Last thoughts of the UK (OJG)

We’re back!!!

Yes we have finally made it back to Australia, having spent 7 weeks longer than planned in the UK. And even though we have come to 32 degrees heat with 85% humidity and a whole host of problems with Henry, it is great to be back.

I thought I would just write a final summary about the UK and our recent time there.

First off though, I need to mention that after the first week I made it a project of mine to spend one whole day walking around London taking loads of pictures, some of which would have been for the blog. All I needed was a nice clear day. For the whole 10 weeks there were literally just a handful of those days. And typically I always had something else planned. So I have very few new pictures. What I do have is a bunch of old pictures, which I have mixed with some of the new ones.

So I thought I would start off with something happy and mention a few things that really wound us up during our visit to the UK.

1. Tony Blair! I don’t mention his name as a political statement, only that whenever he is on TV making statements or answering questions, it is so obvious that his every word is a smoke screen at best, and utter lie at worse. And yet he just seems so bloody smug about himself. I honestly feel that when his time comes he will have an awful lot to answer for.
   
   
2. Politicians in the News. There is just so much pointless news in the UK about the politicians as opposed to actual politics. It is crazy just how much airtime and newspaper pages get taken up on this. No wonder there is nobody worth voting for, all the smart people void politics like the plague.
   
   
3. CCTV Cameras. Ok, I know this is in the news a fair bit, but… but, the cameras are still going up. Just taking a walk from the train platform at Victoria station to the bus stop (about 2 minutes), and I counted about 100 cameras. Seriously, 100! But it is not just in the busy areas either, I counted loads wherever I went. Motorways, Trains, Buses, Taxis, Roads, Parks, Shops, everywhere! And as if that wasn’t enough, several times I saw white unmarked vans patrolling the streets with cameras mounted on the roof at each corner. 1984 has come and gone!
   
   
4. Debt and Financial Help Adverts. God help anyone if they stray out of the prime time TV slot, because suddenly they are bombarded with extreme low budget adverts, repeating the same message over and over again. In fact I have it on good authority that the CIA fly their special “rendition flights” to the UK, and force suspected terrorists to watch hours of late night adverts. I hear most crack within a couple of hours.
   
   
5. Traffic Wardens and Overall Vehicle Penalties. On Baker Street I would often see about 5 wardens on one corner, 3 on the next one, and 2 walking up the street, all waiting like vultures for one poor driver to make a mistake. Unbelievable that they make enough money to have so many people just waiting around. On top of that, congestion charges, residents permits, parking meters, and of course petrol that is at least twice the price of anywhere else in the world. It would be understandable if public transport was reliable and good value, but it is neither. Not even close.
   
   
6. Rip off Britain! Yes it is another common newspaper heading, but seriously it is just shocking. Most of you will have heard that Microsoft launched Vista in January. The cost in the US for the top version is 190 pounds, compared to 330 pounds in the UK, for exactly the same product. A song from iTunes in the US costs 50p, but exactly the same song costs 79p in the UK. The list is never ending. Why won’t somebody do something about it?

I think that is more than enough whining. On the plus side, the UK has M&S, great original comedy, endless culture, amazing architecture, and many other unique things. Having said all that, this last trip has really sealed our decision to move to Australia. If it were not for good friends and family, I am not sure if we would even return to the UK in the near future. You’ll all have to try a lot harder to keep us away!

I would like to say a quick thanks to my Pa, Sandy & Bri, Dave & Jo, who between them all put us up for the duration of 10 weeks. Or maybe “put up with us” would be more appropriate. Anyway, thanks a lot, and don’t forget that we will need the same again next Christmas!

I think that is plenty for this blog entry, there will probably be other little stories from our trip to the UK in the future.

In the meantime, the adventure continues!

Mobile: Heathrow

Good old BA, only delayed 40 min so far!

Mobile: Shrove Wednesday

A bit like orange wednesday but with bananas.

I have worked out how to do a new paragraph now.

