October & November in a nutshell

It’s been a while since we’ve put an update on the Blog but it’s not for lack of things to say, just a lack of spare time with a dash of laziness thrown in for good measure.

Our last post seems bloody ages ago now. Since our week long trip in Europe with Tim & Dunc we’ve been up to London on a handful of occasions and also had a weekend in North Yorkshire for my Granddad’s birthday, as well as having Phil & Cheryl down for a weekend more recently.

The Rugby World Cup Weekend

We were due to meet up with Tim and Dunc some seven days after saying our goodbyes in Florence but due to a massive, massive Friday night we had the company of just Tim and not Duncan for the remainder of the weekend! That Saturday afternoon was spent knocking back a couple of bottles of wine (and port) in the cave like surroundings of Gordon’s Wine Bar, accompanied by Phil and Cheryl.

We ended up watching the game in an antipodean themed pub with the large majority of punters being South African. It’s old news so there’s not much else you can say about the final other than what’s already been said – a boring game of two teams trying their hardest not to lose, but the better side won in the end.

The pub had a great atmosphere (aside from a couple of whining Saffers who seemed to think they had rights to watch the screen from their seats despite the place being packed to the rafters) and we couldn’t stop laughing when Phil came back from the bar with half a dozen stubbies shoved down his pants to save queuing up again!

The Engagement Weekend

The next weekend we were back up in the capital, this time for the engagement do of Mike and Rachel. They’d hired the upstairs of a swanky little bar in the Richmond part of London and we were joined by Matt & Kim along with Ray. Good times as you can see from the photos below (we even dedicated one to you Jan!) and all the best again for the future guys.

Granddad’s Birthday Weekend

My mum had flown over from New Zealand to be here for my Granddad’s birthday (the one in North Yorkshire, not here in Bournemouth) and as it turned out half a dozen other members of the family from my Mum’s side were going to be there as well. That included meeting my Uncle Stewart for the first time and his daughter, my cousin, Rachel, from Wales.

I think everyone should have a long grey haired, hippy, pot smoking Uncle and in Stewart I have one! He was a lovely chap and it was great to finally meet. Of course having not seen Mumsy for some 18 months it was nice to catch up on what’s been happening back home – that’s when I could get a word in!

The Football Weekend

Last weekend we were in London (again) this time to watch The Owls take on QPR at Loftus Road. It was the first time I’d been able to make a game so far this season and Sheryl and I took Phil, Cheryl and Mike in the rowdy away section while Hoops fan Matty took his troops to the home stands. It was probably the best 0-0 draw I’ve ever seen to be honest and as always the atmosphere in the away section of the Wednesday games in unbeatable – worth the admission fee alone!

The post-match discussion over a couple of drinks was followed with a Thai meal on the Thames after having checked out the ice-skating rink outside the Tower of London.

That Sunday evening, after returning from London, I went to check out my cousin Mark who was playing a gig at a pub in Bournemouth. I was quite impressed at his skills for a kid who’s not yet 17. That was great but not the resulting hangover on Monday morning.

The first weekend in December was spent up in Sheffield. It was a bit of a mad dash of a weekend after going direct on the train from work on Friday night and coming home Sunday morning. We did manage to squeeze in another football match (a terrible performance in losing 2-1 at home to Colchester) and a meal out on the Saturday with my Dad and Carol.

Road Trippin' in Europe!

Six nights, four travelers and one silver Peugeot. That’s been the story of our week after joining Tim and Dunc’s European Road Trip for the leg of their journey that took them along the beautiful southern coastline of Spain and France and into Italy. We flew into Barcelona last Sunday evening and just four nights later we were in Florence, Italy. That’s quite some ground covered in not much time at all. Here’s what happened in between…

Sunday

• Sheryl and I fly from Bournemouth to Girona Airport, some 100km’s out of Barcelona, before catching the hour and a bit long coach journey into the city.
• We drop our bags at a pre-booked youth hostel close to Plaza Catalunya and head downtown to catch the end of Dunc’s set at a gig called The Sunday Joint (at the Las Guindas bar)
• The four of us grab a bite and a beer (or sangria for Sheryl) and call it a night.

Monday

• We get our first taste of cruisin’ in the Peugeot (Rugby World Cup edition! No kidding – the head rests are shaped as rugby balls) as we head out of the Catalonian capital and up the coast towards France.
• We stop for kebabs in a suspiciously looking touristy town by the sea somewhere in the La Costa Brava area. Dunc buys new Catalonian themed jandals (aka ‘flip flops’ to some).
• By the late afternoon we make it Cadaques – a small coastal town tucked away off the main highway, recommended to Dunc by some of his Spanish friends. It’s a gem of a little town. A pack of dogs disturbingly try and mate on the beach as we knock back some drinks before hitting the road again.
• It’s the evening now and the realisation sunk in hours ago we were nowhere near getting to Marseille or even Montpellier. So Perpignan will have to do for the night. We look for a one star hotel, preferably with neon lights that flash and make a buzzing noise. We find one on a main street running through the town.
• It’s real one star quality. The TV is a tiny wee portable, the shower has no shower curtain and the double bed Sheryl and I slept in had a cigarette burn in the duvet. Bienvenue a Road Trippin’ Budget Style!
• Time’s pressing on and everywhere seems to be closed. We find a little restaurant to eat in but struggle to decipher the menu with everything written as names of dishes not what the food literally was. Forgetting to bring the phrasebook is a foolish move!

