She pointed to a display of folded leaflets, so I took one, only discovering after I was outside that it only covered areas south of where we were. We didn't really need it anyway and went for nice little walk that include watching a steam train come up the gorge. Very pretty. As a further note, it was only when we were about to head back about half an hour later that I noticed the sticker on the front of the map: £1.50.

I went back to info centre to return the map and apologise for my inadvertent theft. The lady was really nice about it, even offering the to give it to me for free. I said, 'No, that's ok. We won't be back.' In hindsight, this may have come across as me being rude.

The next day we went to Falkirk, more specifically the Falkirk wheel, and then on to Stirling castle. The Falkirk wheel is a most ingenious device that allows movement of boats between the Forth and Clyde canals. It replaces a series of 11 locks that used to connect the canals but now have nearly all been removed or filled in. The wheel itself is a brilliantly elegant piece of engineering. Take a look at http://www.thefalkirkwheel.co.uk/about/history.html to see how it works. It's nifty.

Stirling castle was great, not the least because you could drive all of the way to the entrance and then only get slugged £2 for parking, which is surprisingly good considering how these touristy places normally operate. The castle had all of the usual Scottish-y castle-y things, ties to Robert the Bruce, William Wallace, inumerable King James's etc. Good views over Stirling country, including a very bendy Forth river and also the Wallace Monument, which we visited afterwards.

There is a bit of a climb up to the monument, but we didn't venture inside as the admission price was a bit optimstic. The only real attraction was that you could see William Wallace's sword, however the lure of this was not strong enough to outweigh our fiscal rectitude. (Thought projection: walk up to William Wallace's sword.....Yep, it's a sword. That was money well spent)

On Easter Monday we headed south, with the highlight being a visit to Melrose Abbey. It had a really powerful atmosphere. As C. succintly puts it, 'It was big'.

The working week passed uneventfully, apart from Ma and Pa Mc.'s ever increasing fixation with Sainsbury's and delight expressed about shopping at same.

On the weekend, we went well and truly into the highlands- Glencoe, Fort William, Glen and Ben with their respective Nevises, Loch Ness and (passed through) Inverness.

The landscape leading up to and in Glencoe is truly spectacular, and I've a feeling that our timing was perfect to get the most out of it. Cloudless sunny days, cool not cold, but still snow on the mountains, and before the peak tourist season, when it probably is impossible to get a park at viewing areas. The lochs as well were stunningly beautiful.

We stayed in a B&B at Fort William on Saturday night after eating out at a pub/restaurant. Pa Mc. and I decided to have a particular dark ale, which turned out to be not available so we were offered one 'just like it'. It was called 'Kelpie'. Kelpie was nice but had a certain je ne sais quoi in the aftertaste. It was only much later that a connection was made - Kelpie- kelp a.k.a seaweed, specifically bladderwrack seaweed. I had read about it in the pub menu located in the B&B lounge earlier that evening. I suspect the seaweed we saw/smelt rotting in the sun on the loch shore that day was the same variety as what was in the beer. Hard to imagine how the idea came about, that someone could squelch over the ponging weed and think, 'Yeah, this'd go great in beer!'

The next day we went up a gondola (fun) at the Glen Nevis ski centre. It was the last day of the season and there were a few die hards working the last patch of snow way up on the top of the range.

Further on we came to Loch Ness, but surprisingly and disappointingly, no sign of Nessie. Rats.

On the banks of Loch Ness we visited the ruins of Castle Urquhart, which was pretty good. Nice view, foreshore (i.e. for sure. Sorry, Scottish humour there). The historical display in the information centre attached to the castle had an audio demonstration where you could press a button to hear certain words spoken in Scots Gaelic. One of the words was 'Urquhart', which sounded like Klingon, something like 'Ooroo-ku-tay'. Since then, it has not been uncommon for Kitty or me to suddenly say 'Ooroo-ku-tay' completely at random. (You had to be there.)

We made it to Inverness and then straightaway headed back home, uneventfully. It was a great weekend and I can't wait to get back up there and throw a line in one of the lochs.

Can't be bothered to put photos in this post in the appropriate places. Too much fiddling around. C. will do another post shortly with photos and captions.

Bye for now.

Two days in London (with extra security)

2009-04-06T20:59:00.020+01:00

Hi everyone, it's been a while.

We have excuses though - we spent a week away, in Germany and in London. This was the first proper trip we've done since arriving in the UK (overnight trips to London to collect and/or drop off the dog do not count, as they were definitely not holidays). I don't know about G, but now that we've finally gone away somewhere (relatively) exotic, it actually feels like we're really living overseas now. If that makes sense.

Back in September, before we left Australia, we made plans with my parents to catch up in Nuremberg. They completed a cruise down the Rhine and Danube, ending in Budapest, and then spent a few days in Prague before training it to Nuremberg. G and I arranged to meet them in Nuremberg on 26 March, spend four days, and then jet off to London for another few nights (including my birthday).

It was strange going back to Nuremberg, as the last time I was there (in 2004), I still had the hefty burden of my thesis weighing on me like a solid block of concrete. My three month stay there was not fun, as everytime I thought about relaxing and seeing the sights, the nagging voice in the back of my head said "You should be at the archives reading old documents on the postwar period!" (Actually, that nagging voice was there throughout my whole thesis, so I don't know why I would have expected it to leave me alone for any period of time.)

But, four-and-a-half years later, and two years after having my PhD approved (praise the Lord!), I was back in Nuremberg and ready to actually enjoy the city. And it was great, because it really is a lovely place. It's not somewhere that people choose as a tourist destination, more somewhere that you visit if you're passing by, but it's well worth going to. Not only does it have the mediaeval town stuff, but also the Nazi stuff - an interesting combination of old and new.

Anyhow, I'm writing this at work after cleverly uploading photos to blogger last night. However, I forgot to upload photos from Nuremberg so will have to post another entry later with them.

But here are some photos from London!

When we arranged our London trip, there was, of course, no hint that there'd be a G20 Summit taking place while we were there. We happened to be right in the thick of things on the Wednesday - not, thankfully, where the violent protests were happening, but we still saw some pretty cool stuff. The main reason for going to London (in my eyes) was so that I could celebrate my birthday with more than one other person!

Pictorial essay on our London adventures starts here:

Pancakes for breakfast, on my birthday...this seems to be an annual tradition, and one I'm willing to continue. The fresh berries meant that it was practically health food. We went to this great cafe called The Breakfast Club, recommended by Megan and Brett (our London hosts), and they served fantastic food, and the best coffee. Despite Brett's instructions we got a bit lost and retraced our steps several times before realising we'd walked right past the cafe. Oh well, the food more than made up for it.

Note: Aquamarine earrings (March birthstone) from G for my birthday, from Past Times, my new favourite shop.

We then went to Madame Tussaud's. It was crazy busy for a Tuesday morning, but we managed to avoid queuing. We had to walk through long roped-off queue lines (empty) to get to the counter, and after going through a number of these we reached a sign that said "Your wait is now only 60 minutes". If we were queueing for real, there's no way I'd keep waiting after reading that sign.

Anyhow, Madame Tussaud's was an experience, but probably not one that I will feel like repeating any time soon. As you see, above, some of the wax works were quite realistic.

Others were not quite so successful. This is meant to be Madonna, which is pretty much evident only from the clothes. She looks like a David Jones mannequin.

They make the waxworks as an exact copy of the original, including height. We were both amused to see that Tom Cruise is very short, as is Daniel Radcliffe, and Christina Aguilera is tiny! She would barely crack 5 foot.

For dinner, we (me, G, my pares, Megan, Brett and our other UK-based friend Michelle) went to this really cool restaurant in Soho called Inamo. It was an Asian fusion menu, which is yum, but the best part was that you order via your table. They project a menu onto the table top, and you can move a cursor to choose what you want and order it right there. Perfect for people with a fear of social interaction. You can change the table top design, and even play Battleships with the person sitting opposite. As you can see in the photo above, you can even choose to have a video of the kitchen streamed onto your table. It was great!

After dinner, the young 'uns went to another bar for some cocktails. It got a bit awkward as Michelle realised the male half of the couple sitting next to us was a work colleague, and the woman he was canoodling with was definitely not his girlfriend. Out of all the bars in London...

The next day, Wednesday, G and I went to the London Eye (getting briefly lost outside Waterloo station). Just as we were getting on, we spotted my parents getting out of a capsule two away from ours. They hung around outside while we took the Eye journey. It was a mite disconcerting to see two officials with mirrors on sticks check out each capsule for bombs etc, but you get that I guess.

Luckily, it was a very clear day, weather-wise, though there was a bit of a haze around (probably just pollution). The view was excellent, and the Eye moved so slowly that it didn't feel like it was moving at all. It's in a great location, looking over the the Thames, the houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey and various other spots.

This, for example, is the entrance to Downing Street. You can make out barricades and about 30 police officers (in high-vis). We didn't know until later that night that Obama was meeting with Gordon Brown at 10 Downing Street while we were on the Eye, hence the high level of security.

At one stage, G pointed over the Thames and said "Hey, there's Buckingham Palace." I quickly identified which building it was and started taking photos furiously. The photo below shows Buckingham Palace at the left-hand side, next to the building with the green roof.

After a couple of minutes, G said "Uh, what are you photographing?"

I replied, "Buckingham Palace", with an implied "Duh."

G checked the camera, and then said, "You know that's not Buckingham Palace, right? It's that building further in the north."

Oh well, they all looked kinda fancy. And I'm ignoring the fact that everyone knows what Buckingham Palace looks like from TV. And the fact that I've been there before. Twice.

So this is the real Buckingham Palace. It was so obvious as soon as G pointed it out (again).

After we exited the Eye, we grabbed some coffee (after some rude person pushed in front of me in the queue, and shrugged like she didn't care when I pointed this out to her) and sat out in the sun with Mum (Dad was off running an errand). I'm sure I saw Ian McEwan (one of my and G's favourite authors) wander past.

At this point we realised that there had been a helicopter hovering above the river for about 15 minutes. Then we saw about a dozen police officers in high-vis jackets walking through the area. Then I spotted someone who could only be a Secret Service officer, and was convinced that one or more of the Obamas would be hopping on the London Eye any minute. Seriously, I was so certain of this, but then G pointed out that the whole area would be in lockdown if that was the case. Darn it.

We had thought about going on a river cruise with my parents, but in the end G and I just felt like wandering through London, making the most of the weather. We headed across to Westminster, and you could feel the energy change immediately. There were heaps of tourists around, but also lots of police and security. The reason for this was the anti-G20 protesters who had set up camp across the road from the Houses of Parliament.

I'm not sure if Parliament usually has guards armed with sub-machine guns, but they did last week! Though, as the policeman on the right looks like he's cleaning his finger nails maybe they needed something to pick up the slack.

This was the reason for the security - about 12 protesters with various banners and posters. The man in the middle of the photo was talking on his loudspeaker about various things, including Iraq, the environment and globalisation. At one point he yelled out "And Barack, no more barracks!" It was clear he was really pleased with this 'witty' slogan.

We then wandered through St James' Park, past Buckingham Palace and along the edge of Green Park (I think?). At the end of that road was the Wellington Memorial, which has all sorts of war memorials in it.

While we were enjoying the peace of the Wellington Memorial, four motorbike policemen roared through the square.

This is the Australian First and Second World War memorial. It's a great design, and has the names of all the towns where Australian soldiers came from, as well as the battle locations in which they fought. It's kind of cool to see 'Stradbroke Island', 'Gympie' and 'Humpybong' on a fancy memorial.

(I had other photos of various cool things around this time, but for some reason Blogger chose not to upload them. They may make a special guest appearance in the next post!)

Speaking of memorials, here's the Princess Diana Memorial fountain. It's essentially a low, oval-shaped water feature. The idea is that children can paddle their feet in it, but the water was absolutely freezing!

We stopped and had a drink at the Lido cafe, which for some reason I feel is famous. Hmmm, maybe not.

This is the Royal Albert Hall, but in the foreground you can see a G20 motorcade!! No idea who it is, as we couldn't identify the flag on the bonnet, but it was definitely not Obama or Kevin Rudd. Or Gordon Brown, or the Queen. So that narrows it down.