Today we celebrated pancake day, better late than never. Does anyone know why you throw away the first pancake?

Em

PS you may want to google orange wednesday if you are not in the uk for explanation.

PPS Upon rushing back to my laptop and viewing the blog is it very apparent that I have not yet worked out how to do new paragraphs... Whatever I thought was the symbol for new paragraphs seems to be "??"

I will try again next time!

Em

Mobile: Blogging test

Here is my 1st attempt at this mobile blogging. I have not worked out how to do a carriage return yet and typing is painfully slow. We; oly, james and I are currently in wagamama in camden so if you're close come join us!

16 days...

...and counting

So we are still here.

Something to do with a BA strike that was threatened and then didn't happen, some flights were cancelled resulting in a backlog of passengers.

In our wisdom we decided to change our flights and the earliest return date was the 5th of March.

We would rather not talk about it!

At least we have stopped gorging on delicious foods... that novelty wore off after a month.

I have a new phone which enables me to upload pictures from the phone direct to the blog so maybe I will do a bit of photo blogging until we go back to Australia...

Emelie

The first 4 weeks in the UK (OJG)

*** Happy New Year ***

Hi everyone,

I know it has been a while, but as most of you know we have been in the UK for the last 4 weeks, and although we planned to keep the blog running with interesting articles on UK life, it never happened. Let's just blame jet lag and heavy commitments.

So, what have we been doing?

Well I will give you all a quick summary, and also our next set of plans for Oz.

We arrived at Heathrow airport around 5am, and the temperature outside was 5c. The temperature in Cairns, where we boarded had been close to 40c. The mammoth flight over had not been that bad at all. The plane from Cairns to Darwin had been almost empty (So Emelie and I sat with an empty seat between us). Then we picked up a few passengers in Darwin, including a truly enormous sweating American with a ton of carry on bags, who had somehow managed to piss off the check-in girl, and was promptly seated between the two of us, even though there were plenty of completely empty rows! It took a few chats with the stewardess, but in the end they could see how silly it was, and moved him. Emelie had to wipe his seat with a towel.

So apart from an anxious first 20 minutes, the rest of that flight to Singapore was pretty easy going. I saw some really amazing cloud formations from the window, it looked like a set of islands in the sky.

Singapore was it's usual busy self; get the transfer sorted, buy as many gadgets and Christmas presents as possible, run to catch the next flight. After a little bit of wrangling we got a set of 2 seats together at the back of the plane, so although this last long leg (14 hours) was painful on the body and the mind, at least we didn't have people constantly wanting to get past us, or falling asleep on us. We arrived in the UK fairly fresh... more or less.

The day after arrival we had an amazing Christmas lunch with loads of close family from both sides. A true Christmas feast with an enormous turkey (which caught fire in the oven, but that is another story), a huge gammon, and what must have been at least a dozen vegetables and side dishes, all cooked (and smoked) to perfection. Boxing day and New Years Eve were both similar.

And that was the beginning of our downfall with regards to food!

Since we arrived in Oz, we had slowly but surely been eating much healthier. We ate a lot more fruit, more fresh meats, even more vegetables. And there were no processed dishes to be seen anywhere. Also we had been eating smaller amounts, in some cases in the outback probably too small, but overall we had found a nice new happy medium. And we felt wonderful for it, we had both lost weight, for me personally about 12kg, and 3 inches off the waist! And that was without even trying. Seriously.

So, coming back to the cold land of the UK, lots of time indoors, socialising, etc... food and drink always available. I have no idea if we have put on weight since being back, but it sure feels like we have, the body feels slow and cumbersome again. For that reason alone we cannot wait to get back to Oz :)

Oh, and yes I realise that this is all our own fault, and with a little... well a lot of self control this should not be a problem, but we have just succumbed to all the delicious dishes that we have missed since being away. We are weak, but it tastes so good!

