Advertisement
Published: February 3rd 2008
We haven’t fallen of the face of the Earth; we’ve just been waiting for the rain to stop before we write! We’ve now had a few days reprieve (although temperatures have plummeted) so thought we best get posting!
Well we last wrote after leaving Paris for the second time and arriving in Sutton on the Forest - our new home for winter. We enjoyed the final 2 weeks of September with lovely weather and then got stuck into working and saving hard and learning the benefits of layering and always carrying an umbrella with you! Seeing a few months have passed we thought we’d give monthly summaries of our very boring life in North Yorkshire as true blue working holiday makers.
SEPTEMBER
Arrived exhausted but excited to see our friends and finally unpack. Our bank account is looking very sick so we promptly get to printing out resumes and spreading the word that we’re looking for work. Surprisingly we both find jobs within the first 2 weeks! Within 10 days, Daniel starts his weekday work in a warehouse and weekend work at the local restaurant/pub in Sutton as their Michelin starred Pot Washer! Trish finds a temp assignment on
Frosty Leaf
One of the first frosts of winter. Everything is covered in pretty little ice crystals.the front desk of an office in York within the first 2 weeks and goes for a few interviews for longer term work. Our friends' return to uni or Australia and we are left at Laurence House to fend for ourselves (with the dog and cat for company) leading up to winter.
OCTOBER
Trish gets the job she hoped for from the interviews and starts at the beginning of the month as Secretary to a Director for a massive insurance company. It’s a long term temporary assignment so perfect for a WHM! The weather turns a bit colder and it starts to feel like winter at home.
NOVEMBER
Weather is starting to get a wee bit chillier and we’re starting to get more homesick. We’re frantically trying to think of ways we can get home (or somewhere warmer) sooner but in the end decide we best just gather stores for winter, hibernate and hope it is a mild one. We put an order in at the Australia Shop in London and thankfully it avoids a rash phone call to Emirates and our BBQ shapes, Cherry Ripes, Arnotts bikies and Milo are waiting at home for us after a
Laurence House
the back of Laurence House (our home in Sutton). The first window you can see in the foreground (second storey) is our kitchen window. When Daniel locked the keys in the house we had to borrow a ladder from the restaurant up the road, walk all the way down the main street with it and Daniel had to climb through the window. All happened on Halloween night when everyone was out and about....very funny sight.
particularly bad “I-HATE-BRITAIN” day! Daniel also decides to change careers and takes up the offer to work as a Thatcher (the kind that makes quaint thatched cottage roofs, not the Margaret kind).
DECEMBER
Jingle bells, Jingle bells. Everyone returns to Laurence House so the place is full of life and noise again. York is alive with Christmas cheer and while still a bit homesick we get swept up in the festivities and enjoy the lead up to Christmas the Northern Hemisphere way (i.e. cold). We briefly consider going to Budapest or Munich for Christmas but upon realising the flights for both of us will cost roughly the same for one of us to fly to Australia and back we decided to stay put and pray like mad for a white Christmas (we didn’t get it). We have to say though we love the lead up to Christmas. It just well, it feels right that it is cold (although unfortunately no snow!!). Because it gets dark so early (as early as 3:30pm some days), you can really appreciate the Christmas lights and decorations in town plus they have carollers all wrapped up in scarves and gloves doing the carol thing
Work in progress
One of Daniel's thatching jobs out at Ryedale Folk Museum. in the streets. York is also such a quaint little city with its city walls and winding old fashioned streets. It feels so festive and wintry. We discover hot fruit punch and love it and decide we have to have a Christmas in July when we get home just for an excuse to make it! Christmas Day itself is very weird though, as our whole lives it has been what feels like “the hottest day of the year”. It doesn’t feel like Christmas without the whir of the air conditioner, the stifling heat as you wander past the oven and the sunshine streaming in through the windows and of course we missed out on the brutally hot Boxing Day (not so sad about that one!).
