The Gallery

OK so it's been a long time (yes - I'm late Felicity!). Rather than create screeds of words about what we've been up to we've decided to tell our story in pictures. All taken on my new phone the Sony Ericsson W900i - brilliant phone that you can also use as an MP3 player - who needs an ipod! Check it out by clicking here



Ok - first pics are of the car...now have my company car and am driving a dark grey BMW 320i - 6 speed manual - everything else is automatic. Exceptionally nice to drive!

First drive was to Winchester just south of here. I mentioned this in the last blog but thought I would now add photos. The cathedral and then one of me and my buddy from work, Amr, he's just arrived from Egypt.

Amazing cathedral and I suggest you go back to the previous entry to read allll about it.

Hmmm..next...spring. Spring has well and truly sprung! The snow drops were first, the daffodils have been and gone, the white blossom has blossomed and green leaves are appearing and the pink blossom and bluebells are out in force. The trees now all have a green tinge to them, the weather is starting to really warm up (there is a proliferation of white british legs and arms making their first appearance - in fact it was 250 on Friday). The ducklings have appeared in the lake inside our campus - one mother has 14 of them! and they are so cute!

It's also light until well after 9pm already and with six weeks to go until the longest day - i think it will be a loooong day by then! Our garden is really starting to come alive but we've been told, it will be at it's best in the middle of summer - yay!

Just compare the photo of our house to the one on the day we moved in! We've even had to mow the lawns for the first time.

We also have a few photos of the daffs around the lanes of our village. The photos don't actually do it justice - there was mile after mile of daffodils on the sides of the road on the way into work in the morning - beautiful!

And this last little one is the sole daffodil in our garden. We watched it's progress for weeks and were so glad when it finally burst into flower - spring at last!

I went on a workshop a few weeks ago on an organic farm - and they had all these chicks...sad to think what will become of them!

Just before Easter Yaman, a buddy from NZ work who was over here for a few weeks working, joined us for a Sunday drive into the Coltswolds - to a small village called Eastclech Martin. It was recommended to us by someone at work who said the daffodils looked amazing at this time of year - they weren't wrong. Although apprently, two weeks later was even better!

The village was lovely and sat in a small valley with a stream running through it. It was sunny when we first arrived but, of course, we went to the pub first for lunch and by the time we went for a walk around it weas raining! No worries though - still looked amazing!

...I guess that means we're on to our Easter roadtrip!

We had the most brilliant holiday in the Lake District and Chester. The Lake District was truly beautiful (a lot like Queenstown!!!), the people were friendly and it's the best place we've visited so far. We stayed in a lovely B&B in Windermere, had fantastic food in Bowness, saw amazing scenery all over and spent many hours looking through Beatrix Potter's House and gardens at Hill Top Farm - brilliant!

It was quite funny - the English have a fascination with traffic and the best way to get somewhere. When we mentioned we were off to the Lake District, there was much discussion of the best route and time to leave.

" you should take the A3069 until you come to the road on the left by the holly hedge with the white blossom next to it, then travel 600 yards until you come to the Pheasant and Mushy Peas Pub, take a right and then travel on the B4076 for 10 miles....'. We just said we were going to take the M6 (the motorway that goes right up the centre of the country)....imagine this in an English accent...'Aaaahhhhsssss...(lots of sucking in air through the teeth), traffic will be HORRIFIC....best leave at 6.30am'. This was followed by much discussion of the best time to leave...the earliest suggestion was 'just after 4am'!.

In the end we left just after 7am and here's the traffic about 10am...

Hardly cause for alarm! Admittedly we did hit a bit of traffic shortly after this but nothing you wouldn't see on the north western in rush hour and it only lasted for about five miles. A very pleasant trip up!

Please also note small brown bear in the windscreen! Bridge won this in a competition at work. They were asking for a name for the bear (it came with a HUGE chocolate egg). Let us introduce you to Coco. He joined us for the entire trip!

Our first stop on arriving in Windermere was the World of Beatrix Potter attraction. It's funny, Bridge loves anything to do with Beatrix Potter and each time I come to London I buy something for her from the Beatrix Potter shop in Covent Garden. When we booked our trip to the Lake District we had no idea it was the home of Beatrix Potter. It wasn't until a day or so before that we found out that we could go and visit her house. Anyway, this attraction was in Windermere rather than her home but it was quite amazing. A small video to start with and then a wander through a larger than life recreation of her world down to the smallest detail - her stories came to life! We took a

few photos so here goes!

see...told you there were a lot of photos!

Next day we went to Hilltop Farm were Beatrix Potter spent most of her life and where we want to live for the rest of ours (well...here and Queenstown!). We couldn't take photos inside the house but they had her books all laid out and the illustrations exactly match her house...it was brilliant!

We then drove around the lake and saw some beautiful countryside. We stayed for another couple of days and then it was off to Chester. Jane & Mike lived there some time ago, Bridge visited there when she first came to the UK and loved it so thought it would be good to see it again.

We managed to find Jane's house, knocked on the door and asked if we could take a photo. The village was very built up compared to last time Bridge was there but the house (and the pub across the street) remained.

OK -I'm going to publish now coz this has been sitting here in draft for 2 weeks. promise I will keep updating as still have heaps of photos