So apart from eating half our body weight each day, we have been fairly busy meeting up with all our friends and family in their various abodes. So far we have been to London, Crawley, Balcombe, Guildford and of course Brighton. And it has been really great. Just like the good old days, except that we were never this social, so really like the old days x 10.

In addition to that, we have been busy sorting out all the bits that we left behind from last time. As most of our close friends in the UK will know, it all got a bit hectic in the weeks and days before our original departure to Oz, especially with the flat sale. I am sure some people would use other words to describe it. Anyway, what wasn't sorted, got put into storage and left for us to sort out upon our return. So plenty of eBay, lots of bin bags, paper filing, phone calls to various companies, and of course a complete re-sort of our storage. In all seriousness our goal is to make sure that when we return to the UK in future visits, we don't have to worry about any of this stuff. What fun.

With regards to weather... well I guess it would be a little unfair to have a major dig as it is winter, but in all seriousness, apart from a few good days, it has been a constant grey in the sky. Sometimes with drizzly rain, sometimes without. And two days ago we had the worst storms for 10 years, with between 10 and 14 dead (depending upon which paper you read). Apart from the first few days it hasn't been too cold, yet.

And that is pretty much the last 4 weeks in a nutshell.

Although we had originally planned to be out here for only 3 weeks, I got it all wrong booking the flights back, and we will not head back to Oz until the 5th of Feb. As it turns out, getting all the bits done has been fairly time consuming and our remaining 2 weeks are going to be chocka!

Although nothing is set in stone, when we get back to Oz we hope to spend a bit of time in Cairns, do a bit of diving, get Henry tuned (we hope that is all he needs, the little bugger), go up North a little bit, and then head down along the coast, back to Townsville, and on to Brisbane, Sydney and so on.

We really can't wait!

Touchdown... Christmas Eve, London UK

We are here in London!

I think it is unlikely that we will be updating the blog much while we are here as we have so much to do and so many people to see we won't have much time.

We haven't booked a flight back yet but will update this when we know what we are doing.

Merry christmas!

Emelie & Oly

Cairns - London

Our Jetstar flight Cairns to Darwin had only 35 people on it...

Oly and I managed to get three seats in a row. The check-in girl said she would block off the seat in the middle as there were only 60 more people getting on the flight in Darwin. Hurrah! This flight was going to be great, with a bit of luck the Singapore - London sector wouldn't be too bad either.

hmm

We stayed on the aircraft at Darwin while everyone else got off to stretch their legs.

I am sure you can imagine my horror when the aircraft was re boarded a very large, saturated in sweat, American informed us that he was sitting the seat between us.

As he squeezed in to the seat and Oly made small talk with him while I counted to ten...

It turns out that he had an argument with the check-in chick in Darwin and it she decided to get her own back. There were approximately seven totally empty rows on the aircraft and around 50 free middle seats. With odds like that I really need to start gambling.

When everyone was seated I asked the cabin crew to reseat him and breathed a sigh of relief. The seat was left with an imprint of his sweaty body and drips of sweat running down the head rest.

Singapore to London was a dream, we jumped on an earlier flight instead of hanging around for four hours and slept most of the way.

We landed at 5AM GMT. I think we travelled for around 26 hours and It really wasn't that bad.

Em

Heathrow

I arrived at LHR with plenty of time to sit outside departures waiting to be allowed into the terminal to check in. We had caught the tail end of the terror plot security scare and the DOT were reintroducing cabin baggage onto flights. Providing you only intended to carry miniature cabin baggage purchased on your last travels to Lilliput.

Oly arrived after I did and had to go through the same incredible shrinking bag trick to get his hand luggage into the bag cage. The secret is to stick all your books under your arms without anyone noticing.

Once inside the terminal it was a dream, we sailed through. There were no queues, and as Sam the wise one had said, in an effort to comfort me, once I hit duty free I would forget I was sad, and she was right

My elation wore off once I boarded the plane and realised it was packed, then I really did miss home.

Em