Advanced Warning

We're off to the Land of Hobbits on Sunday, and won't be getting back till the middle of October - therefore posting will be non-existent until then (how will you be able to tell the difference from when I'm just being rubbish at updating?).

But I will hopefully then be able to give you a travelogue of our trip - the current plan (although it is nice and fluid) is to pick up the campervan in Auckland, bimble around the region, visiting rellies, then, after a jobs fair on the Saturday (don't worry - not applying for jobs as yet, but just to see what the market is like), heading down to the Waitomo Caves, then across to Lake Taupo and the region (the bottom of which includes the park which houses Mount Doom...). Then along to Napier, and down to Wellington. We'll stop there for a couple of days (depending on timing), go to the Weta Cave, and scout potential areas to live. Then the ferry across to Picton on South Island, down to Christchurch, where we'll meet up with an ex-colleague and his wife, then down to Dunedin, where Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen are playing. Then back to Christchurch, return the van, and fly home.

This is a rough idea of the route (you'd think that working for a GIS company, I'd be able to get maps to do what I want, but GoogleMaps wouldn't play in the time I've got left in my lunchbreak, so it doesn't show the wiggle down below Taupo to get to Mount Doom) If you click on the picture, it will take you to a bigger version where you can read the names :-)



See you in October!

Perfect Saturday

It doesn't come along often, but I really felt that last Saturday was a perfect day. We had a lie-in, our first in ages, and it was lovely to be able to sleep off the effects of early rising, late nights and being busy! Then, with the sun shining down on us, we went out to a nursing home on the south side of Bristol, there, along with the other members of the Longwell Green Orchestra, to serenade the residents. We set up in the courtyard of the nursing home, so that those who were bed-ridden would be able to have their windows open and be able to listen to us as well. The skies were blue, the air was warm, and there was just enough of a breeze to ruffle the pages of music. We were all relaxed, which meant that we played some of the best music, even managing to get back together again when we had got half a bar out (I don't think anyone noticed!) As we got to the end of our performance, playing a medley from Grease, some of the more sprightly residents (encouraged by the nurses) even got up to dance! It was all I could do to concentrate on playing and keeping my embouchure as I kept on wanting to grin.
Then back home for a quick and easy supper, and the Last Night of the Proms, followed by a televised broadcast of "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue".
Just brilliant.

Bounce!

Where is the year going? It is a bit scary to think that the schools are back, the students are preparing for uni, and we are on the downhill roll to Christmas...

We had a very exciting weekend last weekend - we were up in Leeds visiting the Leeds Armoury. Part of the big excitement was that their Medieval curator had spent about 7 years cultivating a friendship with the owner of Weta, culminating in them bringing over a major chunk of the existing LOTR/Narnia collection (the arms/armour rather than the full costumes/monsters). That was bouncemaking enough, but what we had also discovered was that Peter Loyd, the head swordsmith had come over as well to do a talk on the making of the weapons, running from the design through to the finished pieces. This talk turned out to be free, but with limited seating (i.e. you had to book in advance), and at the end of it, not only was there the chance to have a chat with him, but they brought out of the collection for us to *hold* (though not take away or take photos of - hiss!) a centaur's helmet from Narnia, one of the Orc shields (one of the ones that looks like a claw), one of the stunt swords, and (which made us all go POING) the full size version of Sting (i.e. the one which Elijah Wood had, rather than his mini-me)

So I have now held Sting - and it is a glorious work of art as well as a weapon (couldn't do much cutting with it as it hasn't been sharpened, but I'm sure that it could still do some damage!). Only bummer is that when I bounced about it at work, everyone looked at me like I was mad...

Leeds itself is somewhere I have not visited before, and I was very pleasantly suprised. I was expecting concrete towers, graffitti, and a general "it's grim up north" feel; the reality, at least around the Waterfront where the Armoury is, was one of modern, well designed architecture, light and (not suprisingly!) water. We also found a *fantastic* Thai restaurant - just opened - very tucked away (we only realised that it was open because there were a couple of lights on - the rest of the shops in the arcade were shut). The food was amazing, the service perfect (though as we were the only people in there, it would have been hard for it to be bad!), and very reasonably priced. I did take away their menu so that I could give them a bit of publicity - however, I don't have it on me right now - details to follow...

Edit... The details of the Thai restaurant are:
Thai Khonkaen Restaurant
8a/10a Market Street Arcade
Leeds
LS1 6DH
www.thaikhonkaen.co.uk

Definitely worth a visit if you are in Leeds at all...

Update...

Well, we've moved house, scrubbed out the old flat to the point that it stinks of bleach (but, hey, the Dettol Mould and Mildew remover does what it says on the tin, and has (fingers crossed) saved our deposit), and we've got the internet back (through a Vodafone dongle - which is actually nearly as speedy as the broadband, so I'm not going to complain too much!)

