Travels

Hi All

Its another rainy day today in London, so I thought it'd be the perfect opportunity for a blog update :)

We went to see Mary Poppins on Thursday night, which was one of the most polished performances I have ever seen. To the point that Mary Poppins flys off over the audience at the end! Very cool special effects the whole way through :)

The rest of the week has been spent planning our future travels so we can get everything booked in. At this stage we've planned a week in Budapest at the end of July, a long weekend in Dusseldorf in August and a long weekend in the south of France in September. We're also finalising some travel plans through Central & South America for Oct & Nov, and contemplating a few trips in Africa for May. Today we had the joy of being vaccinated for yellow fever & meningitis to cover us for Sth America, India & Africa. We also need to work out the maleria stuff & whether we want a course of rabies vaccination injections. Joy of joys.

Closer to home, Richard is going to be working up in Sheffield this week to help out with the insurance for all the flooding that has been happening up there lately. To help with his work, his boss has kindly arranged a car for him, which we happily can use tomorrow. So we're planning to drive out to see some english countryside. Perhaps the Cotswolds and/or maybe Stonehenge. Exciting stuff.

Hope all is well back home & promise to have some photos to post next time!

English Adventures

Since we've been here, we found this company called London Walks. They do all sorts of walking tours around London and even have day trips to the country side.

Anyway, we started with a Harry Potter walk, which took us to all these different sights where the characters of the movie were based on. Check out the picture on the left. It's the laneway where Harry buys his owl and wand from. Pretty cool hey.

We've finally gotten around to see some of London's West End theatre. We went to Chicago at Covent Gardens and it was a great show. I think Corryn has booked a few more shows in so that will be good.

We also did a day trip last to a few towns outside of London. The first stop was Avebury Henge. It's a huge stone henge that is said to be the 3rd most spiritual place in Britain. It's a large circle of 99 stones (said to mirror Mars' 99 moons) with two

smaller circles in the centre. The circles were constructed in 2,500 BC.

Some were toppled and destroyed during the Roman period but the remnants of the circle are still quite marvellous. The picture of the tree roots on the left (which is inside the stone circle) is supposedly what gave JR Tolkien the idea for his entrance to Middle Earth.

After we left Avebury, we went to a small town called Lacock (pic of it on the left). It is a beautiful old Medieval English town which has maintained its natural appearance due to being part of the National Trust. Many films are shoot there because of its style and buildings.

The Lacock Abbey (left), an 18th Century homestead, which was originally built as a nunnery is gorgeous.

The photos may look familiar as several rooms and passageways

were also used in the Harry Potter films (Hogwart's School I believe - see a pic on the left of one of the hallways).

Anyway, we are learning lot's about Harry (Well I am anyway).

Other than that, we have ventured around town a bit and seen a few of the usual sights. Yes, even Buckingham Palace (pic on the right). There are lot's of squirrel's in the parks and every time you see them it's still exciting!

Our focus now is trying to plan some weekend's away. We'll keep you posted.

Random Update

Dear all

Apologies for being slack lately, we've been very busy! Richard started a new job last week out just outside of London with an International Loss Adjusting Firm, Cunningham Lindsey. It's a 4 month contract which is perfect, and the company has an office in Kolkata so he may be able to get some work in India!

I've also started work at PwC last week which is strangely familiar but different at the same time. I'm finding out that the world seems a lot smaller from London. Yesterday I was calling our offices in the Middle East and today I've been talking to people from the US. Everything seems so much closer!

We've also started doing some sight seeing... with a picnic in Hyde Park last weekend, and a tour around the Tower of London the weekend before. We're currently planning our holidays (we get 7 days holiday in the 4 month contracts), and are looking at doing 2 short trips, maybe one to Ireland and one to Scotland, so any suggestions are very welcome!

Hope you're all happy & well :)