Blogs from West Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom, Europe

So our last few days here and we begin preparing for Europe - weather is about 10, cloudy and rainy - much what we thought it would have been like the whole time we have been here. Doing research on Prague and still finding accomodation in Vienna, more reading to be done in the next couple of days. Packing involves sorting, culling, throwing and posting- not too many arguements mainly with Greg who wants to keep everything. The man at the post office knows me now! Lots of lego and soccer magazines are on their way home but the build a bear bunny - who now has PJ's is embarking on the next leg of the journey with us! We saw a horse stunt show yesterday - combining the two primary themes of our trip - ... read more

Manchester, 1 hour drive on the way to the game. 2 and a half hours returning from the game! A long day but really memorable. We parked at the stadium and walked to catch the tram in to the city, which was about a 10 minutes trip. Quite shockingly we had to walk in the shade, hot hot hot in the sun, actually broke a sweat! I think it got to about 22 and is supposed to stay like that for the next few days? though they are predicting snow this weekend in the highlands, just when we get to Scotland. In saying that temps are still drooping to freezing every night. we went to the Museum of science and industry, it's spread over 5 Huge buildings, a bit like the powerhouse in Sydney but not ... read more

Such a great feeling to be able to retreat to the Price Palace!!!! Washing all caught up on, actually used the clothes line yesterday! We saw The hunger games today, pretty long and ok. On our way home we were talking about differences between home and here. 1. People park in any direction on both sides of the road- very strange, you don't know which way cars are going. 2. People NEVER use a rubbish or garbage bin, they just drop the wrapper/rubbish on the ground - street and front yards are full of chip or chocolate wrappers. Rubbish is everywhere. 3. They don't make very good lollies, though they do GREAT chocolate 4. Their papers are AMAZING, newspapers rule in the UK. every week you get to buy one of the latest new releases for ... read more

left earlish and drove straight to Leeds, lots of washing then out to York for theatre, diary of Anne frank. Was chaos getting a park Greg threw us out and ended up running to get there in time. Great production, started lots of conversations with the kids about wwII. Walked the walls of the city after the show. Beautiful weather again. Home via good old tescos!... read more

came close to not entering the uk. Apparently you can't just do what you want as a family here, I forgot to bring the letter from NSW Dept of education allowing the kids to be absent. So the very strict woman at the border challenged us, asking for lots of detail , told us all about Maddie McCann (coudn't see much relevance). If we were from the EU we would have walked right through. Anyway, she finally decided to let us in. I have emailed the principal at school for another copy of the letter - though I doubt it will stop the questioning at each border. Everyone we've met - and there's been lots of chatting to complete strangers - has been amazed we can have the kids out of school at all if it's ... read more

As I said in my previous post and from the beginning of the blog, nothing and I mean nothing is ever simple. I don't really see that as a bad thing mind, I also believe that everything happens for a reason and you've just got to get on with things. This week my parents have arrived back in the country and after conversations with my sister it has emerged that they are a completely skint, this is due to the house that they have here being unoccupied, prior to my first working venture abroad I'd been renting from them since the day they left, this was convenient for both of us but I'd maintained more so for them, as financially speaking it was hindering me so badly, I was paying £400 a month for a 3 ... read more