The new place is growing on me - I still feel a bit wobbly about being forced to move; every other move we have made in Bristol has been through our choice, I've had a real kick to get out, and the flats stopped feeling like home before we left. This time, I loved our flat (despite the mildew problems...), but the landlady's behaviour, particularly with respect to not paying the mortgage, meant that we had to get out; if we had been evicted in four or five months time, then we would have had real problems in getting a short term let before we emigrated.

Sadly none of the rings turned up in the move, so I now have to accept that they are gone for good. Still waiting for the insurance company to make me an offer...


I'm also starting to get very excited about our holiday to New Zealand - we are flying out on the 21st Sept, so with less than a month to go, I figure I'm allowed to get bouncy, particularly as we are going to be there at the same time as Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen, and I have booked tickets to go and see them play. The holiday is a precursor to emigration - we are going round in a campervan scouting out places that we might like to live.

Moving house

John and I have moved, just round the corner, but are having a few issues with connecting at home - BT has the monopoly on the local exchange (won't let Virgin play), and, as it appears that the previous tenant(s) never connected the phone, BT also want to charge us £125 for connecting. Which we don't really have at the moment, given that this time next month we will be in New Zealand for the best part of 3 weeks. So I'm investigating options, probably involving a mobile broadband dongle stuck into the USB port... (slower connection, but at least it will be cheaper!)

Lost...

Once more a long while since my last post - I was going to write all about my visit to Tewkesbury Medieval Fair, and how I ended up holding a carpet python:

(sorry about the fuzziness - this is a photo of a laminated photo...)

However, events have overtaken me, and I wanted to have the opportunity to tell my family (both direct and the in-laws) before I broadcast it on the internet.

I've lost my rings. My wedding ring, my engagement ring, my eternity ring, and the amethyst ring that John's mum gave me (through John) at the wedding. They were looped on my watch (a 21st birthday present from my grandmother), and, as I was rushing out of the door (being late for work), I ended up with one of those horrible mix ups - I thought the bundle was in my hand, then it wasn't, so it had to be in my pocket, then it wasn't, then it had to be left in the flat, so I went back in and it wasn't, so it had to be out on the grass or path outside the house, and it wasn't, so it had to be in my bag, and it wasn't. The whole thing seems to have vanished completely into thin air :-(

And there is nothing I can do now - I've filed a lost report with the police, I've stuck a notice up outside the flat (offering a reward and with my phone number on it - I've not even had drunken idiots call me! The only thing that has happened is that someone stole the plant pot (with a dead gladioli in it) which was holding the notice down), and I have a number of searches up on eBay. The insurance company has been informed, and I had an evaluator out last week; thoroughly professional and nice about it, but I still don't expect them to be very sympathetic!

The sickening thing is that someone had to have picked it up in just a few minutes between me going into the flat and coming back out again. There are only a few people who walk past in the mornings; commuters and dog walkers. And they do it every day. So I have probably met the person who took it, and they've seen my reward notice, but still not contacted me.

At the moment, I keep on flashing between the unsentimental "It's just jewellery - whilst it has huge sentimental value, particularly the wedding ring which John made, the vows we made haven't been broken, we are both still alive and well(brought home with a thump by these two stories - the second of these happened at the building site opposite our offices), and everything I have lost is replaceable," to wanting to curl up in a ball, scream and hit things. And I think that I will still have that sick feeling at the bottom of my stomach until the day that I die.

But - hey - now that I've told the entire globe (or the miniscule portion of it that still reads my blog!), I'll probably find the bundle hidden in plain view when we move flat at the end of the week....

Busy, busy, busy...

It is with horror that I notice that my last post was over 3 weeks ago (I started this post on Wednesday, but had to stop due to actually needing to do some work... It is now the following Tuesday...)! I am really not doing very well with keeping updated - however, in my defence, I've not been in a lot in the evenings (and when I have, my new CD box set of the Mysterious Cities of Gold, and a very silly Tower Defence computer game have taken up most of my time...)

However, out of the flat, I've been doing a lot. My music has been important - I've got my oboe serviced, which was an epic in itself - a drive down to Taunton, going three times round the town as the road labelling system has changed since the AA set up their directions, dropping the oboe off, out to a friend's for lunch, then being phoned up to say that the oboe wouldn't be ready that evening, and could I pick it up on Saturday? Not a problem, as we were heading to Exeter on the Saturday. Friday evening, I got called to say that it wasn't going to be ready Saturday, and they would courier it to me on Monday. Finally got my oboe back on Tuesday, but the wait was worth it, as it sounds beautiful! Probably shouldn't leave it four years till the next service...)

