Category Archives: family

family, food, UK, vehicles

Christmas-like Easter

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A four day weekend was once again too much to stay at home & read & watch Spooks with my arm in a sling, so a good excuse to get away. Tedious buses & trains took me to Somerset for Easter weekend – which was strangely much more similar to Christmas than I am used to. It’s not Easter Sunday as it is in NZ, rather Easter Day. I’m not completely sure what is a normal Easter at home – but I wasn’t familiar with sitting around eating copious amounts of food, drinking well, fruit cakes, masses of cheese & biscuits and receiving cards & presents. I approve of little-Christmas – especially as all the exercise I could manage was walking to town & down the beach.

Gary was Stationmaster for the afternoon at the local miniature railway, so I escaped into the sun to watch for a few hours. There were plenty of little steam engines chugging around the 3.5″/5″ double-gauge track carrying a surprising number of children and parents/grandparents around. That smell of steam and partially combusted coal is still good on such a small scale. I managed to get a couple of loops of the recently extended track – but of course all I wanted to do was tinker with the little levers, fill coal boxes & water tenders. Alas. Anyway, that was different experience & I got to hear some proper West-Country accents (most of the people I know in the area are imports) – where you don’t have to have a eye-patch & a wooden leg for it to be acceptable to say yarrrr.

city, family, history, UK

Bristol Stroll

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It was a surprisingly easy two hour drive up to Bristol last night. I’m staying with third cousins here for two nights as tomorrow I’m meeting up with friends and finally heading out for a ski this winter.

With a proper chilly start to the day, I was well chufffed to see a brilliant blue sky.  After a lazy morning including sleeping in, entertaining the kids, drinking tea and eating copious amounts of coffee cake, behind us – we headed out for me to be shown around Bristol.

Driving past the Downs (strangely on the top of the hill) I heard of the city’s profiting from the slave trade, which is reflected in such placenames as White Lady Road & Black Boy Hill. Down to underneath the famous Clifton Suspension Bridge we were following the Avon up to the old docks.

I was intrigued that there was such a thing as a free parking lot so close to town. But there was and soon the kids were in the buggy and the manic dog was running in circles as we wandered into the centre of town taking our time to feed ducks that weren’t skating on the ice. As I got sidetracked by old cranes and trains on the dockside and there were plenty of people also out enjoying the sunshine, it was a little while before we finally sat down for lunch.

The sun was sinking as we emerged for the return trip, which was quite chilly as we strolled at a Dotty (two year old) pace back to the car, curiously bumping into Ollie’s brother and his family heading the other direction. Now we are back at home and I’m sat in front of a roaring fire with tea and more cake watching The Princess Bride, all is well.

(Annoyingly, my shoulder operation has been pushed back a month.)



bikes, Canada, family, friends, MTB, national park, roadtrip, snow, travel, USA

A little on the late side

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So, I never quite made the time to compose a Christmas letter. This will have to do as some sort of missive for me to sum up the year & wish you all happy holidays. 2011 was separated into distinct thirds for me. The first of those was the end of my year living & working in the Canadian Rockies. That spur of the moment decision to go & bike & ski in the mountains for twelve months still rates as one of the best of my life – I had a great time with fantastic friends; the snow was good too & my skiing could do nothing but improve with all those consecutive weekends on the hill.

The middle of the year – the end of a long winter & the first of summer – saw the completion of a long held dream. That was, a roadtrip around the West (USA) with a bike in the trunk/boot visiting many of the famous riding spots & national parks. My aunt, Valerie, joined me from Australia & we managed 22000 km (almost 14000 miles), 13 states & 2 provinces and an awful lot of quality mountain-biking (for me). Scenically, the highlights were Bryce Canyon & Crater Lake National Parks. As always when I visit the States, spending time with old friends & making new ones stays on top of the many memories.

Naturally, it was tough to leave close friends & the beauty of the Bow Valley; the last part of the year sees me finally starting to get around to what I left home for two and a half years ago. That is, to get a job & settle in the UK for a while and take full advantage of the proximity to Europe. I’m back process engineering for the first time in four years at a small rubber factory on the edge of the New Forest (not far from Southampton at the south of England). Mum’s been over here for the last three months at university, so it’s been great to see her every so often. The hospitality of extended family (some of whom I’m still only meeting now) helps to lessen the distance from home – as does Skype & 1p/min phone calls.

That’s this year – 2012 will not be nearly as well planned out or active for that matter. I’m down to have surgery sometime on my shoulder (to tighten it all up – two dislocations this year), so that will curtail the biking & skiing a lot. That will just mean I have more free time to explore this part of the world. I’ve finally got an invite to a wedding (first since leaving), so I’ll be back in NZ for a couple of weeks near the start of September for what will be a flurry of visiting much-missed family & friends.

Best wishes for the new year.

city, family, friends, London, UK

London trips

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For the first time in my life, I’ve finally been able to start biking to work. But a five kilometre round trip is not all that much & is especially helped by it being a lot flatter than it seems in the car – which is quite the reverse of what I was expecting. So it may be closing in on the longest day of the year, but if it’s not raining & I get up early enough to get organised, a ride to work (even if it just one or two degrees above freezing – thanks Canada for not making me avoid the “cold”) is a nice little start to the day.

Last weekend was a trip up to London for Levi & Marki’s Christmas party. Always good catching up with them & there was plenty of food too. Also pretty fun catching up with a buddy from high school who I hadn’t seen about twelve years – I thought I’d got away from Canadians telling me to watch Trailerpark Boys, but it turns out Jeff is a bit of a fan too. There was no playing football on the deck with an offcut from the woodwork shop, but then the deck at the apartment is a little small & had more important duties as the beer fridge. Somehow I managed to walk out (just managed to walk onto the last train too, thus avoiding my first ever night-bus) with a huge ham – apparently I was the most worthy cause as Levi & Marki weren’t going to get the chance to eat it with travelling on the cards.

Around Sidcup on the weekend was pretty relaxing, on the way to visit Ray & Jill on Saturday morning Trish & I paid a visit to Rudolph’s buddies & their spindly looking antlers.  I’m sure they would still do a bit of damage.

Even after a big sleep in, Sunday was looking pretty grey so Trish & I decided to head out to another little Kentish village – Westerham – to check out Quebec House. After a nice lunch in one of those great English pubs that look like they’re doing a commendable impression of a drunk trying to stand up, we strolled through the village to check out the house. It was the birthplace of General Wolfe – who was apparently the first English military figure to be a popular hero. The name of the house comes from the name of the victorious battle that won him his fame & took his life. All very Nelsonesque – except Wolfe pre-dated him. I’d learnt a little about the battle that saw the British defeat the French in the war for control of Quebec City & Canada when I was at Buckler’s Hard a couple of weeks ago – some of the ships built there sailed to Quebec before the battle. Always interested to get a bit more Canadian history, the museum above the coachhouse had great displays & was very informative. The house was pretty dark inside, but had some interesting period pieces – muskets are pretty heavy it turns out.

I was back in London three days later for yet another appointment about my bung shoulder. So I’ll get keyhole surgery sometime next year – I asked for after-February so I can go skiing at least once this winter. As it’s been three months to get this far, I’m hoping that’s a safe request. I’ll be out of action for a while (six weeks in a sling) with no driving & definitely not biking – but it’ll be nice to get it fixed up & hopefully avoid the agony of the last dislocation repeating. So 2012 doesn’t look like it’ll be so active – but perhaps I’ll finally get around to seeing some more of Europe, which I think was the whole idea of leaving NZ two & a half years ago. Oops.