Friday, December 29, 2006

Messing about on the river


We got up early this morning to head down to the river. I was not that keen on an early morning (I'm on holiday!), but it was definitely worth it. The temperature was perfect, the river was beautifully flat, like glass. It was only disturbed by the occasional duck, or rowing boat, or us in our canadian canoe..........


Dad and I



John and Marielle coming back in from their cruise. Looks like they are canoeing on the sky, the water was that flat!


It was worth getting up early to see the river looking like this........

Monday, December 25, 2006



Marielle, John, Dad, Mum and I and our Christmas dinner.

Mission accomplished

Well, that was worth it!! I arrived yesterday at my home in Townsville, Queensland, Australia. Mum and Dad were sitting in the lounge with my bro and his fiance, thinking that they had quite a small gathering for Christmas, and imagining me at the farm with friends in Warwickshire, England where they genuinely thought I would be spending Christmas. Then I walked in the door here!!
You should have seen their faces! Lots of hugs, and mum very nearly cried (or maybe she did), then we all sat down for a massive Christmas lunch!
The trip all went very smoothly (just slowly, as that long haul always does!), I thought there might be issues with fog in Heathrow, but that cleared in time to get the flight to Singapore on time, then there was a bit of a delay at Singapore, but we made up the time in the air and got into Brissie spot on time, with an hour to sit around before the flight to Townville.
My fam liked the prezzies I'd bought them, and we went over to some friends place for drinks in the evening. I was struggling to keep my eyes open by about 8pm, so we went home and I was out like a light for 12 hours sleep (having not slept since the Friday night before I left). I reckon that's the best way to get over jetlag!

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Oh, dear, it seems I am misinformed (sorry Marielle, and all you Bretons out there), Nantes is not in Brittany, it is in the Pays De Loire (44) region! We have been to Normandy for the last couple of days, to Mt St Michel, the Bayeux Tapestry, and to the Normandy beaches where the American, Canadian and British troops landed on D-Day. I feel the need to learn a lot more about the World Wars, they seem so much closer to home over here!
We are going to the primary school this afternoon, and will be sticking with the 10 Aussie kids for some of next week as well. It is strange to have a teacher's perspective on the school.
I feel totally useless at French, it feels like being stripped of all personality and expression and I find myself sitting silently listening like mad and understanding about every 10th word! I have been talking to an american girl who has been here 4 months and will be here another 5. She is living in Nantes, and has basically thrown herself in the deep end living with three non english speaking french girls, and working at the school as an aide with the english department. I feel it would take so so long to get anywhere near as fluent as I would like to be at this.......

Monday, December 11, 2006

Parting is such sweet sorrow

Well, my 6 months in Buxton is up already - where did that go???? I'm still pinching myself that I've been living and working in the UK, and I already have an old 'home' to go back and visit! It has been a great 6 months, mostly good memoreis, though I'm never going to miss the weather in the last couple of months, where I'd lie in bed praying the phone wouldn't ring while listening to the wind and rain outside.............. :)

Well, I have a few minutes to kill, as i wait to board my flight to Nantes, Brittany, France. It's exciting to be heading to mainland Europe for the second time! I'm not sure exaxtly what the itinerary will be, except that i think we are going to Normandy to see the Bayeux tapestry tomorrow - never wuld have thought I'd get to see that in real life!
I'm tagging along with a school trip from St Paul's in Warragul, near where I used to live. My friend Christine is a French teacher there (we used to play for shows together in Warragul, Victoria. We're with the school kids for a couple of days, then just cruising for a few more after that. i think we have both been to busy to organise anything much, which is actually a really nice way to take a holiday!

Anyway, I'm sorry my blog has been quite boring for the last couple of months. Do watch this space, one day I'll be at a computer with fast internet access, and by able to put some photos of York Chrismas Markets, and other exciting things on here....

