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Warwick's new Nikon F80 SLR arrived yesterday and has already filled the house with its own personality! Warwick has been learning about SLR cameras for a while and after lots of research he was ready to buy. Hopefully the quality of the photos on this site improves in the new year!

I haven't written anything since October 2001... life has been so full. Back then we headed to Edinburgh with Rachel and Jon, to see the ABs defeat the Scots in ten minutes of rugby (after a 70-minute warm-up).

We hired a rental car for the trip and that was the first time I drove outside of NZ. Fun! although I got a reputation for going round roundabouts a bit too often while I was checking for signposts...

Then: whirlwind - work - wedding - shifting all my belongings between London and Hampshire - surely other things happened during that time? I don't know anymore!

My friend Rahmin was married in November - actually it was a month for weddings. Rahmin and I had lost touch for a few months when we both changed phone numbers. I finally heard from her on Monday, a wedding invitation for the following Sunday! She had got engaged since we lost touch! Then on Tuesday another friend wrote to say she was getting married that Saturday... what a week!

Rahmin's was the first muslim wedding I have been to, and it was SO different to our own. She was dressed in beautiful red and gold and had to look sad and downcast throughout the ceremony, because she was leaving her family home. She couldn't talk to her husband at all during the ceremony. The bride was over two hours late - this was customary, and she was earlier than her sister was! There were hundreds of guests and for the most part, men and women sat on different sides of the room (although towards the centre young people were at more mixed tables).

More whirlwind - work - weddings - winter... Cheryl, Warwick and I were due to fly out from Gatwick on December 16th. On the night of the 15th Garuda called us to say they had cancelled the flight. We ended up on the most nightmare journey I have ever taken... six flights to get to Auckland, having to collect our bags and check in again twice along the way, waiting seven hours without air conditioning in Jakarta airport...

... when we arrived in NZ I was as exhausted as I have ever been, but still able to wake regularly at 5am! It was just lovely being home, my little piece of paradise on earth :-)

We had a day swimming at Parakai (with Liz, Cheryl, Adam, Nikki and Garry) and ten-pin bowling (Cheryl, Adam, Karl, Roxanne, Alistair, Jenni, Steve) and spent time with family over Christmas. Us Scotties had a $2 Christmas: waterpistols, bubble-makers, little plastic puzzles and chocolate - mmmmmmm... Heards Barley Sugars :-)

Oh wow, Warwick is across the room reading this over my shoulder through his camera (70-300 lens) as I type! Notes on our wedding, open day and honeymoon to follow...

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The croquet and petanque matches that began on our wedding day continued the next day at home. Warwick and I had four more days in NZ after our wedding and we used them to see our families as much as possible. On the 2nd we flew out for 7 days in Bali, which is halfway home to England.

Bali was great! Lovely weather (well, for me anyway), clear water beaches, nothing to do but laze... we shopped a bit, swam a lot, tried out jetskiing which I have to thank Warwick for - I would not have done it if he hadn't suggested it, and it was SO much fun! Yummy food (although not so easy to get vegetarian options... Gado Gado is a vegetable dish with peanut sauce, absolutely lovely but we did end up having it rather a lot!) We went to a 5 star restaurant named Kecak Bali, the food was just fabulous! They had a vegetarian rijstaffel, basically a mix of small portions of different dishes. We stayed at the Aston Bali Benoa, a really nice hotel on Tanjung Benoa (Benoa Peninsula).

We did stray from our hotel refuge a couple of times to see a bit more of things. We went to Kuta beach, which I liked better when I had my sunnies on and hat pulled low over my face, fewer people came up to try and sell us things! Otherwise every two steps it's sarongs for sale, silver rings, hair plaits, timeshare scams, hats, shoes, sunnies, manicures, you name it, it's for sale!

Another day we headed to Ubud, closer to the central, more mountainous part of Bali, and noticeably cooler. In some parts street signs were bilingual in Indonesian and in the curly script of a Balinese language. We saw lots of signs of cockfighting all over the island which was quite disturbing. It's illegal apparently but very popular and very obvious. Lots more people tried to sell us lots more stuff - woodcraft, paintings, batik...

We finally got to the Sacred Monkey Forest which I was really wanting to see. What can monkeys sell you?! Warwick wasn't so keen, the monkeys were my idea. But when we got there he enjoyed it - I suddenly realised that the monkeys were roaming free everywhere and I got very nervous! They were very close to us, wherever we walked there were more monkeys. Also saw some gorgeous big moths or butterflies, don't know quite what they were.

When we got back to England neither of us felt the cold as badly as we expected... the freezing fog was a sharp contrast to the weeks before, but it is pretty, and the winter isn't too harsh.

We have found a new place to live - please email for the address! Oh and Warwick did something to a muscle in his chest at rugby last week. It is one of the very muscles important to laughing so I have to not make any jokes! Unfortunately we forgot and went to see Rat Race last night... might have delayed his healing by a few days...

Oh! And Lord of the Rings is the best movie I have seen in a long time, maybe ever. I love it! Go see it if you haven't!

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On Waitangi Day a group (Megan, Jane, Monica, Rhys, another Tania and I) went to see Tim Finn, Dave Dobbyn and Bic Runga at the Brixton Academy. What a night! It was absolutely smashing! The atmosphere was wonderful, the music was excellent, everyone had so much fun :-) And we got seats just on the edge on the reserved section in the centre upper circle. Brilliant!

All that uplifting music, I felt so homesick but so happy :-) I was buzzing for weeks afterwards.

I am sure I had more to write but I just can't think of it for the life of me, so much has happened since January.

We went to Ireland for four days from 16-20 February, a whirlwind tour in which we hired a car and drove like mad to see as much of the south as possible. Our full trip diary can be found here.

We drove from Dublin to Limerick, to Killmallock, Tralee and the Dingle Peninsula, we drove around the Ring of Kerry and down to Cobh, then to Blarney Castle and to Bray (south of Dublin) via the Rock of Cashel. On the last day we went to Glendalough and hung out in Dublin. Madness!

Highlights for me: the pretty wee town of Killmallock, the beautiful Dingle peninsula (we crossed over the mountains rather than drive around them) and Blarney Castle.

Driving around: The road signs for speed are given in miles per hour, but the road signs for distance are given in kilometres. There were tractors everywhere throughout the countryside, and it all looked so very much like the Waikato, it was amazing. It was very different from England. Rachel coined a term for the weather; it wasn't quite raining, but it was misting hard!

Dinner on the first night in Limerick was a yummy lasagne and I had a sip or two of Guinness - surprisingly yummy! although I couldn't drink much of it, even half a pint would be too much I think. And of course we wrote limericks about each other (see our trip diary). Rachel was the best limerick writer, that's why she got the worst limerick.

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We drove on to Tralee, but didn't stop as the mist was fast becoming rain. On our way through we saw a lovely old cemetery, with a ruined church standing in the middle. Very pretty! At this point I was getting very bemused about what looked like cabbage trees everywhere we went. And they are everywhere. I had no idea!

We drove over the spectacular Brandon Mountains on Dingle Peninsula, and into the warm smell of coal fires in the town of Dingle itself. This town boasts Europe's westernmost internet cafe! We stopped for pizza then continued on to the Ring of Kerry, the next peninsula to the south. After Kerry we headed to Cobh (just out of Cork) for the night.

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We were there early, and there were only two small parties - about six people in total - there with us. In all my travels I have learnt this: get up early and get out there before opening time! Having beautiful ancient sites all to oneself is wonderful!

We climbed all round the castle (pretty dangerous in parts) and kissed the stone at the top. That was tricky and felt very precarious! After Rachel and I had kissed the stone, Warwick felt he had no choice but to do the same or we would win every argument for the rest of the trip.

We left Blarney Castle and drove towards Dublin. Drove and drove.

And drove.

And drove and drove and drove.

What a hike! It looked nothing like as far on the map! Slow trucks did not help our speed. We took a quick look at (not through) the Rock of Cashel, snap, tick, on our way again, pressing towards Dublin and watching the clock. We got to Bray (just south of Dublin) just before dark, met Rachel's friend Becky for dinner and found a place to stay.

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We pressed on from Glendalough north again to Trinity College in Dublin, where we saw the Book of Kells. How cool was that???!!! It was brilliant! It was a bit like seeing the Rosetta stone in the British Museum, such an ancient and important piece of writing preserved.

And did you know, our flight back to London cost only £10? Ryanair folks!

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And could we find a bite to eat? Somehow we missed all the food shops (barring Starbucks and McDs, but we weren't that hungry). We were getting moody and headachy and we knew we weren't up to seeing any of Bath's attractions without food - where was the food??? Finally found a cafe and filled up on a giant toasted club sandwich (after accidentally pouring sugar on my chips).

Bath! At last, we were able to actually appreciate the place. I had been before but Warwick hadn't, so we trekked around the Roman baths, still the worse for our enforced fast. The baths are great, I really like them, mostly for their colour.

We went to Sally Lunn's, unfortunately feeling rather full now! Tell you what, Sally Lunn's makes the BEST cream teas (clotted cream and jam on a Sally Lunn bun) - to tell the truth we didn't order the tea but we had the BEST homemade sparkling lemonade and (according to Warwick) the BEST hot chocolate. Truly. Go there! And get the homemade lemonade!

16 March: Oh good, finally catching up with myself here. Last weekend Jon, Warwick and I got up bright and early - ok, maybe just early - and headed out to Stonehenge. We are trying to get out and see some of the things we actually came here to see and Stonehenge is a bit of a must!

First impressions from the road: "There it is! Gosh it's small...!" And it is small, but apparently only the inner rings remain and it was once much larger. Again, we got there early and there were relatively few people there. Another travel tip: go in the off-season. The sights are just as good and there are fewer people in the way.

And just as in Brittany when I saw miles of menhirs arranged in neat rows, I had to wonder why...? and how...? I was very impressed indeed :-) We could get much closer to the stones than I had imagined - they are roped off but still fairly close.

We had heard that Avebury, a few miles away, was also impressive and that you could go right up and touch the stones so we headed up there. We stopped in briefly at Woodhenge - where a bunch of concrete markers preserves a series of rings once marked by ancient wooden poles. Not quite as striking as Stonehenge... On the way to Avebury we also saw an impressive prehistoric white horse etched into the chalky hillside - apparently Wiltshire is littered with them. And when we got to Avebury there was even more to see.

The Avebury stone circle is still mostly complete and circles the heart of the town. We walked all around and earned ourselves a most delicious pub lunch at the Red Lion. Inside the pub the old village well stands preserved - the pub must have been built on or around it - and covered with glass or perspex. I forget the date on the well (it was pretty old) but I do remember that at least one person lies at the bottom of it :-(

Right near Avebury is Silbury Hill, another ancient, man-made addition to the landscape. No-one knows who made it or why. Just opposite Silbury Hill is the Long Barrow, Britain's longest burial mound (I think). You can make your way a wee way into the entrance, but it's not very cosy...!

The other highlight of this trip was the countryside. Wiltshire is very pretty and it was such a tonic to be outdoors and covering our boots with mud!

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We planned to meet in Brighton, where Warwick and I walked along the pebbly beach towards the pier. A very cool looking town! Unfortunately the trains were up to their usual tricks and Megan could only get as far as Hayward's Heath, 15 miles away, so we picked her up there and went to lunch at The Five Bells in Chailey, just out of Lewes.

We had planned to go towards Hastings and check out the castle there, and then on to Battle. We even thought we might make Dover if we were doing OK for time... well we didn't make any of them. Instead, we drove through some gorgeous countryside to Beachy Head, sheer 175m chalk cliffs 3 miles out of Eastbourne.

Beachy Head is stunning! It was a bright, lovely day, if a bit cold and windy, and again there were not too many people about. Well - apart from about 12 parapenters, sitting or circling in the air above us, just off the cliff! They looked spectacular and were so close that we had to jump out of range more than once when they came in to land.

We walked along the cliff line, just enjoying the company, the day and the countryside. And later racing to keep just ahead of a large group of tourists who turned up while we were there!

And to cap off a lovely day, we came home to a magnificently organised dessert party (anyone looking for an exceptional Events Manager can contact Rachel through us). Yay!

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I will spend three days a week working in London from April, and two days working from home. I very much enjoy no longer being a resident Londoner!

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Left-hand traffic was established in Sweden in 1734, but on September 3rd, 1967, Sweden's traffic changed sides to reduce the number of accidents with drivers coming in from Denmark and Norway, where they drove on the right. That meant that we four tourists had to contend with European road traffic as drivers for the first time. Shane bravely took the helm first and navigated us to a motorway cafe place, where we had chips and burgers for lunch in a motorway cafe place and learnt our first Swedish word - "tack" means thank you. (Actually, we ended up subconsciously coining a new word, "tackthankyou", until we realised we could make ourselves understood with "tack")!

We drove around Gothenburg getting familiar with the feeling of driving on the right. I think a public holiday was the best time to do it - the roads in England were apparently madness, but the roads in Sweden were empty. It was fun learning to drive on the right! Buses can follow tram lines in Sweden. We drove round and round the suburbs, slowly realising the inadequacy of our maps. Saw - as we did in Ireland - horses being worked in a sulky along the roadside, and a roundabout decorated with three upturned sulkies. One can't escape one's heritage!

