Ed's first actual blog entry

Hi all,

Well this is my first ever blog entry (all of our blogs so far have been written by Di). I've done something you'd expect from an IT professional, I wrote a massive blog entry and uploaded pictures and all....hit 'save now' which it apparently did, and then modified the html and tried to re-load the blog page..and it all mysteriously disappeared and I lost the lot! Great job Ed!

So now I'm going to summarize the whole blog into a much smaller one. Here's a picture of afternoon tea in a classy hotel (London - The Sheraton) two weeks ago with Tram, Tze-Huei and Linda.



Last weekend we went to Cardiff, capital of south Wales. Linda got a job there as an OT, and was given a hire car (for work) here in London and had to drive herself to Cardiff...so we went with her, and hired our own car to get back. On the way there we went to Windsor Castle, which was pretty awesome. Here are some pics. We have passes that give you unlimited visits for the next year, so Katty/Joey/Loosh/Celz/Grace if you want to we can take you again! (or more specifically Di).






On the way back from Cardiff we hired a car and it was upgraded, and upgraded again to a brand-new C-Series Mercedes Benz!!! So of course Di and I were pretty stoked. All giggly, we jumped inside, cranked the music, wound down the windows and ...ahem... checked the acceleration was working (which it was). Of course the fun faded after Di fell asleep (20 mins into the 5hr journey) and the highway was my lady.

We stopped off at burger king on the way home to have a break after 2hrs of driving. Di decided to stay inside the car (asked me to lock her in) and I went and got the food. Just when I was returning to the car, Di ran up to me frantically. Turns out the alarm had been sounding loudly for ages and she had been searching for me for 5 mins feeling very embarrassed.She needed the keys to turn the alarm off!

Took 2hrs to drive 140 miles to London, and another 3 hrs to drive across London to where we had to drop the car off! Crazy drivers over here, had a few near misses in the suburbia traffic. But thanks to my classy aussie driving skills (and a defensive driving course) I brought home the Mercedes without a scratch.

Both Di and I are well. Di was sick earlier this week and I was sick last week, but finally we're both feeling well. We're having a house warming this coming Monday, since it's a bank holiday. So should have around 10-15 people over from work and around the place.

Missing you all.
Ed

Ramblings

Apologies for the delayed post! It has been about 3 weeks since our last one. We have been really busy and haven't been able to sit down to write a proper entry.

Ed has been quite sick the last couple of weeks due to (we suspect) a chest infection but seeing as we are not registered with any local doctors we don't know for sure. He has been trying to get lots of rest but as usual, I bug him to take me out as I can get bored at home easily and enjoy having people around me. So I guess I have not been the dutiful wife as I'm supposed to be! Although I do let him cough on me from time to time....

He is much better now and actually cooking dinner for me (bless him - they say that alot here) because I've had a horrible day dealing with our landlady. Our washing machine has been broken for 2 weeks now and still someone will not come fix it for another week... it's a big pain because we work everyday and we have been bringing our laundry to Ben's to do. But it reminds me to be grateful that we have a washing machine to access instead of doing handwashing :)

Work has been tiring and today I had 4 deaf children in my class. It was a very interesting experience and has inspired me to do a sign language course perhaps in the summer here. Ed's work has been a bit stressful lately but he hasn't done any overtime as yet. Apparently it will happen soon!

Linda arrived last week and it's been really lovely having family here. We've been taking her out with us and showing her around but haven't really done much touristy stuff as we only have the weekends free. She's moving to Wales this weekend to work and we will drive her there as she's got a work car to do home visits.

Last weekend we had afternoon tea at the Sheraton hotel and it was very good! I highly recommend it. It's different from other places as the food and tea are unlimited and you won't need dinner afterwards as you are completely stuffed!

We are getting used to living here, here are some other things that are different from home...

- People saying 'you orright?' and me replying 'i'm fine how are you?' when in fact it is an acknowledgement and generally means they do not want to start a conversaton.
- watching people strip down to their underwear in public parks at the first sign of sunshine on the weekend.
- drinking huge amounts of tea (coffee for Ed)
- drying our clothes inside and finding that they still aren't dry after 2 days
- finding easy excuses not to exercise due to the terrible weather (it doesn't matter that we have access to a gym and indoor pool!)


I can smell dinner cooking so better end it here. Photos to be uploaded shortly of what we've been up to lately and our recent holiday to Bath and Blenheim Palace with my friend Tram and her fiance Tze-Huei.