Thursday, October 05, 2006

La Tomatina

Mum's first comment when I told her I'd be heading to Spain to throw tomatos at lots of people was 'Catherine! what a waste of good food'! I'm inclined to agree with her, though the tomatos involved were certainly at the point where they probably would have gone rotten by the time they made it anywhere to be sold!
The event took place a Bunol, a village just outside Valencia in Spain. We arrived in the morning, having been briefed on what to expect, so hence wearing clothes including shoes we were ready to throw directly in the bin at the end, with or without goggles and ear plugs. We (and the other 35000 people there) made our way through the little spannish village, down a steep hill to one of the main streets, past pubs and shops that had been carefully covered with tarpaulins to keep them clean. We ended up in on long narrow street, crowded in shoulder to shoulder, with no room even reach to the ground if we dropped anything. the festival starts with a large ham at the top of a greasy pole, up which men (and some women) attempt to climb to retrieve the ham. The locals are not keen on a foreigner reaching the top first, so they can play dirty and pull people down if they look like they are getting too close. This goes on for at least an hour, while the crowd looks on (a bit difficult form the distance we were at, and I had not worn my glasses or contact lenses, so it was even less rewarding for me to peer in that direction, I could just make it out.) In the meantime, people are being sprayed from rooftops and around with water from hoses, fire hydrants, or just tubs from people's private houses (the tall aparment type housing with balconies that is classic Spanish is perfect to throw water from!).
Once the ham was claimed, the crowd erupted! The water started in earnest, and we happened to be right beside the spot where the next ritual began: ripping the shirts off anyone at all really! It was mostly guys that were falling victim to this, though if a girl was in the wrong place at the wrong time, we saw a few lose their tops!
Our little group were Lara and I, Lara's bro Daniel, Sam (a pharmacist from Toowomba who is working in Waterford, Ireland), Steve (crazy rocker dude/surveyor/rock climbing instructor from Leeds), and his roommate on the tour, James (travelling around Europe from Melbourne). Lara and I were very happy with the 2:1 male female ratio, purely from a self preservation perspective!
Just when we though it was getting a bit crazy, someone decided to light a flare right next to where we were standing, I tell you the Spanish have no concept of public liability, or health and safety, which means they really know how to party!

The next thing were a few single tomatos that seemed to come from nowhere. I was just wondering if this was going to be it, when I saw the massive truck slowly working its way through the crowd (just when we thought there was no room for anything else in the hemmed in street, but people just got out of the way as it drove through). It was the first of 6 trucks that drove through during the hour. Huge tip-trucks full of ripe tomatos, with people riding in the back throwing them to the crowd. A bit further up they would stop, and tip the entire contents of the trailor onto the ground - literally a mound of red.
Tomatos flew! ripped sodden t-shirts were a little less comfortable when hit in the face, but all you could do was grab them a throw them on! soon everything was a sea of red, and it was also quite hot (warning - don't ever attempt this if you suffer from chlostrophobia, panic attacks, heart conditions, or asthma!!). The occasional dousings with cold water from the nearby fire hose just kept us refreshed as the tomato juice started to dry...
We realised that the only way to stay together was to hold on to each other somehow pretty much the whole time, otherwise it would have been so easily to become totally separated in the writhing bodies of the crowd. At the end a huge horn sounded, signalling the end of the fight. the flying tomatos slowed, but people were still wired, so some turned back to ripping clothing off random passers-by.
To our horror, Lara and I both fell victim to this crazed stripping, though luckily our boys (aka knights in shining armour!) fought them off valliantly, with Lara's top only ripping down the back and mine just very stretched out of shape. we were separated making our way out of the crowd, Dan and I managed to keep connected, and ended up down a side street, where we saw an asian couple, she in a wedding dress, he in a suit. Maybe they were on their honeymoon?
the crowd thinned as we made our way around a few streets, hoping we were going in the right direction for the buses and the others. Little clusters of people were congregating under balconies, crying 'Agua, Agua, por fabor', to be rewarded by random buckets of water being poured over our heads. This hardly made a dent on the tomato-sodden mop that was my hair, though it did clean my face and arms at least!
We made it to the main street, where local shopkeepers were hosing down whoever asked, to get the excess of the muck off.
It had so far been quite an alcohol free occasion, which was surprising, but now the beer and wine flowed in pints - Lara went to get a rose and was given an entire bottle poured into a pint glass with ice!
We sat in the beautiful spanish sun, contemplating our bruises and tomatoiness, and bonding as one only can on such a surreal day, eventually making our way to the buses. My shoes, singlet and socks were left in a bin in that town, but I have managed to salvage my swimmers top and shorts after many washes!
It was a crazy and surreal day, and one the photos hardly do justice............ :)


Nice and dry before it all began (the guy in the white suit interviewed James, one of our little group, asking why he was here and who in the world he'd most like to throw a tomato at - not sure where that footage will appear!)



flying tomatos



Rivers of tomato soup

Saturday, September 16, 2006



A couple of aussie guys I just bumped into at the ball! Tim (right) went to Cromwell College at UQ at the same time as me, now living in London, and Dave I met in June when I stayed at Tim's with my bro and his girlfriend. Not a very big place, this world, hey!