We drove on, missing bridges and on-ramps, but managing to discover our YH completely by accident when we weren't looking for it. We finally decided to aim for Bohus Fästning, where roads seemed to converge and we could probably make a u-turn. Well we even missed that, but saw a cool fortress from the road and made for that. Turns out that fästning means fortress and we were accidentally right where we were meant to be! Blame it on the early start - we had been awake 12 hours by then!

First impressions of Gothenburg: sprawling, shut (it was Good Friday after all), but also friendly. In our lostness we found some lovely pockets of suburbia with very smiley people, lovely coloured and designed homes, nice sections - it even reminded us of home! Cool big bridges span the river and some most excellent ROCKS make up the landscape. Rocks and pinetrees - a very nice place. With lots of licorice on sale - mmmmmm.... :-)

We found our YH again - on purpose this time - and went for dinner at the Taverna Mykonos, a very good Greek restaurant. Our waitress taught us some more Swedish - we could now say tack, hej (hello) and snella (please). A yummy mixed platter washed down with Ouzo, and live music to boot :-)

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We drove about in circles a bit to get out of Gothenburg - tunnels galore around the city - and finally made the road southwards for Malmö and the Øresundsbron bridge to Copenhagen.

On the way south...
Rachel took a detour via a lovely church and castle on the coast. We stopped in Trävslövsläge where we snapped lots of pretty photos of boats. Warwick was talking big about taking a swim, so we found a nearby beach for him. Somehow he didn't manage to take this opportunity...! Oh well, there were plenty of lakes and beaches later on our itinerary...! We swang on the swings before heading south again. Saw lots of tractors out ploughing up the fields, and flocks and flocks of birds in their wakes.

We must thank McDs for lunch that day, there was nothing else open! I was driving by this time - eeks! We kept heading west from the E6 in search of some coastline, but ended up in circles again. We did find another lovely white sand beach just outside Viken. Warwick waded barefoot in the water, and Shane waded barefoot in the sand!

We were very conscious of time when we got back on the motorway. We motored down to Malmö and continued to Øresundsbron - the bridge connecting Sweden to Denmark - me still driving! How exciting! There was a toll of SEK 275, but no customs. The bridge was so long we couldn't see the end of it, it stretched away into the mist. It was really pretty.

As the bridge ended we found ourselves driving through a very long tunnel towards Copenhgen. So far a city of incredible engineering feats! We finally found our YH - and what a huge grand place it was! Apparently one of the largest in Europe. I hadn't been hostelling for years and it was all reminding me of hostel life at University.

That evening we went into Copenhagen and found a free park in the city centre just outside Tivoli. We strolled down Strøget, marvelled at the lights and tracked down some food.

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Early on Sunday morning we headed into Copenhagen again. Not far from the hostel was Christiania, the independent state established in 1971, and recognised by the Danish government as a social experiment. As we walked from the deserted streets into Christiania a glockenspiel was playing at a nearby church - very atmospheric!

You are not allowed to take photos in Christiania. It is a very hippy, colourful place - and also very quiet at the time we were there. There were murals everywhere, and although cannabis is dealt and used freely in this place, very many of the murals were dedicated to a campaign against hard drugs. It was a really different world.

We drove into the city centre to see the Little Mermaid statue, which left Warwick and Shane more than a little underwhelmed, although Rachel and I thought she was lovely. We wandered back to our car through an army base - apparently a place of residence for Denmark's Queen - a beautiful place and the exact opposite of Christiania! Everything was very clean, straight and regimented. The buildings were blocks of colour, and there was a church and a windmill. The complex lies within a moat - a very peaceful, colourful place.

Shane drove us north, avoiding the motorway in favour of the coast road. This way was very pretty, and reminded us in places of Tauranga or Mount Maunganui. We found a quiet pebble beach outside Hornbæk, and drove back through Hellebæk for a very yummy lunch. Finally we got to Helsingør (the town where Hamlet was set) for the ferry back to Sweden.

We drove onto the ferry no trouble! During the 20 minute crossing Rachel and I decided to check out the duty-free shopping. There were some interesting restrictions: alcohol was only sold in Danish waters, and cigarettes only in Swedish waters. Those two shops were open for fewer than 10 minutes each! I loaded up with licorice and tictacs as a message came over the loudspeaker: we were about to dock, so all motorists were to return to their cars. We hurried back to meet Warwick and Shane.

On the car deck we waited. And waited. And waited and waited and waited. And then we noticed with some alarm that cars were beginning to leave the ferry in queues and the boys - with the keys - were nowhere to be seen! Vehicles queueing behind us had to wait for the next column to empty of cars before backing out and squeezing by, as we tried blending into the walls. (There were no walls quite as red as we were). Finally our car was alone on the deck. And still we waited, as cars began boarding for the return journey. Then all in a rush the boys were back and we were away! Their excuse? World Rally Playstation machines or something along those lines! Raaaaaaa!

Later, as I was driving, we tiki-toured around off the main road, trying to find some lake roads in place of monotonous motorway, but found some pretty farmland instead. We stopped at a pretty lake as the light began to fade. (There was a lovely collection of little wooden holiday homes there). Finally we made Jönköping, then Huskvarna where we stayed the night.

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On the way to and from Eksjö we drove through some gorgeous countryside; scores of mirror-like lakes reflecting red and white farmhouses and ochre grasses. Oh and an idyllic scene with horses, farmhouse and nearby church! The hills and lakes and forests seemed to go on forever.

We found lunch in a pizzeria/kebab shop in Ulricehamn (after much walking and even scouring a supermarket) where the MTV music awards were playing. Deeply immersed in the local culture today!

There are something like 100,000 lakes in Sweden, and I think we drove by most of them. We turned off the main road towards Hindås and just before Hindås found a lake with holiday homes around it - one home was built out on the water. Warwick had been talking big about swimming all trip so we found him a nice sandy beach on a clear lake. Finally the "no time" and "no parking" excuses were dropped and the truth came out: "can't handle the cold!"

And it was icy. Warwick and Shane skimmed stones on the lake - it was a close competition, won narrowly by Shane with a massive 14 skips disappearing across the lake in a graceful arc. Rachel and I - still practising with our cameras - photographed anything that moved.

All the way through the farmland we saw families and children outside playing, it was so nice! At this lonely beach there were two families with dogs. It was a lovely time and a lovely spot - we took our best group photos here.

Suddenly and all too soon we were at Landvetter airport to drop the car back, then bussing to Gothenburg for a yummy falafel yet another bus to Save and then a Ryanair flight home. We were all sooooooo tired, we could hardly talk! Quite apart from all the travelling, we had lost two hours this weekend - one heading to Europe which is an hour ahead of Britain, and one because of the spring daylight savings changeover. Still catching up on the sleep a week later!

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So now we have shaken ourselves free from the blue glare of the screen, I have some catching up to do.

Ages ago Vanita, Mark, Warwick and I went to Warwick and Stratford-upon-Avon for the day. What a nightmare! Not the towns, the journey. A nightmare! But a rather amusing nightmare all the same...

We have this thing about Kingston you see. Kingston is a nasty little mesh of roads in south London, on the way to Wimbledon. Actually I'm sure there is much more to it, it might be a nice wee part of town for that matter, but all we know of it is that once you drive in you are hard put to find your way out again. We found this out incredibly late at night after driving back from Edinburgh last year, and too late we realised we were back there again when we went to pick up Vanita.

Round and round and round we drove, missing potential turns here there and everywhere. We finally found Vanita somewhere towards Tooting and beetled out of there - avoiding Kingston - as quickly as we could.

We headed north-west, late, for Warwick and Stratford-upon-Avon. We were a very sleepy bunch of travellers - the night before, Vanita and Mark had managed about 2 and 4 hours sleep respectively. So those of us who could stay awake peered bleary-eyed at the scenery until we were getting close to Bath. Bath???!!! That's half-way to Wales! We had managed to take the wrong motorway - it got us fast away from Kingston, but not so fast towards Warwick. Aaagh!

We finally made it to Warwick where we all agreed we were too broke to go into the castle. We walked around it as far as we could, and then into town for lunch at the Pig and Whistle. Warwick has some lovely half-wood tudor houses, and was very pretty with the wisteria just beginning to show some colour. And I felt compelled to buy an "I love Warwick" badge at the souvenir shop
;-)

Pressing on to Stratford-upon-Avon, Vanita and Warwick were both overcome by a strong craving for ice-cream which would pervade our visit. Stratford is also very pretty, with the requisite half-wood houses. We saw the place where Shakespeare's house once stood, and saw his birthplace (but didn't go in - it was very expensive!) There were lovely tulips blooming outside the house, it was gorgeous. We wandered around looking for ice-cream, and walked down by the Avon where it was sold from a narrow-boat on the river! By that stage however, both Vanita and Warwick were gaining some willpower and never did end up buying those ices.

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I am working from home most days now, which is brilliant. I have so much more productive time during the day - three hours more, in fact. I am back into a healthy routine again - life got SOOO difficult and busy for the last few months I was in London. No life should be like mine was! All tubes and traffic and late working hours and no time for the gym and trying to have a social life and trying not to have a social life and above all needing eight hours sleep a night, I was in a tailspin!

Now though, I can walk/jog along Farnborough's green streets and parks during the day, I can cook my own proper (healthy!) lunches and work in a quiet environment. I'd recommend it to anybody. As I say to mum whenever she asks me what's new, nothing is new! It's all familiar and settled and peaceful and in balance, even taking into account my resurrected social life. Sigh!

Oh yes, and some time in the hazy, sunny, recent past, we went 10-pin bowling with about 10 others from church. After a shocking start I got 3 spares!

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Gwil has a collection of thunderbolts, which he found in turn collected under his property. They are heavy little balls of iron, fallen from space, and used as weapons thousands of years ago. Gwil also told us how a falling thunderbolt knocked out the nosecone and radar of a plane he was on once! Eeeks!

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The beautiful sunshine and spring showers lately have encouraged our lawn to grow and grow. After we mow it, all the wildlife comes along - birds come for the insects, bigger birds come to assert their territorial rights over the little birds, cats come to police the area, and of course our friends the squirrels are still running around above it all in the big tree in the school grounds. The other day a little red-breasted robin came along and spent some time at our place.

Two Saturdays ago we headed out to Twickenham to see the London leg of the World Rugby 7s Series. Warwick wasn't feeling too good that morning, but he was determined to see the tournament, so we set out with me at the wheel.

Well, Warwick's health didn't improve. By the time we got there we were talking of selling our tickets on and heading home again. But then it was time for kick-off and somehow, for some reason, we stayed. It was worth it! We saw some great games and had some great fun! Warwick picked up a bit a couple of hours into the tournament and they sold great chips and New Zealand won :-) We won not only the London 7s tournament, but the NZ women's rugby 15 won the World Cup, and the Canterbury Crusaders beat ACT Brumbies. All on the Saturday - not a bad day's work!

Because this year is the Queen's Golden Jubilee, the May bank holiday was shifted to the first week of June, and an extra holiday tagged onto it - so this week is a three-day working week. We took those three days off, and with six days of weekend either side have a nine-day stretch to tour around Wales. Yeeha! And what better way to kick the trip off than with the last leg of the Rugby 7s in Cardiff?

With a big working week behind us (all deadlines brought forward because of our holiday) we got up early-ish on Saturday to head to Cardiff. For some reason, because we were tired and slow, or perhaps because we still had so much to get done around home, we didn't leave for four hours! We were VERY late to the rugby, but saw most semi-finals and all the finals. We won the tournament and the series easily - these boys are brilliant!

But I am getting ahead of myself: the journey out was something to mention. It was just beautiful, taking the shortcut through glades and fields and villages to the motorway. Everything is in flower it seems, and the trees are heavy with leaf. Purple rhododendrons in amongst the trees and shrubs made a for beautiful drive. We went through Hartley Wintney, a lovely wee village not far from us, where they were having a fair (sorry, fayre). All the bunting out for the Jubilee here (and elsewhere throughout the country) was fantastic!

What with the Football World Cup and the Jubilee just now, England seems to be in party mode. The England flags (which fly from shops, cars and houses in support of the football team) have been supplemented with Union Jacks for the Jubilee. You can buy red, white and blue Jubilee sausages if you really want to!

In Wales there seem to be as many Union Jacks around as in England - we saw red, white and blue Jubilee ice-cream for sale in Bracelet Bay, and a tea-party in someone's front lawn with everyone wearing union jack hats and sitting amongst more Union Jack bunting - which surprised us as on every Welsh trip we've made including this one we have encountered some very strong anti-English feeling.

At the 7s in Twickenham a week ago, we were surprised (well, not that surprised) at the anti-Australian feeling displayed by the crowd. The large contingent of Kiwi supporters booed the Aussie team mercilessly. This week, at the Cardiff 7s, the same treatment was given by Welsh supporters to the English team. (I guess there aren't so many vocal Kiwis in Cardiff, the Aussies were not booed at all).

With the 7s over, the series won, and the intimate atmosphere of the small tournament dissipating into a celebratory Saturday night, we headed to our B&B. We had booked in March for this occasion - knowing that the rugby fell at the beginning of an extended bank holiday, we left nothing to chance. We turned up at 8pm, only to be told that the proprietor had given our room away at 7. WHAT???!!! She had given us no time limit or curfew, we had confirmed our stay, she had our credit card details, and she had decided to give our room away. ROOOOOOAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!

