Geoff
& Chris in the UK Letters & Photos: Previous
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UK News October 2003
Highlight of the month has been
brother David coming here. (Hope you like this photo - I'm getting as clever
as Geoff with the camera!!) He has a few weeks work to do in the African country
of Cameroon. As his flight passed via Paris, we convinced him that he should
make the trip across the Channel to Birmingham (it's quite a low cost trip - yet
we've not made it yet!). We offered him free accommodation, as long as he brought
with him 1 1/2 Kg of Vegemite
and a bottle of Echinacea. The one and a half days we were here we treated him
to a frantic whistle stop tour of the highlights of Birmingham. A walk along the
canals of Knowle
was followed by visits to historic homes Baddesley Clinton
and Packwood
House. Shortly thereafter he crashed and slept until about 3am. At a
respectable hour we rose and went to the Cotswold village of Chipping
Campden. At a garage sale there we bought a coffee table for £4 (which
Geoff (with true kiwi ingenuity) proceeded to carry on his back through this
somewhat upper class village - to the surprise of locals). A flying
visit to George's house was then followed by going into the city centre to see
the new Bullring shopping centre. The
plan was to then have a traditional Brummie meal of Balti
curry but time ran out, so it was Pizza instead (pizza with peas on top, if
you can believe it!). Then off to the magnificent Symphony
Hall for a Scottish Tattoo
concert. Stirring stuff. Crashed again, then got up at 4am to fly back to Paris.
Another visitor from NZ has been old Birkdale
College school mate Robert Burke. I didn't know it, but his wedding 20 years
ago was conducted by none other than Leslie Arthur Pooch!
"Happiness is having not seen or heard Paul Holmes for eight
months"
We have booked our trip to NZ in February 2004. We arrive in NZ on February
10th, having spent one night in Singapore. Aidan's wedding is on the 14th, our
10th wedding anniversary is on the 26th and the Annual General Picnic is the
29th. Depart Auckland on 1st March. The plan is to spend about a week in
Auckland, a week in Hamilton and a few days in Whakatane with Jevon. A three day
stopover in Rarotonga on the way back, for a '2nd honeymoon', will round the trip off nicely!
(I hope we can spend time with everyone and at not much of a hectic pace...)
Air NZ did a weird thing and phoned us up at 2am on Sunday morning to query our
booking - I've told them that this will cost them an upgrade to business class,
it's worth a try!
February will be the perfect time of year to escape the UK winter time, and
bask in NZ sunshine. We'll probably be horribly pale compared to the bronzed
bodies of kiwis. Not one to inhabit tanning salons (whereas I am not so
fussy...especially with a special wedding to go), perhaps the tan will have to
come from a bottle...
I spent a few days in north Devon - a place called Woolacombe near
Ilfracombe. the coast was lovely. Very clean wide pale fine sand - combed and
brushed every day by a special machine - no real seaweed and driftwood on this
beach! As it was at the end of summer not many people either. We (my sister Judy
and her son Michael) also found lots of lovely little rocky bays where we played
and paddled happily for hours. Found an old smugglers tunnel in the cliff and
fished for things in the rock pools with a net - all very British. We stopped at
that old seaside place Weston Super Mare on the way up, where the sea can
only be reached by wading through 3 inches of slimy mud for a mile. The donkeys
were cute though.. In Woolacombe we went to wedding (of my niece Christina's
friend) in the little old church - very formal (but relaxed in a very accepting
way) with a vicar with a deep voice crying out 'LET NO ONE DRAW ASUNDER'!! I had
forgotten about Anglican weddings services, but it was very beautiful with the
choir and the organ and the marble statues lying on top of the tombs with their
hands crossed listening to the service and I suppose praying for the happy
couple...
Aargh... I spoke to soon, Chris just called me into the lounge to see a
documentary about Russell Crowe, and Paul Holmes was being interviewed...
Why on earth hasn't he had that pimple taken off the end of his nose yet?!
And how come he looks older!! - we certainly haven't aged...
The awkward relationship between the British and the French is being
discussed yet again, this time over the Iraq war. "What's
the difference between the French and a piece of toast - at least you can make soldiers
out of toast"
Muddled English prize this week is for Sainsbury's supermarket. I always
wondered what deranged meant, and know I know...
Also at Sainbury's, prices for NZ wine - multiply these by 2.8 to get the NZ price.
I don't remember what
Anchor butter costs in NZ, but here it's £1.44 for 500 grams = NZ$4.00 And I
thought he was doing the shopping in the supermarket.......
I still chuckle over how the Brits describe NZ butter as 'free range', as most dairy cows are kept indoors for the
winter here, so they don't quality for that term! I'd only heard that term
relating to eggs before!
We've been to more car boot sales = mass garage sales. I've observed that most of the things are
brought by mothers, for their children - which I''m sure they don't want - and
so they then sell them at the next sale! There is something fascinating and
rummaging through the lives of other people! Of course, we keep on hoping that
we'll find something really valuable. Just last week a cigarette holder
purchased at a car boot sale for £2 was sold at auction for £10,000. We hoped
that the boot sale at Chipping Campden (a really posh village) would have had
some real classy items, but it wasn't so. Surely they will stop selling over
winter, but apparently the truly hardy boot sellers will be outside in the
middle of winter, snow and all. Mad dogs & Englishmen....
There are some really
lovely TV advertisements for John Lewis shops
here, celebrating the UK autumn. The were filmed in NZ and look really
beautiful.