Me and my slightly 70's dress. I had a slight hiccup with my contact lenses (ie they started burning like I had acid in my eyes, and continued to do so for a few hours after I took them out!) which is why my eyes look a bit red here!
Oh, and the things sticking out of my head are a decoration on the wall behind me, not a hair accessory!


Lara and I with the cool statue lady

Hillsong ball



Lara and I

Hillsong ball




Fairy Floss!!!!! :)

hillsong ball



Ben And Jerrie's at Hillsong Ball!

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Tomato fest!


Just a little tase of what we got up to in Spain, more to come soon!

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Hablo muy poco espanol!

It's been a great couple of days! I've been chilling out today with old and new friends in London. I'm staying with Lara, a friend who I went through vet school with in Australia, who lives in Goodmayes (almost into Essex), with her brother. It's been a relaxing day spent shopping for last minute things for our trip to Spain, and having a BBQ in the intermittent sunshine on what has been quite a nice warm day!

We went to the Hillsong church ball last night - which totally ble us away! The most entertaining ball I've ever been to! there must have been at lest a thousand people there, maybe two, everyone looking fantastic in black tie gear. there were heaps of different rooms at the venue, one a real disco feel, with a free Ben a Jerrys ice cream stall, pop corn and fairy floss, a DJ and huge dance floor. There were regular dance acts which would perform on the dance floor, with routines from Austin Powers, to street dancing and an African dancing group (10% of proceeds from the night went to the Wototo Children's orphanage in Uganda). Another room had couches with tables and cheese and grape platters, with a wine bar, then another had a more classical feel, with a string an flute ensemble playing at one stage, and some other acoustic performers. Next to that was a room with paintings on the walls, and a huge frame suspended from the ceiling with a lady painted like a statue standing in it. People could go up and pose with her for photos, and if you were lucky she would move to pose with you! Another room was a french style cafe, with tables and chairs, another like an arabian lounge, with low tables and cushions to sit on the floor, another was a dance/club feel with a live DJ and dance music, and yet another had a Jazz band with sax, double bass and blues set up! Needless to say, it was an awesome night, far exceeding anything I have ever experienced in a night out! I will put some photos on here when I get back from Spain. I ran into a friend from uni, who I had stayed with in May with my bro, and met some of Lara's friends from Hillsong. The funny thing was, I only spoke to one english person all night, all the rest of the people I met were Aussies, South African, and a couple of Kiwis and Americans! It was great to meet some fellow travellers, though, and chat about all sorts of things, and of course, work out connections or people we know in common from back home!
I'm hoping to have a couple of visitors to experience the other side of England (ie the not london part!), I really think there is so much people miss out on just living in London the whole time they's in the UK.

So after our relaxing day today, Lara and her brother Dan are busy packing for our trip to Spain. We leave here at 4:30 tomorrow morning, and head to Stanstead airport to fly to Valencia. With all the heightened security after the terrorist scare, we're allowing 3 hours to check in.
The good news is that the check in and luggage handlers strike that was going to happen this weekend has been averted!
Thanks to the people who have been leaving comments on here for me - it is so good to hear your news! Marilyn, it's great to hear that things have come together well with the farm, and Christine, I'll have to give you a call when I get back from Spain - I'm already getting excited about Paris in December!
Laurie - if you're reading this, could you let me know your email address? I'd love to hear what you and the cell group are up to.
And everyone else, I'm thinking of you all often, (more often that I am emailing you, no doubt!)
watch this space for photos of classy dresses, Spanish sunshine, and tomato-covered people!

Adios!

Monday, August 21, 2006




At a local pub quizz with work mates

Saturday, August 12, 2006



Close up of the surgery door



The work building, the driveway to the left leads to courtyard, the office, drug store, radiographic/ultrasound, kennels, lab, and main clinic all lead off this courtyard through different doors. It's ok to run outside all the time in Summer, but I'm not looking forward to it in a wet winter!


The work cars (see previous post!). My lovely Peugeot 307, and.................



.... the Maverick; which would you prefer!!


With some of the nurses and vet at the Buxton Carnival


I have no idea who this guy was, but he was funny to look at, and the mittle kid on the back was having a ball!


One of the carnival queens on her float. The hours that must go into decorating these must be phenomenal! There were lots of marching bands, huge trucks decorated and community groups and some businesses participating.



A dressed well in Buxton. A lot of the towns in the area have well dressing carnivals, and Buxton is the largest. All the Carnival queens ride in the Buxton Carnival parade.