She was extremely unhelpful and didn't even offer to ring around for another room for us - I guess she knew, as we suspected, that Cardiff was full. Every hotel or B&B we tried was full. The Holiday Inn told us that, apart from the odd single room, all hotels and B&Bs were full from Swansea to Newport. ROOOOOOAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!

Advice for wary travellers: do not trust the B&B at 97 Allensdale Road (advertised in the Lonely Planet)!

We wandered the B&B streets and checked out the biggest hotels, meeting a sympathetic Kiwi rugby fan on the way, but there was nothing to be found on foot or by phone. In the end we drove 150 miles home, arriving around midnight. A false start to our Welsh tour :-(

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We paid our toll on the Severn Bridge once more, looked out from the bridge to Denny Island (hello Denny!) and carried on past Cardiff to Swansea and the Mumbles.

The Mumbles is a bit like Tamaki Drive, in a Bristol Channel kind of way. There is a long stretch of footpath following the bays, with plenty of playgrounds and cafes. We drove through it all - the weather was a bit grey although there were a lot of people around - and we stopped for a bit at Bracelet Bay. I had an exceptionally lovely jacket potato and a decadent chocolate sundae, then we went on to Southgate and Three Cliffs Bay on the Gower Peninsula.

Walking out towards Three Cliffs Bay was beautiful - but we could see the bad weather coming in from the sea. In an astonishly short time we were walking through a cloudy mist so we abandoned our journey to Three Cliffs. We'll have to go back!

We turned back towards Swansea and up to the Brecon Beacons National Park, where we had booked into the Llwyn-y-Celyn YH. It's lovely, remote, and they didn't turn us away, so we were doing better than the night before. We have got back into YHing around - the two of us can stay in our own room for £25 per night. It feels a bit like a camp or retreat, and we can bring and cook our own food if we want.

Our room here is itty-bitty but the beds are comfy and the people are friendly. The weather is much the same as yesterday, rain and mist, but it seems to be clearing so we should be able to head out this afternoon for a decent walk. The air is so clean and fresh here, and we can hear birds all day long. Peace!

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The Guardian Hay Book festival happens to be taking place right now, so the wee town was packed. We parked a wee way away and walked in (we had no other choice) and when we walked back to the car we noticed, to Warwick's disappointment, that we had parked in England. Hay is in Wales, but the few streets on the outskirts are within the borders of Herefordshire, and on the way to our car we were greeted with a "Welcome to England" sign! "We're meant to be on holiday in Wales" complained Warwick. So we have spent time in England every day since we arrived in Wales three days ago!

By the time we left Hay, the sun was out and we saw the beautiful hills and mountains around us in their full glory for the first time. We hurried home to baked beans and a walk around the hostel area. We walked for about three hours, took plenty of photos, and took lots of lovely clean air into our lungs.

The farmland around here is a lot like home - by home I mean Waikato specifically - but they don't mark their walking trails quite as we do in NZ. In Britain people use map and compass more than I am used to, and you are often free to roam over private land as well as National Trust properties, so paths are not always needed or even practical. Farmers who have a public pathway through their land are banned from putting bulls in those fields, unless they are with heifers, and some types of bull are banned absolutely. People wander everywhere, with respect to by-laws and restriction notices.

Something nice which I have noticed here, and also in the Lake District in England, is that you can walk through the national parks from youth hostel to youth hostel. Lots of people do it, making their ways day by day across the parks on foot, and the YHs have maps of the best ways between them.

The marked path that we followed around our hostel was a journey of extremes. We strolled through flat fields, then found ourselves climbing sharp wee inclines. Or worse - heading down them. Worse still - sliding down steep wee thistle-clad inclines (this was in preference to the stinging-nettle-carpeted way). I ended up sitting down with a thud into a very healthy patch of thistle! My new walking (oops, I mean tramping) boots served me very well. I only wish I'd worn tougher trousers!

We came home through lovely evening sunlight to dinner and a game of checkers :-) It's still quite light now at quarter past nine. (The western horizon still showed some pale light after 10:30pm the other night as we drove home from Cardiff). And I am going to bed :-)

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We travelled on through Solva (another lovely view of boats moored a way below the road) and a lovely minor coastal road, scarily narrow, over hills and dales until we caught our first glimpse of deep, blue, endless ocean and glistening bays. BEAUTIFUL! We took some photos outside Marros and carried on through Saundersfoot in search of Tenby, which came highly recommended. Tenby is lovely! Full of people, but a nice place. Our gorgeous, sunshiney day was fast becoming really HOT and it felt just like summer :-)

We had lunch in Penally because Tenby was so busy, and stopped again in Newgale for lots of photos of a great-looking beach :-) We were spoilt for choice of beautiful beaches along the Pembrokeshire coast. They are all part of the Pembrokeshire Coastal Park, and no wonder!

We got to St Davids at about 4pm. This is Britain's smallest city - its population numbers only 1450, but its cathedral has brought it city status. City status is awarded in this way throughout Britain - population has little to do with it. Our nearest big neighbour to Farnborough is Guildford, an historic market town with a University, population 60,000 - it was refused city status this year. It was competing against many towns to be one of five culturally significant enough to be named as cities in the Golden Jubilee year.

Back to St Davids! St David himself was a 6th-century Welsh monk, born in a bay near where the city now stands. The cathedral was built much later, and was built low into a depression in the landscape in the hope that Norse raiders wouldn't notice it, but it was still ransacked seven times! The site has been very important - in the middle ages, two pilgrimages to St Davids were said to equal one to Rome.

We carried on to our YH at Pwyll Deri, which looked pretty remote on the map - and it is indeed! We are on the edge of the world, it seems. We followed rugged coastline all the way up, seeing fewer and fewer farmhouses, along narrow roads with no road markings and only the odd signpost poking out from the long grasses to reassure us we were not lost (well after I had decided we were). I have only ever been this far from civilisation once, far out the back of Whangarei on a far-away beach, but no - this place is more remote still.

We walked down the coastal path tonight until the light faded, taking photos and breathing in the peace and quiet. We sat out on a grassy outcrop with ocean on three sides and rested in the warm evening light, listening to the waves crashing and the seagulls calling, and looking out over the ocean to the far horizon, nothing but sea. Sigh! We live in such a beautiful world :-)

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Not far from Newport we stopped again, this time at Pentre Ifan, the remains of a neolithic burial chamber, 4,500 years old. It was really pretty, this ancient, precarious-looking arrangement of stones which once served as a doorway. The site of an ancient quarry nearby is where stones were taken for building Stonehenge, hundreds of miles away in Wiltshire, England.

Pressing on for all of about two miles we came to Nevern, the sweetest, sleepiest, most peaceful wee village I have ever stumbled upon - and I have had the fortune to stumble upon a fair few! Nevern is famous for its stone carvings at the Church of St Brynach. (St Brynach was a contemporary of St David and Nevern was one of the main stops on a pilgrimage from farther north to St Davids). We saw the Pilgrims' Cross, carved into a rock face to let pilgrims from Holyhead know they were going the right way. (Holyhead, in Anglesey, is the main port for travellers coming in from Ireland). This pilgrims' cross is one of the last remaining.

In the churchyard, Warwick met the vicar, John Tucker. John told us all about the church and its history - and we talked some rugby :-) There is a sixth-century burial stone standing outside the church, with words carved in Latin and in Ogham (a first-century Celtic language), indicating the grave of an important chieftain. A similar but slightly later stone, better preserved, has been set into the window ledges in the south transcept of the church.

The Ogham language comprises three sets of five consonants (written as lines) and one set of five vowels (notches in the stone), a total of twenty letters. When inscribed on stones it is read vertically from the bottom up.

The church of St Brynach is built in the shape of a cross, as are many churches, but the chancel (the "head" of the cross where the altar is and where the choir sits) is set at an angle to the rest of the church (it's only a one degree angle, but it looks to be much more). This is reminiscent of the head of Christ, tilted to one side on the cross.

Back out in the churchyard, another large stone stands among the graves. This is a ten-foot tall Celtic cross, one of the most ornate examples in Wales, dating from the tenth century. In the 18th century someone dug down to see how far the stone extended underground. He stopped his diggings at four feet below, so it is at least that deep!

Some of the yew trees in the graveyard have been there for 600 or 700 years, and one of them is particularly special - it is known as the bleeding yew. The tree bleeds red sap year-round, and it looks for all the world like blood. There are legends attached... one is that a young man was hanged from the tree for stealing from the church. With his last words he said that the tree would bleed to proclaim his innocence. Another legend refers to the ruined castle, not yet excavated, at Nevern. Apparently the tree will bleed until there is a Welsh king at Nevern castle.

Outside the churchyard there is an 18th-century mounting block to help you mount your horse. Finally, you can look up to Carn Ingli (which John pronounced just beautifully!), an outcrop of rock on a high hill above the town, where St Brynach met with God and had visions. One vision was to build a church or monastic cell by the brook where there was a sow with a litter of piglets - the church stands on this site today. It is lovely, hearing the brook beyond the church, it adds to the feeling of peace.

Nevern is chockablock with history but it is a very peaceful town. I love it!

We pressed on through the towns along the coast of Cardigan Bay, to Borth, just north of Aberystwyth. We have a perfect view over the ocean for the sunset, but there might be too much cloud around for a really good sunset tonight. We have had brilliant sunshine all day though :-) There is a large contingent of schoolgirls in the YH tonight, all holding excited, high-pitched conversations. Hope we can get some sleep!

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There are models of self-build houses with different types of insulation, and displays on harnessing wind, solar and wave energy. Also recycling, composting and companion planting... did you know you don't have to kill slugs? You can put them in your compost heap, where they will munch away happily until their natural deaths, breaking down your compost in the meantime. Their eggs don't hatch in the heat of the compost heap, and are eaten instead by other bugs living in the compost. Well, I was impressed!

They sold veggie food there, not entering into the ethical debate on eating animals, but coming from the point of view of the negative environmental impact of eating meat.

After a scrummy lunch we carried on through some impressive valleys and towering peaks to the Snowdonia National Park, where our YH is at the foot of Snowdon itself. We took a wrong turn along the way, found a breath-takingly beautiful waterfall cutting through the mountains, and a village (Beddgelert) nestled in a valley. We stopped for chips and some delicious ice-cream (I had a scoop each of kiwifruit and blackcurrant sorbets, Warwick had a magnificent, towering chocolate sundae).

After passing very few vehicles on the road, we were surprised to find Beddgelert packed with tourists and doing a roaring trade in ice-cream and postcards. And it seemed every second tourist had a dog! It turns out that Beddgelert means Gelert's grave. The legend is that Prince Llewelyn ap Iorwerth left his faithful dog with his baby son while he went hunting. When he returned the child was gone and there was blood on the dog's muzzle. In anger, he slew the dog who he assumed had killed the child... then he heard the child cry from under a pile of clothing in the corner of the room, and found a dead wolf, which the faithful dog had killed to save the baby.

Llewelyn is said never to have smiled again, and buried his dog where pilgrims now flock (with their own faithful hounds). In fact, this story was made up by local traders to lure Snowdon's visitors to their village. The place name probably actually refers to Gelert, a sixth-century saint from the area.

We headed on to the Snowdon Ranger, our YH for tonight and tomorrow night. There is a large and noisy contingent of scouts here...!

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Well today Warwick forgot his prudent motto, and this morning we got our lunch together, found the Snowdon Ranger track and headed uphill - destination: the Snowdon summit. This is the highest peak in England and Wales - at 1085m above sea-level it is just higher than Te Aroha (952m).

The weather looked OK and we walked through a picturesque farm to get to the foothills of the peak. "Where is the mountain?" asked Warwick. All we could see were foothills around us, but no peaks rising above: anything remotely lofty was shrouded in cloud. We walked on, and the view diminished, although the weather wasn't bad - until we got to the point of no return! When it was easier and safer for us to press on to the summit in case of difficulty, the weather closed in.

The rain filled the lenses of my glasses (note for sometime-contact wearers like myself: glasses are no good for scaling wet and misty mountains, wear your lenses). The wind came up and was really quite brutal - it was no longer comfortable walking, although the track wasn't difficult. This is why Warwick says "Never go tramping with Tania!" - I bring bad weather to mountains.

At one point, in the thick of the fog, we heard a strange mechanical noise. Farm machinery? Not at this gradient, nor in this weather. A plane? Hope not! Too low! It was a bit scary, this mad, fast, clunking sound coming closer and closer to us, and we unable to see more than two metres! It turned out to be the steam train, the easy way up.

For us mad walkers in the rain, cloud and wind - what a struggle to the top! Warwick quote: "It's getting easier to walk now. You just kind of fall forward and put your foot out to catch yourself." We were soaked through, and that mountain just kept going up! The Snowdon Ranger track is easier than the path we took up Te Aroha, but where the NZ bush protects you on Te Aroha's face, we were exposed to the wind on the bare face of Snowdon. It made for hard going at the end when we were tired, and we couldn't see our destination until we were within two metres of it.

Well we got there, and I was holding onto the final steps to the summit with my hands, debating whether it was worth going that extra metre into that terrible wind and risking losing my balance, just to say I had made it. Well the wind dropped a bit, and I went up, but I only stayed 20 seconds! We came down, ate in the packed cafe, and made for home. We were soaked through but the way down was easier.

(And right at the very summit, where a large contingent of scouts and other climbers were clinging on for all they were worth, the topic of conversation was... football! The England-Argentina World Cup game had kicked off only half an hour ago, and those people with pocket radios were giving live updates to their fellow climbers).