Finally, this is the Albert Memorial. Queen Victoria must have loved him heaps to give him this huge memorial statue. It even has a marble camel in it - that's love!

Tribute

2009-03-24T20:53:00.003Z

This statue of James Clerk Maxwell is on one of the main streets in town. He was a famous Edinburghian scientist whose work with electromagnetism led to great advances in photography and electricity, and whose equations are apparently second only to Isaac Newton's in importance.

He also, apparently, invented the pizza cutter. Who knew?

Alfred Hitchcock must have visited Scotland at some stage.

2009-03-19T12:07:00.005Z

As an Australian, I am used to encountering strange and sometimes terrifying wildlife in daily life. You have to deal with all sorts of creatures, and take it in your stride (although spiders, especially huntsmen, are a particular source of fear, and nothing will ever lessen the shock of coming face-to-face with one in the shower. I'm shuddering just thinking about it.) One really noticeable difference between Australia and Edinburgh is the general lack of insects inside and outside the house, although this may have been a winter-related thing.

However, while Australia seems to have more animals, reptiles and insects that will kill you than most other places in the world , there is something in Scotland that truly terrifies me: the massive birds.

Like Brisbane, Edinburgh is home to pigeons and seagulls. Unlike Brisbane, however, these pigeons and seagulls look like they've been on steroids, and that they could easily take down a small child.

An Edinburgh pigeon would be easily twice the size of a Brisbane one, and the seagulls are even larger, proportionally. The sight of three or four seagulls gathered around bags of rubbish on the street is vaguely sinister, and I get the feeling that they're plotting something.

There's also a pigeon that has taken to sitting in the tree in our garden, staring at the house. It's always there, looking at us, and it gives me the creeps.

The other day, I peered out the window and couldn't see it in the tree. I smiled to myself, happy that it had decided to stop harassing us....when I spotted it on top of the roof of the office block next door, staring back at me. I know it's completely irrational, but I get a really bad vibe from that bird.

The situation wasn't helped on the weekend when we were walking by the river. I came within millimetres of receiving a 'present' from a bird, and when I looked up into the trees, I saw it was a pigeon. I know they look alike, but I could swear it was the same one that sits in the tree outside our house.

The weirdest, though, is some unidentified bird that looks like an enormous Willy wagtail, which I'm pretty sure are native to Australia. I have no idea what on earth they are doing in Scotland, but these things are HUGE. We once drove past a flock of these on the ground, and it was just weird.

There is really no way to properly describe these birds, and even photos do not do their massive size justice. Just be warned, if you ever plan a trip to Scotland, that there are many unexplained phenomena about, not just around Loch Ness.

Art and Arthur's Seat

2009-03-15T17:38:00.001Z

Hi all. It’s currently 15.2 degrees at about 3:30 Sunday arvo. This is the warmest it’s been since we arrived and is another sign that spring is here. Birds have started twittering, bare branches are budding new leaves and the days are getting longer. The change of seasons seems to be so much more rapid here than back home. It’s exciting. We can’t wait for the long summer evenings when it stays light until 11pm-ish.

Since Max is now back home, we’ve been able to get out and about so much more and have been living it up!

Last Friday of the week before last we went after work for dinner and ended up a place called ‘The World’s End’ in the Royal mile. They advertised that they served the biggest and best pieces of fish on the mile. C. had the fish and it certainly must have been close to the biggest piece of fish I’ve even seen served at a restaurant: it hung about 10cm over either end of the plate. Of course, it was heavily battered and is not something that you can eat too much of. The Scottish do like their battered takeaways. I had haggis, neeps and tatties again, this time with a whisky cream sauce, and it was excellent. C. had a taste of haggis and commented that it didn’t taste too bad. I was very proud of her for trying it, although I have major doubt that she’ll ever eat any again. I also had a pint of Dark Island ale, one of the countless real ales that are on tap over here. I mention it specifically only because it was so unbelievably good.

The following day we tackled the Royal Museum of Scotland. It has 6 storeys and we only managed to get through 2 of them in 4 hours. The good thing is that we have plenty of time to see the rest of it. There are lots of interesting Roman and Viking artefacts, although after a while it became a bit of overload. There’re only so many Roman swords and helmets that you can look at before the eyes start to glaze over. We took side trip in one of the ‘fun’ parts where we saw Dolly, the world’s first cloned sheep, and a real Gemini space capsule.

On Sunday we woke up to find it had snowed during the night, much to our surprise. About an hour later it was snowing again, this time quite heavily. This seemed to be putting a dampener on our plans to walk around the New Town that day but, after having been stuck at home nearly every weekend for a couple of months, there was no way we weren’t getting out of the house.

We drove to the gym first then went back home to get changed. By the time we set out just after lunch all of the snow had melted and it wasn’t all that unpleasant being outside, apart from being a bit windy and sleety at times.

We walked around Stockbridge, the New Town, and visited all sorts of charity, book and other shops. The highlight for me was I J Mellis, a cheesemonger. I could have spent a long time just lingering over the wares but we only bought one thing, a chunk of gorgonzola that I now have come to realise is the best cheese. Ever. We ate it mashed onto slices of a baguette that we bought on our way home. Bliss.

This weekend we decided to visit the Gallery of Modern Art. As has been noted oft times, the enjoyment of art is highly dependent on the perspective of the observer. Our observation of some of the art was that it was complete tot. But good luck to the artist: if they can convince someone to give them money for a metal pole sticking out of block of concrete and get them to believe that it highlights the fragility of the ‘human condition’, then good luck to them. They certainly then are artists, alright, just maybe not the type they are purporting to be.

Having said that, there was a quite a lot that was interesting and different. One of artworks that fit into the ‘different’ category was a lamb preserved in a glass tank of formaldehyde. I can’t remember if there was a point to it, but the tank obviously wasn’t perfectly sealed as you could smell the formaldehyde went you entered the room. [Note from C: I think the point was to illustrate the fragility of life and show humankind’s relationship with death. But it just made me feel sorry for the poor little lamby.]

After the gallery, C. got her hair done while I wandered around exploring, looking at shops and buying some work clothes. When we met up again, we went to Crombies, a ‘Purveyor of Fine Meats’. They claim to have over 100 types of sausages. We couldn’t help but be reminded of Kel Knight. I wonder if Crombies inspired the character? We purchased 3 different types: Pork and caramelised onions, Northumbrian leek, and Whisky, hog and wild thyme and had them last night with greens and mashed potato. Pretty dang tasty.

Due to Edinburgh’s place as a centre of culture, science and the arts throughout history, it’s not unusual to stumble across places of note while just walking down a non-descript street. That happened yesterday to us while walking home. We went past a terrace house with a plaque that said, ‘The Icelandic National Anthem was composed in this house in 1874’. So now you know.

Today after going the gym, we climbed to the top of Arthur’s seat, the highest point in Edinburgh, located in the Holyrood park. It’s mostly easy going with just a couple of steep sections, but having just come from the gym, we were glad to get to the top and rest. We probably needed it to work off the sausages, haggis and battered fish of the last couple week.

Only a week and a few days until we head to Nuremberg, so we’re starting to get excited about that.

On the whole we are missing Max but not missing the restricted lifestyle. We feel like we’ve only now begun to enjoy ourselves properly here. More fun on the way!

Max Update

2009-03-05T10:26:00.002Z

Just to let everyone know, Max has arrived safely!

We are relieved that he passed through the first stage of quarantine with no problems. I think we were both holding our breath in case the paperwork that took so long to complete wasn't up to scratch.

G's mum has been in contact with Max's carer, who says he's doing well and has eaten. Yay!

This should be the last Max-related post for a while.

In other news, after our lovely warm weather of last week, it's snowing today! Exciting!!

So long, Max.

2009-03-03T17:16:00.001Z

(This is a joint post, though G wrote most of it.)

Yesterday was a memorable day for myriad reasons, though mainly because we took Max down to London in preparation for his big flight home on Tuesday. It was a reasonably early start and we were both a bit on edge as we had to drive Max to the vet for his final checkup at 9:30, wait for the Gerry the vet to give Max a final check and to fill in the paperwork, drive back to somewhere near home (hoping we could find a street park) and then get a bus in to the station for an 11:30 train. This was actually plenty of time if everything went smoothly and mostly, it did. However, as mentioned, we were a bit on edge, and this was not helped by the snail’s pace at which Gerry read every single word of the import /export forms and painstakingly filled them in. Initially, he said, ‘Let’s do the final check now and you can come later for the forms.’ That idea got kyboshed pretty quickly. There was not going to be a later.

The two forms were about 15 pages each, and had about 20 different places to write the current date in. Every time he went to write the date, he paused because he kept forgetting what it was, and meanwhile the time seemed to be flying by incredibly fast. We both were slightly terrified that we had missed some test or other requirement and that he would say, ‘Oh, Max can’t go back to Australia because of xyz….’, so when halfway through filling out the forms he suddenly put down his pen and looked at us without saying a word, our stomachs lurched. ‘Listen to that woman,’ he said, referring to a lady talking in reception that we had only vaguely been aware of. ‘Some people just don’t listen!’ After telling us the backstory, which we weren't the slightest bit interested in, he picked up his pen and started writing again. Meanwhile, we each gave ourselves CPR to restart our hearts.

A bit later he said, ‘Right. I’ve got to go and photocopy these forms for my records. I’ll have to use the copier in the shop next door although the owner opens up when he feels like it so it may still be shut.’ If the shop was closed, he’d nip into the MP’s office next door and blag the use of their machine. Evidently, though, the shop was open, as he came back soon after with his copies and dished out our documents. We paid the bill and scrammed. The consult fee was only about £28 which was great considering it took about 1 hour and Max also was given worming tablets.

We ended up getting to the station in plenty of time, just before 11, but only because we were early to the vet and had kicked things off at 9:15. Otherwise things may have been a bit more tense.

We managed to get two seats together all the way to London which was a bonus. We had booked separately as work paid for G’s ticket (he worked in London on Tuesday. A good scam) and our reserved seats weren’t near each other. Max was very well behaved, apart from his usual insistence of lying down with a body part sticking out into the corridor. I think he was hoping someone would stand on him so he could pull out the old ‘How could you tread on a poor little puppy?’ routine and facial expression again.

The train was on time and we transited from Kings Cross out to Terminal 5 at Heathrow on the Tube. All good so far. We made our way to the taxi rank and were pleasantly surprised that there was no queue, fools that we were. There were 3 ‘taxi ushers’ hanging around gasbagging, a clear case of overpaid and overstaffed. One of them asked where we were going in his best broken English, and after C had repeated, ‘Horton’ three times, he gestured to the first cab and said, ‘You sort out with driver.’ Well, what’s the point of you then, mate?

C explained to the driver that we wanted to go to Horton, only a couple of miles away, drop Max off, and then return to Heathrow. ‘£55. Each way.’

We then explained to the driver what he could do with £55 each way, anatomically speaking, and we walked off while discussing other options.

After asking at information, we were given some numbers for minicabs and arranged for one to pick us up and return us to Heathrow. (As we walked off, we overheard one of the information booth staffers say to the other ‘I'm sure they mean the quarantine station, not the kennels...’ with a clear ‘they are so stupid’ inflection in her voice.)

Over the phone we told the minicab people that we had to go to Horton to drop our dog off at kennels. Quote: £25.

Slightly better than £110.

While we waited for the minicab, we called the kennels to let them know that we were nearly there. At the same time, we asked for their postcode, just in case. (Explanation for people unfamiliar with the British postcode system: essentially, postcodes in the UK are specific to a single street, or even a single building in the case of some cities. If you know the postcode, you know exactly where you're going. Much more precise than in Australia, where postcodes encompass four or five suburbs!)

The minicab turned up in due course, we hopped in and drove off. Oddly enough, the driver didn’t ask where we wanted to go although the address we had given over the phone had been very non-specific. ‘Okay, so we’re going to Horton,’ we said, slightly bemused.

‘Yes. I think I’ve been there once before.’ We weren’t convinced, so, after a short pause, asked ‘Did you want to know the postcode?’ No response.

