A weekend in the country

On Thursday we had an email from our friend asking us and a few friends to visit his parent's house in the country. It was an offer we could very much not turn down, the weather was predicted to be magnificent. The weather man had finally bought some good news. After a quick breakfast with Mossy, James and Damien I jumped on a train and met Benny at the country manor. I'm slightly addicted to the new brunch place we discovered the week previously so I had to take Mossy.

Benny had gone down early Saturday morning with friends to make it down in time to watch the Reds game. It only took an hour on the train to arrive to Buxted which is in Sussex, just south of London. The afternoon was picture perfect. So perfect that we went out and tried clay pigeon. It was the first time that Ben or I had shot a gun. No surprise I missed all my targets. Alex was kind enough to say I just missed. Ben on the other hand had a great aim and hit 50% of his targets.

Photo taken by Britta Rudner

After a few hours of shooting we headed back to Alex's house and he and his parents prepared a beautiful BBQ burgers for dinner. We made the most of this amazing weather and sat outside. The boys even managed to squeeze in a swim in the pool. We had such a great weekend and Alex's family were so kind to us. I made friends with the two dogs and the very cute cat Bertie. I really wanted to take Bertie home.

On Sunday, we were up early and had another treat, more sunshine and breakfast outdoors. After breakfast we headed on a walk. We were all dressed summery except for our gum boots. We have had so much rain lately that there is a lot of mud around. We were traipsing through farmers fields to the local pub. It took just under an hour to get there. It was nice walking through the fields. A pleasant change from the pavement. The only complaint was the stinging nettles which luckily no one got stung by. I was even lucky enough to see a horse. We were met kindly by Alex parents who were just supposed to pick up the 16 year old dog that can only walk a single journey.  Instead we piled into the Land Rover Defender and headed home. Dogs comfortably squished in between us. 

The country weekend came to an end with a lovely cook roast lunch with salad, kindly made by Alex's mum. To top it off she had made home-made blueberry icecream with fresh fruit from the countryside. We had such a great weekend we both felt it was a lot longer than just one night. Alex and his parents were so happy to have seven of us London folk come for a country visit. Hopefully we can do it again soon.  

Cousin Chris arrives

Benny and I had a very quiet weekend in Little London. Most nights of the week we had been out. We went to watch Temper Trap in the rain at Somerset House. I also cooked Benny my favourite meal that mummy makes, apricot chicken. It is a struggle over here as they don't sell apricot nectar.

We opted to stay in on Friday night and cook spaghetti. We watched parts of the opening night of the Proms season. We also booked tickets for one night in July to go and see the orchestra play at Royal Albert Hall, plus the last night at Hyde Park like last year.

On Saturday Benny woke ridiculously early to watch a load of rugby games being played in Aussieland. Ben had warned me of the potential of him watching games from 6:30am until 7pm. At 9am Ben headed to the station to go and watch the Reds game at the dodgy Australian pub while I prepared to do a bit of baking and wait for my cousin Chris to arrive. He moved to a little town outside of Bristol about 6 days ago. It was lovely to see Chris and meet his new found friends who were going to explore London for the weekend. I helped them get Oyster cards and put them on a train heading to Waterloo.

Once they departed I went home to bake Earl Grey tea cakes for a friend who was coming over to visit. I was excited to finally bake something and it wasn't until I put all the ingredients in I realised that I needed electric beaters. I had none, I mixed at a rapid rate for over ten minutes and today (Monday), my arms are still sore. It was my first official tea party with a friend I’ve made in London. It was supposed to be a crochet lesson but it ended up being a tea, cake and a chat. It was lovely as much as I love talking to Benny I really do miss chats with the girls. I have collected a few tea sets and cups since arriving a year ago.

Early Saturday evening I met up with Chris, Benny and a friend and we discovered a great pub in Clapham Common called the Abbeville. It was down the road from a friend’s house. The food was amazing, it could be described as fancy pub food. I had spatchcock with spiced chickpeas and it was lovely and Benny went with fish pie. It was really miserable weather on Saturday so the warm food really hit the spot.