On our way down the cloud lifted and we saw sheer cliffs littered with slate, dry-stone walls through the valleys, a circular pattern of dry-stone walls that looked like the remains of a cottage or a sheep-fold, and a lovely series of lakes, each feeding the next by a small stream. The view stretched into the distant valley between steep cliffs, breathtaking! Until the cloud came in once again - ever so quickly! - and we were walking through the rain as it formed and fell. Oh well, one man in the cafe had walked up Snowdon three times, and had yet to see the view! Never go tramping with Tania! That's Warwick's motto, and it's now mine ;-)

Tonight we met Rita, a Swiss girl who is travelling through Britain alone for a month, and a large pack of scouts (about ten children and 20 adults). The scouts are having a lovely sing-along downtairs. In one week they have scaled the highest peaks in England (Scafell Pike, 978m), Scotland (Ben Nevis, 1343m) and Wales - Snowdon was their last today and they are celebrating :-) They gave us some of their Somerset cider, the driest and most difficult to drink that I have ever tasted!

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We left the hostel with the vague aim to see what we could see in Anglesey. Anglesey is an island, and at 276 square miles is the largest island in Wales and England. It is separated from the mainland by the very narrow Menai Strait. It is flat, but with some lovely rugged coastline. We stopped briefly at the town of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.
This placename is the longest in Britain, and was thought up in the 19th century to bring tourists to the town. It means 'St Mary's Church in the hollow of the White Hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St Tysilio near the Red Cave'.

But even that still doesn't beat New Zealand's
Taumatawhakatangihangakoaauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu
('the place where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, who slid, climbed and swallowed mountains, known as 'landeater', played his flute to his loved one').

Anglesey is absolutely littered with ancient burial chambers and monuments. We stopped at the ancient village of Din Llugwy, where the foundations of the small settlement fortified against the Romans are still clearly visible. The remains of 9 huts can be seen, and debris in the hearths indicates that iron was smelted there. The entire settlement is surrounded by a low stone wall and dates from around the fourth century AD.

Nearby there is a small 12th-century chapel, and a neolithic burial chamber (c 2500-2000 BC). We stopped at another, probably older, burial chamber later on, but by then the novelty of neolithic monuments was leaving us. They are scattered through farmland all over the place!

We zoomed by a windmill then headed back towards Bangor on the mainland. It was nice, driving through the flat countryside of Anglesey, with the coast so nearby, towards the mountains of Snowdonia. We drove east to Llandudno, which was designed as an upmarket Victorian resort. It is full of people! The buildings are lovely and the beach is long, but it felt like coming back to England, with its crowded high street Saturday shopping! I can't complain, I joined in the consumer frenzy and bought myself a new camera bag which doubles as a daypack. Would have been perfect for the holiday we have nearly finished...

Pressing on, we headed east a wee way along the coast, but the day was getting pretty grey so we turned back to Bangor to our last YH. It's a lovely hostel, and we have the best room we have had yet :-)

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We drove from Bangor, through the beautiful valleys around Betws-y-Coed and LLangollen, past a "Welcome to England" sign and then through Shrewsbury, carefully disentangling ourselves from the terrible traffic around Birmingham, and we were home before we knew it. Rats!

Home is nice though, and it's good to get some washing on! And to tape up our long-suffering, faithful road map which is rather the worse for the wear it has seen in the last nine days.

It's Monday evening, and I can hear Warwick reading in the lounge while I type. By that I mean he is in peals of laughter! I think it's James Herriot - I'd better borrow the book when he's done with it.

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Warwick has got the commentary up over the internet, it's blaring through his minute laptop speakers, and it's just brilliant to hear a live NZ commentary again and to hear the crowd at Carisbrook Stadium. I'm really quite impressed by the technology that lets this happen!

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But that's basically what this website is, one big trip diary with pictures. I think I've become aware that I have seen so much that I am very likely to forget much of it very quickly - I have learnt that no matter how cool a place is, it's hard to keep it all to the front of the memory. And it's easier working with colour and pictures, and being able to edit the words with no messy crossing-out or twink.

Something that I want to remember all my life is the beautiful colour we have had here. It began with the bright yellow rape flowers in May, joined soon after by beautiful carpets of bluebells in the woods. Just gorgeous! Pinky-purple foxgloves followed, and deep purple rhododendrons made a beautiful contrast with the greens of the countryside. Finally, wild red poppies have put on a breath-taking display for us almost everywhere. A stunning sight! I hope I can remember everything else that I've wanted to write in the last month or so - I'll begin where I left off, the Jennings conference...

Jennings - a well-meaning, troublesome fictional boy who brings a serious society of afficionados together at Lewes every year. These people are very serious about their business, and my Warwick is one of them! Anthony Buckeridge (the author) was able to join us again this year - he had just celebrated his 90th birthday.

Warwick made a presentation this year - "Jennings and my road to ruin." I learn more about my husband everyday! Anne and Jenni have both told (warned?) me of his addiction to reading and the trouble it has got him into in the past. But nothing prepared me for his speech! (You'll have to write and badger him for the content if you are interested. Suffice to say he was not a model school librarian).

We also had a revue put on by a group of French students who had come for the occasion, and we met a lady, Margaret Conway, who was interested in Warwick's name... Warwick is quite rare as a first name over here, and she had named her own son Warwick. It is always a talking point - something which has surprised us both, being in the land of Warwick Castle, Warwick University, Warwick town and Warwickshire. Warwick always has to repeat and then spell his name to English people!

We got home late that night and I had work to do - yes, on Saturday night. This weekend got very hectic - we had orginally meant to spend Saturday in Switzerland with Heather, but had double-booked with the Jennings conference and Warwick's presentation was already on the agenda. It was a mad, hectic time at work anyway and the days I could take off were very poorly timed, so I worked long hours and weekends around our holiday :-( We grabbed what sleep we could and then...

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Our pilot was very funny - he announced that this was a non-smoking flight and that if anyone wished to smoke during the flight they would be escorted to the rear of the craft and asked to leave!

We touched down in Zurich ten minutes early and met Heather - who had had a haircut! I have never known Heather to have her hair cut before. We took a very nice train to Interlaken, wandered around and grabbed a vege burger for lunch before catching our train to Grindelwald. What a beautiful journey! The Alps look just like in the movies and in pictures. We walked to our YH, a converted chalet, a very nice place indeed.

On the way up Heather (in hunter/gatherer mode) discovered tiny wild strawberries growing along the roadside. They were itty-bitty but they were a beautiful red and had so much flavour - yum :-)

Heather's room was in the chalet itself, while Warwick and I were in a new purpose-built block beside it. The room-key was a piece of paper with a barcode printed on it - disposable! Nice room looking onto the mountains.

We walked up behind the YH before dinner, hearing cowbells, crossing fields and stopping by a lovely brook. We sat there among beautiful wildflowers - and some very big ants! Later we had a yummy mushroomy-pastry-type dinner on the chalet balcony, watching (and hearing) snow crash like a waterfall from the mountains in front of us. And the YH had put a Swiss chocolate on each of our pillows!

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We left the YH and wandered through the shops in Grindelwald - very touristy but who can complain when you can buy a Swiss Army knife for cheap and post it home? (No question of taking it on the plane and we had no hold luggage with us - we are light travellers these days). We caught a train back to Interlaken (boy that train ride is beautiful - looking out over the valleys, all the chalets and green fields against a background of snowy mountains!) and lunched at the same yummy burger place again. We were wandering peacefully through the shops when I realised I had left my two jackets on the train. Panic!

Actually, we were sweltering - I had no need of extra layers which is probably why I forgot them. We had not had time to do our homework before our holiday - normally we'd get the weather forecast at the very least. It is testament to our busy life at the time that we just had to rely on what stereotypes we had of the Alps and what weather we were experiencing in England. So we ended up wearing trousers and jeans and walking boots, and carrying our coats. Simmer, simper, simmer, simper...!

Still, my fleece and my Annah S. jacket were making their own way back to Grindelwald and that affected our travel that afternoon. I had to dig up what rusty German was left in the recesses of my memory and talk to a grumpy ticket lady who was no help whatsoever. Heather had found us a 12:40 train to Brienz but no platform was advertised - the grumpy lady was equally unhelpful to her.

At the very last moment we realised that the 12:40 was not a train but a boat! What a stressed little bunch we were by then. I wanted to give my jackets the best chance possible of returning home so we ran and put Heather on the boat - we would talk to lost property and catch a later train to Brienz. A very nice man helped us out about my coats (although I never did see them again) and we waited by the lovely blue Brienzersee for our train. Trains in Switzerland seem to be really well connected to ferries - what an organised place!

It was so peaceful waiting for the train, so blue and summery - it reminded me what we miss out on in Britain. Our summers can be nice but they are oh, so short! At that point summer had not yet begun in our part of the world.

Other memories of that day: a conversation about parasailing - something Heather would like to do someday - and Warwick's lovely, happy grin throughout the trip and especially on the train journeys to and from Grindelwald. He was very hot and tired but he was so happy and relaxed and enjoying this new environment!

We got to beautiful Brienz - before Heather, as the ferry took a lot longer than the train - and headed straight for a sports shop to buy togs! The heat was becoming almost unbearable. We met Heather at the ferry - she had decided to take a bus to Bellingwald to go to a outdoor museum of Swiss housing. Our brains were far too fried in the heat for that kind of exercise! We waited for the Bellingwald bus (a postal delivery bus!) with Heather then headed straight for the lake, togs in tow. (I also went unsuccessfully in search of ice-cream, and heard the lady in the shop saying "merci vielmal" to her customers. I've never heard that before!)

We walked along the lake, sat and watched the boats, and finally continued to the Strandbad (a kind of changing rooms-restaurant-playground complex on the side of the lake) where we locked up our cameras and got into the water. We were supposed to be saving money but we were so hot by this time that the 5CHF entry to the Strandbad did not faze us in the slightest. The water was ice-cold - it was snow-melt, straight from the mountains above us - but it was 33 degrees outside so there was no choice but to swim. What a holiday atmosphere, lots of families and children out in the bright sunshine. Warwick swam some more while I got out and basked in the sun. So warm!

By the time we had walked back to meet Heather we were as hot as if we had not swum. We caught a train to Lucerne, had a Subway sandwich for dinner and took another train to our nice, big YH in Zug. We got there at 10ish - very, very tired. We dumped our things and headed out to the lake. I sat in the peaceful night air, looking across at the Altstadt, while Warwick and Heather swam and swam and swam. It was still terribly hot when we got home to sleep.

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At Romanshorn we boarded the ferry which would take us across the Bodensee (Lake Constance) to Germany - au revoir la Suisse! Or at least, uff Wiederluege! It was a very peaceful, gentle crossing. I wonder how Lake Constance formed? We saw a zeppelin from the ferry - apparently Friedrichshafen is the home of the zeppelin.

We had a quick bakery lunch (we had no euro currency! That was an oversight!) and finally caught our train to Friedrichshafen airport. I was very happy to be speaking German in Switzerland and in Friedrichshafen, but I made lots of mistakes! Goodness me! I bought a German magazine at the airport so I can get back into reading it. Oh, and I found yummy strawberry-yoghurt-filled chocolate in the airport, I'd fallen in love with it in Germany five years ago and then forgotten all about it. And so we flew HOME! But events did not stop there...

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After Edwina left, Rachel got back from Africa, brown as a berry, looking awfully relaxed - and planning a trip to Spain. While she was still with us Adam flew in on his way back from France. He had about eight hours between flights so we picked him up at the airport, went supermarket shopping and then remembered Edwina's recommendation of Winchester. It's about an hour down the motorway so we headed down there, wandered through the beautiful cathedral and through the streets.

Winchester is lovely! We didn't have time to see everything Edwina had seen, but we saw Jane Austen's grave inside the cathedral, and plaques recording William the Conqueror's presence all over the town. It's a lovely, peaceful spot!

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We have also been able to watch the Tri-Nations rugby live at the Elusive Camel pubs in London - 8:30am kick-off for games in NZ, but we shouldn't have to get out of bed so early for the Oz or SA games later this month and next month. The first game of the tournament - NZ-Oz in Christchurch - the pub were not expecting the crowds they got for the live broadcast at 8:30am. They had a skeleton staff on and were prepared for big crowds at 12 for the replay. What we will do for our live rugby! 8:30am didn't faze anyone!

After the second game we watched we joined a picnic with Karyn in Richmond Park and played something akin to softball (noone could agree on the scoring) - lots of fun!

We have booked a week in Scotland in August, and found some great cheap flights back to Europe - we have booked flights but not yet planned our itinerary for a September trip. But who can resist a flight for 5.99 Euros (£4!)? That's $NZ 12 to get home from Austria. I hear Air New Zealand is going the way of these budget airlines - I hope they take their cue from the pricing as well!

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When we first moved here and told people where we lived, almost everyone without fail would say "Oh, Farnborough, the airshow." Now we know what it's all about. It's a week long show, Monday to Sunday, but the first five days are for industry people only. Saturday and Sunday are the public days - yes, we have our tickets. In the meantime however, we have had Tornados and Red Arrows and all sorts of other planes buzzing our homes and our shopping centre!

Farnborough Station has gone quite cosmopolitan, with mutli-lingual tannoy announcements and even a wee newspaper stand with lots of different foreign newspapers. It is as crowded as can be (at least they are all travelling in the opposite direction to me!) and there are queues of double-decker buses to ferry rail passengers to and from the show.

