Whilst
it's been very sad to be so far away from family and friends in New Zealand,
we have enjoyed a wonderful Christmas here, with the Salter clan. They are
quite mad, and noisy, so that suits us well! We hope you enjoyed the photo
we
sent for Christmas. It was taken one very chilly morning (18-Dec-03) by
Geoff,
while he was waiting for the train at Olton station. The sun was just coming
up and there was a lovely soft light on the icy ground. The photo on the
left is
facing north (towards Birmingham). The photo on the right is facing
south, where the colours are quite orange due to the sunrise. We've given
some enlargements of the photos to the station staff, who were really
delighted with them.
We've decorated
our wee flat as best as we can, a bag full of decorations we bought from a
'car boot sale' for a pound, an opulent (expensive!) mantelpiece decoration
and a real Christmas tree. Getting the tree was a great experience - a mile
out into the countryside of Warwickshire is 'Bills Lane', home to a huge
Christmas tree farm. They have a variety of species of trees, with not a
pinus radiata to be seen anywhere! A couple of old plodding shire horses
pulling wagon loads of trees greeted us when we arrived. Like the typically
fussy shoppers that we are, it took ages to find 'the perfect tree'. This
was then 'prepared' for us by a jovial crew. First the bottom of the trunk
was shaved to 3 inches round, and then it was jammed into a stand made of a
larger tree trunk slice. Then the whole tree went into a string tying
machine which cleverly compressed all the branches so the whole tree was
corseted down to 1 foot diameter. This made it very easy to fit it into the
car and get it into the flat doorway. After a few weeks, the needles of the
tree started dropping, and we soon learnt why 'no drop trees' are so popular
(and more expensive). Dealing with the tree after Christmas was more of a
challenge. We couldn't turf it down the gully of Olympia Place as we
normally would, so we had to chop the tree up into little bits with my
side-cutters, and fit it all into two bin bags. Of course all the needles
fell off while chopping it up, making a huge mess. But that's all part of
the fun!
Christmas Day,
we were the guests of Rob, Dawn, Tom, Caitlin, Grace and their two lovely
cuddly cats. Joining us were George, Judy and Michael. Dawn cooked a huge
turkey with 2 pounds(?!) of butter (Anchor of course!). Chris got to perform her
long awaited fire dance = Xmas pudding with both vodka and rum (we didn't
have brandy and so had to improvise). On top of that flaming ensemble Dawn
added sparklers (fire works) and a tinsel surround (which promptly caught
fire!). The blue flame was a lovely sight though the smell of burning tinsel
almost set off the smoke detector.
Boxing Day
was our turn to be hosts, with our tiny flat filled to the brim with Salter's
and clan. George, Rob, Dawn, Tom, Caitlin, Grace, Claire & Dave, June,
Raymond & Clair, Judy & Michael, and us made 15. Even more presents
were exchanged, creating a wonderful mess of wrapping paper and bodies.
Masses more food and wine were consumed, and a wonderful time was had by
all. Christina & Dave couldn't make it and so they joined us a few days
later. They're a lovely young couple who seem to enjoy our company.
Shame she no longer likes to be called Christina - named after Chris…
Thanks to Cliff Hawkins who phoned us from NZ for Boxing Day!
And also to Mira Petcu - it was wonderful hearing your voice again!
After Boxing Day we
traveled to the south of London, to Redhill, Surrey which is home to our
friends Anne and Angus McLeod. Getting there involved conquering the M25
circular orbital highway, one of the most unfriendly roads in the UK! Strong
words were uttered between the driver and navigator, but we got there in the
end, having 'enjoyed' an unplanned side trip nearly to Windsor Castle! Angus was
kind enough to let me drive his beautiful Alfa Romeo car (with the top down
in freezing weather). He has extensively restored this car, which is admired
by thousands at car shows and special factory events. He's traveling to
Italy later this year with the car, and perhaps another that he is currently
restoring. His garage is an awesome sight of tidiness, comprehensiveness and
style (lovely carpet, TV, 5 different ales to sample).
On the Sunday, they
took us to Wakehurst
Place, which is the country gardens of the famous
London Kew gardens. In near-snowing conditions we wandered around the
gardens, and then retreated into the grand manor house. Some silly beggars
thought they would do a 'three wise monkeys' pose: speak no evil, see no
evil, hear no evil. Trying to find a pub meal that afternoon was an unusual and
cruel punishment - one pub announced that they'd run out of chips (and yet
had potatoes - go figure). The next pub had closed it's kitchen, but kindly
reopened for us.
It's been a busy
month for social life in Olton. Earlier in the month, we held a Xmas dinner
party for Chris's NHS workmates. We showed them some Kiwi hospitality,
including the exchanging of silly gifts (with the right to swap with other
people's). They seem to be a good crew, sharing lots of laughs.
Unfortunately one couple didn't have good directions to our place, and drove
around for several hours without finding us. Multimap
is a great website for getting UK roadmaps, but has until this week had the
wrong directions to our postcode. That couple came around another night, to
catch up on which they had missed out on. 
Milton Keynes
is a strange place, a 1960's city built in an American style grid pattern of
streets called V (for vertical) and H (for horizontal). It's features
include a herd of concrete cows, a fantastic artificial snow slope,
pedestrian walkways below ground level and 'The Bowl' concert venue where
Chris rocked to the sound of a Queen concert many moons ago. There's a huge
shopping centre, which has a large mechanical clock with visible workings.
