Buzz buzz buzz
News really MUST be slow in our lives when I'm reporting this but here we go! We woke on Saturday morning to find swarm of bees creating a nice little house on the tree right outside Karinas window. Looked something like this:
Anyway our hippy eco-friendly (and slightly barmy) landlady decided we should either a) leave it and it will be fine or b) call the humane society for advice. Nothing about killing the little buggers or anything. She seemed surprised that we were concerned and when we mentioned having a 5 month old baby she seemed no more sympathetic, telling us "I had one last year and when we ate on the deck next to it we simply put some bee traps out so they didnt come to close to us". Yeah, like THATS a solution. Earth calling Pam... are there signs of intelligence? I think the bong water went to her head. Tum te tum..... back to work...
YAWN!
Not much happening here! We're not being lazy updaters, its just... well... nothing to report. Its sunny, thats something. And the NFL draft is tomorrow - thats something else. Looks like the Miami Heat are getting a good kicking in the NBA playoffs - but I bet you all knew that anyway, right? Anyway thats about everything... we have a bunch of "fab and interesting" trips planned in the coming months but we'll report on those when they happen... don't want to spoil the surprise :) Have a great weekend everyone.
Eggs everywhere!
A little late I know but we wanted to mention the great time we had last weekend, that being Easter weekend of course! It was our first weekend after the UK trip so we were real tired and had huge plans (3 social engagements - I wasnt sure I'd cope!). Of course this wasnt helped by the lovely US of A's mass addiction to work work work, meaning that we had neither Good Friday or Easter Monday as vacation (boo hiss America - stop working so much, have a little fun! ;) ) but we had a brilliant weekend despite this!
First, on Saturday at 10AM, we attended the local Terra Linda (our neighbourhood) kids Easter Parade with our new friends Vilija and Darren and their kids Ilona and Dovas. This is a long standing tradition here as it was started about 30-40 years ago by some parents who organised it for their children and the neighbours have kept it going, expanding it and making it a celebration for the whole area. Basically everyone meets in one of the streets and the local fire brigade comes with the engines and all the kids, some in costume and everyone with masses of balloons and easter-related product (ie sweets!) take a parade around the streets following the fire engine. At the end, the street has a bunch of houses which are categorised by child age (0-2, 3-4 etc). All the kids go to the garden and they have an Easter Egg Hunt with eggs containing prizes for the relevant age group. A really great tradition, we all had a blast, even though our kids took a while to realise you could take more than one egg (they're plastic eggs with sweets and small toys inside) so they didnt get too much.
After the parade we went to a house on the street where Susan (a friend of Natalies) lives as it was the birthday of her daughter and we were invited to the party. The sun was hot and everyone played in the garden, there was beer (Yeeeeah! Me and Darren were most happy!) and loads of great food for everyone and the kids sang Happy Birthday and shared the cake. The best part was that we met so many of the neighbours - lots of really nice couples all about our age with kids of roughly the same age group as Karina and Ilona. Everyone was so cool - hopefully its the start of us making a broader circle of local friends. I even met my first fellow sports addict which was excellent - being able to talk to an American who likes American sport is, surprisingly, a unique experience for me here! Go figure...
Finally, the following day, we went along to Vilija and Darrens for a proper Easter Dinner and another HUGE egg hunt for the kids. They brought along another couple, friends of theirs from the last place they lived, and we all sat out in the garden in the blazing sun and had the most amazing meal, drank champange and beers, chatted and had fun with the kids. We stayed there until way past
the kids bedtime and had the most enjoyable day we have had since arriving here. Thanks guys - we really owe you for that, it was brilliant!!!
Apologies for the quality of the last 2 pictures but they're captured from a video camera :(
The only downside to this whole weekend was myself and Darren being a little miserable about "No Bank Holiday Monday" - so we braved work with Easter hangovers. Worth it though!
More pics added
I added a few extra pictures to the England post below. More updates soon.....
We have returned...
What a trip! Manic, completely manic. But fun? You betcha! So much happened and theres so much to update so lets get straight to it...
We arrived at our hotel in London about 4:30PM on Saturday. The hotel was weird - great location near the British Museum in Russell Square... massive, but old and very very... basic. Anyway I had 30 minutes rest, showered, chan
ged, and hit the town with the boys for St Patricks night. Meanwhile Natalie had her good friend Sveta over to the hotel for some girlie catchup. St Pats night was great! The usual drunken night of Irish bars and great London rock/metal venues... damn, I've missed that! I caught up with some great friends I didnt see in a long time - Rob, Drew, Bellsey, Jase, Nick, Mark... fantastic night out, thanks lads! After a drunken
crawl home and near fight with the cabbie (rip off merchant!!!) I managed a few hours kip before getting up to fight the crowds of tourists to again see Sveta and her husband Alex, grab a coffe, visit the famous Hamleys toy shop, then straight off to meet our friends Matt and Meena (is that spelt correctly?!) and their daughter Indy. We had lunch in Covent garden during the snow and sleet as well as a few beers and a nice catchup.
It was so great to see those guys - Indy has grown so much and her and Karina had a blast - hope to see you guys real soon, its been too long. That evening I went out again with Drew for a "quiet gig" - yeah right! That was such a brilliant night. We saw Celtic Frost and Kreator and it was the best show we saw in a long time as well as being a good night out with my old buddie! Again - I hope its not so long before we can do that again.