The first sign of all of this came with the first practise flights a couple of weeks ago. People in the centre of town were walking around with their eyes on the sky, and all the littlest children were crying, the sky was so filled with noise! I guess they got used to it by the end of the first day of practise - there have been many more since! It's all quite exciting really, and it's taken over our town until Sunday.

Click here for the official website of the Farnborough International Airshow.

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There were lots of female pilots doing aerobatics, and Ewan McGregor's brother flew the BAE Systems Tornado GR4. EXCELLENT! Some of the lighter, older aircraft due to fly after the big jets had to wait for the air to calm down before they could take off.

The absolute stars of the show (for me) were the Red Arrows (there were ten of them). We could hear them communicating with each other by some excellent feat of radio technology. At some points they were flying at 280 mph, experiencing four times the force of gravity, and were executing tight turns in perfect formation only eight feet apart from wingtip to wingtip. WOW! Especially when you think that commercial passenger flights are not allowed to come within five miles of one another. The Red Arrows also flew in a stacked formation, one above the other, their noses only twelve feet apart. WOW!

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But I am getting ahead of myself. First the sport in general, 2002: non-stop, it has been, NON-STOP! From the snooker World Championships to the Rugyby 7s World Series to the football World Cup to the Wimbledon to the Commonwealth Games to the Tri-Nations to the cricket to the European Athletics championships to the NPC we have surely been treated to a feast this year!

Except for those maddening Aussies.

On Saturday 3 August we went up to what has become our "local" (farewell, Walkabout Covent Garden, you are too noisy and too packed) to watch the rugby, a Tri-Nations-Bledisloe-must-win for our boys. And as in previous years those Aussies stole our victory in the dying seconds with a penalty kick! We were one point up then in a matter of seconds we were two points down and the final whistle had gone. RAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Megan, Shane, Warwick and I took the afternoon to pull ourselves together before reconvening at our place that night for dinner and as much sleep as possible. For the next morning, very early, we were up and DRIVING TO MANCHESTER FOR THE COMMONWEALTH RUGBY 7S! YAY!

The drive was OK, we were a bit late but we managed to park, to catch a tram then a shuttle and to arrive at the stadium in time for the semis. It was a great atmosphere and we were right up in the very back row of the uncovered stand, below the long row of flags of the 72 competing nations - almost exactly below the NZ flag :-)

Well it rained and it shone and it rained and it shone, and every time the weather went from drenching us to drying us the crowd moved as one to put on or discard their raincoats. We got yummy hot chips and watched the games.

The field was apparently narrower and shorter than normal, to fit inside the athletics track, which changed the game a bit. There were fewer running breaks to our minds, but still it was great to watch. The Aussies only got second (to England) in the plate final, making them SIXTH overall (grin - vengeance!) but we heard during the games that they had beaten us in the Commonwealth netball - once more by a goal in the dying seconds.

The play-off for gold was between us and Fiji, and the fickle English crowd whom we had supported to their win in the plate tournament turned around and supported Fiji >:-( There was a small contingent of Fijians in the crowd, who sang some brilliant songs to support their men.

Our victory was touch and go! If it weren't for a touch of poor discipline on the Fijian side resulting in one of their players being sent off we might not have got there. What stress! It brought back all the undealt-with stress of yesterday's incredibly tight match against Aussie and our poor hearts were hammering! But we did it. PHEW!

We were looking forward to belting out our anthem but I think the Kiwis in the crowd - or at least in our stand - were too few and far between to get up any volume so we four felt like lone voices in a stand full of English.

It took us four hours that morning to get from Farnborough to Manchester, but the drive home was horrendous, taking closer to eight hours. It seemed every major road and every major alternative had had some kind of accident or breakdown and in the end it looked as though Megan and Shane might miss the late tubes altogether. We had meandered cross-country as far as Milton Keynes by this time so we put them on a train there and continued on. After covering five and a half miles in 40 minutes we gave up and turned into a side road and drove the tiny roads home. We got home close to midnight but still much quicker than if we had used the main roads. And poor Warwick had to get up and drive to Bristol and back the next day and then again the day after!

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Once again we were up early and we left late - we didn't leave until 10am! It was good driving though, especially the A1, and all the way north we could see club cricket being played in the bright sunshine, the players all in their whites. We arrived early to Wetherby so we scooted around Sicklinghall taking photos.

At Wetherby we had a fabulous tea with Jeremy and Elizabeth, then we walked over their old family farm, it reminded me so much of home! Lovely smells of hay and grass; a very friendly dog; rich, red earth (that doesn't remind me of home) and a lovely summer day. According to the news, London was hotter than Malta today!

We pressed on to Helmsley, driving through the Yorkshire Moors - golden haybales, lovely scenery, but the mist was coming in already and we couldn't see as far as we might have. Helmsley is a beautiful wee town with a large market square, a lovely old churchyard and all its flowerboxes out in glory. There were lovely appletrees at our YH too. Peaceful!

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We had Byland Abbey (a beautiful ruin) all to ourselves first thing this morning, and wandered around snapping artful (we hope) photographs. The abbey is really atmospheric, and it still has some of its original medieval floortiles, now out in the open air as the roof and most of the walls are gone.

We drove out through the lovely town of Wass and nipped by Riveaulx Abbey which is also supposed to be very beautiful - and it was! - but we just looked from over the fence; there were many more people touring through it and we could see a lot from outside anyway.

We left that part of the moors via Sutton Bank, a steep incline from which James Herriot would habitually admire the view. No view for us though! It was too misty. It seems every wee incline here is called a bank - we encountered Sutton Bank, Wass Bank and Riveaulx Bank.

Lunch was at the Duke of York at Fir Tree (after trying another pub that would do only roast on a Sunday, the only choice being pork or lamb. Not even a bowl of chips for us vegemites!) We had a gorgeous ploughmans lunch and we also saw Yorkshire pudding being served.

We got to Edmundbyers too early for our YH check-in so carried on up to see Hadrian's wall. And could we find any wee bit of that 73mile long wall? Nope! Warwick accused me of imagining the thing's existence - "it's a myth" he said - before fancifully identifying every pretty wee stone wall or bridge that we passed by as being Mr Hadrian's creation! We finally ended up at Chesters, a preserved Roman fort which was built on the wall, where we heard a really interesting talk on Roman weapons technology. The Chesters site was OK, but it was much more fort than wall and we had seen forts before. Plus a pesky wee wasp took a liking to me!

We carried on driving through the beautiful North Pennines until we got to Black Carts Turret, a wee patch of Hadrian's wall on a public pathway, no admission prices, no other tourists, lots of fun! We walked along that little stretch of wall until it was time to go home to tea in the back garden of Edmundbyers YH.

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The land got hillier and hillier, and we were climbing quite significantly as we approached the Scottish border. We parked at the border and got out of the car to the immediate sound of bagpipes! There were big (highly photographable for tourists) rocks marking the border and MOST EXTREMELY YUMMY vegetarian sausages for sale, which made us a very fine breakfast indeed. The view was beautiful but the place was very touristy - I guess we were part of that!

We carried on towards Jedburgh, and on the way we stopped at Smailholm Tower (after a very scenic wrong turning took us into a quiet wee glade). Smailholm Tower is one of the many strongholds littering the border areas, to protect against the rievers who would plunder and pillage and generally behave badly. Us Scotties were apparently rievers! But that was GENERATIONS ago! (Actually, Warwick is the real Scot of the two of us, 50% Scot in fact).

We couldn't drive up to the tower, as a very effective road block (a happy, lazy herd of cattle sunning themselves on the road) impeded our path. So we parked in the field and walked up. We saw a lovely view from the tower, and we managed also to lighten our wallets quite significantly when we let ourselves be persuaded to join Historic Scotland...

We picked up some food at Jedburgh (the floral displays in people's gardens here were just amazing!) and we looked around for a place to eat. The best we could find was a park bench but wasps chased us back into the car :-( Apparently I was wearing the wrong shade of blue today and yesterday, just the shade that wasps can see.

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So we pressed on without stopping, and managed (as we have done in Edinburgh before) to get lost in slow traffic. And for some reason our compass would only point to me, no matter where it was or where north was, unless Warwick held it in the driver's seat. We crossed Forth Road Bridge (looking out onto the Forth Bridge) and took more very scenic wrong turns through the counties of Fife, Perth & Kinross and Clackmannanshire (all in about ten minutes) before arriving at very pretty, rural Glendevon. Our YH was very small with only a few guests - there were two very large dorms for just a handful of people. It was very friendly, and the guests and the warden were playing badminton while we unpacked. The farmland here was green and hilly, and it reminded me of home.

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On to Inverness, where we got some photos developed and bought yet more books (somebody stop us!) then drove the B862 alongside Loch Ness. The B862 is scenic and narrow, and not too busy. We stopped at points along the way, in brilliant sunshine which had somehow managed to struggle through the banks of cloud, but we did not once ever see a monster.

We stopped for chocolate at Foyers and found there were falls there. We had planned an anti-clockwise circuit of the loch but decided instead to see the falls, double back the way we had come to Inverness, settle in to our hostel and head down the A2 on the other side of the loch in the morning. The Loch Ness Monster Exhibitions and Urquhart Castle are on the A2, and it is also the way to Skye, our next destination.

The falls were great, again very like New Zealand scenery. Warwick had to keep telling me "Think SCOTLAND! You have to think Scotland Scotland Scotland! Otherwise you'll feel like you've been to New Zealand and not been to Scotland at all!")

Our (non-YHA) hostel was plain but friendly, and our room looked out over the River Ness. We had a beautiful heavy sunshower followed by a magnificent sunset over the city. After dinner we had a lovely walk to get things from the car which we'd parked a few blocks away, it was just wonderful after the rain.

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The drive to Skye along the A87 was very beautiful, and I think today was the best day of the British summer. We stopped at:
Loch Ness
Loch Cluanie
Loch Duich (where we sat for ages on rocks basking in the glorious sun and the quiet, looking on to Eilean Donan Castle)
Loch Alsh

We drove over the bridge to Skye - cheaper but less romantic than the ferry! We had a few hours to kill in the brilliant sunshine (what a day!) so drove to Armadale on the southern tip of Skye, stopping along the way. We took a scary, circuitous, minor road via Tokavaig back towards Kyleakin, encountering sheep (who do not care in the least about motor vehicles) and blind summits around every narrow single-laned bend!

Our YH at Kyleakin was the biggest we have stayed in (probably ever). We had a lovely chat to Anne and Ron and spent a very happy and relaxed evening there. Warwick taught me how to use the DX (film speed) setting on dad's old Canon SLR - this might well make a difference to the quality of my shots! I hope so!

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Midges! Warwick is really suffering with them, as he did in Wales. I think he's acting as decoy for me, I've had no trouble really.

Bilingualism Lots of evidence of Gaelic around - and I can't understand a word of it! Many, many signs are bilingual in English and Gaelic, and in the countryside on Skye some hand-done signs were in Gaelic only. I had no idea there was this much Gaelic about - it's not as bilingual as Wales yet, but definitely on the way there. Gaelic is spoken by only 1.5% of the population in Scotland, and that rises to 75% in the Outer Hebrides.

Crofters' huts We've seen these long, low, thatched stone buildings around, again particularly on Skye. It's summer though so haven't smelt any peat fires. Actually Skye with all its sheep and hills reminds me of the Hawkes Bay a bit. (Stop thinking New Zealand, Tania! Think Scotland Scotland Scotland!")

Scenery Can I go on about this enough?! It's just breath-taking.

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We decided to head up around Skye's Trotternish Peninsula, perhaps leaving early enough to investigate ferries from Uig to Harris. Called mum en route (hello mum!) and drove by some lovely big mountains on the way to busy Portree. We drove on up past the Old Man of Storr (a big rock sticking out of the hill) to Kilt Rock, where a waterfall falls from a vertical cliff face into the ocean. Instead of going on to do an anticlockwise ring of the peninsula as planned, we turned back, through Portree again, and up the other side to Uig.

Uig is a remote wee port town, where ferries leave for the outer Hebridean islands. We were in time for the ferry but it didn't return until the next morning :-( So we ate lunch there and carried on clockwise around the peninsula. The scenery was very rural, with farmland stretching from the hills to the shore. We saw crofters' huts and beautiful bays, and the lovely rocky hills of Quiraing. South of Quiraing we picked up a hitch-hiker, a woman on her own, from Germany. We had great conversation, in German and in English, all the way to Portree where she was to meet her bus :-)

From Portree we set out for the Waternish and Duirnish Peninsulas, via Dunvegan Castle. We stopped there but it was too expensive for us to go in - we saw a beautiful view of it though from Duirnish Peninsula, across Loch Dunvegan. We spent a lovely quiet time at Neist Point, the westernmost tip of Skye, where the mist rolled in dramatically from the sea, cleared for our photos, and came back in again! The sun was beginning to set and we turned towards home.

We made a beautiful wrong-turning on the way home, driving to Orbost and executing a very tight U-turn on a cliff at the bottom of somebody's farm! Sounds more dramatic than it was :-) Finally back to Kyleakin where the hostel was much quieter than last night - we found out next morning that it had been largely booked out by a group of older travellers. They were very quiet and very friendly, from somewhere that they greet people with "Dobry Den" (Czech or Slovak Republic?).