Another well-dressed well


With another familiar face in the chatsworth scuplture room


One more of Chatsworth!

Plans............

I've finally managed to book a few days off at the end of this month. This in itself was an exciting prospect, though once I had the time organised, I was left with the challenge of filling it with something exciting to do! Options included a bit of a week long road trip around the country visiting lots of friends who are living here there and everywhere. The second option was a Haggis tour of Scotland, which had been recommended to me. Then I learned that a good friend of mine is going to Spain to throw tomatoes at her brother, and anyone else in the vicinity!!
That sounds good, hey! So I have just finished booking flights and accomodation to the La Tomatina festival in Valencia, Spain, and then on to Barcelona for a few days afterwards.
I'm also going to the Hillsong Annual Summer Ball in London with Lara (afore mentioned friend), which sounds like a great night. Just have to find a ball gown from somewhere................ :)
I'll post a few more pics of things that have been happening the last month or so above...............................

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Nostalgia

Life is trundling along here, work is going ok. We have a new locum at work, which might mean I get a chance to take some time off at the end of this month, which would be great!
The car I have at work sort of fell apart a couple of weeks ago, (well, it is a Ford after all, can't expect much better I suppose). the gear box needed replacing, (and that has nothing to do with me putting 20L of unleaded fuel into it's diesel tank a week or so before - how dumb can you feel?????!:). So I had to put up with driving a brand spanking new peugeot 307 around for two weeks! It was lovely to drive, but now I have gone back to the old Maverick, complete with new gear box and three new tyres. :(
I made the most of having the Peugeot and drove over to Chesterfield, which is about 20 minutes from here, and caught up with Lee, a friend from uni, on her last day there before she moved onto her next locum position. WE checked out the markets and looks around the cathedral with the crooked spire, which Chesterfield is famous for. Apparently it was built in a bit of a hurry several centuries ago and they didn't wait for the wood to dry properly, so as it dried out over time, the whole spire has spiralled a little bit. it looks quite precaious but is so tightly joined now that it wouldn't fall down very easily at all!
I then drove further south to 'Fenny Drayton' the village where my Grandparents used to live. It was where my family stayed the times we came out on holiday, the last of which was about 13 years ago, so it was really quite surreal to be there again. I saw my Grandma's old house, which has had some extensions on the front, and the little park where we used to play with some other kids in the village, and where I saw snow for the first time. Lots of little memories came flooding back, and driving myself around, places were all connected up so they made more sense. I dropped in on a friend of my Grandma's and my mum's (and now mine as well!), who used to live on the next door farm to my mum's family in a place called Bentley in Warwickshire. Mrs Farmer is a lovely lady, and absolutely loves animals, and worked at a vets for a while herself, so we sat and chatted for ages. There had been some really severe storms, which I had driven through on the way down, and there was not power in the Village, so we drove to the next town and got fish and chips for dinner.
I drove home feeling like I had reconnected with my mum's side of the family, and I will be back down that way again to see some more friends no doubt.

Friday, July 28, 2006



With the bust of 'Mr Darcy'

Friday, July 21, 2006



The chapel in Chasworth - there are over 100 rooms in the house, and this chapel was about half way along our tour (we spent a total of 6 hours at the place!)


View from the Cascades water feature at Chatsworth. It was a hot summer Sunday, and the place was very busy. It was all we could do to stop ourselves joining all the kids that were splashing around in the cool water!


Chastworth house - the view as you approach the house fits perfectly with the description Jane Austin gives in the book - it is believed that she really did base the ficticious Pemberly on Chatsworth when she wrote about it.



With Lee at Chatsworth house (the new Pemberly in the recent Pride and Prejudice movie)


'Lyme Hall', which was used as Pemberly in the BBCs Pride and Prejudice


The Peak district - some of the beautiful scenery I drive through most days at work :)
A couple of weeks ago I wentup to Manchester with Caz (my housemate, who is a nurse at work) and her boyfriend Andy, and Val, one of the other vets. We went to the Trafford Centre, which looks from the outiside like a massive ornate building with several huge golden domes and statues and the like. Inside it is one of the biggest shopping centres I've ever seen, (makes Indooroopilly look tiny, and is probably bigger than Fountain Gate or Chadstone). We browsed around the shops, and went and saw 'Pirates on the Caribbean 2', which was good fun - obviously setting up for a trilogy there!! Val had to get a prezzie for her friend's new baby and while we were in the early learning centre (which was one of the more entertaining shops on our whole expedition!), we found some really cool painted wooden letters with animals on them. Caz and I got some lettering for our bedroom doors (it was my birthday present to myself!). For those who know me well, the animals are quite fitting - a Cockatoo for C, Ants for A and a tiger for T :)
I was also introduced to Nandos chicken which is a chain restaurant which does portuguese style chicken dishes - very tasty, and gave me practice at eating chilli, which I am trying to teach myself to appreciate more.



