Lights! Camera! Pumpkin!

Mr Pumpkin-head

My mission this Halloween was to carve a pumpkin. Well, mission accomplished! With a little help from my friends (draw on the pumpkin first and look on the Internet for a picture to copy), I successfully managed to carve my first pumpkin. It doesn't look half bad either! It's still a little too light outside to put the candle in him, but I'll do that shortly.

BRAINS!!!

These are some huge jelly cockroaches that I found - they're gross to touch!

It worked! Kind of...

A big shout out to Mother Nature for almost coming through with the goods today! There was a brief moment of sleet, and then some hail, which is all frozen stuff falling from the sky. I was massively excited! This bodes well for our future...

New layout

I have a week off from work. I have plenty of work to be doing (marking never stops), but I'm procrastinating. As usual. I decided to go with a simpler layout and create a header for myself. Navigating through the blogger gadgets is annoying, just so you know.

Now that it's 1 degree, it's clearly time to head out of my heated bedroom, to the cold kitchen and cook something for dinner. Time to add some layers!

Snow photos... But they're not mine

It's been 74 years since snow fell in London in October. I grabbed these photos from the Daily Mail, seeing as Mother Nature wasn't so kind to me (see my previous post).


Hyde Park this morning. Apparently there was more than this earlier, but had started to melt quickly.

Millenium Bridge, which crosses the Thames.

Westminster. I love this photo - two English icons, and snow. Perfection.

Somewhere in North London. Lucky buggers.

Hrm

Dear Mother Nature,

I am writing to you today to express my disappointment over recent events. Whilst I am aware of the random nature of the weather forecaster's occupation, and their incredible inability to actually forecast weather with any accuracy, it concerns me that it appears that you have been incredibly selective in giving out your favours.

Perhaps you could take the time to explain to me why you felt the need to give snow to London, a city known to have temperatures a good two or three degrees above the area in which I live, and yet withhold it from me. It's been 70 or so years since you last gave snow to the ungrateful people of London, who bemoan the effects it has on their own selfish lives. I, dear Mother Nature, would not be so ungrateful. In fact, sheer excitement had me awake before dawn this morning to see if you had blessed me with your icy whiteness. Alas, no. You have forsaken me, Mother Nature. You give me sub-zero temperatures and ice on my car and on the roads, but no actual snow.

Have I not done enough to please you? If not, please be clear in what you desire of me. I praise the cold, crisp sunshine, even with its lack of heat. I even go so far as to praise the overcast and rainy days, as they do provide at least a few more degrees for us. I bless the stunning array of Autumn colours; I am in awe of the magic of daffodils who magically appear at the appropriate times. I appreciate all that you do to make this over-populated country of ours more beautiful. Last Winter, I observed the mere centimetre of snow that fell (which, I might add, melted too quickly to really enjoy) with the glee of a small child on Christmas morning. And still you spurn me.

I urge you, Mother Nature, to be kind to this poor Aussie living abroad. If I must live with freezing temperatures and outrageous heating bills, please allow me the pleasure of fresh, white snow.

Sincerely,

Sarah.

Halloween, take two

This Friday is Halloween. My mission this year, after last year's efforts, is to carve a pumpkin. I've already bought new decorations, and loads of sweets. I'm excited already! I'll post photos after the event, should I still have fingers and thumbs after carving with a sharp knife.

Buckingham Palace and the Australian War Memorial

A couple of weeks ago (a couple of weeks after the Dover trip, I guess) we went to Buckingham Palace. I know I'd been there several times before, but this time we went inside the palace - and it was all legal. Every year they have a Summer opening, and we went on the last weekend that it was on. This year they'd even set up a state banquet to see as well. Unfortunately you can't take any photos in there, which is a shame, because I know it'll be a long time before I see such opulence again. Much to my nan's disgust, I didn't happen to run into the queen. Guess I'll have to keep trying.

We left the palace and wandered over to the Australian war memorial. It truly does look like a urinal, which is a real shame. It takes away from the serious nature of the memorial. I was impressed however with the way the names are engraved, so that if you're standing close to it, you can read the names of the soldiers, but if you step back, you can see the names of locations of important battles.

Completely unrelated - I think I was channeling Dad whilst we were here. I'd stepped right back to get as much as I could into photos. I had an Aussie couple approach me - I was wearing my State of Origin jersey. They were from Victoria and wondered if I knew the AFL grand final score! Even though the mighty Lions weren't in it, I still knew what it was, which made their day.

The next weekend

Despite having worked a full week in between, the next weekend we came up with just as much to see and do. First, I headed in to East London to see my first football (soccer for those antipodean readers) match. It ended up being a League One match (the league below Premier League), just because it was easier to see one of those, and it was also my friend's home team, Leyton Orient. It was certainly an experience. They played Stockport, and lost. There was a very small contingent of Stockport fans there, but what they lacked in numbers, they made up for in volume. The Leyton Orient fans made up for their overwhelming numbers with language. I mean, I swear like a sailor at the best of times, but they put me to shame.

After the game Mil and I went back to her place to collect Matt, before heading out to my place for a BBQ. Although I'd had plenty of meat-cooked-by-fire over the past couple of months, the others had been without for a year. They camped at my place for the night, in readiness for our trip the next day.