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We picked up some gorgeous white bread and butter from a wee grocer's there and carried on. We stopped a wee way later at the side of Loch Lochy and munched through most of that yummy loaf, resolving to do that kind of thing for lunch EVERYWHERE we holiday.

We were well early into Glen Nevis so nipped down to Glen Coe. This beautiful glen has sheer mountains rising above a narrow wee river, it's very green and gorgeous. The weather was closing in again so we sat at a scenic rest area in the car, reading and cross-stitching and jumping out and walking about whenever the weather looked better. An unusual but very restful stop :-)

Back to Glen Nevis, we overshot the YHA and ended up far away at some waterfall spot, a very pretty drive. The YH reminded me of Snowdon in that it was full of fairly serious climbers, no drunken backpackers here!

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We got to Glasgow and checked the rugby results in the easyEverything internet cafe. North Harbour had just played Waikato. For anyone reading this who understands the significance of the result of this meeting for our relationship, suffice to whisper: yippee! I had to be very sensitive and subdued around Warwick for the rest of the afternoon ;-)

We got lunch at BHS and headed to Glasgow University to see where Warwick's mum had worked when she was here on her OE. The city was VERY busy, traffic and pedestrians moving very slowly. Oh and the day which was forecast to be at best overcast but more likely raining - it was BRILLIANT sunshine!

We found the university and set about trying to identify which building Anne had worked in. The university has some beautiful buildings! And walking down Kelvin Way, the shady, tree-lined street beside the park, was just gorgeous. We talked to the friendly people in the visitor centre who helped us out, but still photographed heaps of buildings for Anne just to make sure we got something that she'd recognise!.

We finally got to Newton Mearns much later than we'd hoped (after getting lost in Pollock) - we were staying at Newton Mearns with the Arthurs, my grandfather's cousins. We had a fabulous tea, David, Marsha, Jean, Annie, Warwick and I - all kinds of food covered the table completely, yummy leeks and potatoes and all sorts! They had really gone out of the way for us vegetarians! We talked til late and slept beautifully :-)

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South.

Home.

Well, sort of home - we had one more stop to make, with Warwick's family in Seamer, near Middlesbrough. We drove south from Glasgow, found ourselves suddenly at the border (a much less touristy border crossing than the one we came up through), and turned off at Carlisle in the direction of Newcastle. We stopped at a wee town called Warwick Bridge for a quick photo, and found everything in that area was called Warwick! Lots of quick photos! The countryside in the north is very beautiful so it was a scenic drive.

We got to Seamer and to Peter and Jane's house, and went to a local pub for dinner. On the way home we stopped at an outlook where the night sky was clear (it was a surprisingly chilly night) and we looked up at the stars. We heard two different types of owl calling and saw the moon rising large and golden over the hills. We got home and talked til late again!

And I can't forget Lucy! Lucy is Peter and Jane's dog, and before we met her I had never seen a brown and white border collie. She is beautiful and would jump up onto a round stone table they have in their garden. She sleeps snugly in a box that is just the right size for her.

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We had a really good trip south, the roads were clear and fast, and we got home earlier than we had expected - especially with it being a bank holiday and the Notting Hill Carnival. The holiday is over but the next one is very large on the horizon :-)

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We took a train to Lindau, not far away, which is a beautiful island town with a watch tower, a lion statue and a lighthouse looking out onto Lake Constance. It had a peaceful, late summer holiday atmosphere. We stayed at the very friendly Gästehaus Lädine, where the landlady really mothered us!

We arrived about 5pm, unpacked, found yummy falafels to eat at a place outside the Gästehaus and walked around the town on the shores of the lake until it was time to meet Karin, a friend of Warwick's family living in Liechtenstein. We had dinner at a hotel restaurant overlooking the lake, and a gorgeous dessert of icecream in a berryfruit coulis. YUM!

As we walked home in the late evening people were still out and about, it was warm, a group of young people were playing guitar and singing Hey Jude - it was a very relaxed, warm atmosphere! Karin left us with a picture book of Liechtenstein, and three kisses each on the cheeks :-)

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Yep, it's Warwick's birthday! Yummy cheese and bread for breakfast, Warwick talked to his mum and dad over the phone, then we walked over the bridge to the mainland - a beautiful summery day - to pick up a hire car from Avis. Warwick drove in the direction of Füssen for Schloss Neuschwanstein, the famous fairytale castle built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria. On the road we got another birthday call, this time from Jan and Rex. I was navigating from a 1:1,000,000 scale map - no detail at all! I got us lost plenty of times but we did end up at the castle.

It was a good walk up the slope. Signs in German told us "Die Mauer bitte nicht betreten" which Warwick helpfully translated as "The mouse bites at night". (Warwick's German improved over the next ten days). We were early for our timed tour entry so headed first to the Marienbrücke, a very high bridge over a river, with an excellent view of the castle.

The inside of the castle is lavish! Only 14 rooms were ever completed, and the king died at age 41, having spent only 172 days there. The castle was opened to the public six weeks after his death, and had ten thousand tourists through in the first month. And if that's amazing, now they get ten thousand in two days during the summer!

Back into the car after lunch at the castle cafe. We had had good radio all the way there and STILL the good songs kept coming! We drove in sunshine into Austria, through Tirol, heading for Liechtenstein. With no map...! We took little (scenic) B roads through Alpine villages and ski resorts - no snow yet of course. We asked directions through Lechertal and drove on through that valley, through farmland and then through alpine tunnels on the more main roads. Everywhere there were little huts in fields, I have no idea what they were.

We got onto the S16 to Feldkirch and were in Liechtenstein by the time the sun was setting. Much later than planned but we still had the light so that was good. We had our passports checked (but not stamped) at the border control coming from Austria, photographed the castle, drove through to Triesen and back - noone still open could sell us a single souvenir! - then went into Switzerland (no border control) for the motorway home.

Motorways. There's a story here. We were in four different countries today (Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland) so every time we crossed a border I had to look up road rules in the Lonely Planet. We got onto the motorway in Switzerland so I read up again - to learn that we needed a pre-paid motorway toll sticker to use the motorway! Aaaagh! So we got off at the next exit and drove back across Liechtenstein to the Austrian motorway running up the other side. This was the second fastest way home.

BUT!!! There we found a big sign saying we also needed a pre-paid toll sticker for the Austrian motorway. Aaagh! So we took the 190 road home, slower but free. Home before 10pm, with another of those yummy falafels in our bellies. YUM!

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We sat on a bench on the edge of the lake and soaked up the sun. We had our third falafel in three days for lunch - YUM!!! The shop is at In der Grub 23, Lindau, they make the best falafels in the world. Finally it was time to find our train, where we were joined by Jonas, a local who shared our ticket to Munich.

Our hotel in Munich was very central and very FLASH! It was expensive but hostels only take under-26s in Bavaria :-( Town was busy so we didn't foray out until it was time for dinner. We walked and walked through Marienplatz, past the Altes Rathaus and the cathedral with its onion domes - there were fewer people than there had been that afternoon, it was nice. We were both VERY tired, recovering from colds and asleep on our feet.

We got to the Mövenpick Marché restaurant where I got yummy mushrooms and new potatoes - we have eaten very well so far this trip. Slept until someone sent us a text message at 3am - "You could win £500, call this 0900 number!" - then couldn't get to sleep again until after 4:30am. Aaagh!

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We checked out of the hotel, walked back through Marienplatz and the quiet Sunday streets to the Hofbräuhaus where there was loud, live Bavarian music, and dancing, beer, sausages and pretzels (Brezen). A sharp contrast to the stillness outside! We sat out in the beer garden, which was much quieter than the hall inside, and the waiter couldn't hide a smile when we ordered only half a litre of Münchner Kindl Weißbier between us! The half litre glass was a really cool shape.

Nipped back to hotel to collect our passports, which we had accidentally left behind in the safe! Bought fruit and pretzels at the station, watched a traffic warden try to ticket a very flashily-dressed man in a sparkling, shiny Jaguar - they had to go down to the police station to sort it out and the illegally-parked guy won.

The train ride to Salzburg was very scenic indeed, through valleys and farmland. But even before we pulled into the station we noticed police everywhere. They were armed, dressed in body armour and carrying plastic shields. Hundreds (literally) of them! But no clue as to why they were there.

We found the St Sebastian church in Linzer Gasse, but couldn't find the way into our attached hostel for ages. The entrance was on a side street. It's very nice and modern and clean, with a vauleted ceiling, a large lounge with a piano, and a flautist practising somewhere in the building. From our window we saw more police officers, buses and buses and cars and cars and vans and vans and vans of them, followed by a large crowd of protesters, who were hemmed in by a following tide of police in more cars and buses and vans. Hundreds of them! It had been an anti-capitalist, anti-globalisation protest.

We took an evening walk across the river Salzach, walked along Getreidegasse with its pretty shop signs, checked our emails at an internet cafe, then came home for a well-earned sleep :-)

Our resident flautist was very good this morning! But we were lumbered with our packs after checking out as we forgot to ask if we could leave them. Grump, grump! Our aim today was to see a bit more of the city, then head to Hallstatt, a lakeside town in the Salzkammergut region, before check-in closed at 6pm.

We turned left off Linzer Gasse to Kapuzinerberg, took a lovely but steep walk up the hill, met some nice monks along the way, walked back down a million steps (killing my knee in the process - and still in a bad mood with our packs!)

We sat in the square waiting for the Glockenspiel (bells only but very pretty), bought souvenir sticker and badge, and noticed VIPs instructing their police motorcycle escorts - ah ha! There is something big happening in town, hence the protest and the heavy police presence. (Turned out to be the WEF (World Economic Forum) meeting).

Bought a HUGE pretzel from a market seller, then went into St Peter's graveyard, a pretty, colourful place, full of plants and with a lovely church in the middle. The catacombs were closed so we couldn't go through. There was a nun there, walking slowly among the graves.

Took the funicular to the Hohensalzburg fortress - yeeha, we could leave our packs in lockers at the entrance! The view from the fortress is gorgeous and the tour very good. Didn't like that the only way into the dungeons was through the floor of the torture chambers...! (But at least the tour wasn't so exhaustive as to take us down there)!

Back in town, Warwick got a roll for lunch and I made do with coke (not a lot here for vegemites who don't eat fresh tomato) and we headed towards the train station. BUT... we were blocked by police! We couldn't go on foot, because of whatever event they were protecting, we had to catch the bus. We got our tickets to Hallstatt at the station, with a timetable, and suddenly: STRESS!!! - we will arrive too late, by five minutes, to check in! Aaagh!

The trains were nice but S - L - O - W, we changed at Attnang-Puchheim and tried to call the YH over and over again but there was no response. Aaagh! Scenery beautiful though, mountains plunging into lakes, just gorgeous! Balancing stress and the peaceful beauty around me. Well, trying to!

We got to Hallstatt and caught the ferry - a beautiful view of the town across the lake, what a spot! A nice man and boy staffing the boat told us the way to the YH so as soon as we docked we leapt off the ferry and CHARGED left through the town, right at the car tunnel, all the while calling the YH with no reply, zoomed past Gasthof Bergfried, found the YH (second house on the right after the bridge) at four minutes past 6pm... and it was locked.

A sign on the door gave another contact number so we called it - the warden could check us in, but no sooner than 8:30pm. Well, at least we will have a roof over our heads tonight! Two and a half hours to kill before then though, packs on our backs, so we sat on the edge of the lake (Hallstättersee), watched the ducks, took photos, browsed the shops, browsed all the restaurants and decided to eat (slowly!) at Bräu-Gasthof.

And what a yummy, slow meal that was! Gnocchi with olives and sundried tromatoes, rosemary and parmesan, washed down with a small Hallstattbier. I had yoghurt for dessert and Warwick had a huge apple strudel that was cut like a piece of wall! In fact, I think what we saw of Hadrian's Wall was smaller! He struggled happily and tiredly through most of it.

We walked back to the YH, saw two beautiful white swans on the lake, mirrored in the shiny, smooth, black water (there was almost no light at all at 8:30pm). Our YH warden was lovely - and we had the whole big hostel to ourselves!! A bit scary, being alone in that huge building. But we weren't quite alone the whole time - we talked to Ron, Anne and Jenni for Ron's birthday.

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We took a long, lazy, slow walk about town, sat by the lake again, watched the ducks and one mean, hissing swan. One little bird, all black feathers with yellow around his eyes, dived down under the water and walked about down there for ages, looking for food. The water was so clear and shallow we could watch him. We got bread from the bakery for lunch and ate it on the grass outside the museum - can't get enough of this sunshine!

We wandered along to the catholic church of St Michael, a peaceful place above the town, looking out to the lake. Because of a lack of cemetery space they have a history of lovingly painting and storing the bones of the dead in a building built for the purpose just behind the church. It was quite amazing, different to the Cappuchin chapel in Rome where they decorated the rooms with bones, here they painted names, dates and flowers on the skulls. The church itself and cemetery were very beautiful.

Behind the church we found a wee path leading up the mountain, it took us on a gorgeous walk up through forest, by a waterfall and along chalky stone walls, with fabulous views of the lake and towns below. We got to the top (after an hour and a half of leisurely walking) for a well-earned drink and snack. We walked on past a pre-historic gravesite and then took the funicular down (for free because they had closed the till)!

We shopped for dinner ingredients and returned to the YH to find we had company, including a kiwi and two aussies!

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We met two aussies over breakfast and another two on the train, they were really nice people. Funny how you meet so many antipodeans in the smallest and most out-of-the-way places! And we recognise each other by the makes of our luggage!