Tuesday

• Showers in the morning with no shower curtain is interesting. By the time I hop in the bathroom floor water is leaking into the bedroom!
• We leave Perpignan and head for destination unknown – Marseille or Nice. We’ll see how time goes.
• Before leaving town we swing by a supermarket and stock up on baguettes, cheese, cold meats, fruit, wine and ingredients for a home made Sangria! Dunc buys a three-pack of princess dresses (supposedly for his niece in Italy)
• We stick to the smaller roads off the main state highway/motorway, as the buggers charge tolls in between cities.
• We stop for lunch in a car park by a river and open up the back of the car boot and lunch is served via the portable kitchen! There’s heaps of doggie doo’s everywhere though (so French) and the flies become annoying so we pack up and drive down the road.
• This time we pull over just before a bridge down by a river and crack open the wine! In the distance we can see a French hooker on the side of the road is picked up by a bloke in a little white car. They head off down a country lane for quarter of an hour.
• We're driving through wine country (the Languedoc region) so it'd be rude not to swing by a local winery and pick up a bottle.
• I doze off to sleep in the back and when I wake up the three of them are trying to figure out where we are on the map. We realise we’ve actually headed 50km’s in the wrong direction to a town called Ales, instead of Arles!
• By the time we start to lose sunlight we are in Marseille and enjoying a drink in a bar over looking the harbour. We make a last minute decision to bolt it further up the coast and get to Nice for the night.
• We arrive in Nice around 9.30pm and the promenade/waterfront area looks amazing by night. Sheryl and I spent seven nights here last year so we navigate (via the scenic route…ok, so we didn’t know exactly how to get there!) our way to a brilliant hostel that we stayed at last year.
• After some cheap grub (massive €5 pizzas) and a couple of drinks (€1 beer and wine) we hit the hay. But not before warning our dorm mates of Dunc’s snoring. It turns out some other chap was actually louder than him! Sheryl struggles to force an anonymous cat off her bed during the night. It later wakes Tim up too.
  

Wednesday

• We show Tim and Dunc around Nice – starting with the flower market and the old town, before heading up to castle hill for the spectacular views of the waterfront and harbour on the other side.
• We stop in Villefranche, an old Italian fishing village (based in France…figure that one out?), ten minutes along the coastline. We park our arses on the beach for twenty minutes or so before hitting the road again.
• After driving through Monaco we say ‘Au Revoir’ to France, and ‘Buongiorno’ to Italy.
• Genoa is the destination but by the time we get there it’s pretty late. We stop at a couple of budget hotels (even some ritzy two star ones) but there’s no accommodation anywhere. It turns out there’s a big boat show on in town and everywhere is booked up.
• We swing by the Genoa camp site but they’re fresh out of cabins, and we don’t have tents. Not that you’d want to pitch there anyway – they were based on top of an incredibly big hill and it was pretty windy. And that's before any of the boys have had one of those spicy Italian pepperoni pizzas!
• We carry on driving along the coast and eventually strike gold in a little town called Santa Margherita. We find a one star place run by the cutest little old Italian lady. It’s about 10.30pm and when she opens the window to see who’s there she’s in her nightee! While old and patched up in places, the hotel is clean and tidy and she gives us a discount too!

Thursday

• We’re up bright and early to bee line to Pisa. We drive through a series of little Italian towns and villages along the Ligurian coast. The views as we head up into the mountains are spectacular.
• We arrive in Pisa by about lunchtime. The tower is still leaning and everybody is pulling the same pose for the photos! There’s actually not a lot else to see here so we have a coffee and make our way east to Florence.
• It’s mid afternoon by the time we reach Firenze (Florence) and navigating our way through the one-way streets to the central train station (where Lonely Plant tells me there is plenty of cheaper accommodation) becomes near impossible! We eventually park up and find the thing by foot.
• We find the streets recommended in the travel guide and manage to find a place with a double room and a single. The lady at reception says she can put another single in which will make it cheaper for us. It’s even ensuite – perfect! Of course we weren’t to know that the ‘ensuite’ facilities was a free standing shower in the room with a glass door. Showers could be quite a show in the morning!
• Parking in the city is pretty much non-existent so we end up having to pay €15 and have the car taken away to a garage out of the city centre area, to be returned the next morning.
• In the mean time it seems a good time to whip together our home made Sangria. We flip open the car boot on the side of the road and Dunc get’s underway throwing the brew together. One empty 5L container, one bottle of Havana Club rum, one bottle of Martini Vermouth, one bottle of (cheap) wine and lots of fruit. Bingo – we have sangria! A police car drives by but to our amazement he doesn’t stop to question the several bottles of open liquor out the back of a car.
• In the evening we drink some sangria and eat at a local Italian ‘trattoria’ (small restaurant) called “Momma Toscana’s”. We wander through the busy streets at night and find a place to sit outside and enjoy a glass of wine.
• We return to our mosquito filled room but eradicate the pesky little things with rolled up newspaper, shoes and bidet cloths! Funnily enough there were already foot print marks on the ceiling from a previous tenant.

