Welcome back to another long awaited update in the world of Kathleen and Keith.  I’ve changed the format a bit, due to time constraints.  Text at the top, pictures at the end.  Works better for me, and I hope you enjoy clicking through the pictures (click to select, then click to enlarge).

We just took out last road trip before our flight back to Australia (if you don’t include us taking our cat to the pet export company for her flight home).  Originally we were planning on a few days worth of travelling back up into the depths of Scotland, but we realised that wasn’t financially possible, so we went for something smaller, a weekender trip, comprised of three destinations.

The first location we drove to was in the Lakes district, the world of Beatrix Potter.  Now, we can already hear some of you saying ‘Beatrix Potter?! Didn’t she do children’s books? Won’t that be for kids?!’

Well, not entirely so.  Considering the books have been around for 100 years, it caters for the Adults who grew up with the books, which were introduced to them by their parents, and have since introduced their children to the stories.  One day we hope to be counted as one of those (the parents introducing the stories to their children, just in case I need to clarify for anyone).   Since we were still in the country, we made the effort to check this out for ourselves, and for some friends of ours.

After checking out the Potter attraction, we had a bit of a drive ahead of us (the use of ‘us’ is purely because there are two of us in the car.  ‘I’ had a bit of a drive ahead of me, Kathleen had a bit of a nap ahead of her) for the next destination.  About 3 hours of drive from the lakes saw us arriving at the famous Rosslyn Chapel.

This has been a place Kathleen has been wanting to see for years, and especially since we were in the country, and Kathleen is a fan of ‘The Da Vinci Code’ (though it should be noted Kathleen wanted to see this long before the book).

Right now, I will say that ’The Da Vinci Code’ is a work of FICTION, using real-world references! No-one should ever believe that there is any relation to Christ within, or has been within, the chapel.  There is no secret cellar with manuscripts depicting the lineage of Christ, and there is NO star of David above the stairwell going down to the lower basement.  Hollywood put a plaque of the star there for the movie, and once removed, has left a circular mark on the wood, which the people there call ‘The mark of Hollywood’.  Its all taken with humour, because since the release of the book and movie, the popularity of the place exploded, bringing in much needed money to restore the ancient chapel.

Before the book, the Chapel was known for its amazing stone work, especially the pillars (which the movie sort of misses altogether, for some reason).  Almost every stone surface has intricate carvings, depicting various early christian beliefs.

To say the least, its quite a place to see, and definitely worthwhile if anyone has the chance.  Though you will have to excuse the scaffolding around the building and the tin roof over it.  Its been there for almost 20 years now, in an effort to dry out the stone.  Since some botched preservation work involving coating all the stone in a concrete caused the sandstone to hold all water in itself, the chapel was almost lost as the water started to cause the stone to crumble.  The Tin roof keeps most rain off, and the chapel is showing signs that it is drying out.  With the money that the Da Vinci code has created, there are plans to put central heating in, not for the worshippers, but to dry the chapel out even more. I wish we had more photos of the place, but photography wasn’t allowed inside (but we did buy the CD of photos at the gift shop).  For a quick look, check out http://www.rosslynchapel.org.uk/. We will be more than happy to show our friends the photos when we get home.

On the Sunday we took a little drive down to the town of Bath, to check out the Roman baths.  Its amazing to think these were only discovered because someone complained to their landlord that warm water was seeping into their basement.  If you want a more historical info, feel free to look it up, as its quite good.  The whole place is set up to allow visitors to wander around the site (within reason, of course), with audio tours for adults and children (which I thought was a great idea).  They also have two or so people who dress in period clothing, I’m sure for photographic purposes (Though they have a great sense of humour, as I heard one of them say when a camera failed to take a photo ‘The mystic box has fallen asleep’).

Squizz the photos at the end, peoples.

I apologise if you were expecting a greater narrative, but we are quite busy with getting our house packed for the eventual fly home.  Not long now (or according to Kathleen “49 days and counting”).

Love you all, and talk again soon,

Kathleen and Keith

It has been a while since the last entry (excuse me while I remove the dust and cobwebs).

We finally got to do the touristy thing in London!

Considering how much time I have available for writing this, I will let the photos do most of the talking (picture = 1000 words, therefore = normal length blog).

Highlights of the trip was seeing the following:

- ”Joseph and the Technicolour Dream coat” at the Adelphi Theatre, in the West End (Kathleens Highlight)

  Keith was worried our seats would have a poor view of the stage, and there would be no leg room, but it proved quite excellent.

The star of the Show, Lee Mead

 Go, go, go Joseph…

- Trafalgar Square

 Nelsons you-know-what…

- 221B Baker st (Keith’s Highlight, and If you don’t know its significance, I roll my eyes at you)

An Elderly Gentleman actually lives here, and keeps his apartment how it would have looked in the books. How amazing is that?!

 Madame Tussauds handywork

 One Hot looking Watson

- Harrods (the bank card got a bit warm there)

- Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre

 All the stage is a world

- The Tate Modern art Museum

- Tower of London

not very towering, but still nice

- Buckingham Palace

There was something going on inside, so no Busbies today

 The Fountain out front

And odds and ends, stuff that you have to see while you are in London

 Westminster Abbey

We got frowned at by one of the Priests for sneaking out of a prayer session (Yes, yes, we already know we’re going somewhere warm).

Did you know they have muffled the bell, due to complaints

 An area of London. Doesn’t beat Wonglepong, but its up there…

We must have sat for half an hour waiting to see whether the Liner was going to come through.  It didn’t.