With my housemate, Caroline and our new door lettering!!



hedgehogs are cute!


View of Buxton from Solomon's Temple, which is a small circular tower on one of the nearby hills - a lovely little walk through the woods to get there :)

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Life in the Peak

How long as it been? Sorry it's been a bit boring on this blog for a while! I am settling in to Buxton and work now, and I feel like I am able to pull my weight a bit more around the place now I know how it works. I've been navigating around the countryside, which has been a pleasure so far, with very scenic drives between farms, the countryside is beautifully green, with lots of happy sheep and cows scattered everywhere. Instead of fences, there are dry stone walls everywhere, the making of which is an artform in itself. the height of the summer has drawn hundreds of tourists to the area, and many of the walking tracks go through farmland and over hill and dale, so there are people everywhere. Quite a lot of farms are being encouraged to diversify and have small van parks or barns for people to stay in. Overall the people are very friendly; I think my accent is helpful when I still have to look up books to find the drugs I'm after, or if I have to ask farmers to please repeat yet again what exatly is going on with their cow ('summit up wit' coo':)
I am enjoying learning what the local colloquialisms mean, and what words have different meanings (it's 'post', not mail, and they are trousers, not pants!) I still smile at 'y'allreeght me duck' or me choock, or meord (my old friend).

I am still trying to get my bank account sorted for my limited company, which is proving to be quite a challenge, but hopefully I am on the homeward stretch for this.

I had my first real weekend of sightseeing last weekend, which really happened by chance. The Buxton Carnival has been on, which involves 'well dressings' where the wells (that produce natural spring water at 27.5 degrees C all year round) are decorated with amazing collages depicting scenes or concepts relevant to the local area. There is also a huge carnival parade, which was on last Saturday. I was in the little mall here in Buxton and literall bumped into a friend from uni! Lee is working in Chesterfield for a few weeks and had just decided to visit Buxton becuase it looked interesting! So we joined some of the girls from my work and watched the parade (with the carnival Queens from all the surrounding towns on floats, as well as lots of other community groups, bands, dancers, etc).

Then we headed to 'Lyme Hall' which used in the BBC's production of Pride and Prejudice as Pemberly Hall. Unfortunately it was closed, and there was some scaffolding up, but it was a nice walk around the grounds. On Sunday we visited Chatsworth house, which was build by the first Duke of Devonshire in the 1500s and has been improved over the centuries to be one of the Largest and Grandest houses in the Country. It was used as Pemberly in the new Pride and Prejudice movie with Keira Knightly (yes, Lee and I are both Jane Austin Fans!!;). We ended our exciting weekend by the river in Bakewell, where I sampled a 'Bakewell pudding' which is like a pastry shell with a sweet sticky filling made from eggs and sugar, and some jam. YUMMY!!!
It has been crazy weather here, I would say just as hot as any Queensland summer days for almost a week. we finally got some rain and it is just slightly cooler today, but the houses are designed to keep the heat in, so it makes it a bit hard to sleep at night.
I'm sure there are lots of other things I intended to share, but I might have to post them later as I think of them............ :)

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Hiya, you ollreeght?

It has been a full on couple of weeks since I got to Buxton (do I keep saying that about everytime I write on here? this time it is for different reasons!). I've been working for a week and a half and I have just started to feel like I fit in and actually get how this place works. I have managed to avoid going out on large animal calls, which is good as I think that would have been the straw to break the camel's back for me, as my brain has been functioning at maximum capacity just getting into the smallies side of things!
The weather here last week was absoult rubbish - about the same as brisbane in winter, except wet! Several people have happily told me that Buxton enjoys some of the lowest temperatures recorded in England year round because of its altitude, so I am trying very hard not to think about winter. One farmer told me that he didn't let his cows out till the end of May because it was too cold for them (they house all their cows in winter)!
Having said that, it is a very pretty part of the country, I have finally got a car to myself, so I have been able to go for a few drives around the countryside. There are lots of sheep and cattle, and some picturesque valleys and views from tops of hills. I haven't done much walking so far, but there are heaps of people around with backpacks and boots on who seem to be enjoying walking and camping in the area.