JANUARY
Great start to the New Year, Prince William has moved in next door (Linton is a village near by) and just a few days into the New Year we experience our first snowfall for the winter!!! The locals pffft pfffted saying it was nothing but there was enough snow to cover the ground and make everything look white and pretty so it was enough for us!! Unfortunately we both had to go to
Stang End
slow progress working work that day (we would have loved to stay and make snowmen) but we did get some time to frolic around the village taking photos before we had to leave and better still before anyone had woken up and gone outside to walk through it - it was “perfect” snow. There was still a fair bit of snow around in the evening when we returned home but sadly that darn rain came and melted it all by the next morning. Daniel is working up in the hills where the temperatures are always a bit lower and hence there was loads more snow and some great “winter wonderland” scenes. Sadly, when the rain came to melt the snow it didn’t leave. Funny how after just a few short months we’ve adapted and take great pleasure in having a rainless day even if it is still cold and grey. Better still, and we do get quite excited by this, if there is some sunshine. And when we say “some sunshine” that is all you get. Just maybe an hour or so and very rarely!
When you’ve lived all your life in a place that gets sunshine and fairly mild weather all
The other side of Stang End
We still have the other side to do! Patience is a virtue. year around, even though you know you’ve got it good you don’t realise how good until you just don’t have it anymore. We also didn’t realise how much weather dictates lifestyle because of course at home, the weather very rarely truly inhibits us from doing what we want. I mean it might a bit too hot to do something but it is more about comfort than anything else. Over here we’ve found there is just nothing to do but sit inside with the heater on watching tv and we’ve been learning all about the lives of the residents of Coronation Street and Emmerdale while still keeping tabs on our friends on Ramsay Street and in Summer Bay.
We have only just now managed to peel ourselves away from these exicting programmes and got off our backsides and made an effort to do the touristy thing in York. We should have done more when we arrived as the weather was much more pleasant but to be honest we were all out of sightseeing energy. York is such a pretty city and has so much history but of course when you live and work in a place the beautiful features and
The Ouse River, York
From the bridge Trish walks across to get to work everyday. The river floods every year and only a week or so ago the river has up to the bottom windows in the buildings on the left! sights of a place just become commonplace and you don’t notice them. This is true for most things, i.e. Trish walks across a bridge and along the Roman city walls to get to work everyday. This theory is thwarted however when it comes to the York Minster. The Minster dominates the city of York (but in a good way). When in the city centre you use it as a navigating tool if you ever get disoriented amongst the narrow windy streets that appear identical to the next when you first get here. If you turn around you can always see the Minster rising above the rest of the city and know which direction to head in.
The Minster is a massive structure, not just in height but in space and history really. In the 1960’s they realised that the structure would not be able to support the 54m high central tower for much longer so they began to excavate under the building to place a more solid foundation to strengthen the tower. They found through the excavation that the site was originally a wooden structure believed to be Roman barracks. Once they were destroyed a church was built on
From the Bridge
Hartley's (to the left) is Trish's lunch bar and a part of the Roman City Wall runs along the right. the same grounds, this again was destroyed during the numerous wars and battles that happened over the years and around 1200 AD construction on the current York Minster began. They supported the tower with concrete blocks reinforced with massive steel rods. We got to go underneath the Minster to see the foundations and evidence of previous buildings. The Romans had built drains etc that are still visible today down there.
The Minster is the second largest Gothic cathedral in northern Europe (the largest is in Germany). At one stage it was the most notable church in England. It was also where Constantine was crowned Roman Emperor in 306 AD. It also has one of the largest collections of stained glass from its period. Apparently because the glass mosaics are stuck together with a lead based adhesive, they need to be “re-glued” every 50 years or so. The windows were also taken out during WWII. It is amazing the kind of restoration work they do on this and other buildings to preserve it. One of the very large windows was about to be covered in scaffolding and will be covered up for the next 5 years for serious restoration work but
More Ouse River from the bridge
On a sunny day (taken in October!) the scaffolding and minor works around it will probably continue for another 20 years!!
Anyway enough about Cathedrals and history there’ll be plenty more of that when we blog from Italy!! We booked flights to Milan at rock bottom prices while one of the budget airlines were having a massive sale and leave early morning on the 15th. So stay tuned!
Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year’s and while it might be a bit hard with the soaring temperatures - enjoy the sunshine!
We promise to keep you up to date with our travels with loads of photos!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.085s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 14; qc: 56; dbt: 0.0486s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
janet and the gang at Oxter
non-member comment
we thought we'd lost you!!!
Hi guys, great to hear from you. We have passed comment recently that we hadn't heard from you in ages! and then there you are! Sounds like you are enjoying yourselves still although the "work" doesn't really fit in with "holiday". still needs must and "holiday" never sounds as good without "money"! everything is tocking along as usual here. Had a awful thunder storm last night. 13ml rain. take care see you janet