Bought tickets to Attnang-Puchheim (back through the gorgeous lakes) and from there - after a mad dash for onward tickets, bread and water - caught the Bartók Belá (its end destination was Budapest - how exotic!) to Vienna. We were both very, very tired by now.

We got to Vienna and walked to Pension Auer from the Westbahnhof, a long walk but good after so long on the train. We were shown by the cleaner/housemaid to a lovely, clean, old-fashioned room. Showered and took a walk into town, Warwick practising his three German phrases along the way:
Entshuldigen Sie bitte
Ich liebe dich
Haben Sie Zimmer frei?
He is under strict instructions not to practise them in combination on strangers!

We found the University of Vienna on the way, where we stocked up on chocolate and biscuits (Warwick is in love with Choco-Leibniz biccies and strawberry yoghurt chocolate). We walked on through a large group of kids on scooters and through the University beer garden. Nice place!

We walked along the Danube canal, walked until our feet hurt, walked until they hurt no more, spotting gorgeous churches both in town and out near the University. We sat in Stadtpark by the Kursalon where lovely music was playing. Found a cool fountain, walked on under a setting sun to Karlsplatz where the moon was rising in the pink sky and the buildings were just beautiful.

We continued our walk in search of food, to Kärntnerstraße. What a feast of lights, and so many people! A lovely atmosphere in this main shopping street, excellent buskers, the sound of opera coming from the cathedral (by now floodlit). Found a good pizza place for a cheap and yummy dinner, and very smoothly and cleverly navigated the tube home, Stephansplatz to Schottentor. Very proud of ourselves! Walked from Schottentor home through the university (poor Warwick suffering from a sudden, spontaneous attack of hiccoughs) and home. Nice to be off my feet now - we walked about five hours today, four of them consecutively!

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So we got on the next train - perfect timing as the one before and the one after were each two hours either side - and again, noticed lots of young antipodeans around. The train was small, made up of only two cars, and carried us through some incredibly flat farmland, very different from the mountains and lakes of Tirol and Salzkammergut (and different again from the hilly, tree-covered Slovakian landscape we were about to enter).

We changed at Marchegg, a small wee station in the middle of nowhere, just on the Austrian side of the border. Everyone got off the train and sat on the white, dusty earth along the side of the tracks. Our train pulled up 20 minutes later, a very old-fashioned, two-car affair. We bounded with glee towards it before we saw the growing queue on the tracks where a lady was stamping passports. Joined the queue, got an ex-Austria stamp each, then joined the queue for the train - we were last in line.

Inside the train a man was checking visas and stamping passports for Slovakia. He took my passport, found no visa inside (kiwis don't need entry visas to visit Slovakia currently), and asked his mate in Slovak if we could enter without visas. Guess all those antipodeans before us were aussies. Well, his mate didn't know, so off he went, with my passport, to ask someone in the offices at the train station. If anyone ever causes any delay in the passport queue, it is me! Finally he came back and we were both allowed on.

After some time we pulled into Bratislava-hlavna stanicá - YAY!...ish. New country and all, exciting and all, but neither of us speaks the language and Tania had forgotten the guidebook. Eeeks! We almost NEVER have to operate without some lingua franca, but here we did. We managed to change euro to Slovak krona, but could not buy a map! We asked various shopkeepers "Sprechen Sie Deutsch oder Englisch?" and would get in reply either "No" or "Deutsch" with thumb and forefinger together to indicate "very little" (actually meaning "very, very, very little"). Noone could sell us a map of the city.

How would we get anywhere? Or should we get back on the next train to Vienna? Warwick found a kiosk with a map of the bus and tram services on the outside, and three paragraphs of travel tariff information in English. The lady there spoke German and shortly we were on our way, on a 93 bus, with all-day passes in our hands. Yay!

We got to the centre of town, missed our stop, got off at the next stop - in the middle of the highway! - and caught a bus back across the river. Boy, it was hot by now. We walked up the hill towards the castle, still without a map but at least you can't very well miss a castle! Walked through leafy, shady suburban streets, found a large courtyard, and suddenly we were there.

The view from the castle was really interesting - the wide river Danube, which flows from the Black Forest to the Black Sea, the new bridge we had crossed and an absolute ocean of concrete high-rise residential blocks. Lots of kids there (there have been school trips everywhere we have been on this holiday! We must be seeing all the historical, educational stuff).

We sat for ages soaking up the sun, bought our compulsory souvenir badges and sticker, and a wee guidebook with a map, then sat in a shady garden to the right of the castle, still in its grounds. We walked around taking in the view of the old town below us, got some yukky soft drinks which really actually did help quench our thirst and give us energy, and walked on to the old town across the road.

The old town is lovely, with a small-town feel (although the population of Bratislava is about half a million). There were pretty buildings, and a great city gate. We managed to order two filled baguettes and an ice-cream for lunch, in German. (Everything here was so cheap, the food, the transport - the exchange rate was amazing!)

We walked along looking for somewhere to sit and eat - and just before we came into the market square my heel went ping! OW! Owowow! I couldn't move my right foot without excruciating pain. Hope it's not a tendon thing :-( Luckily we were right by the market square so there were benches to sit on.

We wandered/hobbled on through the market, buying more Mövenpick along the way, and sat down on a bench where a huge stage was being set up in front of the pretty town hall. A flyer announced Rock Volieb, a "Drumming Party", and apart from the date and time we could not understand a single other word. Still, what more does one need but the words "Drumming Party" and the date and time? In fact it was due to start at 5pm - we had an hour to kill. We looked for books and magazines in English for Warwick - no luck really, apart from Country Living. So no luck.

My foot was killing me by now so we found a lovely chemist who could speak German and English, and bought a bandage - in German and English! As the chemist shut its doors we could hear the drums beginning so headed back to the square where we sat on the ground near the front and bandaged my foot.

EXCELLENT MUSIC! We had a brilliant time, in a brilliant atmosphere. People were dancing, and the musicians were almost all on percussion instruments - five drummers and a keyboardist, several or all of them singing. Three of the drummers also alternated with guitar and triangle and other percussion instruments. And they looked so happy, and played such happy music!

They gave out plastic bottles with short-grain rice in them, which we all shook along to the music - a whole-town-square party! Such fun! And very uplifting. There were also European bagpipes (they're not an exclusively Scottish thing) - these bagpipes were novelty ones shaped like a cow! And as we left they managed to get one or two sounds from a giant, wide wooden tube thing, 2-3 metres long, balanced across the back of the shoulders, with a thin, flexible pipe attached to blow into.

We had to leave at 6:15 to try for the 7:16 train, leaving from a different station. We found a footpath under the new bridge and walked along as the sun was setting - it was very nice! On the other side of the bridge we walked along the park where Napoleon and Hitler are each supposed to have sat under the same oak tree and dreamed of capturing Bratislava. Neither managed it!

We found our way to the right side of the road for the bus stop, but all the buses coming from town were full already. We walked on, zigzagging over and under bridges, along narrow paths used by pedestrians but not really designed with their needs in mind! We passed the bus we had hoped to catch anyway - it had broken down - and got to Bratislava-Petrzalka station too late for our train. There was just one more tonight, an hour away, the next train at all in fact. We could not miss this last one!

We noticed a wee customs room, which at first looked to be closed, but there were people inside. It did not appear to be on the way to the platforms so we sat and chatted for half an hour then went in search of food. Again, no common language, but we managed to get baked cheese with a small side salad. The waitress taught us how to say Warwick in Slovakian - Vavrrrick!

When we left the restaurant we realised we only had about three minutes before our train left. Aaaagh! After an hour's wait, sudden stress! We ran to platform one - where was platform one? We found five and nine, and looked across towards the main buildings to see a double-decked train at platform one across the tracks. Aaagh! We could not miss this last train! We ran again and suddenly Warwick clicked - we had to go through the customs hall to get there. We went through two passport checks then ran onto the platform. We caught that train by the skin of our teeth!

The conductor told us that if we changed at Bruck an der Leitha we would get to Vienna 20 minutes earlier. We made that change - just - and finally arrived at the Vienna Südbahnhof. A book-browsing mood overcame us (yes, at 9:30 on a Thursday night) so we mooched around the shops a bit, walked to the underground and took a tram the rest of the way to our Pension. It was 11pm by the time we got to bed but what a fantastic day!

Bratislava is small and easy to see, but if you only know English you absolutely do need a guidebook and phrasebook! Still buzzing from the Drumming Party :-)

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We had had the foresight to get a 24-hour Vienna public transport card so we hopped on a tram (Warwick had been wanting to since we got to Vienna) and just headed out wherever it went. Tram is a very nice way to see the city. This one took us to Prater, where we went on a giant 100-year-old ferris wheel, had a round of dodgems, watched the log flume, and just meandered around. It was really nice. We are inspired to get out Before Sunrise and watch it again!

Back on the tram, we changed at Schwedenbrücke for the tram which does a ring around the inner city. We did the complete loop, noticing all the places we wanted to stop at, then did most of the loop again! Stopped at a Mozart statue in the Burggarten, nipped in and out of the Museum of Fine Arts, and were walking along the outside of Heldenplatz when we got a call from Rochelle in Germany. The rain was pouring down so Warwick walked us to a monument where we took sheleter with other tourists in the Theseus Temple in the Volksgarten, chatting all the while to Rochelle.

(Mobile technology amazes me, we use it to talk to New Zealand all the time. although we didn't have such good signal in the mountains, we got full coverage at all times on the Vienna underground! So far, the north of Scotland, the London tube and (periodically) our computer room/study in Farnborough are some of the last bastions of resistence I know from mobile cells).

We caught a tram back to a bag shop we had spotted - I needed a bigger pack as I had only two little ones, both already bulging and difficult to carry. Didn't find a pack but found two lovely shirts - aagh! So I have even less luggage space now!

We went back to photograph the ferris wheel - Warwick had discovered that his camera was set wrongly and a whole roll of film is likely to be dodgy! Had another go on the dodgems, took a tram back into town, walked to the main street (encountering the cutest wee lost puppy, who was having his own wee adventure navigating the busy shopping streets, nipping into a grocery store before his owner came hurrying along looking for him. She knew where to find him, she went straight into the shop although she had not seen him go in! He is obviously a street-wise local).

Saw the cathedral in daylight and got Subway for dinner (yay! we love Subway!) The girl who served us was impressed that I could speak German, until we got to the til. She asked us if we wanted "cookies" or "chips" with our order. I could understand the whole German sentence except the English words "cookies" and "chips" which I was not expecting! How embarrasing!

We went back to Karlsplatz to photograph some of the buildings which we had seen on our first night, then tubed and trammed home. Hobble limp hop! My poor foot has had a long day!

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Bought chocolate, fruit and camera batteries from our favourite University shop, then took tube and tram to the train station. (Two of the station clocks were made like two big eyes on either side of the travelator, they were on TV monitors inside metals spheres, and they blinked at you, then blinked again and the time would display. Freaky!)

We missed the train we were aiming for (how did we miss an 11 o'clock train?!) so we waited an hour for the next one, a slow train. There was a kiwi in the ticket queue, can't escape 'em! Bought a Guardian, a Subway lunch and a doughnut, and... MY GERMAN IS FINALLY COMING BACK! After a week of struggling along, really embarassed at how much I seemed to have verlernt, I could speak it, it was like a switch had flicked and I was away! Still slow at times and still with a kiwi accent, but definitely there.

We rode through nice countryside, which was getting more and more mountainous again, through lovely valleys between the Veitschalpe and Fischbacher Alpen, and past a lovely-looking castle on the hill at Launsdorf-Hochosterwitz. We changed trains successfully - barely! - at Bruck an der Mur and got to Klagenfurt around 5pm, with no real idea of how to get to our YH through the pouring rain. We bought a map which told us it was too far to walk, but which also, and more importantly, attracted the attention of the sweetest, most lovely elderly couple who helped us find the right buses. They were lovely :-) AND MY GERMAN IS COMING BACK!

Nice bus driver made sure we got off at the right stop, and right there was our large, clean and very friendly YH, where someone had a 60th birthday party going on. AND MY GERMAN IS COMING BACK!

We had a large, four-bunk room with toilet and shower and a sort of anteroom all to ourselves. (September is the time to see Europe!) Warwick was craving gelato he had seen on sale in the town square so we dropped off our packs, walked to the petrol station for some dinner food to cook later, and bussed to Heiligengeistplatz for some scrummy ice-cream.

We cooked a basic dinner when we got back, with a glass of (strongly-flavoured) Sekt. The accordion music playing at the party below continued on into the evening.

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All this trip we were both bemoaning my luggage situation - everything crammed into two little daypacks, only one of which could be worn over both shoulders at any one time - so we kept looking out for a decent pack whenever we were near shops. The only one we saw was in Munich when the shops were closed! Until today, the day we arived home - I bought one in Cambridge. Oh well, prepared for April next year, that's probably the next holiday I'm going to need any more than a daypack for!

It was a nice drive home in the early evening light; we passed people driving home from the countryside march (400,000 people marched on London!) and we passed countless old buses going to or from a transport festival - the people on them seemed to be having heaps of fun! We also saw a three-wheeled car, old and lovingly maintained, two wheels in the front and one in the back, low to the ground, open-topped with a cover over the empty passenger seat. Stylish!