We seemed to be generally heading in the right direction and after a couple of minutes the driver gestured off to the right and said, ‘It’s just over there’. C mumbled out an ‘...okay?’ Then things started to get weird. We approached a roundabout and did a complete circle. And then another. And then around we went for a third time. We finally exited and started heading back to Terminal 5. Clearly, he had no idea where he was going. This whole time his phone was ringing continuously with a bizarre ring tone that sounded like a techno/reggae/sitar fusion with a woman’s voice saying, ‘Hello? Hello?’. He may have at this point answered the phone and received some directions.

After slowing down, practically parking and then doing a U-turn on what was effectively a freeway, we went almost completely round the roundabout again, and then somehow ended up a short time later, much to our surprise, at Airpets Kennels. Surprising, because it was not where we wanted to be. Once again: ‘Would you like the postcode?’ This time he chose to hear us and after 10 minutes we arrived at the right kennels. Before leaving the cab, we repeated four times, ’So you’ll wait here until we get back?’. He seemed to get the message and it’s unlikely that he would have driven off given that we hadn’t paid him yet, but we were still a little nervous about leaving our bags in the car.

The parting was abrupt and brutal. The lady who met us showed us around to the back and we put Max in a cell. All steel bars and concrete floor. We wish she had just taken him off us reception so we wouldn’t have had to see the conditions of the place. We now know why most boarding kennels won't actually let you see where your dog is going to stay, but simply taken him off you at the reception. As G described it, you could see the other dogs standing in front of their cell doors, running their little steel mugs back and forth across the bars while singing mournfully ‘Nobody knows the troubles I've seen...’

The last sight we had of Max was his little face staring at us, his expression clearly asking ‘What have I done wrong?’ Both our hearts ached.

We then signed a form and left. Abrupt and brutal.

Thankfully, the minicab was waiting for us and took us back to the airport. The driver still only charged us £25. I think it would have been a lot more if they had gotten the address right in the first place.

On a side note, one other event of note happened while we were at terminal 5. While walking around, G had noticed an ever-increasing discomfort in his right foot. So, while stopped in a lift, he took his shoe off only to find a huge piece of what looked like lint compacted from a washing machine. About 10cm by 2cm. How it suddenly appeared in his shoe was inexplicable. We had a laugh later on thinking about how the piece of lint probably spent the next few hours going up and down a lift at Heathrow.

The trip back into London seemed very long and was quite tiring. A dinner of pizza and beverages with M. was a pleasant end to the day and, as we didn’t start eating until about 9pm, was most welcome.

Max is due to fly out in about 3 hours so hopefully everything is order with his documents. Fingers crossed!

Pictorial update

2009-02-24T20:40:00.007Z

Here is a mish-mash of photos from the past few weeks, ranging from some heavy snow to this past weekend's lovely sunshine.

A bridge in the village Stow, built in 1655.

Same bridge, one week later.

Icicles under bridge.

G with a snowball.

Scenic snowscape, as shot from interior of car.

Snow on our neighbour's gate.

Our snow-covered garden.

Weird swan, possibly doing yoga, at Cramond.

Max is out and proud! (Actually, the pet shop only had this item in pink.)

G, in hobo chic, and Max near Roman ruins from the 2nd Century AD.

View of the castle and the Royal Mile from Calton Hill.

G on the half-finished tribute to the Parthenon - known as "Edinburgh's disgrace."

Max hitching a ride.

Everything is (touch wood!) on track for Max's departure on Monday. The vet sent Max's blood sample to the lab last Tuesday, but they reckon they only received it yesterday. Even so, the vet is confident that the tests will be completed by Friday. Even if they're finished before 9.30am on Monday morning, it's still all on.

It's times like this that we wish we were really rich so we could pay someone to organise this all for us. But then I guess we would have been able to afford a large country manor with enough room for Max to run riot, so the point is moot.

Parting ways

2009-02-21T08:48:00.004Z

As revealed in the last blog entry, Max is going home.

Surprisingly, considering all the rigmarole involved with getting him over here in the first place, it was an easy decision. But I think we'd been heading down that path for a while, and now the decision has been made we both just want things finished.

There wasn't one specific thing that happened to force this decision, but probably the last straw was Max getting kicked out of doggy daycare for barking too much. Friday morning two weeks ago, Linda the daycare lady called me at work, and I got a sick feeling in my stomach when I saw her name flash up on my phone because there was no good reason that she'd be calling.

She told me that her elderly neighbour had complained that, while Linda is out doing her dogwalking rounds during the day, Max barks continuously. Considering how close together all the houses are here, Linda said she couldn't keep Max on because it would ruin her relationship with her neighbour. She was extremely apologetic about it, and said she'd keep taking Max until we coud find another daycare place for him which was good.

G had spent the past three weekends building a very good fence around our patch of grass outside, and we had ultimately hoped to start leaving Max in there while we were at work or out on the weekends. However, this news from Linda put that into a spin - the chances of Max barking his head off were pretty high, and our neighbours are very, very close - one with a small baby, too, who probably needs sleep etc.

We both knew that, back in Brisbane, Max probably barked a bit while we were at work. But because we owned the house there was no chance of our landlord kicking us out, and there were no shared walls between our house and the next. Here, though, issues of space are so different, and while we were willing to try techniques to train Max out of barking, it's going to take a lot longer than our neighbours' patience will last.

Add to this the fact that the day after Linda called, we put Max in the fenced-off garden for the first time...and within five minutes he'd yanked the wire up and escaped. Not the desired result. G spent half an hour fixing that area of the fence, which was great, but Max has rat cunning and no doubt would be able to escape some other way. Seeing as our house is extremely close to a busy main road (with buses running past 24 hours a day), I know I would never be comfortable leaving Max in that area while we were out.

Of course, leaving Max in the house for a long period is unfeasible. In Australia, Max destroyed about four things, three of them while in the puppy phase (the other was about six months ago, and was a model of a dog covered in rabbit fur - clearly too tempting for him to ignore).

However, since arriving in Edinburgh, he has widened his range and frequency enormously. So far he has destroyed: the telephone cord; three television cables; a scarf (mine); a shoe (mine); letters (mostly addressed to me); plastic bags; random paper; the door mat; a huge cardboard box (in stages); my coat (partial damage); and three dog leads, including a thick leather one. He has also chewed at two doors, and left 'messages' around the house.

This is a dog who is perfectly well behaved when we are at home, and has been toilet-trained for years. When he had an upset tummy a month ago and had to keep going out during the night, he gently woke one of us up every time he needed to go outside. Clearly, he turns into a little monster as soon as he's left alone, which is incredibly frustrating. Anyone who knows Max has experiences his neurotic behaviour, so imagine trying to tame this. We didn't realise how bad he would be before we came here, but it's just untenable.

So, after talking about it for two days, we made a phone call to G's parents. G asked if they would ever possibly, maybe, consider looking after Max if we were to send him home, and they didn't hesitate to say "of course!". As soon as I heard that, I just burst into tears from all the months of stress and from the relief. I don't think I realised just how stressed Max was making me until that moment. Because my hours are strictly 9-5, I get home before G each night, and I never know what's going to greet me when I open the door. Therefore, I always have a sick feeling in my stomach when approaching home, which is really not the way things should be.

Once we knew we had the option of sending Max to Bundaberg to live, the decision pretty much made itself. The steps involved in getting Max back to Australia are manifold - including getting both an export and an import license - and we've spent the last two weeks researching what needs to be done. He will have to spend 30 days in quarantine in Sydney (there are no quarantine facilities in Brisbane), but he would need to do that whenever he came home and we knew that from the outset. Knowing Max, he'll have the quarantine staff wrapped around his little finger within two days.

It costs a lot to send your dog overseas, and we always knew we'd have to pay that, but hadn't figured on needing to spend that so soon. So we've had to rejig things that we had wanted to do in order to ship Max off, but he's all booked in to fly off on Tuesday 3 March. We will take him down to London the day before, where he'll stay overnight in some kennels. It will be sad, but a huge relief.

It feels a bit like a break-up, in a way - should we tell Max "It's not you, it's us"? But then, that would be a big lie, because it really is him.

Holding post...

2009-02-16T22:51:00.002Z

Hi everyone

We haven't posted for a week, as you see, and will be doing so again shortly (maybe tomorrow if it's a slow day at work!).

The delay is mostly due to the sad nature of the next post - to let everyone know that Max is being sent home. Things have been difficult with him, as you know, so he's going home to spend the next year+ with his grandparents in Bundaberg.

Anyhow, that will all be covered in the next issue of the blog, along with everything involved with exporting a dog to Australia.

Thinking of home

2009-02-09T15:13:00.003Z

Having lived (briefly) overseas before, I was quite accustomed to the fact that Australia never makes the news unless it's one of those "How weird is that?" type stories - these usually involve shark or crocodile attacks, or some kind of cute koala story.

In the three months that we have been here, Australia has only made the sport news. The Brits are quite gleeful in their reporting of Australia getting thrashed in the cricket, although now Shane Warne is no longer playing they don't have someone to pick on in the tabloids. Their coverage of cricket is sure to pick up when the Ashes start here in July, and they'll find another target within the team.

However, the Victorian bushfires are now the number one news item on all TV stations, before British news, and even before Premier league football.

It's horrific to contemplate what's going on back home, and the coverage of the disaster is indepth in both newspapers and on TV. Our hearts go out to everyone who has suffered any kind of loss in the fires, or who has loved ones there. I don't feel as separated from events as I would if I was back home and the tragedy was happening in another country, because coming from Australia means familiarity with bushfires.

People at work have been kind, asking if I have family or friends in the affected areas. The weird thing is that everyone has expressed utter incredulity at the idea that anyone would purposely start a fire. While I also can't understand why anyone would do it, it's not such a foreign idea because each dry season there are idiots who start fires. But the concept is so unknown over here - possibly because it rains so often, no fire would take if the underbrush was lit.

It's strange seeing Kevin Rudd on TV - he has such a round head! - and also strange hearing so many Australian accents on the news...it makes me more aware of how my accent must sound to other people.

Vital stats

2009-02-05T14:13:00.011Z

In my old job, I had to attend meetings with some fairly senior figures from the sector, and the same goes for my new job. However there are some differences between the two.

I was at such a meeting on Tuesday, and here are some interesting facts about the attendees:

Number of knights at the meeting: 3 (including one sitting next to me)

Number of baronesses at the meeting: 1

Number of baronesses who did not resemble Margaret Thatcher, as expected: 1

Number of baronesses who instead looked more like Cyndi Lauper: 1

Number of Scottish opposition leaders at meeting: 1

Number of Scottish opposition leaders who shook my hand (!!): 1

Number of holograms invented by James Clerk Maxwell (very big name in the history of Chemistry and Physics, apparently) on display: 1

Number of Scottish opposition leaders who got very excited about said hologram: 1

Number of male attendees who resembled women: 1

Number of woman-like men who were actually really lovely and asked many questions about Australia: 1

Number of times I was asked (not by above man-woman) "So what actually is the difference between Australia and New Zealand?": 1

Number of attendees with the same name as a rather camp Australian TV personality, but who looked the complete opposite: 1

As you can probably tell, I was rather excited by it all. Coupled with the snow we had the day before, I was like a small child on red cordial. I'm pretty sure the novelty will wear off after a while (especially if it's me taking minutes at the meeting instead of some other poor sap), but for now I'm enjoying being in the same rarefied air as these big wigs. Especially when you consider that my previous manager had a mullet.

** And the spacing in this post is driving me crazy!!! I have no idea how to change it, stupid internet.

SNOW DAY!

2009-02-02T20:06:00.004Z

Well, it finally snowed properly here in Edinburgh, two months into winter. While the whole of London ground to a halt under a blanket of heavy snow, things weren't quite as dramatical up here.

We woke to a nice covering of snow on the garden outside this morning, and then it started to snow while we were walking to the bus stop. I quickly regretted not wearing my hat this morning - there's nothing quite like snow to give that attractive 'drowned rat' look that goes down so well in the corporate world. Instead, I wrapped my scarf around my head like a demented peasant woman. Oh well, better than getting snowed on.

During the day, it snowed off and on. A snow shower would sweep in, but after half an hour the sunshine would break through the clouds. The pattern repeated throughout the whole day. The best part was that the heating or something in the building across the courtyard was broken, and two blokes were up on the roof fixing it. Every time it started to snow heavily they ran back inside, only to come out again when the coast was clear. It was like some weird dance.