It was ten minutes to the hour, so I decided to wait in order to hear the
peal of the bells. 15 minutes later I realised that the chimes must be
turned off, so it was a wasted 15 minutes!
Banbury is an ancient market
town, straddling the canal. It was a very chilly foggy morning, and a layer
of ice covered the canal. The locals probably thought I was mad, prodding
the ice. On the M1 motorway, I had my first experience of 'gritting
underway'. What looked like a lorry losing it's load of sand, was in fact a
grit (sand and salt) spreader, throwing tons of the stuff over the road (and
all over all passing cars). Evidently the weather forecast was for more ice
overnight, and this is regularly done to limit ice build-up.
Christmas shopping
has been great fun, especially with the huge new Bullring shopping centre
offering 170 shops, Selfridges and Debenhams.
The massive post Xmas sales started a week BEFORE Xmas this year, as a number of retailers have been struggling. What continues to amaze me is the huge queues of people returning goods after Xmas. It is normal policy in the UK that you can return goods, for any reason at all, as long as you have a receipt. This has now become an accepted part of gifting, with some shops even providing 'receipts' that don't show how much was paid for it. Behind the counters of Marks & Spencer etc are huge piles of returned clothing etc. Presumably you can't return CDs and videos once they're opened, as they might have been copied.
Daunting is the sight of police with sub-machineguns patrolling around the city centre. Anxiety over terrorism is at an all time high, with these highly visible patrols designed to thwart nonsense.
We don't mind heightened security at airports, even when the alarm bells sounded at me in San Francisco - my laptop showed traces of the same chemicals as used in the manufacture of explosives!!! I'd rather feel the confidence that our flight has been very well screened. On a more sombre note, there's often bouquets of flowers in the centre of town, to commemorate those killed when the IRA blew up two central Birmingham pubs less than 20 years ago. Some said afterwards that the IRA should be commended for trying to remove the eyesore of the 'Rotunda' building from the skyline, which is now a listed building.
We've been very lucky to attend several very high class music concerts in
Birmingham. The most spectacular of these has been the huge show at the NIA
(national indoor arena) which combined the forces of several orchestras,
choirs, guns, lasers, fireworks, and the most effective stage lighting I've
seen since Pink Floyd at Western Springs in 1989! Christina and Dave were
our hosts for the evening, at which we witnessed heart warming patriotism -
12 thousand people in the audience, every one waving a union jack as 'land
of hope and glory' pounded out from the stage. Definitely brought a tear to
the eye and lump to the throat with 'Jerusalem', 'God save the Queen' and
all the classics.
Planning for Aidan
& Racheal's wedding is going well. In fact, it's the most organised
wedding that I've ever been involved in! They've done incredibly well, and
have already paid for everything from savings - so they don't have to start
married life in debt! I'm acting as master of ceremonies for the formal part
of the day, a role which I'm looking forward to. Trickiest detail for the
wedding seems to have been Chris in her search for 'the perfect wedding
outfit'. Having bought one outfit four months ago and declaring it
unsuitable, she then searched for another. This was found last Friday in the
sale (1/2 price hurrah!) at Selfridges and a matching hat from Rackhams. The
search is now on for matching shoes and hand bag. STOP PRESS: another TWO dresses have been bought today so she now had FOUR outfits to choose from…
We heard about all about Aidan's stag do, the highlight of which was a bungee
jump, and the lowlight being the now customary ball and chain (a
massive steel ball made by Aidan years ago) being affixed with due ceremony.
There's photos of their fun on their web page http://groups.msn.com/RachealAidan
New Year's Eve
was a special fun time for us, Diane Kenny and her partner Brian from
Hamilton spent two days with us. We both worked with Diane in our credit
union days, and have had some great times with her over the years. They had
a very stressful journey navigating through the middle of Birmingham (not
for the feint hearted!) but they made it with our help - talking them
through the streets via cell phone, while trying to work out on our map
where they were!
For New Years Eve, faced with options of going out and partying in the town,
we stayed in and watched TV instead! There's a weird but wonderful TV series
here called "Wife Swap" which is awful but compulsive viewing. On
new years day, we ventured into the mysterious 'Balti
Triangle', a region of
Birmingham that's a little bit dodgy (close to where there have been
shootings) but home to the best Balti (curry)
restaurants in the world. There's even a Balti University where chefs are
trained in the art of cooking in this particular Birmingham style. A bit
spicy, wonderful flavours, we love messy eating with our fingers. We should
have ordered one of the 'family size naan breads' which are 2 feet round, to
go with the lovely sauces and dips which accompany the Balti style food.
Recently we went to the huge NEC exhibition centre (Solihull) with Angus
& Anne, to the "BBC good food show". This staggeringly huge
show was quite outstanding, exhausting, expensive, but well worthwhile.
Earlier this year, friends Lynda & David Stiles went to the NEC for a
huge gift fair. A clever innovation is the 'shopping creche' where for 1
pound you can leave bags of shopping and go get another load! The NEC is
also well know as a music concert venue, Elton John was rocking there a
couple of weeks ago and we hope to go to his next concert there (in August
2004).
14th Jan - it's been snowing today in Olton, but not in central
Birmingham. Wish it would!!! I've been promised snow and miserable weather
before we depart for NZ, but it hasn't happened yet!
Chris's phrase of the week: "Coffin dodgers" - the quaint term used by
some in the National Health Service to describe to elderly who tenaciously
hang onto life and thus consume health budgets.
Lots of love,