Thats one big ferris wheel.

This sphinx has holes in it where shrapnel hit it during WW2 (thats definitely one life of nine gone).

Cleopatra’s needle, actually brought over from Egypt, since no-one wanted it as the time.

City Limit markers, where London city use to end (or start).

To commemorate our arrival, they named a street after Kathleen.

I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with T…

Thats right, “TOURIST”.

 This one is for you, Jan.

  Gorgeous Green Park near the palace.

 The weather was a bit on the grey side, but didn’t drench us too much. Only sore points were our feet due to all the walking.

Our flight home was delayed too, to the point where the plane had to line up (literally) with the International flights to take off on one of the international runways.

For all you that have given up on seeing the end of our previous trip (eg. France), I will try to finish it off.

Till next time (when-ever that will be), Love you all,

Kathleen and Keith 

Wow.  Has it really been October since we last wrote something here?  Our apologies to all you who have been regulars to this website, and are suffering from dust mite bites as the cobwebs were building around here.

We will finish writing about our French trip (still have two days to go), but in the meantime, we wanted to talk about our most recent Christmas excursion.  We will warn you now, past blog entries are like short post-it notes compared to this entry.  If you haven’t got much time on your hands, print this, and take with you for some bedtime reading.  We ensure the soundest sleep you will ever get.

For all that we had managed to talk to over the phone during the few months before December, you were given a little white lie, being told that we had plans to enjoy a week in the Lake district for our Christmas.

The truth was we had planned to travel a little further than that, and make a surprise return home.

After returning from Paris, with its wonderful clear blue skies and warm temperatures, we both got extremely homesick.  The Sunday after we arrived back, we were sitting in one of the local restaurants after going to the gym, and both expressed our want to go back home.  Keith, being the level head when it comes to all things financial, up till now has always said that we couldn’t do it; it would cost too much, and be too much of a strain on the wallet.  But the desire to see family and friends got the better of him, and he agreed to us looking into flying back to Brisbane.

Kathleen, being one to never let a golden opportunity pass, jumped on that, and the next day was doing circuits of the Manchester travel agents, pitting them against each other, to see which would give her the best deal.

We ended up getting for the both of us return flights to Brisbane on Emirates airlines for an excellent price, which we were able to pay off over the months leading to the trip.  The price was enough to prevent us doing any sort of major travel during that time, but not enough to prevent us from paying for essentials like rent, food, and the occasional dinner/movie outing.

The biggest problem we had with this trip was that we wanted it to be a surprise, so we couldn’t tell anyone the truth about what we were doing.  We made sure we had a planned out story to tell all who asked, but it wasn’t easy.  Keith, being a bit of a goodie two shoes sometimes, did find it a bit troublesome telling his folks the little white lies, but took one for the team.

Though, as the departure date loomed closer, we realised we were going to have to tell someone that we were coming.  The reasons were that, we were going to be extremely jet-lagged when we arrived, and would need someone to be there to help us out; we needed to drive a lot while we were back home, and why pay for a rental car if we had our own car; and lastly, we wanted to visit friends up north in Rockhampton, and couldn’t just appear on their doorstep.  So, after much consideration, we decided we had to tell our Friends in Rocky, so they would be prepared for the visit.  We also felt that it was best to let our great friend Nic should know as well.   Nic along with his lovely wife, Jo, has been too kind in looking after Keith’s car during our time in the UK. Since they had the car, Nic got shortlisted as the prime candidate for being the secret keeper.

We’d like to say top marks to Nic for keeping quiet about all of this.  Not even Jo knew we were coming, only thinking that a parcel was coming from us (a small deception, which we’re sure Jo forgave us for).

The Flight over wasn’t as bad as what we remembered flying over to the UK (probably because we stayed with a single airline this time, instead of changing partway), with us only making two stops, in Dubai, and in Bangkok.

Dubai is quite an impressive sight.  To sum it up in a very simple way, if you grabbed the CBD of any major city, Skyscrapers and all, plonk it down in the middle of a desert next to the sea, and you get Dubai.  Unfortunately, Its got a small pollution problem, something we could see as we landed, and they are also rather lax in their smoking policies, as we had to walk through areas of thick cigarette smoke in sections of the Dubai Emirates Terminal.  The Terminal was going through some construction work, so when we got off the plane, we were transported in buses for almost 20 minutes, passing the entire terminal to the other end, only to be informed that we had to get back to the gate at the other end of the terminal, in order to get on our plane.  Once we did get to the gate, we were then put on buses, and taken to our plane, THE PLANE THAT HAPPENED TO BE PARKED NEXT TO THE ONE WE JUST GOT OFF! 

 We understand they have to do that sort of thing for security reasons, though it did make Keith laugh in disbelief as we pulled up at the plane.

The combination of the pollution and the cigarette smoke played havoc with Kathleen’s Asthma, and didn’t help Keith out much either.  While we would have loved to have more time to explore Dubai, we were rather happy to get out of there.

 Our other plane

 Edge of Dubai

Our stop at Bangkok was just a fuel-up and staff transfer, but still we had to get off the plane for about 30 minutes.  Since it was so short a time, we couldn’t go anywhere other than to make a quick pit-stop, and then get back on.