It was very exciting, for an Aussie, and Jill who I set next to found my enthusiasm quite charming. I'm sure she'll get over that if this cold weather continues. She suggested that I open the window to take a photo so I did, but then found I couldn't shut the window again. The snow was a lot less interesting when it was actually inside the building, rather than behind the glass.

Of course, the snow was at its heaviest at five o'clock, knock-off time. I'm someone who likes to walk quite quickly, but had to take little baby steps for fear of slipping over in the mush.

I did manage to get a few photos, though, so enjoy!

Our front door step, with unspoiled snow!

The garden (note the fence for Max that G built)

Photo taken through open window behind my desk at work. Heavy snow!

Snow in Princes Street Gardens. Plus taxi in foreground.

Edinburgh Castle with a nice sprinkling of snow.

Australia Day, Edinburghian-style

2009-01-26T19:44:00.007Z

Today is, as you know, Australia Day.

In honour of this day, and partly to assuage the pain of not having a long weekend, I made some lamingtons for both of us to take to work. Something sweet in the morning should surely help ease the fact that we both had to work instead of slobbing around on a day off.

Unfortunately, finding sponge cake was really difficult. No supermarket was able to help, as they didn't stock any plain sponge. Both Tesco and Sainsbury's are huge, bigger than Woolies and Coles, but they failed in this respect. I also tried making a victoria sponge from a packet mix, but it turned out incredibly thin. Seeing as the recipe requires the chef to trim the outside brown bits off the sponge, the lamingtons would end up about as thick as a wafer.

So the answer was to buy premade long-life sponge cake with raspberry jam and butter cream filling. I know, I know, this isn't how lamingtons SHOULD be. But, frankly, on Sunday afternoonI had no motivation to scrape out the filling and use the plain cake.

I'd never made lamingtons before, and they're quite easy yet fiddly. It's vital to hold the choc-covered piece of cake over the bowl of sauce to allow as much icing to drip off as possible. This slows the process down, but luckily my sweet tooth overrode my impatience.

So today we both brought them into our respective workplaces, and they were a big hit. The fact that it was Monday morning probably helped things, as people were after a little something to cheer them up.

Here are the lammos:

After work, we headed off to the Old Town to the OzBar which is, surprisingly enough, an Australian-themed bar. One of G's workmates was due to be there, after having spent the day at the beach playing cricket and listening to an INXS tribute band. We got lost briefly, but should have guessed where the bar was as there were some drunken youths with Australian flags draped over their shoulders, swaying gently and yelling loudly. One of them came rushing past and knocked into me; his mate apologised and said "Happy Australia Day, mate!" in a broad accent. He was visibly shocked to hear my similarly-ocker response.

The pub itself was as it promised to be - loud, cheesy and full of Australian backpackers. We had one drink each before leaving, but not before buying a box of Arnott's Pizza Shapes! That was the highlight of the day, for sure.

Here's one more photo, of Max trying to take over navigational duties in the car:

Bits and pieces

2009-01-21T12:55:00.004Z

Hello again.

Just a quick email from work (during my lunch hour) to update people on our recent activities. We've generally been up to administrative and organisational stuff that comes with moving countries and settling down, although some of it has been unexpected.

Max's behaviour is still less than desirable. He's taken to ripping up the mail when it's delivered in the morning, before he gets collected for day care. A bank statement and a gas bill were destroyed yesterday, and somehow I don't think the gas company is going to accept the excuse of "my dog ate the bill" when we don't pay up. On Monday he destroyed my exchange of driving license form, but not G's, sent by the DVLA, so I had to queue up at the post office yesterday to get a new one. It's driving us crazy, because he's got such a neurotic, irrational brain for a dog that many of the techniques listed on separation anxiety websites, namely distracting dogs with a juicy treat when leaving the house, don't work. Max has never been ruled by food, so even though we leave some chunks of frozen beef for him each morning, which he always eats, he still sets about destroying things. It's forcing us to think wistfully about him not being here which we don't want to do, but it's hard not to when you come home to find your scarf chewed up and bite marks on the kitchen door. G's started preparations for fencing off the front garden, and a kennel and heating pad were delivered yesterday, so soon he'll be an outside dog again.

On the other hand, having the new car is really, really good. We had planned to go for a drive on Sunday, but the forecast was for sleet, heavy snow, and all sorts of undesirable things. But Sunday morning dawned with a lovely blue sky so we hopped in the car....and immediately the clouds started to close in. However, the rain held off for most of our trip, and only poured for half an hour or so. We travelled east from Edinburgh along the coast, and there's some lovely scenery there. We drove through North Berwick, which seems to be the Noosa or Bargara of the Lothians - one new housing estate didn't have any properties under £1 million, which is a LOT. We also passed about a billion golf courses, including one that was right next to the main road. I'm sure cars must get hit by stray golf balls.

G was excited to drive through Belhaven, the home of Belhaven Best, and we stopped at the gates to the brewery. Belhaven kind of merged into the town of Dunbar, which had the narrowest, most ill-signposted streets we'd ever come across, and produced some hairy driving moments.

Driving in the UK is good, because pretty much every road, aside from suburban streets, is names (e.g. A1907). This is really, really handy when reading from a map, because it's really easy to tell if you're on the right track or not. The fact that some of these roads turn out to be more like glorified cart tracks is a minor point.

As for the unexpected bits, the door to the washer-dryer has broken, trapping a load of sheets inside (at least it wasn't clothing). This machine, an Indesit (see this page for one of many sites listing the brand's problems), is a piece of junk. We don't usually bother with the drying cycle because the clothes, towels, sheets etc, finish the cycle damp and steaming, rather than any closer to being dry. However, this means it takes about two days to dry things on the clothes horse, because, even after three additional spin cycles, the load is still sopping wet. All up - piece of rubbish that is to be avoided at all costs.

So, after realising on Sunday morning that the door of the washer was not going to open despite our best efforts, which included me kicking it, we called our landlady to tell her. She came over on Monday afternoon to check it out for herself, because she clearly thought that we were unable to work the door or something - she lives in Dundee which is over an hour's drive away, a long distance for British folk to travel unnecessarily. Not surprisingly, she couldn't get the door to open either, and phoned G on Tuesday to say she's going to replace the whole machine. Yay! G gets to do a bit of handyman stuff tonight and uninstall the washer, releasing our trapped sheets through the lid of the machine, all ready for the new one to be installed. It does mean, however, that we're going to have to go to a laundromat on the weekend to do some washing, which is a pain. Oh well, at least we're getting a new machine next week.

Anyhow, lunch break is over and I'd better get back to it. I'm interviewing for this role tomorrow, and I'm quite nervous. I just want to know one way or another what's happening with this position. I'd love to get it because then I don't have to go through the whole job-finding stuff anymore. But, what will be will be.

Cooking with gas!

2009-01-11T19:29:00.002Z

Hi everyone,

Well, we've ticked off another item on our "to do" list and acquired a car. We took a chance and bought one from Ebay - all the kids are doing it these days - and after watching various options for a few weeks (actually, after our horrific train journey home from Wellingborough), G made a bid on a good car on Thursday. We won, which was terribly exciting! Dealing with stupid PayPal was not, so we arranged to pay the seller by cash.

So on Saturday morning, the three of us caught the train into Glasgow. We left home just before 8am to walk to the train station, and there was very little traffic on the roads, which was surprising. Maybe no one leaves their homes before the sun rises? The upside of this was that the train to Glasgow was virtually empty. We travelled through Falkirk (did not see The Wheel) before arriving, then caught another train to Cathcart station, which went through some pretty dingy parts of town. I guess you get those in every big city.

The guy selling us the car hadn't had time to clean it out, which was a bit of a shame as he's a smoker, and there were some butts left in the ashtray. It would explain the three car deodorisers hanging from the rear view mirror - I usully detest these things, but was glad to have them on this occasion. The seller - who had a Spanish name but a strong Glaswegian accent - gave us directions to get back to Edinburgh, and after driving off we got lost pretty much instantly.

Luckily, we managed to find our way to a main road and just kept driving, in the hope that things would turn out. We ended up making a lovely tour of Glasgow's southern ring road, before hopping on the M8 back to Edinburgh. After navigating some rather confusing road markings (nothing is straightforward here!) we finally hit the streets that we knew. It was a bit weird to drive down streets that we'd walked on or travelled through only by bus.

In the afternoon, we drove out to B&Q, a Bunnings-esque store, to check out supplies for fencing off our garden. We were very glad of the car when the weather turned very squally and we could drive home with our groceries, rather than lugging them on the bus.

Today, we drove north over the Forth Road Bridge (it's huge! As is the Rail Bridge!), and then up to Perth. Because the weather was still awful, we decided to just keep driving rather than getting out and going for a walk or something.

Before arriving in Perth, various signs appeared for Scone Palace, which is not, as the name suggests, where the treat was born. Although it does sound like any scone they make there would be absolutely huge. (For some reason, while typing this I'm pronouncing it in my head as "scoan" rather than "sconn"...must be the atmosphere in the UK.) Rather, it's where the kings of Scotland were traditionally crowned, so is rather Important in Scottish history.

Anyhow, we decided to make a diversion to Scone Palace, which would involve only looking at it from the car park as we had our little friend Max with us. We turned into the driveway to find the gates shut and a notice saying "Scone Palace is closed for a private function. It will reopen on 1 April 2009." That's some private function!

We drove home again along the scenic back roads, including through the town of Glenfarg. The countryside was so pretty, and would be even nicer on a day with better weather and during spring.

Having a car has given me such a feeling of freedom! We can do things and go places without having to check the train or bus routes. I know it's not environmentally correct to say this, but whatever. We're here to experience the country, and that really requires a car.

Plus, if we can avoid horribly packed trains in the Christmas period again it's okay by me.

Moving overseas the hard way

2008-12-30T15:17:00.006Z

The proportion of people who expressed surprise at our plan to bring Max over to the UK was pretty high. Roughly 98%, I think.

We can understand this scepticism, and not just because of the cost involved with shipping Max over. After all, one of the reasons we moved overseas was to take advantge of the proximity to Europe and travel to lots of exciting new places. Having a dog complicates that as you can't just get up and go, but have to consider their boarding needs too.

We've rented back in Australia with Max, so understand the complications involved with needing to fnd a pet-friendly property. Luckily, there seem to be fewer ads over here for places that specify "NO PETS", so there's one advantage there. And we even managed to talk our current landlords into allowing "a little white, fluffy thing", rather than the big German shepherd who previously lived in the house and managed to destroy lots of it. Of course, we had to pay a heft deposit but at least we'll get that money back when we move out.

Another complication here is that most people live in flats or shared housing. This means that there were not many houses with enclosed gardens available for us to rent, or at least none in our price range. We did see a number of houses with "garden" listed on the ad, but when we inspected these were little scraps of grass between the front gate and the front door that were barely bigger than Max himself.

Our place has a patch of grass outside the front that we can possibly fence off and leave Max in while we are out, but of course that is not necessarily an option this time of year (it's currently -1 degree, at 3.30pm). Leaving Max inside while we are at work isn't an option either, as it's not fair to him or us. He's usually okay home by himself, but yesterday I popped out to the supermarket for just over an hour, and came home to find he had pulled down one of the curtains in the living room (amazingly not damaging anything).

Today, though, our problems seem to have been alleviated somewhat as we found a lovely lady who runs a doggy day care place. She came over to visit Max, and they hit it off immediately. After going mental over her smelly jacket for five minutes, then rolling on his back and kicking his legs in the air, Max ended up falling asleep with his head on her foot. We're used to seeing Max grovel to other people and act like they are the coolest things in the world, so we weren't offended.

But she likes Max, and is able to pick him up each morning and drop him off each afternoon. This will minimise the amount of time he has alone so he won't fret as much, and will be less tempted to pull down the curtains.

It can be challenging having a dog to look after, especially when he tries your patience a million times a day.

But when you glance over and see him sleeping sweetly in his basket, looking like a white, fluffy angel, it's easy to forgive the rest.

The promised photos

2008-12-22T14:45:00.005Z

Hi everyone.

This is a quick post before we head off to our Christmas with AD tomorrow. We will be out of email contact until the 27th, but here are some photos that we've been promising for a while now.