Silliest
thing seen this week was this advertisement for a PetMobil,
which is essentially a pram for mollycoddled exhibitionist puppies. If I was a
dog, I'd die of embarrassment...he looks happy though..,.
It is all too similar to David Blaine,
the magician who has suspended himself in a perspex box near the London Tower
Bridge. He's going to 44 days without food. The public reaction to this has been
quite odd indeed. From people throwing eggs, hitting golf balls, baring their
bodies in sight of him and other weird acts of sabotage. The best suggestion
that I've heard is the plan to put Viagra in his drinking water - does this mean
he'll be getting a stiff drink?!
Here's a radio programme about an interesting 'new' style of classical music that is
currently in the charts here. Ludovico Einaudi
Hayley Westenera (young girl singer from Christchurch) is currently #1 on the
UK classical music chart, and is wowing everyone here. Getting as famous as Anna
Pacquin. And what do I see - the fantastic young girl from the Whale Rider movie
is to be in the next Star Wars movie! Great stuff for talented kiwis.
Great to hear of the success of kiwi inventors here. Alan Gibbs was showing
off his amphibian car on the Thames. Even better news is that the engine for the
car to be made at Longbridge Plant (famous old Austin motor works) in Birmingham.
The sing-along-a sound-of-music show in Birmingham last week literally 'brought the house down',
when the stage full of revelers collapsed into the orchestra pit. No serious
injuries thank heavens.
Both our jobs are great. I'm working every Thursday at Northampton, on the
helpdesk for Shoosmiths, some project work and training. My web site development
skills are being used to construct 'help sheets' = instruction sheets on the
company's intranet.
More silliness: a recent art survey of UK, some people think that Rolf Harris painted Monet's
lilies. Oh dear!
Monday night 6th October
was the "mop fair" at Kings
Norton. This is the very old Kings
Norton Church
where Chris was first married in 1967.
We went
to the Mop Fair last year, shortly after we arrived from San Francisco. The village
green and surrounding roads are overtaken by fairground rides, candy floss
sellers, and a variety of 'games of chance'. Since the 16th century a 'Mop Fair'
has been held on the Green, on the first Monday of October. A Mop Fair was a
hiring fair where people would go looking for employment, but although no longer
used to help employment it is an important event each year with its stalls,
fairground attractions and the traditional ox-roast. Each person would
bring a symbol of their job. As so many people were employed as domestic staff,
a mop was a common symbol.
In the 1880's, the
mop fair was described in the newspaper "the King's
Norton Saturnalia":
"Hardly a man or
woman with any pretensions to self-respect could be seen at the Mop last Monday,
and the thousands were composed of shouting hobbledehoys, screaming girls,
drunken men, and shouting women. The swarmed from the station in hundreds during
the day, and as night drew on the crushing, the swearing, created indescribable
confusion.....The public houses were packed and the customers had to fight their
way in and out, treading the floors wet with slopped beer. Some disgraceful
scenes took place in one part or another of the vicinity during the day and
night. The general proceedings offered a spectacle of debauchery, drunkenness,
noise, and blasphemy." ( sounds the same as now to me...)
Unbelievably our freezer has broken down AGAIN, spoiling even more food.
Methinks our landlord owes us for this inconvenience. Bizarrely, getting it fixed
is a major mission, as the repair people have to come all the way from
Manchester! Good news, they're replacing it with a brand new one.
Nicety of the week: being given £20 by the electricity company, after
they've really messed us around about the reading of our electricity meter. That
was on top of the £196 we received back from the Council after we
complained that our rates were too high (tenants pay the rates here, not
landlords). Let's see if we can get the landlord to give us some compensation
for all the food we've lost.
Sunday 12th October -
we've had a day fishing with George. This is the first time in a year that he's
felt well enough to go fishing, so we happily helped him. On the Avon River at Tewkesbury,
George went with his fishing group - the Caledonian Corks. Sadly, the fish were
not biting, and many of them caught not a thing. This is despite their having a
wonderful selection of multi-coloured maggots as bait! As Kiwis used to catching
10 pound schnapper, is was amusing to watch grown men getting excited over
catching a 3 ounce perch! The rivers here have been so heavily fished that
there's not much left, let alone any decent sized fish. Here's George hard
at it, proudly wearing his NZ fishing badge. When fishing in NZ 15 years ago he
caught some very impressive rainbow trout with Aidan. Dad struggled to get
enough breath to even thread his line so we had to do it for him - he certainly
could not have done it without us to help so it felt good to see him enjoying
something. He said four weeks ago when he was extremely ill that all he wanted
was to go fishing one more time and be able to put on his trousers. He can do
those things at the moment while on Steroids - today he tells me he is painting
the lounge door. It won't last but it is oh so good to see him having some
quality of life for a while.
After a while we left him to it and went into Tewkesbury township. They have
a huge ancient abbey, at which we sat & watched the last part of the
very high church holy communion ceremony. (The procession with the abbot at
the front, the choir etc and the incense was very sobering). This is a really old place, consecrated in 1162.
Even the pipe organ dates from 1631! Some of the tombs and
decorations there are quite amazingly old. Humour of the day came from studying
the whimsical carvings (misericords)
under the choir sets. One of them shows a devil 'mooning' (showing his backside
in a provocative manner). I can't let Geoff sign off on that note!...
We also went to see the movie Calendar Girls which was great fun -
I have some new ideas now for the camera! Take care everyone - Love Chris
All the best, hope to see you in February (if not before!)
Geoff
PS. with daylight saving changing, NZ and UK are now
exactly 12 hours apart
Geoff
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