Work has been busy, there seem to be a constant flow of very unusual cases over the last couple of weeks. I did surgery on a cat today, which had evidently been shot by an air rifle (no laughing please!) and the pellet had passed through its left kidney, through several loops of intestine, colon, through the opposite abdominal wall where it had lodged itself. After stitching a few of the holes in the gut and attempting the remove the kidney, we put the cat down as it was in a very bad way. I removed a lump from a Gerbil today as well - very exciting that the gerbil is actually still alive! The people are a lot of fun to work with, and quite a young bunch overall, which is nice. I seem to be taking longer to do things at the moment, but I am often having to look up things in books as most trade names of common drugs are different over here (exactly the same packaging, just different name - why do they have to do that?!). There are always different ways of doing the most basic things, which is part of the joys and challenges of doing locum work, and I like learning new ideas. I got my first thank you card today, (from the owner of the afore mentioned Gerbil, who also owns a cat, whose entire digestive system decided to stop working for some reason which we couldn't work out!).

I'm going to the local comedy club on Friday night, and hopefully watching the next England 'football' match on Saturday with a few people from work. I missed the Australia Italy match, but several people have told me that Italy are low life cheats and shouldn't have won!! So I guess I'm over to supporting the poms now, it's such a big deal to so many people, we keep hearing of people getting arrested in germany, and the police are always much more visible near the pubs here after the England games.
I'm no call tonight (please God, no calls!) I almost had to go out last night, but they rang pack to say they'd got the calf out after all - hooray! Better go find some food....................

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Loving London

Ok, you might be a bit confused because I am actually in Buxton, and have just finished my second day of work (sight of relief - it's all a bit different over here!). But being the slightly OCD person that I am , I feel I need to write a bit about London before I can go onto everything else that has been happening!

We got back to London 2 weeks ago on Thursday, and I had some business to do on the Friday, which involved going into Regent St, then walking past Pall Mall, a teh changing of Guard was happening, bypassing Buckingham Palace, to end up just near Big Bena nd the London eye, at the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS), where I was officially registered (can't call ourselves doctor over here, but we can but MRCVS after our names which is nearly as cool!). I had another appointment out in Buckinhamshire to set myself up as a Limited Company, then it was back into London to go to the Theatre, where we saw Mama Mia just near Picadilly Circus! It was a really fun musical, and my brother has organised a bottle of Champagne for interval, so we just walked out of the theatre and sat down at a table beside the iceed bottle and poured ourselves a glass - all very classy!! (except the interval was only 10 minutes, so we had to take the rest into the theatre in plastic tumblers!!).
On Saturday we went to some awesome Markets just near Tower Bridge, which has so much yummy gourmet food, it was hard not to salivate just walking around! There was lots of cheese, olive oil, balsamic vineger, pate, and the like to taste as we went around. There was anything from goose liver pate to organic gluten free chocolate brownies (for £4.50 a piece, which is about $10 Aussie!).
After this, we went to a party at the house of a workmate of Tim Porter (a friend from Cromwell College who we stayed with). We met up with another Aussie girl on the way there, and when we got there, we realised we recognised each other and after a lot of thinking, realised we did ballet together in Townsville, and also were in debating teams around the same time!! I knew it was a small world, but it seemed pretty early in the piece to coin the phraze!
The party was for the first England match in the world cup (v Paraguay) and I really quite enjoyed it, to my surprise (I think I was still getting used to the fact I was actually in London watching it I think).

On Saturday night we went into Soho, which is the clubby/alternative part of London (some very interesting fashion trends and body decorations to be seen!) and went to a Pizza cafe that had a Jazz club downstairs and saw a fantastic spanish Jass trio with a great singer and guitarist and bass player. We wandered around Soho for a while, then decided that the best place to be was by the river just near Tim's place, where there is a great view of Tower bridge with St Pauls behind it. So we went there and chatted till the sun came up! (which was 3am, and it only set at 10:30!).
Sunday we checked out Covent Garden and saw some great buskers (a great sting quartet and another guy dressed up as a troll type creature, with crazy facial expressions that were a bit scary). We had a lovely dinner at TIm's place that night. Monday we saw the Tower of London, with a very theatrical tour guide who told us all sorts of interesting stories about the people who died there (Anne Bolyne, and Lady Jane Grey amongst them). It was a bit of a rush to get organised, then I said goodbye to my Bro and Marielle, as they headed to the airport to catch a plane back to Oz. (*sniff*!). I stayed at another friend's place a bit further form the Centre of London for the next couple of days and caught up with a friend from uni and another friend from school who I haven't seen for about 13 years which was great.
I went about an hour south to visit Will and Isa, a friend form uni and his wife, and caught up with Tim, who I flew over with, then he and I went back into London the next day to see another friend from uni who has just got married.
Tim and I ended up in a Pub in Angel, Islington watching the second Football match (england v Trindidad and Tobego), which was great! the atmosphere in the pub was electric, and we got chatting to a few locals, one of whom donated England hats and flags (I told him I wouldn't use them till Australia was knocked out!).