The first one of Max was taken yesterday when we took a bus trip out to Seton Sands. It's on the seaside, at the end of the bus line, and would be a nice destination during summer. Yesterday, however, it was blowing such a fierce gale that at times we were involuntarily doing bad impressions of Marcel Marceau.

Max looking windswept and interesting.

Max's trenchcoat. It's his first day in Scotland, hence the slightly stunned look.

View of our house from the other side of the Water of Leith. Our house is one half of the cottage on the right-hand side of the picture.

Entrance to our private pathway. We have both, on separate occasions, gone right past the gate when walking home.

Anyhow, we hope everyone has a great Christmas. Eat lots, give lots of presents, and enjoy the warm weather.

Max's saga

2008-12-19T16:36:00.002Z

Hi everyone.

Good news first - I got a job! It's only a temporary job, for January, but they are holding interviews next month to make the position permanent. I'm hoping that having acted in the role for January will help in the interview stakes. Then again, I might discover that I don't actually like the job and decide not to apply. But regardless, I'm no longer an unemployed layabout. Or at least I won't be come 6 January. And, G got paid today! Hooray!

Bad news - I bought some camembert from M&S yesterday, and it stank to high heaven. Not a good cheesy smell, but a rotten, toilet-y smell. I returned it today, and offered to let the lady at the counter smell the cheese (ha!). She declined, saying she could smell it from where she was. I won't go into the falling-while-getting-off-the-bus-and-landing-on-the-camembert incident, but the upside to buying rotten cheese was that it didn't matter that half of it was ruined.

The weather has been yucky the past few days. It's been rainy and windy, the kind of windy that blows your umbrella inside out. Apparently there are forecasts of sleet for today, which wouldn't be surprising. I was going to pop into town to meet G and his work buddies for a drink, but the prospect of leaving the house at the moment is rather unappealing.

So, I thought it would timely to fill you in on Max's journey from Brisbane to Edinburgh. His plane left at about 1pm, and arrived in Singapore about eight hours later. He was due to meet up with the connecting flight, from Melbourne, to take him the rest of the way to Heathrow. Unfortunately, that flight was delayed for over seven hours due to mechanical problems, which meant poor Max had to wait, in his crate, for that flight to arrive in Singapore. Due to quarantine restrictions, pets are not permitted to leave their crates at any point on the trip or they will not be allowed to enter the UK. The crates are locked, and there is a little funnel which feeds down to a small water dish, and this is topped up in transit.

Unfortunately, the lengthy delay meant that we were racing against time to collect Max from quarantine and make it back to Euston station for our train to Edinburgh. When we made our train booking, Max was due to arrive at 5.25am. The pet transport people advised that he should be ready to pick up at 11am, so we were confident that booking the train trip home for 4.45pm should be fine. G was in London for work, and I came down too to pick up Max and meet up with G back at Euston.

However, the delay meant that Max's flight did not arrive until 1pm. The pet transport company was good enough to call us about this delay, and told us that Max should be processed by 2.30-3pm. The Animal Reception Centre where Max was to be collected is right next to Heathrow, a good hour on the tube from central London, so making it back in time for the 4.45pm train would hinge on luck and no delays.

We stayed with Megan and Brett, who were very helpful finding buses and trains etc to get me to the ARC. The tube system in London is very good, provided there are no delays, and it's quite easy finding one's way around. I caught the tube out to Hatton Cross, the station before Heathrow, and then a bus from the station. The buses are also great, as they have a displaysaying which stop is coming up next. My stop was called "Animal Reception Centre", so there was no amibguity about where to get off the bus.

I had envisioned the ARC as a cold, draughty warehouse, but thankfully it was far from that, with heating and comfortable couches. I arrived just after 1pm, and there was a man already there talking to the reception lady. He said something about a delayed flight, so I piped up that I was waiting for the same plane. The lady said that the plane had landed, and they were waiting for the animals to be shipped over from the tarmac.

The man and I ended up waiting for two hours for our pets to be processed. He was English, and had just moved back to the UK after six years in Australia, and was waiting for his two cats. He said that he and his wife weren't excited about the cost involved with shipping them back, but the only excuse they could think of to tell the kids was that the cats had been stolen. Not entirely convincing. Anyhow, it was good to have someone else to chat with while waiting. He also called Qantas to see what the delay was caused by, which was handy to know.

Several people came and went while we were waiting, picking up their animals. Most of these were dogs, but one particularly excited gentleman picked up a bowl of goldfish. I would have thought that one goldfish was pretty much interchangeable with another, but clearly he sees something deeper with his pets.

At around 2.30pm, a man popped out to let us know that all the pets had come off the flight and were out of their crates, and asked us who we were waiting for. I was so relieved when he said that Max was fine, as part of me had always been concerned that something would happen to him on the flight, given his heart murmur. He also asked what breed Max was, as they were all wondering.

Finally, at just after 3pm someone came out to give me papers to sign....and then Max appeared. He was so much fluffier than last time I saw him, and quite happy, though this might have been because he was finally out of the crate after nearly 30 hours.

But pleasantries had to be put aside as we had just over 90 minutes to get back into town. We got a cab to Terminal 4, then popped on the Heathrow Connect back into Paddington Station. We arrived here at about 4.20, leaving 25 minutes to travel four tube stations to Euston Square and make the short walk to Euston station. Easy, right?

Not when you're relying on the underground. The train was about five minutes late, and then that train terminated at the next station, meaning I had to wait for the next train. Unfortunately, I arrived at Euston station seven minutes too late, and we missed the train. G had been able to cancel the tickets, so we didn't lose that money, but it did mean we had to buy full-priced train tickets back to Edinburgh, about 40 pounds more than we had originally paid. However, it was still cheaper than getting him flown up to Edinburgh, which was the point of the exercise.

Travelling with Max is certainly an experience, as he attracts smiles, comments and conversation from fellow travellers. Max even inspired someone to start a conversation on the tube, which I understand is a rareity in London.

Anyhow, that's the update of Max's journey. I did plan to post some photos of Max in his stylish trench coat, but G has the camera at work so I can't. Soon, though!

Brief encounter

2008-12-16T22:25:00.002Z

Hello, all.

A quick note to say that, no, we haven't lost our computer or forgotten about the other side of the world. It's just been one of those weeks. I've spent most of my time on-line applying for jobs and sending my CV off to any company that looks halfway decent, and therefore relish time out from behind the keyboard. G's been busy at work, and when he's home has preferred to watch old Dollar videos on Youtube rather than update the blog.

But hopefully things will change soon. After wallowing in self-pity and despondency for the past few weeks over my job(less) situation, the sun finally broke through the clouds today. I received three (3) invitations to attend job interviews, as well as being asked to meet with a recruiter. One of the job interviews was unexpected, as I had interviewed with them last week only for all of us to realise that my lack of stats experience would be a hinderance. However, they called specifically to ask me to interview for another position, which is a huge ego boost.

G bought me some dark chocolate orange clusters to celebrate. More celebration will follow on Friday when he receives his first pay since starting his new job. I much prefer being paid on a fortnightly basis, but the usual thing here seems to be monthly payment.

In other news, Max has settled in well and is enjoying snoozing next to the radiator. Dogs in Scotland must be a lot uglier than him, as he attracts many smiles and comments from passers-by. It might be his stylish trench coat, though.

Night to all.

Tripping around.

2008-12-07T21:41:00.008Z

Hello. G here. Can I say that's it nice to be back blogging after a break? Can I? Hang on ......yep, I've just confirmed it. Wasn't very difficult at all. I'd like to second C.'s comments re: broadband cost and speed. Tres good.
As mentioned in a previous post, I went to London for a work Christmas party. Fairly standard: lots of people getting extremely drunk at the company's expense. No one else wanted to leave at the tame hour of half past midnight but I managed to find my way back to the hotel by myself despite having only the vaguest of notion of where I was. The hard core partiers woke me with drunken shouting outside my room at about 5:30 later that morning. I assume not lot of work was done anywhere in the company the next day. The highlight of the night was the upstairs bar at the party venue where most things were made from ice, including the furniture and the "glasses". Only one of the wait staff was Australian though, contrary to what I had been led to expect and she was originally a Kiwi anyway.
Moving in to our new house the next day was the easiest move that we've ever done, although C may disagree as she copped the worst of it lugging suitcases etc on the two bus trips from Portobello.
Friday of last week we went to see Jarvis Cocker in concert. I am very chuffed to have crossed this one of my UK trip to do list so early, and although it wasn't as good as I hoped it would be, it was about as good as I expected. The support acts were very ordinary as well and in fact the highlight of the night was "The Drunk Girl".
I have never before seen anyone that drunk and still moving. We first saw her while queuing up outside before the concert (for about an hour, mind you, and it was bloody cold). Just to set the scene, she was about 30ish, blonde, wearing a flimsy black dress totally unsuited to the elements, high heels and with a friend in a similar condition. She first staggered past us down the street and then a bit later back the other way. She wasn't walking so much as swaying for a few seconds until overbalancing in a random direction, falling sideways for a few steps until hitting a wall, her friend or (thankfully) the guard rails next to the road. It was something like a combination of B western movie death scene and a footballer on Dancing with the Stars.
Her friend wasn't quite so obviously squiffy.
We watched them stagger into a bar not far down the road, only to be (presumably) evicted a short time later. Our drunker friend then decided to call it a belated night and began attempting to flag down some transport home. Flag down buses. At night. On a very busy road. By walking out in front of them. Again and again.
Thankfully her friend kept pulling her back to the footpath, but it was breathtaking to watch bus after bus screech to halt and hitting the horn. They then started trying to flag down cabs, firstly trying to get into two different full ones that had stopped at the lights and then two different empty ones where the drivers decided the fares weren't worth the risk of having to clean up the cab. The last we saw of them, before we went in to the theatre, the less drunk girl had fallen down into the gutter and stopped moving.
We both agreed that both of them, but the staggerer in particular, would be a bit ordinary in the next morning. Assuming they made it through the night.
Anyway, I'm all typed out now and and it's bed time. Much more to tell soon.
Bye for now.
P.S. Don't forget to read C's post as well just before this one.

Back in action

2008-12-07T19:56:00.006Z

Hi everyone!

Well, we now have proof of just how inferior Australian internet providers are. On Thursday at lunchtime I called up a teleco company and put in an order for broadband to be connected at our house. I was told that it would probably take about 6 days (note: days, not working days) to connect, and I later received a text message confirming this time frame.

However, at 9am the next morning I received another text message informing me that our broadband was now connected. And it was. That's less than 24 hours connection time, which is something that I guarantee no Australian internet company could match.

Further, we are paying 12.50 GBP/month for our internet, which includes unlimited (!) downloads, and up to 8meg download speed. Wow, so impressed.

So we have been in (totally legal) download heaven, catching up on all of our shows. It's absolutely fantastic.

In other news, the most important news of the trip, Max arrives on Wednesday morning! Yahoo! We bought him a new basket, some food bowls, a new collar and lead (just in case his didn't make the whole trip through from Australia), and a stylish fawn mackintosh with a tartan wool lining. We stopped short of getting him some faux seude boots, but if the cold, wet pavements are really not to Max's liking that could be a Christmas present. Although, frankly, he doesn't deserve any more presents ever considering the cost of importing him.

Collecting Max requires both of us to head down to London, though luckily G was due to be there anyway for work. I have the duty of catching the tube nearly out to Heathrow, getting a cab from Hatton Cross station to the Animal Reception Centre, picking up the dog, getting a cab back to Hatton Cross, escorting Max on the tube to Kings Cross, then walking to Euston Station where we are getting the long distance train back to Edinburgh. It will certainly be an experience to travel with Max on the tube, the train and through the streets of London. Here's hoping he doesn't mouth off to too many passers-by.

Anyhow, we're able to import Max because we have moved into our own house. It's great to have our own place again, though it's half the size of our house back in Australia. This is, though, the norm here as people don't have the same sense of space as Australians do (although it's nowhere near as close as in Germany - we haven't had to "accidentally" step backwards onto the toes of people queueing right on our heels). Anyhow, our house is a converted cottage, next to the Water of Leith, and in the shadows of the Murrayfield Stadium. This is excellent, as we both follow rugby with a passion second to none.

