Geoff & Chris in the UK     Letters & Photos: Previous Next

13 May 2003 Much excitement – I now have two job interviews lined up. Thursday 15th May is for Information Officer at the Pan Birmingham and Black Country Cancer Network. Quite a big job, of helping the doctors, clinics etc for 2 million people, get their databases and information gathering in order, so that accurate statistics of cancer can be collected. I have to sit a competence test and give a 10 minute presentation, then have the interview! Thursday 22nd May is Access Programmer for Law Laboratories – a lot of synergy with my job at Hill Laboratories, so I should have a very good chance at that one. Again there's a competence test to worry about.

One of the nice pieces of local history that we have discovered is that the author Edith Holden lived in the same street as we now do – Kineton Green Road, Olton. She wrote her famous ‘the country diary of an Edwardian lady’ in 1906, which recorded her ramblings around the countryside, with lots of lovely drawings of flora and fauna, as well as her daily musings on life in the 1900’s. The house she lived in is still here – ‘Gowan Bank’ at 15 Kineton Green Road. I think the lovely watercolour paintings in it, will be an inspiration to Chris's painting hobby.

We saw a wonderful movie a few days ago – “Very Annie Mary”. It is set in the tiny Welsh village of Ogw, and stars Jonathan Pryce (Evita and Brazil) and Rachel Griffiths (from Muriel’s Wedding and 6 feet under). A wonderful story, with similarities to “Little Voice” – another excellent British film. Both of these were are little bit easier on the ear than the other movie we saw “Sexy Beast” – which had the strongest language of any film I have ever seen, but I still enjoyed it, as it is a ripping yarn of life in the underworld of crime (starring Ben Kingsley).

Spring is fully underway, with the cherry blossoms on trees falling as carpets of petals on the ground. Picked some buttercups from a field this morning, and drove past large areas of Hawthorn trees full of white flower.

I’m missing my favourite bit of countryside – the Hammond Bush in Hamilton. If you’re over that way, please pay it a visit and enjoy it for me! The hundreds of trees that I helped plant will be growing taller and taller, finally getting to the critical height where they can overcome the weeds!

As therapy, we spent some of last weekend attacking Rob & Dawns garden. They live in a ‘semi detached’ house (ie theirs is the left hand ½ of the 2 storey building) with a long, narrow garden at the back. The garden was somewhat overgrown, and looking untidy after a greenhouse had been removed. So we set to it with great gusto, and filled a skip/minibin in no time at all. We quite enjoyed getting our hands dirty!

Saturday – we decided that it was time to seek out some bluebell woods. Travelled about 10 miles, and went to Hay Wood – a large wood, about 500 acres in size, near Wroxhall Abbey (hope for 10 years of Christopher Wren – architect of St Paul’s Cathedral) . Thought it would be a lovely, quiet place to enjoy some back-to-nature. Unfortunately, there was a school orienteering competition on there, with hundreds of energetic youngsters running around, trying to find all their locations. But actually, it wasn’t’ too bad. The woods were large enough that we were able to wander well away from the activity. And indeed, the bluebells are out en-mass, like a purple blue carpet on the ground extending for hundreds of feet. When we return to NZ, I hope that we will be able to plant some bluebells in the bush of Olympia Place, to recreate some of this lovely vista.

Found a nice spot and sat down for lunch. To our absolute delight, first one, then two more wild deer walked within 100 feet of us. They were quite small and with short legs, perhaps what are called fell deer. At first, I thought they may have been foxes, but they were definitely deer. Also, I saw a beautiful owl, high up on a tree near us. Walked right around and through the woods, taking about three hours. The woods are quite easy to walk through, as there’s no scrub, and only a little bit of bracken. No privet, gorse or blackberries (all UK breeds that are now the scourge of NZ bush!).

George has been really unwell this last week - when we were having dinner with him on Thursday night, he was complaining of chest and back pains. These become progressively worse as the evening wore on. The NHS have an excellent phone inquiry service, so Chris phoned them and had a long chat about what was happening. Their final recommendation was that we should call the emergency doctor, and he recommend that we take George to hospital. A few hours later, we are told that he has broken a bone in his back (a crush fracture of a rib). Nothing they could do about it, other than prescribe painkillers and send him home again. It will take about 6 weeks to heal by itself, so more misery for poor old George. A few days later, and the painkillers are working well - so he's not as uncomfortable. 

Wednesday morning 10am, it's quite cold and yes - it's hailing outside. Brr...
So this is our first experience of 'real British weather'?!?!?!

I've just found out that there is a pub near here, staffed by Kiwis, called the Orange Tree. I think that deserves a visit, we'll drink a toast to 'distant friends and family'. Cheers!

Geoff & Chris in the UK     Letters & Photos: Previous Next