London is great for a visit - don't hink I could live there though. It is really easy to get around on the underground - I wasn't as nervous about it as I thought I would be, and it is so easy to use. They have buskers in some of the stations, but they sound like professionals, anything from opera to cool blues, to mexican to dixiland, it really sets a cool atmosphere as you walk along the tunnels between platforms. the history is amazing (for a colonial such as myself), and the people are really interesting.

So then I caught the train up to Buxton (pron. Bookston) last Friday. I have a lovely housemate, Caroline, who is a nurse at work. I met some of the people form Work on Friday and we have been out to couple of meals already. They are a very sociable bunch which is really nice. More about that later......................

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Hiya!

Just to say hi from Buxton, it's been a crazy couple of weeks (have I said that already?) but it has been great to unpack my gear (what little I have!) and not be packing it all up again for a few months! Buxton is beautiful, the whole area is very hilly (looks like it would be pretty bleak in Winter), the people at my work are really friendly, most are around my age, and very sociable, so we have had a couple of meals together already which is really nice. I start work tomorrow, and am feeling a bit nervous about it all! My boss said when I arrived that I was from the land of sheep (I corrected him straight away and said that Australia was not to be confused with New Zealand!). I'll be seeing more sheep than I have in the past so I have a bit of reading to do! Not much time right now, bit will hopefully catch up on what has been happening for the last few days when I get a chance.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

a photo at last!



Marielle, John and I at Kylemore Abbey

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

What do you call a fake Emerald - a 'Sham Rock' :)

The last couple of weeks have gone by in a flash!! Our Ireland Trip just kept getting better and better, as we headed up the West coast and over the Northern coast, then back down to Dublin. I can't remember exactly where I was last time I wrote, but I think it was somewhere in the south (think hedgerows, green fields, cows and sheep, ruins of centruies-old castles in the middle of a field, birds singing, quaint towns of whitewashed or brightly coloured terraced houses, very friendly people, overall very pretty). I liked the North even better - the landscape becomes more rugged, with rocky hills, deep Fjords, spectacular cliffs and coastline, gorgeous in the sunny warm weather we had, but clearly would be very bleak in the middle of an Irish Winter. There were more and more sheep, shaggy looking ones, that sometimes decided that the road would be a nice place to sit and chew their cud - which kep us on our toes in the narrow windy roads!

Our hostel experienes were varied, from standard rooms of bunks with all the mod-cons, to the 'Old Millhouse' in Westport, which is a centuries-old stone building with cozy little rooms and friendly staff. My favourite hostel was the 'downhill Hostel' in NortherIreland, run by a Northern Irish guy and his Wife who is from Seattle, and makes beautiful pottery. They have restored an old country house and decorated it with a lovely cozy feel, making it feel more like your relllie's place than an actual hostel! The other great thing about it was that you step out the front door and walk about 10 metres and you are on a beautiful stretch of beach (no, I didn't think of beaches when I thought ofIrleand either, but they are beautiful here in the sunshine!).
Speaking of which, I never did get that surfing lesson. Apart from the fact that we really didn't have time with all the things we were trying to see, apparently the perfect weather we were having is associated with a high pressure system, which is not conducive to decent
swell for surfing!

There is just so much to write on here, and I have to run. I'm in London now, and am heading North to my new place of residence on Friday. I have sent my new address to lots of people, but if you didn't get it, please leave me a comment message or email me, and I'll send it to you (along with my British phone number when I finally get it!).

Sunday, June 04, 2006

The Emerald Isle

Greetings from Galway!
It has been a crazy trip around Ireland so far, we have crammed in a couple of cool castles, some beautiful stately houses and gardens, a monastic village, where parts Braveheart were filmed, we Kissed the Blarney stone yesterday, saw the cliffs of Moher, drove the Ring of Kerry, and stayed in Galway last night (for those heading this way, I strongly recommend 'Sleepzone' Hostel, really well set up, with free internet!:).