This is the outside of our house:

I tried to upload more photos, but Blogger won't let me. You'll just have to wait for them sometime in the future.

Anyway, tomorrow I have a job interview so I'm crossing my fingers for that and am off to do some research on the higher education sector in Scotland. Wish me luck!

A quickie

2008-11-29T12:55:00.001Z

Hi. G here.

Just a quick note to say that we'll probably have a brief hiatus of blogging for a few days until we get broadband set up at our new place. Lots to tell, though.
Bye for now.

Moving!

2008-11-26T16:27:00.005Z

Usually, the thought of moving house fills me with dread. It's a hideous process, mostly because my luck with the weather means that it will either be the hottest day of the year, or pouring down (or both, as occurred during one memorable move).

Tomorrow, however, we are moving into our new house, which we've been looking forward to for about three weeks. It was three weeks and one day ago that we moved into our temporary accommodation, and first encountered the Most Uncomfortable Bed Ever. Seriously, this bed is terrible. I don't know if the owners of this place went out of their way to find the worst bed they could, but they certainly succeeded regardless. For starters, it creaks every time either one of us so much as breathes. The mattress has lumps and bumps poking out all over the place, although to be fair I'm now accustomed to the spring that digs into my rib cage. Finally, it's a double bed, which isn't good for two people who are both over 5'10" and don't like to share. We both wake up each morning with bags under our eyes, and accusing the other of having hogged the bed during the night. G also attributes his daily caffeine consumption to the bed, which is fair enough.

Therefore, even if we were moving into an absolute dive, leaving this bed behind would be reason enough to leave.

G has gone to London today for his work Christmas party. I know. Not fair - start work one week, and get flown to London the next week to hobnob at a wholly-catered function, and get put up at a nice hotel. Meanwhile I get to stay here, and pack and clean. The only upside is that I get the whole bed to myself, and will hog it without feeling the least bit guilty.

We're meeting the landlords at the house tomorrow at 12.30 to sign the lease, pay our rent, and get the keys. G will stop by on his way back from the airport, and in a fortunate piece of luck the Airlink Bus stops right outside our house. In further evidence of the excellent bus system here, I can get on the bus right outside our current place and catch it across town at our new place. This is also good, because we'll be moving house by bus. With such a good bus route, there was no justification for catching a cab there.

However, it does mean that I have to take two trips there and back. Although we arrived in Edinburgh with two suitcases and two carry-on bags in total, we've somehow managed to accumulate so much more stuff in three weeks. Today, G took in to work a full suitcase and a couple of bags of shoes, which he will bring home tomorrow evening. I valiantly tried this morning to cram everything else we have into my suitcase and my carry-on bag, in the hope that I might only have to make one journey tomorrow. No dice, unfortunately, so it's buses galore for me!

I'm also trying to eat as much food from the fridge today, so had ten sticks of celery, an apple, and vegemite on toast for lunch, and will boil two eggs for tea. Yum! I also drank the last of the Irn Bru, which was delightful.

Sunday is St Andrew's Day, which is the Scottish equivalent of Australia Day. Consequently, Friday is Wear Your Kilt to Work Day, so hopefully G will encounter many patriotic Scots at work. On Saturday, we saw a man in BHS wearing a kilt as if it was the most normal thing in the world, and it probably was for him. When we were in Germany, we saw many (older) men wearing Lederhosen, although this kilt-wearing gentleman was about thirty years younger. Those crazy Scots.

Much love

Bits and bobs

2008-11-21T20:45:00.003Z

Hiya. It's C here.

Apologies for the silence of late. G started work on Wednesday, and I've been spending pretty much all day on the computer trying to find a job, so the thought of spending more time online has been too depressing. But it's time for an update, though this one won't be with the photos that I had promised my parents. The camera's in the other room and that's just too far to walk at the moment.

So. The good news is that we have a home to move into on Thursday! Hurrah! It's the house that we applied for nearly two weeks ago, so yay that it finally came through. We can't wait to move into our own (rented) place, believe you me.

Unfortunately, this hasn't come without a load of hassle. First of all, it took over a week for the credit check company to carry out their reference check on us. We had to chase up our previous rental agents in Australia to ask them to send back the reference request, which they finally did so this morning, our time. We cheered when we read their email saying that they had completed the reference and faxed it off. The cheering stopped, however, when G received a phone call this morning saying that we'd failed the credit check. Apparently there was no way that we were going to ever pass it because all of our previous details are Australian, not British. We both fail to see how this could be accurate, because that means that no one from un-British backgrounds would ever be able to rent somewhere in the UK. Which is not at all logical. And apparently the credit check company knew from the start that we wouldn't pass their process, but carried it out anyway at the request of the rental agency. Which also knew that we'd never pass it, but still made us go through and pay for it.

The upshot of this situation was that we'd have to give up the idea of renting this place, pay six months rent upfront or get a UK guarantor. The only logical option is the six months rent one, because it's likely we'd fail any credit check with other people if we applied for a rental property elsewhere. And we're tired of living in two rooms separated by a communal corridor. Six months rent would wipe out a lot of our savings. When G called to relay the news to me I was in Debenhams shopping for desperately-needed winter wear, but put all the clothes in my arms back on the racks (this was despite their storewide 25%-off sale). We were both mentally recalculating our plans for the near future, partly because G won't get paid until the 20th of December.

Needless to say, when I dropped into the rental agency to say we'd go with the six months option, I was short with them (when I really wanted to dramatically throw a cup of steaming coffee at Chris, the smarmy 19 year-old). Anyhow, he said he'd pass our details onto the landlord who would contact us directly to arrange the lease signing etc. So we never have to deal with him again! Double hurrah!

When our new landlady called G this arvy, he suggested that perhaps we could pay only three months up front...? Luckily for us, she agreed! Triple hurrah! So that's taken the pressure off things, and we were both able to relax somewhat tonight, instead of stressing about money.

Aside from housing issues, over the past week I've been hitting the job hunting path hard. It's a hideous process. How do you encapsulate your skills and experience into a handy 200-word summary, particularly when you don't have skills and experience that neatly fall into a pre-defined category? I've applied for jobs that I know I can do, but proving this in my application is hard. I can only hope my skills of persuasive writing are still working.

I hope everyone's holding up under the "rain" of terror (ha ha!) that Brisbane's been subjected to recently. It puts our 3 degrees (not including wind chill!) to shame.

Much love

2008-11-17T16:03:00.012Z

Hello all, it's G here. We've been out shopping (again!) and back home a bit earlier than usual. I must say that the novelty of the big red Number 26 double decker bus into the city has worn off almost completely. Hopefully, we'll get word soon about the house we've applied to rent and then we'll be a lot closer into the city (and catch the Number 26 from the other direction). Actually, our new place, if we get it, is only about a 20min walk to work in Princes St so I think I'll be doing that mostly.
On a side note, only one more day of freedom until I'm back at work, although I shouldn't complain too much as I haven't worked since the beginning of July. It'll be good to have the moula rolling in again.

Yesterday, Kitty and I forswore (if that's the word I want) bus travel and decided to walk to the Holyrood park. It was only about 7 degrees but very calm and sunny so was really delightful. For much of the way, we walked along a delightful little stream with the not so delightful name of Figate Burn. It looked very clean and healthy apart from being the final resting place of quite a few bricks and bottles and assorted rubbish. But clean rubbish.

I really wanted to have a good look at Duddingston Loch which is in the southeast area of the park. We elected to walk to the south and west of the loch, which seemed to be the most scenic route from looking at our map, however it turned out that our view was mostly blocked by trees and then by a very long high stonewall. We saw a squirrel, though.
The wall was actually one of two that border a disused railway line, now a cycle path, called the Innocent railway. It was called this because the trains were initially horse drawn, in an 'innocent' age, when it was thought that steam engines were dangerous.
It's quite a long isolated path and as we seemed to be the only people on it for some time, Kitty was continuously looking behind us for potential muggers or other people of ill intent.
We made it to the park unscathed, however, and were amazed by the number of people crawling like ants up the hills and along the cliffs. Also some people in shorts and t-shirts doing sprints up a hill. Nutbags.

We eventually had lunch outside the Scottish parliament and then went to an exhibtion next door called Our Dynamic Earth, where we got to go in a time machine (elevator) to just before the big bang and then be flown in a spaceship (walk) through a series of rooms about the geology, climate, biodiversity etc of the earth (including an entirely plastic and animatronic rainforest). At the end of the exhibition, we went on a time trip to the future (this time more like a movie theatre rather than an elevator), which we got to democatically choose along with everyone else in the time machine with 2 voting buttons on our chairs. I found the options for the potential futures to therefore be annoyingly dualistic. After leaving the time machine, one walks straight into the gift shop where, strangely enough, I immediately started looking for the didgeridoos. Obviously, I've been to too many theme parks/museums in Australia.
Overall the exhibition was kind of fun, but probably not 9 pounds worth of fun.

We ended up getting a bus home as we were sick of walking by then. For dinner, we thought it would be a great idea to get fish and chips. A lot of great ideas are not so great in hindsight, and this was one of them. Greasy battered haddock and moist chips did not an enjoyable meal make and neither of us finished more than half of our portions before binning them.

On a brighter note, we've bought tickets to see Jarvis Cocker in concert next Friday. Woohoo!!
Also, I'm not ashamed to say that I'm a big fan of the Proclaimers, and a musical based on their music, 'Sunshine on Leith', will be playing here shortly and we are (I am) revved up about going. Seeing the musical will, I think, almost be as good as seeing Craigie and Charlie in concert. Given that my two music based goals for living in the UK are to see Jarvis Cocker and the Proclaimers in concert, I'm over the moon about how quickly things are moving. (On a side note, we've been to Leith and it seems like a dump. Maybe it's nicer in summer)

That's about all from me.
Bye for now.
G.

Brush with fame!

2008-11-15T10:03:00.002Z

C here, y'all.

Yesterday we went to Rosslyn Chapel, made famous in The Da Vinci Code as the final resting place of Mary Magdalene, the Holy Grail (spoiler for that one person out there who hasn't read the book or seen the film). It is a very pretty chapel, but there is a canopy built over it to keep out the rain and snow, which really mars the visual impact of the exterior. The chapel inside is very ornate, with carvings crammed onto every possible surface. You could spend a month inside the chapel and still find new things to look at. We got a tour, and the guide seemed a bit reluctant to mention the DVC, even though most of the people wouldn't have been there if it hadn't been for the book. The conservation fund is working to restore the chapel, which is admirable, but they're also putting in a conference centre, restaurant, discovery centre and viewing platform with the money raised, so as to "enhance" the tourist experience. Hmmm.

For me, sadly, one of the more thrilling discoveries at Rosslyn was made while looking at the visitor book. I turned back through the pages to see if any Australians had visited recently, and noted that visiting the previous day was The Hon. Mark Vaile former Deputy PM of Australia. Seriously, that's how he signed his name. Unless he was there on official duty, which I doubt, it really smacks of desperation to do that. But, I noted down his address and will send a letter advising him not to do that in future.

G made an important purchase yesterday of a winter coat and some gloves. It's been a long time coming, but he bit the bullet and bought a schmick black coat from River Island (which he kept calling River Island Naturist Park for some reason). The salesgirl was very friendly, but asked the inevitable question "Why on earth did you move to Edinburgh?" (This question is usually followed by "And why did you swap the lovely Australian summer for our horrid winter?") Today we're going shopping for more clothes, specifically work gear for G, as he starts on Wednesday (at the civilised time of 9.30).

Had more sagas with the rental agent over our application. Suffice to say, we heard from him that we had failed the credit check because our previous addresses were all Australian as were our bank account details, which means tht no one who moves to the UK from a foreign country could ever rent somewhere to live. He insisted that any foreign person they deal with at their company either pays six months rent up front or finds a UK citizen to act as guarantor for them. We both found this hard to believe. G contacted the credit check company directly and was told that, no, we haven't actually failed the credit check as they still hadn't contacted our previous landlord in Brisbane for a reference. G called back to tell this to the real estate agent, who then tried to claim he knew all along that the credit check company was still waiting to make their decision. Hmmm, not sure I believe him on that. Anyhow, we're still hopeful of getting this place to rent, and hopefully will found out something soon!

