Tuesday, 13 January 2009

A Scottish Sortie

After Christmas, Steve and I forged northwards to Scotland, we reached the Scottish border where we took some photos, and where unfortunately the norovirus took a firm grip of my stomach...

The photo is blurry - why were my hands were shaking so badly?
a. Because of the cold
b. Because I was about to projectile vomit
c. Both of the above

We stayed one night with my mum's cousin before Steve heading up to Edinbugh & I spent more time with other extended family members in the Scottish borders. I had a great time with them all, they were amazingly welcoming and hospitable.

-8 degrees Celcius, freezing fog. A good morning to visit a Great Aunt in a nursing home,
and try to disuade her about going out for a walk/wheel (unsuccessfuly I might add)


I headed up to Edinbugh for Hogmanay, the night itself was fun, even if the street party was a little over-rated. The fireworks and the company were amazing however!





View over part of Edinbugh from Arthurs Seat

Steve climbing to the top (or not)

View from the castle



Post Edinburgh we ventured onto Dundee where I have some more family. More amzing hospitality was recieved and I will most definitely be heading back that way as soon as I can, although I will wait for warmer weather!

On the way back home we did a side trip to the Falkirk Wheel just north west of Edinburgh, it got the engineer inside me excited!

The amazing Falkirk Wheel, it joins 2 canals, lifting canal boats 35m from one to the other.

It rotates, and only costs £10 in electricity a day because it is so well balanced.

We also stopped in Newark to stay with an old flatmate and visited Lincoln which is a really pretty town.

All in all, a good trip with good travelling companions and wonderful hosts.
Scotland, you did yourself proud.

A jolly old time in Great Yarmouth

This is the first update in a while...
I booked a house in Newport, Great Yarmouth over the Christmas period for a group of NZers orphaned from their families back in Godzone. All in we had 17 people staying at the house for the full 4 days we were there. There were many different groups of people I know from different times/places, but as is the way with NZers there was generally only 1 or 2 degrees of seperation btween most people, often 2 or 3 different connections. I defy you to say that NZ isn't that small!
All in all we had a great time, the house was cosy, pokey and thankfully warm, especially when we cranked the open fire in the living room.


The guitar came out a few times


Wakey wakey! it's Christmas!

Steve looking pensive

Christmas dinner worked out well, we cooked everything pretty much from scratch which was quite the achievement considering it was probably the first time most of us had taken charge of xmas dinner!


Twister made an appearance...

Great Yarmouth itself deserved a walk around on Boxing day, well maybe it didn't, but we did one anyway.


the boys think they can make it as a boy band now

Things got a little leery later on!

James testing people's boundaries...

Post xmas, I headed up to Scotland for a nosy which will be the topic of the next post.