Friday

• Tim and Dunc depart for Viterbo (north of Rome) where Dunc’s sister lives. We stay in Florence as our flight home is on Saturday morning from Pisa.
• Sheryl and I spend the day exploring the sights and browsing through the markets. After wandering around trying to find somewhere to eat we discover one of the better looking and more affordable options is literally next door to our hotel! The food is good and so is the puds – panna cotta for me, Italian dessert wine and biscotti for Sheryl.

Saturday

• We’re up bright and early for our 6.30am train to Pisa and check in with plenty of time to spare for our 9.55am flight back to Bournemouth.
• Ryanair don’t allocate seats so it’s first in first served. It always seems to cause people to act like idiots and when they begin to board priority travelers everybody makes for the boarding desk. It’s madness to see some people even begin skipping the line entirely and going under the barrier! It seems like the saying ‘pay peanuts, get monkeys’ saying applies to budget air travel!
• We arrive back to a grey but not too cold Bournemouth.
• England beats France to reach the final. The World Cup has officially been turned on it’s head.

Good time to leave this land

We fly out to Barcelona today to hit Europe for a week. And the timing couldn't be better after last night's disastrous All Blacks result! So exactly when does an entire pub population of Englishmen begin cheering the Frogs? When they've made the semi-final earlier in the afternoon that's when.

I really couldn't believe we lost that game, not surprisingly a couple of important decisions against New Zealand made by the referee have been missed in the UK's reporting of the game I noted this morning, but I suppose that's the cruel beast that is sport! I know how much this silly game really does mean to people back home so I can only imagine the mourning process that's underway. Think of us and next Monday at work! Oh lordy.

To the Englishman who sported a French shirt and persisted in having a go throughout the match and rubbing it in our faces come full time - I apologise not for throwing your silly little black beret across the pub! I highly doubt you'll be wearing that foreign outfit next Saturday.

Adios for now.

Are you 'avin a laugh?

After having bought the tickets to the show months ago we this week headed to Hammersmith in London to see Ricky Gervais, aka David Brent from The Office and Andy Millman from Extras. His new show ‘Fame’ is now the biggest selling stand up show in British history. His current tour sold out months ago but due to popular demand he added extra dates to the itinerary – lucky for us.

You may remember our post months back telling you that we’d happened to stumble across tickets for a Wednesday evening show being advertised at £3.00 a ticket – what a bargain! We bought three. Sure enough a week before the gig the ticket company came back to us claiming the face value is £30.00 and they want the extra dosh back. I wrote a letter back to them telling them several reasons why they shouldn’t want their money back, and I never heard back!

Seeing as we had the spare ticket we decided to take my cousin Mark up from Bournemouth. He’s only 17 but they didn’t check for I.D on the door so we were sweet. The show was excellent although if you were easily offended this probably wouldn’t be for you. He ripped it out of anybody and everybody. A great night out though and I was impressed with the fact he was on stage for 90 minutes straight, plus 30 minutes from a warm up act.

This Sunday we fly out from Bournemouth to Barcelona to meet up with Tim & Dunc. Those guys are over this side after watching the AB’s demolish a sorry Scotland side up in Edinburgh before hiring some wheels in Paris and hitting the road. Right now they’re probably quaffing back a Spanish red in a vineyard in somewhere in La Mancha! Good on ya guys.

As for what we’re doing when we join them, well the plans are casual but by Saturday we should be somewhere near the west coast of Italy. Along the way we’ll pass through Marseille and the Cote D’Azur before making our way to Dunc’s sister’s place somewhere just outside of Rome.

It’s actually been a busy week for us booking trips away. We’ve just guaranteed our place up in Edinburgh for New Years Eve in a hotel 5 miles out from the city centre, and just across from Murrayfield rugby ground. We’ll be up there for all four days and nights of the official Edinburgh Hogmanay festival before possibly shooting across to Glasgow to pay a visit to Nikki & Craig.