Work has been manic, and included an all day excursion to the Forest of Dean Go Ape, an incredibly fun series of courses of rope or wood bridges, ladders, swings and zip lines, all at approximately 2-3 stories high in the trees. I pride myself in my head for heights, but this is actually really nerve wracking, as you are constantly having to battle your rational and irrational brains ("I am attached to the tree/line in three different ways. I am not going to fall." vs "HOLY SHIT I'M GOING TO DIE!!!"). I completed the courses (five of them including a training one), and am very proud of myself, as most of the time my legs were shaking, and I only completed a lot of the sections by will power ("One more step. Just one more step to go." It's amazing how many one-more-steps there are...). There will be photos, but as most of mine are of my colleagues, I don't think it is hugely fair to broadcast them on the net - mostly because the expressions tend to be one of terror, and the harnesses are not very flattering. I will wait for my boss to get back from holiday, as I know that she took a number of me...

The joy of the excursion was tempered by the fact that we then had to go in on the Saturday for an all day strategy meeting - not as boring as it could have been (for the first time in four years, I have an idea of the way the company is going!), but probably not the best place to spend half a weekend.

The other half of the weekend, though, was brilliant - spent going to Cardiff again, to the updated Dr Who Exhibition, where they now have one of the Angels from "Blink", whose outstretched arm is just high enough for a head massage:

We also had a very nice meal at Bosphorous (the Turkish restaurant that is on the end of a pier sticking out into the bay), inspected the Welsh Assembly buildings (glorious architecture, and I don't normally get excited about buildings - these are beautiful!) and a boat trip round the bay. Then a trip back to Bristol, and a lovely meal at a Chinese all you can eat restaurant. A fantastic day!

The other thing which has been taking up my time has been my hockey - we've had six games in our summer league (I've played four of them), and have now won three and lost three - a brilliant record, given that we hadn't won anything at all in the second half of our winter league. The last game (on Tuesday) was a very good one, and I am still on a bit of a high. We alread knew that the opposing team were good, however, when I spotted that they didn't have a goalkeeper, I initially was pleased - that meant that whenever we got up to their end, we would have no problems scoring. What the reality meant was that they had an extra person on the pitch (the team consists of eleven people, no matter whether one of them is wearing goalkeeping pads or not). So every time they attacked, they could always have somebody who wasn't marked. And they attacked a lot. I estimate that about 75% of the game was in our half, and most of that was inside our 25 yards (a quarter of the pitch). We did so well as a defensive team, given that we were spread very thinly - whilst I had to make some saves (and a couple of very spectacular ones, even if I do say so myself - one ended up going right over the top of the goal - I had a minor panic because I completely lost sight of it and thought it had gone in!), I didn't have to throw myself about the pitch as much as I feared - my team picked the shots up before they happened. Our attack did really well in getting their one goal in - as soon as the ball started going up the pitch, their midfield and defence formed a line that we simply couldn't get past.

However, I did have a first. It had got scrappy in the D (the area immediately in front of the goal - only goals where they have been hit from inside this area count). The whistle blew, but I didn't recognise the umpire's signal. I looked over to my team for some explanation, and noticed that they had all retreated to the 25 yard line. As had all bar one of the opposing team members. There is only one occasion when everyone will run away from the goalie. Oh dear... (well, "dear" is not what I thought, but as I've sworn once in this post, and I try not to swear, I'm censoring myself...) This would be the penalty flick sign then, wouldn't it?

For those who are uninitiated in the ways of hockey, I will explain the concept of the penalty flick. About half way into the D, there is a little white spot. The attacker puts the ball on the spot, and after the ref says "go", attempts to push or flick (not allowed to hit it) into the goal. The goalie (i.e. me), who has to stand behind the goal line, has to stop the ball. Nice and simple. Except that something funny happens to your perspective in this situation. The ball, approximately the size of your fist, becomes a golf ball. The attacker becomes a giant with arm muscles the size of trees. The goal suddenly stretches to the size of the pitch.

The ref asked me if I was ready. I couldn't really say "no", but definitely didn't feel ready - the whole match was riding on this. With us only being one goal up, and with less than five minutes remaining on the clock, we could not afford to let anything in. The signal was given, and the attacker struck.

And the ball bounced off the post and rolled up the pitch.

I hadn't seen it move, not consciously at least. Something had seen the ball go, as I was moving in the right direction, but if it had been a couple of millimeters closer to me, I wouldn't have had a chance to save it as it rolled in towards me instead of away. But for some reason everyone congratulated me as though I had done anything more than stand there!

But hey, we won the match, meaning that we aren't sat at the bottom of the summer league - huzzah!

And I'm not going to actually publish this post, as it's now a week since I started writing it. Then I can get round to writing the post about the trip to Tewkesbury and the snake...