We’d like to take this opportunity to comment on Emirates as an Airline.  We were told by a good Friend of ours that we shouldn’t fly with them, and to roughly quote her “We should give our luggage a hug, take pictures, then grow cold and distant with them, as when Emirates gets a hold of the bags, you will never see them again”.  While we truly respect her opinion, we had already booked it, and felt we could at least be prepared for the lost of our luggage.  Thankfully, Emirates didn’t lose our luggage for the trip over.

Another plus for Emirates was the seating.  Keith was extremely pleased with them as there was legroom, enough for his long legs.  Also each seat had a entertainment unit built into the headrest, so you can watch movies or play games on it.  Depending on the age of the plane, you can have the option of watching from a set of movies playing automatically, or, if its a younger plane, you can choose what you want to watch, when you want.

The service was quite good too, with the Hosts giving us meals almost every 4 hours.  You never go hungry on one of these flights.  Though I could say the hosts could be a little bit more friendly and understanding.  Considering we are on a plane for up to 8 hours at a time, I would have thought they would understand that we would be rather thirsty quite regularly, as the air in the plane can dry you out.  It started getting to a point where I think the Hosts were getting tired of us asking for drinks.  Perhaps they had the mindset that we were in cattle-class so we shouldn’t be pushing for too much, we should be happy with what we get.  Not saying they were rude or anything, but I could tell they weren’t exactly pleased to cater to our wants.

 Sunrise over Australia

 Over QLD somewhere

We finally arrived in Brisbane at about 6:30 in the Friday morning.  Prior to the flight, we had organised with Nic to pick us up from the Airport (Which we were extremely grateful for), from which we would head to Nic and Jo’s home, to surprise Jo.  Jo was at the time waiting at home, expecting a courier to deliver ’our package’, while thinking Nic had just gone to work early.  How surprised she was to have him come back home, with us in tow.

In fact, we have some Piccies of how surprised she was.

 Surprise!

  hehehe

Another great thing about us coming back to Brisbane was that we finally got to meet David, Nic and Jo’s baby boy, who was born early February while we were in the UK.  Please find attached some pics of us getting acquainted.

  Keith with Davie

 Keith playing with David

We did have plans to go visit Keith’s Mum and Dad shortly after Lunchtime, and then have a get together with some of our close friends in the evening. Unfortunately, our friends weren’t able to come, mainly due to the fact they can get rather busy, and thought it was just a gathering to collect presents from us, and didn’t know we would be there.  That was no matter, for Jet-lag decided to kick in, and we crashed until about 5pm.  By Nic was back from having a half day at work, and was able to drive us over to Keith’s Mum and Dad’s place.  Now, Nic had given Mum the red herring of they were coming round to give them some gifts we had put in the fictitious package.  When we arrived at Mum and Dads, Keith’s Mum and sister Michelle (who was over at the time) was more interested in seeing little David, and came out to the car to see him.  It couldn’t have worked better, as when Mum looked through the window to see Davie, she saw us both as well, smiling and waving.  We surprised both Mum and Mish so much, they were almost in tears.

We went inside, getting to shock Keith’s Dad(Kathleen says she’s never seen Keith’s Dad look so confused), and Mum rang Keith’s sister and Brother to come over, so we could surprise them too. Claire, we would agree, was the best, doing a classic double-take when seeing us, and almost knocking over a glass cabinet, jumping up and down with surprise.  Vince was more subdued, having sort of sussed that we might have been there.

After having a quick catchup with everyone, we had to head back to Nic and Jo’s place, so we could get a good nights sleep.

Saturday, we did a bit of driving around, checking out old haunts, and marvelling at how much some areas of Brisbane had changed (the work on the bypass tunnels was spectacular).  We also dropped by the Taekwondo grading, and caught up with some old friends. It was so good to see them all, and made us determined to start going again when we finally came back to Australia. 

We also had to do a bit of hunting for some decent Sunglasses for Kathleen, having misplaced hers somewhere between back in the UK, and arriving in Brisbane (Don’t worry, people, it turns out the Sunglasses were accidentally left behind in the UK, under a chair in our study where we packed).  After finding a pair that worked, we headed to Kathleen’s Mum’s place to surprise her.  On our way we stopped at Gympie to pick up two crabs and a whole lot of prawns have with Kathleen’s Mum for Dinner.

It was quite dark by the time we got to Kathleen’s Mum’s place, which is a bit of a blessing it help in concealing our arrival.  Kathleen’s Mum saw the car pull up outside, but because it was dark, thought it was the Avon lady dropping around.  While Keith parked the car and started unpacking the car, Kathleen snuck up to the front door and surprise her Mum.  Keith could hear her exclamation from the road!

Once unpacked, we all enjoyed the prawns and crab for dinner, got to talk about everything that’s been happening, and once it was quite late, when off to bed.

On the Sunday, we had to head up north to see Keith’s old friend, Jason, and his family.  We didn’t get away until just before Midday, leaving us with a good 5 hours of driving.  It was so good to see the Queensland countryside, even more so as it had just been raining after a very long drought, and everything was looking so green.  On the way we made a few stops, one being at Mamminos Macadamia Ice-cream, who make quite a wonderful range, our favourite being the Jaffa flavoured ice-cream.  YUM.

We arrived at the Bell’s place just before 6pm.  They were expecting us, so no surprise here (we didn’t want to risk us travelling all that way for them not to be at home).  The last time we had been able to see the Bells was Keith’s School reunion, and Jason and Chrissy had only one little baby girl, Laura.  That was quite a while ago, Laura being a good 3 years old, and now there was another, Little Katelyn, who came into the scene early January after we arrived in the UK.