We travelled from Dublin on the first day, then to Kilkenny, Cork, and then Galway. We are off to Westport tonight, then to Donegal, and then up to Northern Ireland.
The scenery is just breathtaking, and consistently so, to the point where you want to see something ugly just for something different! Towns and cities are like pictures from chocolate boxes, with all the shopfronts and pubs well preserved and maintained. It is very different from Australia, in that more modern architecture is quite rare; even all the new housing estates (which seem quite numerous) are being built in the same style as the much older buildings - semidetatched, rendered and whitewashed or brick with slate coloured rooves. It makes the overall effect quite neat, but there is no individuality to the buildings at all, there are streets of exactly identical houses, that are just having the finishing touches put to them.
The people are so friendly - we were at a red light in the middle of Dublin and had the map out, and a guy in a suit walked up to us and asked if we were lost, and wanted any help! Unfortunately that was in stark contrast to a passing guy in Cork who told us to @~&k off back to our own country (he was obviously enebriated, but I realised at that moment that I was a fully fledged tourist - not sure how I feel about that!).

We are off to Connemara today, then up to Donegal, where I might even have my first surfing lesson if the spectacular weather holds up - it is well and truly summer, with sunny days, temps in the early 20s and hardly a cloud to be seen!

Monday, May 29, 2006

On the way

Greetings from Singapore airport!
It has been a pretty nutty week, I've been to Byron Bay the last 2 weekends for a hens weekend and the corresponding wedding, with a week in Brisbane in between to get some gear for this trip and to attend the funeral of an awesome guy who was in my year at uni. He was one of the 'secial people' in our year, and tragically died three weeks ago. So it has been a week of ups and downs.
I have just finished the first leg of the trip to Heathrow, can't believe the next leg is almost twice as long!
gotta run for now, hopefully I'll be able to put some photos on here in the near future..........

Friday, May 19, 2006

6 hours to go!

Well, all is packed and ready, and all I have to do now is actually get some sleep and hear my alarm at 4:15 in the morning!
I finished my 7 week stint at 4 Paws vets with a splenectomy (removal of the spleen) in a dog with a suspected bleeding tumour, though it looks more like it had actually been kicked and ruptured when I got in there. Yet another 'first' for me to do this surgery without any assistant. Pretty exciting really!

From now on I'm not sure when I will next get to post on this website, and I suspect photos will not be easy to put on here until I get set up at Buxton.
But do stay tuned and I'll put up the next post when I can. The two shots below are just a couple of things I going to miss...........

Cute photo of by Sheba cat Posted by Picasa

The house I'm saying goodbye to Posted by Picasa

Tuesday, May 16, 2006


Monday was an exciting day. One of the other vets and I did our first pinning of a broken leg in a cat. Its femur was snapped in half, so we went in and put a pin up the middle of it, as well as a couple of bits of wire around the fragments to make it nice and stable. (Sounds simple, hey?:) 2 hours later, I as closing the surgery site............ Posted by Picasa

Our tools resemble a carpenter's kit! Posted by Picasa

T-minus 3 days

Gee whiz, it's three days till I leave Townsville, and it seems like there is so much to do! (probably because there is). I have just got back from an a 'small group' (like a bible study) that I have been going to for the last 3 weeks, and I am really sad that I will not be spending more time with that great group of people. I seem to remember as I left Victoria that I wouldn't be uprooting my whole life again in a hurry, but it feels like I'm doing that when I leave here as well!

The good news is that I HAVE A JOB!! :) I start on the 19 June in Buxton, which is in Derbyshire, about 3 hours north of London and 45 minutes south of Manchester. It is 50:50 small:large animals, with mainly dairy and beef cattle, sheep and a small amount of equine in the large animal department. Buxton is a town of about 21 000, in the centre of the Peak District, which is famous for it's beautiful scenery, rock climbing, caving, hiking etc, so it should be an exciting place to explore while I'm there. It is a locum position, but could be as long as 7 months, depending on how things pan out. So that is really great to have organised before I head off, and to know that I will be able to replenish the coffers, which I think I will need to do by then! I have some more photographic evidence of work, which I will post on here when I get the chance................

Thursday, May 11, 2006

More visitors!

'Fitzgerald's Hotel' was fully booked last weekend! Mum had one of her best friends from school in Engand and her husband staying, and My good friend Josie, who I was at Cromwell College and also lived with at uni aso came to visit! Our friend Craig, from our old church in Brissie was also in town, so we caught up with him too.

Breakfast on our deck with Di and Alan Cooper, Jose and mum Posted by Picasa

WIth Josie and Craig on top of Mount Stewart Posted by Picasa