Got home to mail and email - Warwick's birthday has become a season unto itself, it began on the eleventh before we left and is still going on! And it's nice to be home with all the bags and accessories I left with :-)

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NEWCASTLE! Sometime in October I think? I was there for work, stayed overnight, thought it was a fabulous place, had the most marvelous Indian meal I have ever eaten, and vowed to be back. Not got there yet, but still vowing to be back. I really loved the city :-)

Then in November Rochelle came to stay! Yay! In the two years we have been in Europe simultaneously, we had still not managed to meet up. And now she was going home. Good one guys! So we got our act together... Well, she got her act together, and I made a valiant effort to appear organised. I could not take time off work so after long chatty evenings over Domino-Steine and Lebkuchen we would check out train times for Rochelle to go touristing about the south during the day. Yay!

Still in November - Bristol. I like Bristol. It's taken me a while - my first experience of the city about two years ago was NOT positive.

Flashback: after an early morning and a three-hour journey I alighted at Bristol Parkway station with half an hour to find my way to a work meeting. Plan: ATM, taxi, meeting, journey home. BUT I had no money and there were NO cash machines there and it was a forty minute walk into town before I even began to walk out the other side for my meeting, and that estimate's only good if you know the way/have a map. Meeting begins in half an hour, remember. So I walk twenty minutes to a cash machine, find a taxi, and get dropped off in the middle of nowhere (again) on a faraway side of town (again) when the driver realises he has no idea where I want to go. What's a girl to do? Arrive an hour and a half late and grumpy, that's what.

Turns out the problem is not Bristol, the city. It is all to do with going by Bristol Parkway station which is nowhere in particular and has no cash machines. Go by Bristol Temple Meads and you're fine. Bristol is a lovely, friendly city, really pretty in the sunshine after rain. The trip there is very nice, a smooth train through rolling green countryside. Between Reading and Bristol everything is green, rolling, colourful - at the right time of year there are bluebell carpets in the woods - just enchanting.

The season England does best: autumn was beautiful. I love trudging through leaves, crunchy and colourful underfoot. We had dreadful storms but the clear, blue days in between were a real treat.

Guy Fawkes night: The day began with a group of us (Andy, Shane, Karen, Rachel, Vaughan, Cat, Andrew, Mark, Cathy, Warwick and I) heading down to the Plough and Horses to see the All Blacks take England to pieces. The pub was already full - Man U had been playing Man City just beforehand, final game at Man City's old grounds. These punters were having a whole DAY in the pub for the sport. With our group exactly half and half English/Kiwi, watching in an English pub, the ABs HAD to win...

And what a tense game! What a thriller! Superb rugby and tight to the finish. OK, we lost, but we had SO much fun and the disappointment of the scoreline was somewhat alleviated when the publican switched channels for the dying minutes of Australia v Ireland. 18-9 to Ireland! Our hitherto sharply divided crowd was instantly united in jubilation :-)

We headed home via ASDA (we love ASDA! Britain's cheapest supermarket!) where a lady who was master of the hard sell convinced us to chip in a tenner each for a big display box of fireworks. Now you understand we get rockets anyway, which are banned in NZ, but this thing had 180 different crackers in it, choreographed to give 2 mins of display at the lighting of a single fuse. FANTASTIC! (And on sale again the week before New Year's).

Home for music, pizza, birthday cake for Shane, hot cups of homemade mulled wine and fireworks. After much deliberation about safety, clear radius etc the pyrotechnicians (pyro-somethings!) among us let the rockets go, while the handful of sane, well-balanced creatures stood in the neighbours' garden to watch.

About halfway through the rockets I remembered our squirrels who must by then have been hibernating in our tree! Poor things! Hope we didn't wake them up! Quieter sparklers followed (my kind of firework) then the fabulous box. It was brilliant! The sky was filled with diamonds, the lights were beautiful. Rachel couldn't help jumping up and down! We finished the night with cake and Footrot Flats.

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Friday 15 Nov Rachel left for NZ yesterday (when will the exodus stop? What did we do? What did we say?!) and we were up early to drive to Luton. We had a good run through, and were checked in (after a huge big music group with massive drums) by a kiwi. She talked league and union with us - apparently there were heaps of kiwis on our flight. After a bumpy landing at Charles de Gaulle we realised we had no map to our hotel. No map, no phone number. Just a street address - aaaagh! Warwick remembered it was somewhere near the Eiffel Tower so we took the train and metro there.

On the RER train into Paris a deaf man was selling small goods like lighters, soft toys and things. He would walk along the train leaving these items on the empty seats beside passengers, with a wee note explaining that he was deaf and that this was how he earnt his living. He would walk back along the train collecting the items up again and taking money from the people who wanted to buy, or who wanted to make a donation. It is something I have seen in Europe before, and talked about with deaf Europeans, and it is very different from the way things are for deaf people in the UK.

A very friendly man helped us out when we were gazing gormlessly at a map on the metro platform. We got to our stop, got above ground, and could we see the Eiffel Tower anywhere? It was nowhere! So we crossed to the riverside and looked back - there it was, HUGE! We were so embarrassed that we hadn't seen it! We bought a map from the tower souvenir shop (dodging street sellers everywhere), found where we wanted to be and opted for a taxi - we were exhausted. The taxi driver was really friendly, our room was basic and nice, with a great bathroom. We refreshed ourselves - sort of! Poor Warwick had a headache so we headed out to the mini-supermarket nearby for croissants, cheese, chocolate and water, and to a pharmacy for paracetamol (which we managed to purchase in French!) It was lovely sitting on a park bench to eat this long-awaited food.

We walked up to the Eiffel Tower through the gardens behind it. In all my trips to Paris I had still never been up this tower! So it would be a first for both of us. We joined the queue and were in. Such a view! Going up was GREAT! There were lots of kiwis there of course, and of all the flags of the world lined up around the tower, NZ was the farthest distance from France. [Sniff!]

We watched the sunset - what beautiful colour in the sky - we watched the white buildings fade to grey and to black, we watched the lights come on, it was gorgeous. The pattern of streetlights on the park below was just beautiful, all soft and cushiony.

Finally we made our way down - reluctantly - dodging rose sellers to cross the road so Warwick could call work. We knew already it was likely he would be made redundant with most of the technical staff at his company, so keeping in touch with work was important - as was being on holiday! We bought persimmons for dinner - well, my dinner - and headed back for 12 hours well-earned and much-needed sleep!

Saturday 16 Nov We slept til 9am, and had yummy croissants, rolls and chocolate for breakfast. We love French breakfasts! Feeling very nourished, we walked back towards the metro at the Eiffel Tower - it stretched up into thick cloud. We were lucky with our views yesterday. We were waylaid by pushy artists and parted with 20 Euro! Ouch! And one of them couldn't even draw! As bad as Bali this place, and we are out of practise at saying no firmly enough.

We bought all-day tickets (in French!) for the metro and were away to Sacre-Coeur. Warwick was very thirsty so he bought a small bottle of water - we then managed to change it in French for a bigger one - yay! Very proud of our linguistically savvy selves. We chatted to some kiwis at Sacre-Coeur - they were standing at the foot of the hill, with no idea of where they were, what the cathedral was or why it was famous. The view from the cathedral was almost nil today, all drizzle and mist.

We found the artists' square in Montmatre and wandered around the area (fuelled by a fabulous Cointreau crepe). In a wee market shop I ended up in conversation with an elderly man about the acide in bread and how bad it is for you, while Warwick bought "quatre croissants" and was told his French was lovely!

We walked along eating croissants and cheese til we got to Pigalle metro and headed thence to Pere-Lachaise cemetary. As in London the metro is full of beggars. In the cemetary the gloomy day closed around us even more. It was a wierd, beautiful and empty place. We then headed to Marais in search of a vegetarian restaurant but were far too early for dinner - it was closed. We were only really meaning to eat out of duty anyway - not hungry at all.

Home, relaxed, then metro to Stade de France. The metro was packed with supporters, most wishing us "Bonne chance". One man was yelling at us "Boo Lomu" - the way he stressed it made the two words rhyme - it was really funny and all good-natured. French fans were singing in the RER train - we ourselves had no song to sing and no volume anyway!

We were searched on the way into the game, 2 female searchers to 6 males, so Warwick got through well before me. We had excellent seats. Supporters were segregated into small, alternate blocks, a fabulous idea as volume and mood were spread evenly throughout the stand. The band played and the NZ anthem was sung loud. There was also a special request from the authorities for respect for our haka, which was duly given. A minute's silence was held for Dave Gallagher who had passed away that week then a very slack, scrappy game of rugby was kicked off. After the ref had shown the third yellow card of the game we were almost ready to walk out.

Looking around the stadium, all the NZers were wearing beanies and all the French were in peaked caps. The band (split in two and sitting at opposite ends of the stand) played throughout the game, they just kept on playing! And the French singing was fabulous. Full-time was a disappointing draw however - no-one was celebrating, 100 000 people were strangely subdued on the way to the station. Seeing the huge queue we disappeared to McDs for a while, then sauntered back, buying a scarf along the way. The queue had not dwindled one bit! We went around to see if there was another entrance to the station, found it, and were suddenly swept into the station and onto the train, and were home before we knew it.

Sunday 17 November We took a tube to Notre Dame (all shops shut, being Sunday - boy I love European Sunday closing! So restful!) Young women dressed much better than I was would come up to us and ask "Do you speak English?" If you say yes (which they know you will) they begin to tell you in a long and involving way why you should give them all your spare cash. Not fun. We walked through the cathedral, the stained glass was beautiful and the air full of incense. Priests were entering for the service. We had a lovely walk along the river outside, through fallen yellow leaves, and back to Notre-Dame. It was a beautiful, clean area outside the cathedral, and the side view is really interesting. We walked on by the 1945 deportation memorial, to Ile St Louis (where Warwick met a funny busker) and to a wee cafe where we had crepes for lunch (we avoided the "Bloody Marry" offered on the menu!) and Warwick got the bill - in French! Fab.

We crossed the river and noticed a whole road along the river's edge closed to the traffic. The road was open only to pedestrians, cyclists, rollerbladers and skaters. Warwick lost no time in getting out his rollerblades (the clever man had come prepared). I had my blades with me too but I opted to walk, I was tired and the walk was lovely. I walked in a straight line more or less, while Warwick ZOOMED up and down and up and down! We both had loads of fun. All around us were older ladies on scooters, people pushing prams on rollerblades, and lots of kids stomping along as much as they were skating, then collapsing and bursting into giggles. We ended up at the Louvre so the blades came off and we went in.

The Louvre (another first for both of us) was big, beautiful, and not too crowded. We saw the Venus di Milo and the Mona Lisa - BRILLIANT! Both were bigger than I had expected and really worth seeing - reminded me of seeing Michelangelo's David in Florence. Fab!

We got SO tired and footsore walking around - we traipsed up and down those huge halls, out of a sense of duty more than anything else, looking for (and not finding) Dürer, the Crown Diamonds and Ramses II. Maybe we were lost or maybe they were closed. I was very tired and felt as though I could faint! Warwick helped me home (via an Orangina shop and a pizzeria - great Rigatoni Arrabiata and apricot nectar!) I relaxed and wrote while Warwick scooted out to take some night shots of the Eiffel Tower. We would leave the next morning straight for the airport and home.

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I nipped to the 9:30 service (actually I was an hour and a half late for the 8 o'clock service!) on Christmas morning while Warwick lay in. When I got back he was up and about and doing the housework! What a trooper! Mark came round for the day about 10am and we had lots of fun - opening pressies and playing card games and board games. Brilliant - Christmas was social, yet low-key. Very pleasant. The night before we had had a call from my family, and that morning we spoke to Warwick's family, and again to Anne that night. Yay!

Warwick gave me a sewing machine for Christmas - I have been missing my dear wee machine at home so badly! - and I have spent the last few days blissfully rejuvenating my wardrobe. December has also been hallmarked for me by clementines. Over here mandarins are not mandarins, not as I knew them. Mandarins are one thing, clementines are another variety and satsumas another. Clementines are my favourites and the supermarkets are full of them. Yay!

We have noticed lately that our squirrels are back, and to my mind it is way past their bedtime! Maybe we woke them with our fireworks and they just can't get back to sleep? The other day a squirrel ran along our back fence with a huge chestnut in his mouth. He ran to a concrete upright, took the nut in his wee paws and started bashing it against the upright. Fab! He saw me watching him so he took the chestnut to another upright farther down in the neighbour's garden, then returned with it, only to be chased into the tree by a second squirrel. They were so much fun to watch! I love the way they climb the tree, hugging it with their little arms.

We celebrated our first wedding anniversary on December 29 - how exciting! Technically we slept through it, so we celebrated UK time. We have had such a fabulous year - being married to Warwick is so good, so happy, it is nothing I could have anticipated when I was single. Now I'm one of those ladies who gets all excited and happy and tearful at weddings, and I love it!

New Year's Eve - that's now! Warwick is completely better, we baked peanut brownies to his dad's recipe today which were a roaring success, and I am nearly done wrapping up the year. I can hear fireworks beginning outside - it will be a wet new year so I wish them luck! Most of England and Wales are on flood alerts. We are flying away from it all - to Washington DC - on Friday, then back to work (for me at least) mid-week.

But now - right now - someone across the road has just let off a display box like the one we had on Guy Fawkes night (could this be revenge?) - it was fab! We popped out into the driveway to watch and joined in their hearty round of applause :-)