We had such a wonderful time with Jason and Chrissy, having fun with the girls, catching up, and playing pool.

On the Monday,  after spending the morning enjoying Jason’s company and raiding his computer of stuff, we headed over to see Kathleen’s friends, Sandra and Theo, who lived over in Emu park.  On our way we took the time to take some pictures of a Crocodile farm, just for Kathleen’s UK school kids (considering the worst they usually get to see is Badgers).

Sandra and Theo also knew we were coming, for the same reason we told Jason and Chrissy.  It was a lot of fun seeing Sandra and Theo, and like everyone else, we so look forward to seeing everyone again when we finally get back to Brisbane.

 Local croc farm

We travelled back to Brisbane on the Tuesday, stopping off at Mamminos, Kathleen’s Mum again, and Mon Repos Turtle Rookery out near Bundaberg.  It was a long trip, with us arriving back at Nic and Jo’s after dark. 

We finally got to surprise the rest of our friends, Marshall and Alison, and Nicole and Stuart, mainly through subterfuge, and downright lies about reasons for visits.  Thanks again Nic for your help.  We still can’t get over the look on Stuarts face (I do believe its the first time he has been speechless).

The rest of our time back home was spent travelling around, revisiting places we use to haunt, and seeing old friends and family.  We regularly visited the lovely Pizza and pasta restaurant, Tomato Brothers, getting re-acquainted with the Owner/chef and his delightful wares.

Another place we planned to visit while back in Brisbane was the Old Church up on Mount Tambourine, where we plan on being married. We had plans to travelled up with Nic and Jo, but due to a bit of mucking around on our part, we had to arrange to meet them up there.  All was well, we had a great picnic lunch near Para-glider takeoff, and then checked out the Church.

It was as beautiful as we remember it, though Keith thinks that we may have to invest in some mosquito coils, depending on how wet it has been over the time before the wedding.

Please find attached some piccies of the church and reception.

 The front of the church

 out the side

 Inside the reception

After the Church we stopped at the Polish Place B&B, so enjoy a couple of their wonderful Polish Hot Chocolates, and feed sugar to the local Rosellas.  We had so much fun with these little birds last time we stayed at the B&B, they just can’t get enough of sugar, honey, or anything sweet.  We know its not a good thing to encourage them to have the sugar, but considering there had been a drought over the past 6 years, we didn’t think it would hurt too much.

 The Polish place

 One of the birds

 SUGAR!

 Wadayoulookinat?

 I shall call him… MINI-ME.

Another rather memorable experience we had was taking Keith’s Niece, Lc, with us to visit Maria.  Maria is in charge of the reptile section of the Stafford Pet superstore, not purely for her friendly temperament, but also for her extensive experience with a wide range of reptiles, most of which she owns.

We were invited around to Maria’s place to see her vast collection of snakes and lizards, after giving her a thank-you gift for being the Saviour of our friends who are currently looking after Kathleen’s snakes. 

We all had quite a lot of fun, Lc included.  Please find attached some piccies. (for those with weak constitutions, just quickly scroll to the next part).

 Nice, slithery

  Lc playing with the snake

 How cute

  Lc with a lizard

We also took Lc to Wet and Wild world, in which we all had a lot of fun too.  Writing all this, Keith has realised he has two, soon to be three, other niece and nephews to take to the various theme parks.  Hmmm.  Lets hope we win the lottery or something

We had a wonderful Christmas, having Breakfast over at Nic and Jo’s (nice crispy bacon), Lunch at Mum and Dads with the family, and then Dinner at Kathleen’s Aunts place, with Kathleen’s relatives.  We had a wonderful time, despite all the driving around.

Speaking of driving, Keith was debating on putting together a map of where we had been during this time, and realised, you all would be asleep by now after going through this thesis.  Overall we must have travelled over 3000 km.  To say the least, when we arrived in Brisbane, Keith was really looking forward to driving his car, when we left, the novelty had worn off.

The flight back was fine, though Keith suffered from some severe pains in his knees, and it didn’t help that he wasn’t able to get up regularly to stretch his legs. It took almost 4 days for it to pass, making stairs a real pain literally.

 Pic flying back

 another shot

More recent events, Kathleen is loving her new job as a Teaching Assistant, and with Australia day, Kathleen thought it would be great to do something Aussie-ish, so we decided to make Lamingtons.  By the way, all Aussies know Australia day is on the 26th, and this year we had the holiday on the 28th.  Try telling everyone here that, when all their calenders tell them Australia Day is the 28th.

No matter.

Now, making Lamingtons over in Australia is easy with some very easy choices, either buy the Lamingtons outright, that way you know it will be right first time, or you can grab a plain sponge cake, slice it up, choc coat it, cover in coconut sprinkles and hey presto, LAMINGTONS.

Over here, no Lamingtons to buy.  Ok, go to plan b.  Hmmm, they don’t sell plain Sponge cakes.  Hmmm, the only choice we have is Sponge cake mix.  Goodie.

So, Keith took the time to bake the sponge cake, and after a fair amount of trial and error, we managed to create a whole batch of Lamingtons.  We think we did alright.  We were so proud of our creations, here’s the pictures.

 Our lamingtons. You can see our learning process, from the dodgy to the almost acceptable.

 The pick of the litter

An another note, we had some late cold snaps here recently, causing some hail and snow to fall in the area.  We woke the other morning to find the cars covered in the stuff.

 Chilly

 Snow or small hail?