So London was over all too quickly and we took a nice train journey up to Durham to see the folks. It felt really strange being back. I dunno what it was - the cold, the people, the general culture... but it really felt odd for us, perhaps its just because we've been away well over a year. It was a bit of a culture shock... for a few days we didnt feel settled at all, but by the end I don't think we wanted to leave!
The northern part of the trip was a blur. We spent to much time with friends, family, and of course in pubs and eating pies, pasties, pot noodles, crisps, PROPER vindaloo, fish & chips and sausage rolls (there's no stopping my wife sometimes - junk food addict! ;) )
We went to York for a day as the rest of the gang hadn't been there before, and we had a lovely day walking around the old city, seeing the touristy stuff as well as drinking and eating in Yorks oldest pub - from 1612! We found a real old fashioned sweet shop too and indulged in some treats... Karina fell in love with sherbet Flying Saucers that day!
While in York we also took a trip to the National Railway museum... partly for my enjoyment but partly because Karina had spotted the "London Eye Copy" (huge big wheel) from the train on our way uo from Newcastle and wanted to go on it. And she did too - and loved it. The view from the top was amazing. Oh yeah and look - thats Stephensons Rocket too - Stephenson with Stephensons Rocket. Or, could I say... "Look at the size of my rocket!". Nice! ;)
The second weekend we were there we had Kyles Christening (sorry, 'Baptism' - since when did that change?) in the same church that we were married and in which Karina was also Christened.
This time, because of the late notice, it was actually part of the morning service along with another couple but it was very cool and we all enjoyed it, especially the pub and then meal at Mams place afterwards!
Mam also took Karina up to a farm in the Durham hills to see the baby lambs, but she also held a day old chick, some rabbits, guinea pigs and lots more. Oh, and she revealed the 'secret' she had been told to hide from us too - lots of sweets and ice cream thanks to some bad food choices on behalf of her company that day. Tut tut!
What else did we get up to? We had a day in Newcastle as is customary where I met Marcus - again, a mate I havent seen in over a year who I used to work with in my first place-of-torture :) I also caught up with Tony (also from the same employment but also whom I had the pleasure of attending university with). Great to see you guys!!!
Another day, talking of university, I decided to take a trip to Middlesbrough where I studied, to relive old times, see how the place has changed, and show the town to the family. Not that its too exciting! It was a surprisingly interesting day however - everything has changed almost beyond recognition in the 8+ years since I was there last... stores have come and gone, bars have changed (or been demolished!) but the old haunts survive - it was good to see The Tavern alive and kicking! The Uni has expanded massively too. I took a little tour of the various places we lived in those 7 years and Natalie started to see the "rough" side of the town. Funny to see all the small Asian corner stores still there - and my favourite one still selling home made samosas which I had to indulge in... and the very same guy was still serving! Some peoples lives seem very predictable in comparison to ours.
After the 'Boro we went to the coast, to Saltburn. Its a nice quiet seaside town, good beach and pier, otherwise unremarkable really, aside from it being an area renowned for surfers (in the north sea in March? Insanity!) We were greeted with the biggest fog bank I have seen outside of San Francisco! In fact I was thinking "I thougth this road went along the sea shore but I don't see anything". It was literally so foggy I didnt see the sea till I got out of the car! Of course, Karina had a blast there - right up until the point where I turned my head and saw her lying face down, outstretched, in the sand and rock pools. Daft lass - she can trip over a grain of salt!!! So that put a quick end to Saltburn and we retired to a "fun pub" (with a kids area) in Durham with some family friends Laz, Roseanne and Julie, along with L&Rs grand-daughter Bethany for food, drinks, and multi-child madness.
The rest of the time was spent with lots of good food and company and taking care of smaller jobs. Karina got her final vaccinations, which she hated, but at least its done now and she said the nurse was way nicer than the "yukky one in California". She also had a visit to the ER department in Durham one day after falling, again, flat on her face on a climbing frame in the local park and splitting the inside of her lip. Fortunately all is OK and we even managed to avoid the famous NHS 2+ hour wait times in ER due to hr being so young and having priority. Nice! Well, not really - very worrying in fact but she's doing OK now. Oh yeah, I also took a trip into my old comprehensive school to see how teh place has changed, and it was surprisingly similar to how I remember it all those years ago. Quite a weirdly emotional 10 minutes actually, I really enjoyed school and have nothign but good memories of teh place. Pretty much. It hasnt really changed, despite having more fences and fenced off areas for some reason.
So the trip was soon at an end and we rented a car, said emotional goodbyes (we will return at Christmas, we promise!) and took the horrible 4AM trip down the A1 to London. The return journey was quite attrocious actually - 24 hours door to door. The drive at 5AM to London and the subsequent bus then drive back through San Francisco in rush hour was far from pleasant... I don't wanna do that ain in a hurry. Karina also managed to wee herself on the plane seat while asleep (no change of clothes either) and then projectile vomit on landing... again, all over herself and the seat. Can't take that lass anywhere.
Overall a few bad things, but really they diseappear and are pretty insignificant in comparison to the superb time we had overall. 2 weeks simply wasnt long enough, was it everyone?