I know I mentioned it to the UK crew earlier this year but if you guys are reading this and fancy joining us for an Edinburgh NYE the offer is still there.

We also booked our flights home this week. Not for another eight or so months yet mind but Air New Zealand was having a sale with deals that looked too good to turn down. We managed to pick up a one way flight home via LA for £450 including taxes. That’s the best part of £200 cheaper than I’ve seen anywhere else.

It’ll be a sad day on Wednesday 11th June next year when we end our OE, arriving in the wee hours two days later in Auckland, but these things don’t last forever.

There’s still plenty more we want to do before we leave yet – we hope there’s still plenty more good times and great memories to come.

Day trips to the sea side

It seems the British summer this year is much like the bus Sheryl and I have been catching to work - it's late. But better late than never and so we decided to take advantage of the nice warm weather in late August and early September and also our location close to the coastline with a couple of day trips to sea side destinations.

On the last Saturday in August we were up bright and early to catch the open top bus from Bournemouth town centre to Lymington, a small harbour town about an hour and a half away. It was great being able to enjoy the journey out in the open and quite amusing watching everybody fix their hair every time the bus came to a halt, only for the wind to whip it back out of place seconds later!

Lymington was a really nice little place to visit, although a little too busy for my liking. Cobble stoned streets, a typical English market on offer down the High Street and lots of pubs. One in particular caught our eye - The Ship Inn. We sat down and had lunch and a bottle of good old New Zealand wine (Spy Valley Riesling '06).

It was actually in the newspaper this week that the Tongan rugby team has been in Lymington training before the World Cup. They scoffed down slightly more than we did in a sitting - 30 chickens, 60lbs lamb, 60lbs beef, 30lbs pasta and 40 litres of orange juice. Oh, and they ran out of chips and had to pop down the Chip shop for more!

It was a Bank Holiday weekend that weekend and on the Sunday John and Ange took us out to Durdle Door - a very scenic part of the Dorset coastline. We packed some kai and ate it on the cliff top before taking on some very steep hills after. We forgot to take our camera that day but I'll try and get some of their photos as it was quite a view from up there.

Last Sunday me, Sheryl, John, Ange, Mark, Jenny, Nan and Gramp took the 40 minute train journey out to Weymouth. I guess you could say Weymouth is pretty much a typical British sea side town, but unlike some it has managed to keep an element of class about itself. It actually reminded me a little of our visit to Whitby, on the north-east coastline, last summer.

The beach is still packed with the kiddies rides, the Punch & Judy shows and the donkey rides, and the promenade is still scattered with fish and chip shops and amusement arcades. But it's still a really pleasant place to visit and recommended for any of you based in London - the South-West trains run from Waterloo all the way to Weymouth at the end of the line.

We've been at Barclays for nearly three weeks now and it's been going really well for us. We completed the training, passed the tests and got put on the computers where we've been slowly but surely picking it up.

The World Cup starts tomorrow and no doubt over the coming six weeks or so I'm going to get a bit of a ribbing for backing both England and the ABs. I'll put my neck on the line right here and now and pick an All Blacks v France final, with the AB's to win. But still, it's gotta be good being on this side of the world watching the games at a sociable hour!

(The open top bus and the busy Lymington back streets)

(The Ship Inn and some tasty white mice for the ride home!)

(A nice place to stop for a drink in Weymouth with the crew)

The job hunt is over

As the title suggests - Sheryl and I have found work. And we start tomorrow! We were both told we had the job well over a week ago but they had to do international credit checks.

We'll both be working in the same role at Barclays Bank in Poole, a busy harbour town just around the corner from Bournemouth (click here to see a map of the area). The position is called 'Network Controller' and we'll be working with a team of about 150 people investigating overseas money transfers that have been picked up by keywords. We will be using a variety of sources to check whether or not there's a chance it could be fraudulent.

The interviewee labelled the team as 'Crimefighters' - my sweet old Nan has been telling the family that "It's to do with the terrorists, or something".

The job sounds pretty interesting, the pay is good and we'll be working together. Poole's also a pretty nice little spot with a nice harbour front and plenty of nice little pubs and places to eat, so all in all we're pretty stoked.

The only uncertainty is the length of the contract. It will all depend on how much work comes in but from the sounds of things I can't see that being the issue.

Other than that things have been pretty quiet in this neck of the woods (low funds will do that to you) but the Rugby World Cup is just around the corner which should be bloody excellent! We've discovered a wicked little pub not far from Poole called 'The Cow' which is not only an excellent watering hole but they show rugby and not football there. That's pretty rare for pubs in the UK!

Also looking forward to catching up with my old boss and good mate Tim and compadre Dunc Tha Funk in September. Lucky bastards are getting flown over from NZ by Heineken for the ABs v Scotland match in Edinburgh. More good time ahead!