We would like you all to know that the Daffodils are starting to flower, looking very lovely, and Fred and Jo (the local swans) are nesting.  We think we will call the newbies Bob.

We shall end with letting everyone know that we have already booked our flights back home for good, and so look forward to seeing you all again.

This Christmas Trip definitely felt too short, and we hope to spend more time with everyone once we are back.

Until next time, Loving yous all,

Kathleen and Keith

 We know we’ve been away from here for a little while, and we will pick up where we left off shortly.  We’ve got some great (and we mean GREAT) blog entries to post, so you should hear from us again soon.

In the meantime, we wanted to share with you our wonderful encounter with one of the most inspiring people in the world.

Kathleen discovered in one of the local papers that Sir David Attenborough was signing books at the WHSmith Bookstore at the Trafford Centre, so we HAD to go.

Since Kathleen finished up work earlier than Keith, She went in there to line up, and it was a good thing too, because there ended up being hundreds there by the time Keith arrived.

Sir David, was scheduled to sign between 6:30pm and 7:30pm, but one of his homies must have seen the line up and asked him to start a little earlier, because he actually started at 6pm.  Thank goodness, because it took us almost an hour to get to him, and he was still going by 8pm, when we had to leave. You’ve got to hand it to the man, Keith would of started suffering from RSI by then.

To add to the joy of the moment, we discovered a day later that Keith (along with dozens of others) got snapped by a local paper.  Subconsciously, Kathleen must have known it was going to happen, because she had wandered off (to stretch her legs, supposedly), so she didn’t get in the photo.  Please find attached the photo and article.

  Where’s Wally?

If we haven’t already sent a larger copy to you, let us know.  Please find below our own photos of Sir David.

 Sir David from afar

 We need a better digital camera

Anyway, we will be back soon with all our past adventures (after we blow the dust off them) very shortly.

Love you all,

Kathleen and Keith

 We were able to pick up a nice museum pass which allowed us into quite a number of art galleries and museums, as long as it was within two consecutive days.  So we choose which ones we wanted to try and see within those two days, had breakfast, and headed out.
Considering how many museums, art galleries, and general places to look at stuff, that were in Paris, we knew there was no way in a very warm place that we were going to see every single museum, art gallery, and place to look at stuff.  So, we had to be selective in where we were to go.  Thankfully, we only had a select number of places that we actually wanted to go see, so we were able to work it out well.  The first place we had to go see (Kathleen wanting to go there since she was knee high to a grasshopper) was the Louvre.

 An arch along the boulevardes of Paris

 detail of the Arch

The Louvre is bloody big.  It has four levels of artworks, sculptures, and pretty stuff to look at.  It has been said that if you were to walk through every room and look at every piece on display, it would take you well over a month.  A century or so ago it was actually bigger, being joined on to a palace.  Then one point a group of unhappy people (unhappy as in rebellious, and people as in Paris), burnt the palace down.  Thankfully, the whole place didn’t go up, and now the Louvre has a lovely view of the gardens of the Tuileries.
Since we weren’t going to be here for over a month, we wouldn’t be able to see everything, but luckily, we only had a select number of things we wanted to see.  The first of those being the Mona Lisa.
The Mona Lisa needs no introduction, everyone knows it, and everyone was there to see it.  It took us almost an hour to get even close to the painting, waiting for the crowds to gradually flow through.  I had my fill of the crowd about 15 minutes in, and ducked out to look at the outer wall paintings of the room, while Kathleen braved the crowd to get right up close.
After the Lady with the cheeky smirk, getting to the other exhibits we wanted to see was a piece of cake.  The only thing we had to watch out for was the little guide-women with little wands for pointing, and their guide-groups.  Some were quite rude to anyone that didn’t get out of their way. Personally, I wanted to tell them where they could stick their wands, but to keep good French-Aussie relations, I bit my tongue.  Besides, there was enough room for all of us.

 The other exhibits we aimed to see were the Madonna of the Rocks, Victory of Samothrace (sometimes known as the Winged Victory), and the Venus de Milo.  Winged Victory is easy to find, being at the top of the main stairs into the Denon wing, the Madonna of the Rocks is on a wall just outside of the Salle des Etats, the room housing the Mona Lisa. The Venus de Milo, on the other hand, requires us to pass through a reasonable part of the Louvre in order to see it.  Not a big hassle, as we were there to see the art anyway.  After seeing the armless lady, we wandered through the french area, and then we headed out, choosing to go via the inverted pyramid.  If you believe the ‘Da Vinci Code’, Mary Magdalene is currently buried there, though the Priory has probably moved her again by now.
While you all try to figure out where they could have hidden her, have a look at our pictures.

 The glass Pyramid of the Louvre

 Closer

 One of the small Pyramids

 The Louvre

 The buses actually drive through there

 The Arch that use to have a palace behind it

 Statue outside the Louvre

 The girl with the grin

 Maddy that rocks

 One part of the Louvre’s roof

 another part of the roof

 Nice

 Winged Victory

 from the front

 Venus de Milo (gotta be made of…)

 The Denon wing floor near the Mona Lisa

 Just for all you “Da Vinci code’ buffs

 Kathleen insisted

 The inverted Pyramid

 The baby pyramid

 wasn’t sure if I should have knelt or not.