Sadly, there was no sleeping in on Sunday. We got up bright and early and we headed to Clerkenwell which is in north London. We made a little error and didn’t check the train time before leaving home so Chris, Benny and I were running down streets of Putney trying to make the train. We made it thankfully as we would have had to wait 20 minutes. We were heading to Clerkenwell to try a cafe that our friend had recommended. It is originally from Melbourne and they’re rumoured to have flown some staff across for the London start up. The brunch and coffee was amazing. It was well worth the overground train, plus the three tubes to get there. There was seven of us Australians enjoying a great breakfast. When we left at 11:30 the queue was out the door. We will definitely be going back there again and I think Chris might even come back for a good breakfast.

After brunch, Chris went to visit friends and I dragged Benny to the shops. He has no enthusiasm towards shopping. I think it is one of Ben’s least favourite things to do with me. My favourite store was having a sale so I really needed to have a look. I love, love, love Anthropology. I picked up three things, one was a massive bargain. I picked up a dress for £34 reduced from £138. I can’t wait to wear it. 

This week is looking busy. I am hoping that we have sunshine, but our chances are slim.

Short flight to Guernsey

Last Monday was my first day at a new job at WCRS. It is so far really fun. The people are great and the work is really interesting and very creative. I only worked four days last week as we had booked a trip to Guernsey.

Benny had booked us a flight on a little bit too tiny plane. It was a Dash 8. I was really happy to be on the ground.

We arrived to overcast weather. Sadly none of my wishes came true for hot summer weather this weekend. After landing quite early we went to the hotel to drop our bags off. The hotel was set on top of the hill of St Peters Port. We had changed weekends because we wanted a hotel room with views and we are so glad we waited. The view was amazing. We were on the top floor of a really cute hotel called Sunnycroft. You could only access it by walking about about 50 stairs, so the location was really quiet away from traffic noise. This is the view straight from the window. I wish we could have stayed longer.

On the first day we wandered around the port. I did a bit of shopping and we visited the castle. The castle was just where the edge of the wall is on the right of the photo. We turned up about an hour before the castle shut and it was only a £1 to go in. It is a special deal if you don't have time to see all the museums. A lot of the castle was destroyed in the war as Germany occupied this island. Over the island there are a lot of underground tunnels and viewing areas that the Germans used. It is a very fascinating island. We finished the afternoon off by walking along the cliffs and just admiring this magical place.

The nice taxi driver who took us to the hotel told us that there was an event taking place at the port on our first evening. We were intrigued and wandered down. I think most of the island was there taking part in the Harbour festival. At the festival we watched little rubber ducks you have in the bath race. Little kids could decorate and sponsor their duck in the hope that it would win. It is hard to describe but basically the tide comes over the mooring area for the boats and they release the ducks into a enclosed space and what ever duck reaches the furtherest after 5 minutes wins. It was funny to watch as there were thousands of ducks all floating around very expensive sailing boats. We stayed at the event for a few hours watching all the events for the evening. The final event was human-flight competition where people in funny outfit like contraptions tried to fly the furtherest. People made some ridiculous contraptions, sadly no one glided too far. We couldn't believe that they were jumping in with no wetsuits.

Day two can be described as torrential down pour with big gusts of wind. We had to catch the bus around the island. It was a bit too big to walk everywhere and the hiring bike idea went out the window because of the weather. We caught the bus to a little chapel on the island which was built in 1914. It is 9ft long and 4.5ft wide with three tiny rooms and is covered with chips of crockery, some of which have been donated by Wedgewood as they are continually restoring it. After the chapel we went back to a pub to dry out and watch the women's final of Wimbledon.

The plan for our last day was to hire bikes and sadly we couldn't as the weather was unpredictable.  We decided on catching the loop bus that goes around the island. It was only £1. The bus was filled with tourists from a cruise ship that docked into port for the day. Loads of people in cruise wear piled onto the bus. They had to put a few extras buses on. We got out on the other side of the island where we admired the views and had a picnic lunch. We also came across honesty boxes usually outside houses. They sell fruit and vege as well as flowers. Most things are £1 - £3.50.

We had such a great time in Guernsey. It was a lovely island and the people were so friendly and kind. If we get an opportunity we would love to go back.