Much love

Touristing

2008-11-13T18:56:00.007Z

Hello, C. here.

Today, we played the roles of tourists. G's likely to start work on Wednesday next week, so we're going to knock over a few tourist destinations before then. Unfortunately, most of these are located in the Old Town, around the Royal Mile...which means walking downhill, only to have to climb up again. We were both pooped by 4pm, when we were heading back to the bus stop to head to Sainsbury's. Pathetic? Maybe, but then you aren't sleeping in our incredibly uncomfortable, small bed. Yeah.

Anyhow, we went to the Queen's Gallery, and happened to be there on the first day of a new exhibition of Italian Baroque paintings. They were really impressive, and you could stand literally 2mm from the paintings (or closer, if you want your eyeball to touch the canvas). The talent of the painters was remarkable and unmistakeable, and we were both really affected by how realistic they were. I was quite excited to be so close to a Caravaggio. Not sure why exactly, but yeah.

After the gallery, we popped over to Holyrood Palace, which was right next door. This is the Queen's official residence in Scotland, and only one of three such residences she has. Building started in the early 1100s, and Charles II and Mary Queen of Scots lived there, among other monarchs. We saw Mary's quarters, including the room in which she was dining when her husband burst in with some flunkeys, dragged the Italian ambassador away and stabbed him 56 times (and we also saw the spot on which his body was left including, I swear, the blood stains!). The highlight was undoubtedly a miniature portrait of Charles II, around which Mary had embroidered a decorative border in her own hair. I guess during the long winter nights you made your own entertainment.

I'll end this post with a photo of a menu item we could have chosen today for lunch, but did not.

Things

2008-11-12T22:42:00.001Z

It’s G here. C pointed out that it’s our blog and not just her blog so I’m taking a turn. It’s been a bit warmer here today, maybe around 8, and quite calm unlike the last few days so seemed comparatively balmy. I still need to get an overcoat and gloves, but having some difficulty in forking out 170 pounds for a coat, which seems to be what I’ll be needing to pay for anything decent (i.e. it’ll keep me warm). Obviously, I’ve assimilated the stereotypical Scottish thriftiness quite quickly. No doubt the dropping temperatures will force the issue.

Things: I landed a job today with the TrainLine (hooray) although I’m a bit apprehensive now as I’ve just read C’s previous post about what she’ll do when I get a job. Hopefully, it won’t rage too out of control. The office is right in the middle of Edinburgh with views of the castle, which is nice, and is about 25 min walk to our place that we have applied for (fingers crossed we’ll get it).

The girl from the agency through whom I found the job asked me if I was having any trouble understanding Scottish accents and I replied, ‘Not really’, and added that we got a reasonable amount of British shows on TV in Australia so we were used to all sorts of British accents. She, and her colleague, looked at me as I if I had said I enjoyed wallpapering fish. I don’t really know why what I said could have produced that reaction, but the meaning of communication is the response you get so I guess there was a glitch somewhere. Further to this, when I got a call from her to let me know that I had the job, she said that she would shout me lunch. I light heartedly responded with, “Ooh, I hope it’s somewhere nice like McDonalds or Burger King”, to which the slightly shocked and earnest response was, “Oh no! It’ll be fine dining.” Maybe my delivery is off….
Speaking of off things, when we were doing the rounds of the op shops in Portobello looking for 2nd hand coats, C accidently stepped in something unmentionable. Let’s just say the dog sitting at the entrance to the florist we had just passed was looking guilty but somehow subtly triumphant. As a consequence, only I went into the last op shop on the way, C considerately not wanting to contaminate a heated and closed up room. No good on the clothes front, but I overheard an interesting snippet of conversation from the two ladies who worked there.
“Hae yea nor tried Guinness, then?”
“Aye, I hae tried it. Ah don’ laike the tairste but ut’s fool o’ vitamins soo ah drunk ut wharle ah wass preegnunt”
(Apologies for this poor attempt at a phonetic representation of an Edinburgian accent (Edinburgh-ite? Edinburgher? What do you call someone from Edinburgh, anyway?))

Speaking (writing) of accents, I caught a cab the other day after a job interview out in the sticks, and when I jumped in the car, the cabbie said something like “Weerdablochnaeglochennow?” (or similar). I sat thinking furiously for a few seconds trying to translate what he had just said into ‘Strine, after which, watching me blinking and staring, he felt prompted to helpfully add, “Gillblanegoonoddabumudlee?”. I made a cognitive leap and said, “Livingston North train station”, which seemed to satisfy him and that’s where we ended up so I’m guessing I leapt in the right direction. We ended up overcoming our communication problems sufficiently during the journey for him to learn where I was from and, like a lot of locals we have spoken to, express disbelief that we had chosen to leave an Australian summer to come to a Scottish winter. I don’t think that they realise what a sticky, debilitating and overpowering heat is a part of a Brisbane summer. Things are always greener.

Tomorrow we are planning on going to Holyrood castle and abbey ruins. I found out today that “rood” means cross, which has cleared things up greatly. I still think “Holyrood” sounds like some sort of sacred object, the absolute rudest possible, worshipped by a devoted bunch of really rude people.

That’s about all for the moment, however, I’ve just realised that I haven’t talked much about C in this entry so I think I should mention that she is, of course, as always, quite wonderful and the best companion I could have on this adventure.
Bye for now,

First priorities

2008-11-12T10:17:00.006Z

G made the point yesterday that it's a stressful thing to move to a new country. Concurrently, you are moving house, finding a new place to live, working out which are the good areas of town, finding work, opening new bank accounts, registering for the equivalent of tax file numbers, navigating different protocols for various things, and generally just figuring out what on earth is going on.

Doing any one of these things is a handful; doing all of them at the same time is madness. It's probably good that we didn't think too long and hard about this before we left. Of course, we realised that we'd have to be doing all of these things, and we didn't assume that things would fall blithely into place without any hassles. However, I don't think that we should have thought too hard about all this otherwise the instinct to take the path of least resistance might have kicked in, and we might have stayed. It's only been a week, but we don't have any regrets so far (this might change once the cold weather kicks in).

The good news is that G has a third interview for a job today, and according to the HR rep this one is more-or-less a formality before he's offered the job. We can only hope! We put in an application for a place to rent yesterday, so having one of us employed would certainly smooth things over in that regard. I don't want to write too much about the place we applied for, because I don't want to jinx things....hopefully there will be more to come shortly.

So, on to the title of this post - our (or probably my) priorities. I am sick already of all the clothes that I brought. The suitcase looked big when it was empty, but it feels like I have about three outfits now, and I'm tired of all of them. Pleased as I am with my 3.25 pound op shop coat, I don't really want to build of wardrobe of second hand clothing. So, for me, a priority is getting more clothes! There are plenty of shops here, almost, it seems, more than back in Brisbane. And I love winter clothing, so it seems to be perfect, really. The minute that G hears about a successful job offer, I'm hitting the shops to buy up big!

Some interesting observations:

Scottish people love their gambling. It seems that there are two or three betting agencies on each street, and there are many, many different ones to choose from (including, inevitably, one called "McBet"). Bingo halls are also popular, but one must be a member in order to play. There are also various small private casinos, which is bizarre for someone from a city with only one, giant casino.
You can't move without coming across Australians, which is almost disappointing - weren't we supposed to be the only Australians in Edinburgh? We went to a tiny cafe in the outskirts of Edinburgh, and were served by a bloke with a broad Aussie accent. We also came across a Brisbanite in the local pub, who greeted us with "Team Brisbane!" when we went back there yesterday. As G observed, when you meet someone in Australia, the first question is usually "What do you do?" When you meet a fellow Aussie over here, you ask instead "Where are you from?"
They slug renters a lot more here than in Australia. We had to pay a 175 pound application and credit check fee when we applied for this place, which is non-refundable regardless of whether you are successful or not. Plus, each property is charged a monthly Council Tax, for things like rubbish removal, road upkeep etc - essentially council rates. However, WE have to pay this fee, not the landlord, which is a bit rough. Ads for rental places do not include this in the monthly rent, so you have to ask what the council charge is - luckily our current landlords alerted us to this, or else we would have had no idea about this when the first bill arrived.

Anyhow, better go...

Much love

Hello again

2008-11-10T20:57:00.002Z

Hi there, it's C here.

I had thought I was over my jetlag, but I collapsed in a heap at 8.00 last night, and then of course woke up really early this morning. So far, it's 9pm and I'm doing okay. G seems to be over his pretty well by now, so that's good for him.

Over the past few days, we've been trying to find somewhere to live. This has involved taking buses back and forth across the city, and luckily the bus network is pretty comprehensive. The bus company that we use has a cheap all-day ticket which we are glad to take advantage of, and it's pretty exciting to sit on the top level of the bus (though not so fun trying to climb down the stairs while the bus is moving).

It's been a bit tricky to work out where to live, as we don't know the city at all. We caught the bus out to the west area on Saturday and liked the look of it. An estate agent we talked to said that, yes, the west is the good area of town. Our current landlord said that it would be pretty clear when we entered a dodgy part of the city, and that's proven correct too so far. On Saturday afternoon we went to look at a house in a not-so good area, and the agent was kind enough to drive us to look at another house, and then dropped us in town. He also gave tips about areas to look at, including the advice to avoid the suburb of "Niddrie", which sounds dodgy anyway.

This agent also explained the reasons for the high level of road works on at the moment. Apparently last year the city council wanted to introduce a congestion tax like the one in London. They put this to the popular vote, and it was soundly trounced at the polls because most people weren't keen on paying 6 pounds each time they drove into the city. The council was none too pleased about this defeat, so they gave blanket approval to every application for road works they had received. As a consequence, there are 392 different construction sites on Edinburgh's road network, so I hope the council is happy with their success.

Anyhow, back to our house hunting: we saw two nice properties today, but one had a tiny kitchen, while the other was too expensive. We have our fingers crossed for another one tomorrow, but we shall see. We have another week here at our self-catering flat, though the lack of connecting door between the bedroom and the kitchen is wearing a bit thin. I don't think we will feel properly settled in Edinburgh until we find a place to rent and call our own (and we have Maxi with us).

In other news, G had a job interview today, and then has a second for the same job tomorrow at 1pm. I waited at Starbucks with coffee as it was rather cold outside. The heating must be broken at Starbucks, as I had to put my coat on. Today has probably been the coldest day so far, with bone-chilling wind and a sharp rain in the afternoon. It's going to take a bit to get used to the early nights, because it is dark at 5pm yet feels much later.

We found a public swimming pool (and Turkish baths) about two minutes walk from our place, so we had a swim on Sunday. It was a novel experience being in the 'fast' lane, though to be honest no one else was in it for half the time. Saturday afternoon was spent exploring the Royal Mile, which seems to consist mainly of ghost tours, Loch Ness Monster tours, and shops selling traditional Scottish fare such as kilts, bagpipes and tartan cigarette lighters. We scoured these stores for the tartan of most interest to us (you know the one...), but only located a family crest in one shop. At the top of the Royal Mile near the castle was a tartan mill museum, so we popped inside expecting more luck. There was none to be had - we asked a shop assistant whether they had any of this tartan and she said that it "wasn't very popular." They clearly don't appreciate quality. She brought up a picture of the tartan on a computer with a small blurb about the family history, and offered to print it out for five pounds (we declined). We assume that they would make up a kilt in the tartan if we ordered it, but if they charge five quid for a piece of paper I shudder to think of the price of a whole outfit.

G has yet to get a proper coat, but considering today's brutal weather it won't be long until that situation is rectified. I shall also get a proper coat (that is a bit more stylish than my current 3 pound coat, though it is a pretty warm jacket), and some winter boots.

Not much else going on, as we spend a lot of our time poring over maps of Edinburgh and the bus route to find the next rental property to view. Hopefully we'll have some good news to report soon.

Much love

The Journey: Pt 2

2008-11-06T05:56:00.003Z

Hello again.