The next location on our list for today was the Musee de l’Orangerie. Its located at the end of the gardens that the Louvre overlooks.   While having a range of artworks on display, L’orangerie is world re-known for its collection of Monet’s works.  Kathleen is a huge fan of Monet, and has always wanted to come here. The works that L’orangerie was designed for specifically was his grand continuous painting, ‘Nymphéas’.  Its basically two paintings of a 360 degree view of the famous, beautiful, lilly-filled pond/lake.  By building L’Orangerie, with its two oval rooms on the top floor, Monet’s paintings would be displayed as he intended.  I should note that when he first presented ‘Nymphéas’, a lot of critics didn’t like it.  Personally, I don’t know what they were on about.  I think its nice.

 One of the curved walls showing ‘Nymphéas’

 another

 Its such a calming picture

 Sort of reminds me of when I don’t wear my glasses

 Round and round she goes

 One of the long sides

 it would be nice to have a room like this.

 Outside the L’orangerie

 A bust

After that, we were starting to run out of day, so we thought we end the day with a climb up the Arc de Triomphe.  I didn’t actually know you could climb up the thing, until we saw people on top of it.  Thankfully, our wonderful little museum pass allowed us up there as well, so up we climbed.  Because of the design of Paris, a good number of streets star out from the Arc, so you get some lovely views (and you get to watch the chaos of the roundabout).
While we were there, they must have had some sort of ceremony, because there were quite a number of fully kitted up soldiers, and some rather older looking ones, doing something at the Paris grave of the unknown soldier.

 Some of the views from the Arc

 Towards the centre of Paris

 more of the road

 Pretty

 Some of the names remembered on the Arc

 lest we forget

 Some of the detail on the Arc

 Some more

 quite impressive

 Quite a lot of detail

 You don’t realise how detailed it is

 until you try to picture it all

 some of the boys in green (Kathleen wanted to get a picture from the front, but was concerned she might get arrested)

 The eternal flame

 The grave of the Unknown Soldier

 The shield at the foot of the grave

 The grave

By now, it was getting a bit late, and we were hungry.  Kathleen thought it would be nice to go back up to to the Place de Tertre, and check out the various cafes and restaurants available there.  We got up there by a small road train (similar to the ones you see at carnivals giving children rides), which also gives you a brief tour guide of the local area.  If I thought driving in a car through the streets was fun, I thought differently after this train.  Not that the driver drove erratically or anything like that, he was quite good.  Just bouncing along the cobbled roads with just a rope between you and said cobbled roads, made me a little nervous.  Anyway, we made it alive, and found a nice restaurant.  I should mention that France only had restrictions on smoking in public buildings and structures, while they are more than welcome to smoke in public, restaurants and cafes.  This was a bit of a worry for us, not being too fond of smoking.  It was rather hard to find restaurants that didn’t have smoking, and unfortunately, this one was no different. We did get to enjoy a nice plate of snails and pasta, while being entertained by a wacky accordion player, before we had to quickly end our meal, or else succumb to cigarette smoke.  Despite the smoking, we really enjoyed our dinner, mainly because of our entertainment.  We told him we were Australian, and he automatically broke into a tune of Waltzing Matilda.  Never thought something so stereotypical could be so fun.

  The windmill with the lights on

 The little train

 He was fantastic

I should add that, while the french are a lovely people, they don’t seem very fond of the English (probably due to historical reasons, I don’t know).  Once we assured them that we were Australia, (whom they absolutely LOVE), we got on swell.

Well, that pretty well wraps up this day.  Until next time, with more Museums and art.
Love you all, really, really miss you,

Kathleen and Keith

The first great news is Kathleen has accepted a job as a Senior Nursery Nurse/Room Manager.  I think last time we mentioned Kathleen’s job searching, she was waiting, with reducing patience, for a reply from a nursery. The other Wednesday, Kathleen went to an interview for another child care centre, and they were very impressed with her, so much so, they offered her a job the next day.  So happens, the other centre decided to offer Kathleen a job as well within an hour of the other offer.  When it rains, it pours.  After much thought, and getting to know her possible workmates at the new centre, Kathleen ended up accepting the job for the centre that was capable of quick decisions (they also increased her pay to make the job more appealing).

Keith’s work broke up on the Friday, with a nice company party at a restaurant-nightclub in Manchester called Tiger-Tiger.  The place is divided up into a bar, restaurant and two very loud nightclubs upstairs.  The Party constituted dinner in the restaurant, with going upstairs to to the top nightclub later.

Dinner was very nice, though probably would have been nicer, unfortunately some of the younger staff members were late, meaning we had to skip having our selection from the entree menu. This normally wouldn’t have been a problem, but the table was booked for a later group, and we would still have to pay for everything.   Lets just say Andy wasn’t too happy about that, especially since he and Isabelle had to have a ‘discussion’ with the manager over whether or not they still had to pay for the entre. They managed to get some discount in the end.   Apart from that, we enjoyed ourselves, and got to have some very interesting conversations with the company’s business advisor, Dan.  

 Dan is a very well cultured man who is very much at home advising companies with multi-billion dollar/euro/whatever budgets, like say BMW, and travels all over the world regularly.  Why would such a man bother with our small business?  He says its not that different, only the number of zeros on the finance sheets.   I have a lot of respect for the man, and think he’s going to be a huge help in guiding the companies development.

After dinner, we moved onto the nightclub.  I wasn’t sure it was possible to have so much bass, but I was proved wrong, as the place was pumping with heart stopping, organ liquifying noise which I’m sure the youngsters enjoyed, but most of us oldies got tired of quickly.  We left the younguns to their ‘disco music’ and retired for the night.

