From Cotswolds to Norway ...

So... I was quite busy during April, getting out and about to the Cotswolds for easter, doing a weekend photography course in London, going to my friend Jule's wedding and also spending the long weekend in Stavanger, Norway visiting my friend Jo Mitchell.

Girls weekend in the Cotswolds

So I was just back from Ghana and heading off 2 days later for a weekend with Tania Zappala (an old friend from college) and her friend Zoe in the Cotswolds. Whilst I've been to the Cotswolds before, I'd never been to the Waterpark, what was where we stayed this time in a cute little cottage right on the lake, although it was rather like being in upstate New York, with all the perfect little picture-book cottages perfectly lined up around the lake. The only down-side being the somewhat nasty geese that ruled the lake and the evening we headed out for an evening stroll, glass of wine in hand, we were hissed at a few times, obviously we were straying into geese-territory!

We had a lovely 4 days visiting local villages in the Cotswolds, such as Castlecombe (where you can see Tania pretending to steal the honesty box banana bread shop, don't worry we did pay for it!) and also the upper and lower slaughters (terrible name for a village, however we did have a nice cup of tea and cake in the local village hall). We also did a lovely long walk along the river and I also went running along the river in the other direction through a few of the villages one morning, getting startled by a few rabbits along the way as it was a rather deserted track early in the morning!

The rain wasn't great for some of the weekend, so we also had our requisite share of relaxationtime, staying in the cottage cooking meals, watching movies and even doing a puzzle that Tania brought along in a moment of brilliance! I enjoyed recreating the 'cinque terra' in Italy out of 1,000 pieces, and reminding myself I should head back there again soon!

Wanna-be photographer

So I am now the proud owner of a digital SLR camera (thanks mum and dad!) and thought I better learn how to use it as it deserves! So I enrolled in a weekend of photography lessons and highly recommend Nigel, the guy who ran the course. Whilst I'm not by any means a great photographer now, I can take photos with a few different effects (like blurry background etc) as well as the panning shot (where you get the streaky look behind a moving object to show speed)... so have included a few pics from that weekend, and hopefully my photos will gradually get a bit better!!

Jules and Mike's wedding

You would have seen the hens weekend in my last blog, and it wasn't long until the big day! Despite predictions of rainy weather all week, the day couldn't have been more perfect with the sun shining brilliantly. I had a bit of an unfortunate time getting there though... it was just out of london, but due to the track works going on with the tube that weekend, it was a bit of a mission... and not helped by the fact that as Denise and I were so busily catching up, we blindly followed directions of the station master and got on the bus going in the wrong direction... for about 25 mins until we realised. It then took us 30 mins to get back to where we started and another 40 mins to the wedding... needless to say we were quite late by this point, and only just made it for the beginning of the ceremony!! Not great considering I'd told Jules I'd help her out organising the buses heading from the hotel to the church... whoops!

Their wedding was so much fun. Jules looked gorgeous in her princess gown, complete with black waistband. It was a really innovative wedding as well, with so many little things that i'd never seen before, for example, they had gone to so much effort even putting an old photo of every guest at their placesetting, and they had this amazing guy called the 'spontaneous poet' who worked the room creating poetry for each table! He could create a rhyming masterpiece after asking for just 3 random words from each table, and after a few wines, our table decided to really test him with words like 'schizophrenia', but joke was on us as he dished us out an amazing poem so effortlessly! He was so entertaining and unbelievably 'spontaneous', you have to see it to believe it! Then they had a photo booth where guests could go in and shoot 4 photos, which were printed out and put in a book for the couple where guests could write a message. And finally, the bridal waltz, which showed lots of practice had been put in leading up to the big day, and they still managed it after all the champagne!! It was a brilliant day and I was so happy to be part of it all.

Visiting Jo in Norway... Standing on the edge of Preikestolen (Pulpit Rock)

Well I think I need to move to Stavanger after only spending the weekend there! Jo has an amazing apartment right on the water with great views, it's so close to a long, sandy beach (there were even people surfing!), there's great trekking and outdoors activities, spectacular scenery with the mountains and fjords, amazing seafood, and nightlife as well!! To top it all off, i'm told that the afternoon peak hour in for traffic is 4.30pm, so everyone obviously has great work-life balance as well, making the most of the long summer days... what is there not to love about Norway?

Jo was there to meet me at the airport on Friday night, it had been too long since we'd caught up, so was great to head back to the spectacular water views of her apartment and settle back with a night cap! The next day we caught the ferry across to Tau and headed for the mountains, it was great to be out in the countryside again. And I was completely blown away by the views, I found Norway just as spectacular as trekking in Patagonia, with lakes and mountains all around. We trekked up to Preikestolen (or 'Pulpit rock' in english) which is the sheer rock you can see in the photos, just jutting out of the cliff face. Whilst it had been overcast for quite a bit of our walk, the sun came out brilliantly when we reached Pulpit rock and just long enough for us to sit down and enjoy our picnic lunch, before heading back down for an icecream in the sunshine and a relaxing ferry ride back to Stavanger!

What's with the red overalls?? I was in Stavanger at the time when the final year high school students have just finished, and, as part of tradition, they wear red or blue overalls around everywhere for a month... They are called 'Russ' and their bright red or blue (depending on the school) overalls are covered with all sorts of patches and labels, looked crazy seeing these students even trekking in the overalls (check out the photo that i sneaked!).

Surfing in Norway?? Jo took me to the beach one day, and I was surpised that i was like an aussie beach; long, clean and sandy, although probably a few degrees cooler! We had a great stroll up and down the beach, even watching a few brave souls try their luck at surfing!

Visiting the old town... and a great cafe We walked all around the quaint cobbled streets of the old town of Stavanger one afternoon. It is full of cute little houses and vibrant flowers everywhere, it was really different to the more modern style of the rest of Stavanger, including for example the cafe right near Jo's where we went twice (as it was so good!)... it was a trendy little cafe on the weekend, turn 'yummy mummy' cafe during the week! But it had fantastic coffee and sandwiches.

So as you can see, I had a fantastic April / early May and I'm almost catching up on my blogs!

Keep me posted on all your news, Tamara :)

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