IT's been a while

since I posted.. we've both been insanely busy, and life has sped right up.

Mainly because we're heading back to Melbourne. In last than a week. We went to the Thames Festival on Sunday, as one last Hurrah to london (following a night of drunken debauchaery in Watford, but anyway)

So, it's all a little bittersweet. I'm very upset to be leaving this job, and leaving London, but there's alot to look forward too as well.

See you all very soon! 3 days in New York, 1 in LA, then a few days in Brisbane with Kaz, before feet down on the 29th in Melbourne !

Dear Athens, learn to drive.

Recently, we went to Athens for a few days, and chose to, for something different, do one of those 24hour hop-on/off tours. Not the red bus, our choice was about €3 each cheaper. High stakes !

To Athens, we go.

The sun was calling, so to Athens, we went. We'd been to a few of the Greek islands last year already, and this was an opportunity to go to the mainland.
So, after booking up a hotel for €80 for 3 nights, and about £300 for flights, we were good to go.

Morphing Rhiannon

This came from Edinburgh. You sit in a machine, and take a photo, and it morphs you.

Paddling in Snowdonia !!

more stories!

More stories coming soon. We're currently in Liverpool, and over the past 8 (?) days, we've either stopped in, or passed through, the following places:

Stonehenge, Avebury, Salisbury, Exeter, Bournemouth, Tintagel, Clovelly, Ludlow, Shrewsbury, Llandudno, Betws-y-coed, chester, conwy, liverpool, and upcoming is Blackpool, & stratford-upon-avon

we'll also upload some photos tonight hopefully (since this is the first place with [free] wifi)

More of Exeter, then to tintagel !

- lots of breakfast. out to shops. underground passages. very cool. tried not to get red on light grey jumper / cardigan. had to almost crawl for one part. interesting. easter eggs. hit head several times - hard had good, but yucky. hear traffic up on street. people hid in during air raids.
- drove to tintagel. awesome castle hotel called camelot. amazing round table. cornwall is the most beautiful part of england. very farm-y. amazing coastline. cliffs. beautiful weather. amazing staircase. gorgeous place to stay. sea view room. very comfy bed.
- walk round tintagel castle. ruins. steep. over to island with more of castle. up for views over cliffs. down to merlin's cave. waterfall.
- back to hotel for welcome drink. rose and cab sav. took our free cheeses with us. went well together. sat outside on side of castle watching sun setting.
- into town for pub dinner. local ales and rattler cider. deep fried brie. chicken leek and bacon pie with mash and peas. just what I specifically said I wanted when walking out to dinner. burger and fries - actually cooked properly and crisp. lots of sauces. mousse more like ganache.
- sat at round table to look at photos. cool elevator with metal door.

Beach with Sand !!

Today, we discovered a beach, with Sand. In the United Kingdom! That's right ! They aren't all pebbles.

Oooh, a shiney car !!!

It's been almost a year since I last got to drive a car. So today, we picked up a VW Polo from Wembley. It felt a bit odd, but at least it was on the right side.

We've always agreed that, as much as possible, we would avoid motorways and definitely tollroads - we want the picturesque pretty English drive. Turns out it didn't work as well in this regard as it did in Italy. But anyway, onward and westward.

Sad.

All of our thoughts are with those at home in Wagga just now.

BHP

BHP is one of the biggest companies in the world. Their helpdesk is currently outsourced to IBM, and run by about 5 or 6 guys in India. It seems this is upsetting the high level staff that work in the London office.

It was time

to pull the plug, and let the waters drain away from our trip to Bath. But we still had half a day or so, and some things to see.

From modern, to Ancient...

This relates to our second day in Bath, where, pleasingly, the weather cleaned up a little bit.
Today was also actually the day we went up the Abbey tower, despite my writing about it in an earlier post.

The Lengthening Shadow

Or shortening, I'm not sure? Anyway. It seems the longer days are almost here again.

For Whom the Bell Tolls...

The bell (at least, the bell in the Abbey tower in Bath) is tolled by me. That's right. I'm the one who rang the bells in the abbey at random times, and not on the hour.

But it's ok, I was allowed, it was part of the tour.

Cambridge Photos!

I told you I might.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/47930781@N03/tags/cambridge/show/

New photos

It's actually been ages since I've posted. However, in that time, we've been to Bath, Oxford and Cambridge.

You can see some photos of Bath here. I'll put up some of Oxford and Cambridge tonight.

I should mention, we're also planning our 11 day driving extravaganza, including a stay at Tintagel (the area reputed to be where Camelot, and Merlin's cave, are)

So stay tuned. I might even write about Bath, Cambridge and Oxford !!

Here's a photo to whet your appetite:

Am I just being massaged?

The other week, my boss pulled me outside and discussed a few things with me. This came after a team meeting the day before, and a chat i'd had with HR before that. Essentially he told me he was working me towards managed services - more server side than desktop side. Great, I thought.

Ruby Blue

Apparently rubies are blue. This came about because at th end of last year, we splashed out £30 on a Taste Card. The Taste card gets us 50% off or 2-4-1 offers at a huge number of restaurants around London and, we believe, other places in te UK. We'll test this in Bath.

Bath !

We don't have one of these in our apartment. So we're off to Bath for the weekend. Of course, that doesn't guarantee we'll have a bath in our hotel room. However, some of the Hilton rooms do have baths, so we've asked if we can have one of those. We may strike out.

New Years in London

So, I'm getting old, stodgy and boring. I tend to find places with loud music a little uncomfortable, because I can't distinguish properly between the background noise, and conversation.
Crowds also piss me off. And we were both unwell