 Christmas day saw us calling Kathleen’s Mum when she was getting ready for Midnight mass (so technically it wasn’t Christmas day for us, more eve, but I won’t dwell on it).  Once it was Midnight here, we call Keith’s folks, pre-organised so we could talk to the family as they sat for morning tea/Christmas lunch.  It was so wonderful to talk to everyone.  They loved the gifts we sent.  Unfortunately due to fog, flights were delayed, meaning Kathleen’s Mum’s parcel to us hasn’t arrived yet.  We are really looking forward to it arriving in the next day or two (Its all good, Mum, all the more anticipation).

As we mentioned in the previous post, we were invited over to Andy’s and Isabelle’s place for Christmas Lunch/afternoon tea.  Also invited was friends of Andy’s, who have married and have a wonderful young son and daughter, and a friend of Isabelle, who is a fellow French teacher at Isabelle’s school.  Lunch was excellent, an extensive spread, including Turkey, pigs in a blanket, sausages, potatoes wedges, assorted vegies (including Brussel sprouts, which Kathleen did have a few of,  Yes, mark your calenders, folks), finishing off with a very Brandy soaked Christmas pudding (which Andy lit, I thought he was going to lose an eyebrow, but it all went well), and a Chocolate Roll.

Once well fed, we enjoyed a few drinks, exchanged Christmas Presents (Kathleen and Isa got some wonderful bath beauty products, Andy got a nice pair of (Wallace and) Grommit slippers from us, and Keith got a much apprieciated Jumper) and played party games. The kids got Junior Pictionary, so we had to play that first, and trust me, its not that much easier.  Afterwards, feeling rather tired from the meal, we bid our hosts a Merry Christmas, and headed home.

Boxing Day saw us enjoying a nice relaxing day indoors, watching our present to each other, Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man’s Chest, only being interupted by a leaking heating radiator.  No biggie, minimised the indoor swimming pool, just have to keep an eye on it until the Plumber can have a look at it.

Well, we hope everyone has a great New Year, to which we hope to add another post about.

Till then, have a good one everybody.

Kathleen and Keith

Kathleen tells me the Autumn colours of the trees is very beautiful.  Unfortunately I’ve had to trust her with this one, being partly colourblind.

Thats the best I can do at the moment.  I’m sure we will have more positive things to talk about after our weekend drive around the country (and definitely more things to rant about).

Till then….

PS.   To comment, click the comment link at the bottom of each post.

A quick entry to let you know we haven’t fallen off the end of the world.  We’ve been spending most of this month working hard, many nights overtime, saving up to rent a car for a weekend’s driving trip around the area, including a daytrip to Edinburgh.  We’re hoping we are not being too ambitious, and Keith is hoping the drive won’t be too troublesome (4 hours drive up).  An early start, we predict.

Its gotten rather soggy around the area, rain being the main weather pattern, and the sun only skims the sky, resulting in darkness from about 4 in the afternoon through to 8 in the morning.  We are missing the nice warmth of Queensland at the moment.

We’re also looking forward to recieving our much missed putty Cat, Fe, who should be flying over in Early January.  We hope she doesn’t get too spooked by the whole trip.

With Christmas coming up, the fact we are so far away from all our good friends and family is really sinking home.  We miss everyone a lot.  One plus is we have been invited to join Andy and Isabelle for a christmas dinner they are throwing.

Now Everyone, please give a big warm welcome to the return of the rant section:

Going to see a doctor.  You wouldn’t think it would be too hard now, would you?  Just call up a GP, organise an appointment, and rock on down.  Over here, is it like that? Noooooooo.  You must register first at this particular organisation, get told which Doctors have been allocated to cover your area, and then you can only go to those doctors.  This process of them letting you know which Doctors to go to, so we were told, “would take about a day”. After asking if there was a way of seeing a Doctor sooner, like the same day, the extremely helpful suggestion of  ”you can always go to a hospital” was given.  Of course this organisation couldn’t give us a local hospital, noooo.  We found a local hospital, no thanks to them, and are in the process of registering to find out which doctors we need to see if we have any problems.  It turns out we are now registered with the local medical centre down the road, and have been assigned a doctor.

We’ve also been having a bugger of a time with our cable tv (the TV networks over here have succeeded in ensuring if you want to watch anything good, you have to pay for it).  There is free to air tv, but you still have to pay for a tv license, and the channels are pretty bad.  In regards to our cable, we are always having trouble with it, unable to view the online tv guide, losing channels, or the whole thing going down.  There was always some sort of fault occuring almost every week, sometime twice a week.     They do have a phone number to talk to someone about it, but on average, it takes about 30 minutes of sitting on hold, listening to mind-numbing music, being told constantly that our call is important to them (my a$$).  We’ve called that number so many times I’m sure we could quote it verbatum.  Last night, after the service went down again, we called them up, got the usual 30 minute hold, got the usual “did you turn it off, then turn it on again?”, to which we may have been a bit short to them about, but understandably, we are getting a bit tired of the trouble.   After a good bit of expaining, it turned out that the setup we were getting was meant to be a ‘appetite wettener’, and was supposed to downgrade to a basic setup after a month (something of which we were not told about, possibly in the fine, fine print).   Well, it never changed, and supposingly, that caused some sort of conflict, one part of the system saying we should have our setup, while another part was saying we weren’t.   So in the end, since we liked the channels were were getting, we upgraded, so what we were watching wouldn’t change.  We are hoping this will ensure we don’t get any more problems.  If so, we get someone out to replace the reciever, and if it continues, we axe the service, and join someone else who isn’t so pathetic.

