By Driper on
Thursday, April 30, 2009
I woke up this morning (Thursday) feeling a little worse for wear as I felt the need to go and have a beverage with Ryan and an old friend of his. They (well we) were drinking the most amazing (translation, disgusting) things ever. Wild Turkey and Ginger, Jack Daniels and Red Bull. Surprisingly they are not as bad as they sound but I fear that given I didn't drink that much they have a more damaging effect on ones feelings the next day than more normal drinks.
The weeks are starting to pass by ever quicker now and I wonder if our 12 months in the UK will be enough (as does Freda). I guess we are close to a quarter through our original estimate for staying here and yet it doesn't feel like it has been that long and we haven't really seen much of the world. It has set in that friends and family are not just a short trip down the road and that is difficult. Freda and I both miss our family and friends. Freda's mum is now only a 45 minute flight away which is lovely for her and for the first time my parents are a world away which does give me a new perspective on how hard it has been for Freda living so far from her family for all these years.
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By Driper on
Saturday, April 25, 2009
I realised today that I have not been updating this anywhere near enough and the point of this was to tell people what I am doing and I haven't really been doing that, I'll get there. Its been a great few weeks. I finally got to stop looking for work. Much to my surprise the contract I picked up thinking it would only be for two months has offered and extension till the end of August which I accepted. This means we have started planning our trip to the Greek Islands and can consider some short trips between now and then which is fantastic. We can finally do what we came here to do. We finally got a real Internet connection which is nice because the speed on my phone meant that updating a web site (this blog) was just painful and that is my excuse for not doing it sooner. I went to buy a small hifi today so that we can have some tunes (TV just isn't loud enough for a party). One of the problems with not having a car means that picking up a hifi (that weights in a 15kg) is somewhat difficult. Anyway, long story short. I spent several hours looking into a cheap small unit that we could use, picked one and bought the next model up (because no one could give me the one I wanted) got it home after a rather long trip with a heavy box and found that it lacks the connection we need for the TV. Bugger, back to the shop for me.
It's been very sunny here for the last few days since the long weekend when it was not very nice. It's been about 20 degrees most days which means that the locals are in shorts and T-shirts. The rest of us can take our jumpers off!
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By Driper on
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
I spent the afternoon prior to there arrival cleaning up our little outdoor area and putting up a clothes line (not that common in the UK). Freda's mum (Val) and aunty (Irene) arrive from Dublin to enjoy the long weekend with us. Val arrives in particularly patriotic attire much to the dismay of Irene. Freda helps them both home with a beverage on the way home (which until a short time ago it was legal to drink on public transport).
We spent most of the weekend wandering from pub to pub which was great. Wandering is probably a bit of a strech, it was a bit more of a pub crawl. The girls had a bit of a shop and we went to Camden markets. Camden markets is a short walk from our place and given how close we are to Deirdre and Ryan we all went. The markets are somewhat like Newtown mixed with Redfern for those from Sydney. After having a bit of a wander around the main section in the market, seeing some vintage clothes and antiques we decided to take the mamas in to see all the rave gear found in Cyber Dog. This is an experience for anyone.
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