The weekend before, we'd stood in the furtherest corner of the South West of the country. Our mission this week was to stand in the furtherest corner of the South East, and also to try and see France. In the end it was no hardship. We headed to Dover (not Devon as we kept calling it from the weekend before, thanks Mil). We were going to the castle, and to see the white cliffs. I think the cliffs were far more spectacular than the castle. I'd suggested the castle based on someone else's recommendations about how good it was. I was far more interested in the secret wartime tunnels that were there than the castle. The castle didn't really have too much information about the place, and it wasn't as informative as others. I still think that Edinburgh Castle has been the best castle I've seen so far, but I digress.

Dover Castle did have the secret wartime tunnels. I know it must seem like we seek out these kinds of places, after the nuclear bunker tour, but really we don't. We didn't know that they were even there until we got there. There's actually 5 tunnels dug into the white cliffs, that were used as the headquarters of the Royal Navy during World War 2. Winston Churchill spent some time there, and Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay was in charge there for many years. Dover is very close to Dunkirk, and was where the evacuation was co-ordinated from. They were actually going to use the tunnels as a nuclear bunker in case of attack during the Cold War, until someone with a few active brain cells realised that chalk wasn't going to keep out radiation.

It's hard to see in the photo above, but the shadowy part just above the horizon is France.

We didn't hang around Dover after we left the castle, apart from to get something to eat and some fuel. There's a lot of castles in that area, so I know I'll be going back sooner or later.

Cornwall

It was an awfully long time ago now that my friends and I went on a little journey. I say little, but to the locals around here, it was downright madness. Seeing as I now have a car, and my friends were soon to depart for the land of the moose (Canada), we felt it was necessary to go to Cornwall for a weekend. We knew it would be quick: a chance to see the main sights for them, a taster for me so that I knew where to go back to. Regardless of our lack of time, we hit the road.

We left Saturday morning, heading for Southampton first of all. It was pouring rain, so of course it was British seaside weather. We made it down there with no problems, and drove around trying to decide what to stop and see. We made a half-hearted effort to find a Titanic memorial, having figured out through random trivial information and using the internet on Mil's phone that we were in the right spot for it. We didn't end up finding the proper one, but we did find another one. It was a memorial for the engineers on board the ship. Close enough, we figured. We wandered around the park for a while before jumping back in the car, and continuing our journey.

We had decided to take the slow roads down there, and see what we found along the way. This meant it was going to be at least two hours longer than by going on the motorways, but we didn't care. In the end, the total trip down there was 13 hours, including stops, but we enjoyed it! We stopped for lunch a bit further down the road, at a town that I'm not sure I knew the name of even when we were there. We found a trusty JD Wetherspoons pub - a staple on our travels.

Getting back on the road was a tough call, as it meant leaving the warmth of the pub (it was cold and wet outside, as usual). We eventually made it to Penzance, what we figured was our destination. We had planned to find a B&B to stay the night at, but of course they conspired against us and we were stuck in a bloody Travelodge. We took a spin through nearby Hayle, and found a local pub for dinner. We were clearly the tourists, as you could understand us clearly, but nobody seemed to mind us being there. We did a bit of night-time site-seeing that night, which included seeing St Michael's Mount all lit up.

The next morning we were up and about early, with one destination in mind - Land's End. I don't know how to use my words to adequately describe it, apart from saying that it was absolutely stunning. The weather had cleared up, so it was a perfect, sunny day. The cliffs are awe-inspiring. It's easy to imagine why people thought it was the end of the earth, as they're certainly formidable. I do think the most classic moment though was the three of us standing on a rock, simultaneously realising that it was Father's Day back home, and also then realising that we had no phone coverage. We all eventually managed to get at least a message to our dads (luckily!).

John O'Groats is generally regarded as the most northern settlement in Great Britain. It's in the Scottish Highlands. The post box in the last photo above is the first and last post box in England. I don't understand why it's both first and last, but either way, it's no longer in use. You have to use the normal free-standing red one a few metres away. I don't see the point in that, really. I did, however, send Nan and Pop a postcard from there, and Mum and Dad as well I think.

We wandered around the cliffs for a bit longer, before doing the one thing we knew we had to do on this trip. That's right, we ate a genuine Cornish pasty. Just because you can buy them on every corner in London, from places like the Cornish Pasty Company, doesn't make them real Cornish pasties in Cornwall. Actually they didn't taste any different, but they were certainly the genuine thing!

From Land's End we took the back road over to this Roman-style amphitheatre, set right on the edge of the cliff. It was in a place called Porthcurno. As with most things in this country, you had to pay to see the amphitheatre, so we strolled to the left of it and overlooked the most beautiful beach I've seen on this side of the equator. I know part of it was due to the gorgeous weather and our view over the cove, but it was still fantastic. It reminded me a lot of the Great Ocean Road in Victoria.



Next up we headed back to Penzance for some fuel, before heading out towards Newquay. We knew that Newquay was a surf town, but I think we were all a bit unprepared for the kind of surf culture that permeates (check my vocab :P) the Sunshine Coast. It was another town perched high above the actual beach, but there were REAL waves there. Something new everywhere we go!

We didn't stay long in Newquay, as - predictably - there was nowhere to park. We headed this time for the Eden Project. It's kind of like a biosphere type place. It's made up of these giant half golf ball things, each containing a different kind of ecosystem. It was a loooooooong walk down from the car, just to find that it was going to cost us £15 each to get in. We knew we only had an hour or so to look around, so that was a bit outrageous. We then had to walk allllllllllllll the way back up to the car. We were so knackered!

That was pretty much the end of our trip to the South West corner of the country. We jumped straight back on the motorway and headed home. Total driving time for the outgoing journey - 13 hours. Total driving time for the return trip - 5 hours. For serious.

How slack am I?

Too slack. Time to update properly.