 Ahhh, feeling much better now.  Well vented.

Anyway, would love to hear from all our friends back home is Aussieland, so please leave some comments, even if its just to say hi.  We were a little downheartened when we didn’t recieve anything from anyone, SO COMMENT PEOPLE! pretty please!

Keith’s workmates were talking up the ashes tour prior to the first test.  Funny how quiet they are now.

We will have lots of pictures and details of our road trip around the area, tune in next week (appoximately).

This is Kathleen and Keith, signing off for now.

Ps, I’ll try to avoid doing the history lesson from now on, re post “Remember, remember”, unless, of course, people found my twist on historical event worth the read.

  Just in case you haven’t seen the movie (I wouldn’t be surprised if not), ” Guy Fawkes night” originates from when a group of guys were rather upset with the persecution of English Catholics under the rule of Queen Elizabeth I, and then her son, James the first.  They decided that the best way to show thier displeasure was by blowing up the British Parliament, along with the new King, and many members of the parliament they didn’t like.

  Guy Fawkes was the guy that was given the job of of lighting the fuse on the 36 barrels of gun powder in the parliament cellar.  There is debate on whether he would have succeeded, some saying the gunpowder was way too old, but it definitely didn’t, due to the fact some of the rebellious group got cold feet and blabbed, resulting in Guy’s capture, torture and execution.  Even today, the current Monarchy only goes to the parliament once a year to open it because of the plot, and the cellars are always searched.

Even though, the whole plan struck a cord with English society, and now, to remember the occasion, they all go out, buy lots of fireworks, and set them off on the 5th of November, when the parliament was meant to go sky high.

Now this idea of setting off the fireworks on the day seems to be followed very loosely, because people have been shooting fireworks off for the last 2 weeks.  Imagine the fireworks display for New Years day in Sydney, or the River fire fireworks display in Brisbane, let everyone participate, and I think you will get an idea of how its like.  To say the least, the Fire departments in the country do a little overtime during this time of year.

While watching the entire locality light up with amature fireworks displays is quite enjoyable, we decided to go to an official fireworks display with Andy and his wife, Isabelle, set up at Old Trafford, the Lancashire cricket grounds.  The whole place was setup like a sideshow, or for you Brisbanites, the EKKA.  Very cheesy.  We avoided the temptation of throwing hoops over the poorly constructed fluffy toys, and just stayed for the fireworks display.  It was quite spectacular, all done to various classical music.  No dump and burn though.  Maybe we Aussies still have something to teach these Poms.  Sparkler Bombs anyone?

For all those interested in the upcoming Melbourne cup, Kathleen is tipping TAWQEET to win.  Though Kathleen does feel being on the other side of the world is hampening her ability to give a really accurate prediction.  If anyone wants to tape the race and send it to us, they would have Kathleen’s undying graditude. 

Thats it for this post,  until the next time,

Love, Kathleen and Keith

  Near our place is a lovely canal, which actually supports wildlife like fish and various geese and swans. Also people actually live on the canal in these cute looking boats.

Just to let everyone know we are well, and starting to settle into the English lifestyle.

The flights were long. Kathleen detests transit lounges now. We had no troubles when we arrived in Manchester, dispite all the stuff going on with airport security. I guess it pays to have a british passport or at least residency. My boss, Andy, met us at the airport, and within the hour, we were in an english pub called ‘The Little b’. Hows that for getting into the english swing of things.

We stayed at a nice, little bed and breakfast for the first 7 days. Unfortunately we didn’t have a laundry facilities, so I had to walk 15 minutes down to road to the local laundrette. It really drove Kathleen mad.

During those 7 days we spent a lot of time looking at rental agents, and seeing what properties were available to rent. I had to start work on the monday after we arrived, so Kathleen spent a lot of days phoning around and checking out about 5 rental properties. One had bad carpet, and another required getting a locksmith out to inspect the place, which turned out to be a bachelor pad from hell (think junk everywhere, dirty kitchen, you name it). In the end we got the first place we looked at, which was absolutely wonderful, and its private landlords are a lovely couple. They actually gave us a bottle of wine as a welcoming gift. I almost feel guilty having to ring them with problems. The house is not far from my work (not far being a short walk to the tram, a short tram trip, then another short walk, totalling about 30 minutes). I’ve been told we did really well getting the house where we did, and in such a short period of time. And my Boss lives about 10 minutes down the road. Good or bad, you decide…

Kathleen has found a nice job with one of the Child day care centres here. They are letting her totally re-organise the room she works in, and Kathleen is really happy to be working again (back in her element).

Its taken about 2 weeks to get the services to put on our telephone, TV (you have to pay for a licence to watch tv), and internet. I can’t say they are really efficient either.

Well, thats all I can put in at the moment. To sign off here are some pictures of some of the pets you can get here in the UK. Kathleen has already named the tortoise Harriette. Those turtle freaks among you will know what that means. Oh, and thats a kitty litter tray those snakes are in.

Till next time, which will hopefully have photos of england,

Keith and Kathleen

We hope to post many insights, observations, and adventures while we are in the UK.

At the moment, we are just waiting for the UK services to get round to connecting our internet at home so I don’t have to write this in lunch breaks. I should have the next true post soon.

Until then, we miss everyone in Australia, and hope to chat to all of you soon.

Keith