So, after being met by Megan at Heathrow, we caught the Heathrow Connect to Paddington Station. It was rather surreal to be on the train, which was above-ground, because it illuminated the fact that we were actually in a foreign country now. Spending 25 hours on a plane doesn't necessarily make you feel that you've actually gone anywhere, but travelling through the suburbs of London brought home the reality of the change that we've made to our lives. Catching a black London cab from Paddington to Megan and Brett's home made the experience even more exciting. Unfortunately, though not surprisingly - it was about 4.30 by the time we got in the cab - the traffic was pretty heavy, although we travelled past some landmarks, like 22b Baker Street...and I'm sure there were others too.

Anyway, it was a relief to make our way up to Megan and Brett's sixth-floor loft, which has a sloping ceiling and a view across to the financial district, including the Gherkin. A shower never feels better than one had after a long plane journey. I had to down three cups of coffee in about fifteen minutes (not an exaggeration!) to stay awake, while G had a cup of tea. To pass the time before we were due to meet Michelle at a nearby restaurant, Megan introduced us to some wonderful British TV, including the afore-mentioned "Golden Balls" and a Japanese obstacle course show, much like the stupid "Wipeout" that was on Australian television.

It was lovely to see Michelle again, and G & I were given a belated wedding present from the three of them - tickets to a West End show, overnight accommodation in a hotel, and breakfast the next morning, to be taken at a time of our choosing! We're looking forward to the experience.

The jetlag had the effect of making everything anyone said seem really hilarious, which probably just made me seem drunk. The dinner was great, although neither of us were that hungry, and the high cost of eating out in London became clear when the bill arrived. Luckily, the wait staff had failed to factor in the half-price deal that the restaurant had on that night, so it wasn't quite as expensive as it first appeared (but still expensive). Plus, we received free drinks because our meals were late, so all up it was a good dinner.

We were so glad to get to bed and slept immediately, but woke up around 4-ish. We both read for a while, then G went back to sleep while I finished my book. G woke up again around 7am, and we ate breakfast (vegemite on toast - like we never left!) with Brett when he got up. We left the flat at about 8.30, and Brett escorted us to Old Street tube station and made sure we got on the right train. It was only two stops to Kings Cross station, but struggling through the crowds as we made our way to the long-distance trains was not fun. Picking up our tickets was so easy, and because we'd booked on the internet (yay internet!) we were able to skip the long queue of people purchasing their tickets there and then. We had quite a thrill when we looked at the departures board and saw we were on The Flying Scotsman up to Edinburgh. The train was relatively empty (though we still had an encounter with a Mr Grumpy, who ruined the start of the journey), and we both had window seats across a table from each other.

The trip up to Edinburgh was just lovely, and I'd recommend this to anyone travelling between London and Edinburgh. We passed so many iconic British scenes, including canals with barges, white sheep with black feet and faces, actual scarecrows in fields, swans, typical English houses, and rolling green fields. It was just wonderful to see. The train stopped at a number of stations, including Peterborough, York, Newcastle (with the train crossing the Tyne on a spectacularly high bridge), and Darlington. At one point, about an hour before we arrived in Edinburgh, I looked to the right and saw the sea! That was unexpected, and such stunning scenery.

Arriving in Edinburgh, it was cold, but not as cold as we had expected. We caught a cab to our accommodation (we were never going to make the bus, as our landlady had suggested), and had a chat to the cabbie. He was very friendly, but essentially said we were idiots who hadn't thought through our plan to move overseas. So that was a bit of a downer. Our rooms, though, are quite good and our hosts very nice. We have a bedroom with ensuite and a kitchen, and unfortunately they decided last year to try to sell the house and so blocked off the door that was between the two. This means that we have to go out into the communal corridor to get from one room to the other and unlocking the doors, which is a bit of a pain, but nevermind.

We unpacked our suitcases and then went for a wander down the main street of Portabello. The beach at Portabello is a real beach, with actual sand instead of pebbles, but it's still hard to imagine wanting to take a dip in the waters. We bought ingredients from a convenience store (called Kost Konscious, clearly competing with Cost Cutters) for a pasta meal, and some Irn Bru, which is actually pronounced "Iron Bru". After a quick dinner, we went to bed quite early again.

Unfortunately, this meant that G woke up at around 3.30, and me an hour later. We got up at about 5-ish and watched tv, which was wall-to-wall coverage of Obama's victory. Stirring stuff.

Yesterday was spent exploring Princes Street to find a suit for G to wear at his job interviews today. It was starting to drizzle, too, and the rain felt like ice. (We're definitely getting warmer jackets, but will probably get them from a charity shop until we decide (and can afford) to get nicer ones.) G finally found a good suit, and had the trousers taken up. I bought a hat, which made such a difference, and also an umbrella. The highlight of the day, however, was definitely going into McDonald's to see if they had Irn Bru on tap, and they do!

We went back home, after getting some groceries from Morrisons, and then had a nap. We were woken by the sound of intermittent explosions, and remembered that it was Guy Fawkes day! Hurrying outside (it was cold!), we tried to follow the traces of fireworks in the sky, but didn't seem to be getting any closer to them. We ended up heading to the beach, and sure enough, there were a number of bonfires dotted along the shore. People were setting of fireworks, which seemed quite dangerous, and we saw at least one firework backfire. It was pretty special, seeing people celebrating Bonfire Night, and we tried to take photos and video the events.

Anyhow, better go as this is a long post. More tomorrow!

Much love

The Journey: Pt 1

2008-11-04T16:57:00.004Z

C here.

I'm writing this from our self-catered flat in Edinburgh, watching a game show called "Golden Balls". Yes, it is as intriguing as its title suggests. We arrived here about three hours ago, and drinking hot, caffeinated drinks to fight against the jet-lagged.

The excitement of our overseas odyssey came before we'd even left Brisbane. I went through the security check ahead of G, and after walking through the x-ray thingamy, two security guards whisked me away to a booth for a random sample check and body search. Unfortunately, G didn't see this happen as his backpack had to go through the x-ray machine twice for some reason, and therefore assumed I'd gone through the passport check without him. My sample check (all clear for drugs and explosive residue) and body search (more intimate than your usual pat down) took about five minutes, and when I emerged he was already at the desk having his passport examined. The problem was that G had my passport while I had both our boarding passes, so neither of us could get through customs without the other. I had to skip the queue, which probably annoyed everyone else, but who cares?

The flight from Australia was long, but okay. It left Brisbane at 11.45pm, which I'd hoped would help encourage the sleep, but no luck. G managed to snooze for a while, and I watched several movies. At Singapore, we had a three hour break, and luckily G had enough Singaporean coins left over from his last trip to Germany to buy two bottles of water. Our seats for the flight to Heathrow, which were exactly the same as those on the first leg, were the aisle and middle seat of a three-seater by the window. After we got settled, the window seat in our row continued to remain unoccupied and we became rather excited with the prospect of having three seats to ourselves. Then we noticed that about eight whole rows in our section were empty, and kept our fingers crossed that there wasn't a last-minute influx of passengers. When the plane began reversing away from the gate, we gave a silent cheer, as the idea of comfortable sleep on the plane became a reality. After the first meal was served, I popped a sleeping pill. G wasn't feeling tired, so he moved to the empty row behind ours, while I lay down across our three seats and managed, for the first time ever, to sleep on a plane. Hooray! Later on, G found an empty three-seater on the other side of the plane and slept too.

For some reason, our flight was half an hour early landing at Heathrow, and we were vaguely concerned that we might miss Megan. However, we needn't have worried because border control was soooo busy. I went through the UK passport lane, whereas G had to go through the slower "all other countries" queue, which took about fifteen minutes longer. After he got cleared to enter the country, the passport man told him he could have come through with me, as my spouse. That's good to know for future reference! We must have been some of the last people through, as there were only about ten pieces of luggage left on the carousel, and no one else waiting. I was paranoid that someone had nicked our suitcases because we were late, but thankfully they were still there. We loaded up our trolley, walked through the exit gates, and spotted Megan waiting for us. Yay!

Anyway, that's the first part of the trip from Brisbane to Edinburgh, more to follow...

Much love

Auf Wiedersehen!

2008-11-02T10:08:00.001Z

So. This is it.

We're leaving for the airpor in one hour. We have managed to pack our lives, for the next two years, into two suitcases, a backpack and a carry-on bag. And a ball of white fluff, who is currently pulling his cousin around by the ear, oblivious to the exciting journey he'll be taking in a few weeks.

Many people have asked me over the past week if I'd packed yet. I know some people like to take their time packing, but both of us prefer to leave it to the day and then cram everything into the suitcase at once. When you're a hoarder like me, who keeps everything on the off-chance they might come in handy one day, the more time left for packing provides more opportunities to convince yourself that, yes, you will need that decorative pen from Employee Services at your old job. And the pair of pink socks with flowers. And the brown burberry scarf, despite having packed five scarves already. Therefore, leaving everything to the last minute helps to avoid arriving at your destination unable to find a pair of clean undies, yet having that brown jumper that you haven't worn in years but brought just in case this trip provokes the desire to wear it.

We dropped Max off at H's, his home for the next few weeks. It was a lump-in-the-throat moment, yet the emotional parting that I'd envisioned was destroyed by Max's discovery of some rawhide. He gave a brief "Yeah, bye" over his shoulder as we left, and pranced off into the shadows. Oh well, can't have it all.

See you on the other side of the planet.

Much love

Farewell..?

2008-10-31T06:11:00.002Z

The problem with having to postpone travel plans at the very last minute means that people change their plans too. When we were due to leave on 20 September, we had arranged to have farewell drinks with friends the night before, a Friday, and had a fair number of people signed up for the occasion. However, due to certain visa issues (not enough time or space to go into them here, and this is also intended to be a profanity-free blog), we were forced to cancel our flights the night before, at around the same time we were scheduled to begin receiving free drinks from friends keen to give us a proper send off.

When the visa came through last Friday (or rather, when G. heard last Friday that his visa had been approved the week before), we hastily rebooked flights for this Sunday, and rescheduled farewell drinks for tonight. This gave people only one week's notice, and many of them already had, understandably, other plans in place for tonight. For this reason, we will have a total of seven confirmed attendees tonight, and another two "maybes", depending on when their first function finishes.

While this situation could be interpreted as us not having many friends, and people not being bothered to get out and see us one last time, I choose to believe that those not in attendance are too utterly devastated by our imminent departure that they prefer to sit alone in their darkened bedrooms, where better to drown their sorrows in a heady mix of alcoholic drinks. It is Halloween, after all.

Besides, as G keeps reminding me, it's the quality people - T&S, E&T, P&G and A - who are showing up tonight and one should always go for quality over quantity. Plus I have a cracker of a headache at the moment, and therefore probably won't be up for anything too exciting anyway.

The upshot is, of course, that we're going to miss the friends left behind, but with the internet being the way it is these days, and with exciting things like Skype and VOIP (not that I understand them, but I know what they are), keeping in touch is just so easy.

Much love

Countdown: six days to go!

2008-10-26T23:14:00.003Z

The title says it all.

We spent yesterday morning going through the paperwork that we had put off going through while moving out of our house. By lunchtime we had run out of steam, and then C went shopping to buy travel stuff (a pillow for the plane! luggage lock!) while G stayed at home and read. So today is more of the paperwork fun. Yay.

C looked at online train tickets from London to Edinburgh yesterday - they are 105 pounds if bought at the station, and 40 pounds if bought in advance online. The train journey is only four and a half hours, and leaves every half an hour from Kings Cross. Pretty good, really.

Max is currently asleep in an office chair in the study while C writes this entry, and snoring loudly. The world keeps on turning.

Finally it's happenin' to us!

2008-10-24T06:57:00.004+01:00

WOOT!!

Today, G found out the fabulous news that his visa has been approved!! Instant celebrations followed, including C screeching "Oh my GOD!" at the top of her voice.

We're trying to not let our euphoria be tainted by the fact that the visa was approved last week and they didn't contact G at all because they never bothered to update his contact details as requested, and that as a result his passport has been sitting in a post office back room since Tuesday. Let's focus on the good instead!

So, flights have been booked for Sunday, 2 November, and research shall be done into accommodation in Edinburgh and snow apparel for dogs. We have nine days before we go, and much to do!

Much love

The first post

2008-08-13T10:33:00.000+01:00

Hello hello!

Well, you're early reading this, as our adventures haven't begun yet. But hopefully you'll come back next month when we post from exciting places!

Much love.