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*Blogs slightly out of order sorry!!
Returning to England (7/4/2010)
After an uneventful flight via Seoul we arrived into Heathrow Airport, this time without the nervous fear of our first arrival. We found our pre-ordered taxi and headed to our home-away from home Justin and Shea’s in Clapham. We battled with jet lag for our first couple nights at London, taking the opportunity whilst waiting for confirmation of our jobs to check out St. Paul’s Cathedral, including hiking to its top with views arguably better in our opinion then those of the London Eye. From St. Paul’s we walked to Westminister Abbey for a self tour, past the tombs of the greats including Albert Einstein, Mary Queen of Scots, Queen Elizabeth, Charles Darwin and heaps more. We caught up with Shea and his mum Jan at one of the oldest wine bars in London soaking up the Friday afternoon sun.
It was then time to head to Stoke-on-Trent which as it turned out actually comprised of six small towns. We caught the train through stunning English countryside and for a brief but stupid moment we had visions of living in a small English village. But those day dreams were soon quashed
when we arrived to an industrial estate, somewhat resembling the smog of the Latrobe Valley. It didn’t take us long to learn that since the closure of the pottery industry all that now remained was six derelict towns with nothing more than a football team to keep them going. We caught a taxi to the North Staffordshire Royal Infirmary which was to become our home for the next eight weeks. It seemed all but closed other then ED. And ED had absolutely no record of us needing not one but two (being single rooms). We eventually persuaded them to give us keys to a couple on call rooms for the weekend, explaining we were physio’s and definitely not on call!!
Residing in the nurses quarters for the duration of our Stoke post we decided to hire a car to maintain our sanity over the weekends, join the local gym for midweek and headed out Thursday nights with Alison (a CSU speech therapist) including a trivia night where were saved from humiliation by teaming up with some retired locals, an evening at the local Jolly Potter pub where we treated to some opera by an Austrian Tenor and the rare but
savored sunny afternoon in the beer garden
Our remaining weekends from Stoke included:
Roady to Hartley Whitney (1/5/2010)
A road trip to Harley-Whitney to see Vicky (now a regular feature of our Blogs). Harley-Whitney is a gorgeous English Village, with a lush cricket green, golf course, traditional butchers, an awesome local pub and rows of quaint cottages. If you were stuck in England this is where you would want to be! We left early and arrived at Vicky’s mid-morning to help out with some shopping from the local farmers market to gather supplies for that afternoon/evenings BBQ. Shopping done we rewarded ourselves with a wine and caught up on our last three months in Vicky’s quaint backyard.
A number of Vicky’s friends popped by, the BBQ fired up and the drinks continued. Jez cooked up some amazing steaks from the butchers. We kicked on at Vicky’s local which was oddly empty for a Saturday night before hitting the hay.
The following morning we revived ourselves with some Eggs Benedict and made our way to the train station bound for Oxford. With a few hiccups at the ticket machine we were left running to open doors of the train making
it, in the nick of time! We met Emma (from the Africa trip) for pint. We left the first pub after a disturbingly loud and out of key band (even for us) kicking off, settling for a cute wine bar. The hours flew past as we caught up on Emma’s recent adventures in Australia, New Zealand and South America and it was soon time to return to our respective trains. Back in Harley Whitney we had a quick bite to eat and headed back to the Harley Whitney pub. Tonight it was in full steam for the May Bank holiday weekend, we crammed in shoulder to shoulder, not able to reach the bar we passed our money along a chain on Vicky’s mates to get a drink and finding ourselves recipients of the local shouts and love of jagerbombs.
Feeling a little worse for wear we scrubbed up for roast lunch at Vicky’s parents house, Mr and Mrs Fergason spent some time in Australia in the 80’s and enjoyed recalling their stories whilst putting up an amazing nibbles, roast pork and piles of roasted vege, a pavlova to put Aussies to shame and a cheese spread just in case we
could still move. After a fantastic afternoon we thanked them and regretfully hit the road back to Stoke (*Unfortunately we forgot the camera!)
Weekend to Reading and London (15/5/2010)
Friday afternoon we finished up and hit the road straight for Reading to meet up with Tom and Sarah (whom we worked with in Reading). Tom cooked up a fantastic dish of turkey and roasted vege dish. After a few drinks we hit the town, somehow we ended up at Reflex 80’s bar. Perhaps too young and too sober compared the rest of the crowd but a great night just the same. We returned to Tom’s for pizza and more beers.
That morning host Tom whipped up some sausages and scrambled eggs for breaky and we chatted the morning away. Leaving our hosts a little worse for wear we carried on into London . Carly battled her way through the streets of London through Chelsea mid-game.. thanks Sat Nav to Clapham. We headed into Covent Garden to catch up with Lanes over a drink before returning to Clapham to our Vietnamese local. The night still young or so it seemed so we kicked on at a nearby bar which provided
an evening’s entertainment of eccentric gay dancing, tears, drunkenness and sleeping… and none of it was us we just sat back and watched in fits of giggles til close.
Feeling the effects of two nights on the trot, Carly headed to Spitalfield market to meet up with Lanes for some shopping or hungover aimless wandering and delicious food whilst Jez settled in for a day of Formula one with Justin.
Carly met up with the boys for the 2020 final, Australia’s innings was enough and we agreed a miserable loss to the POMs wasn’t worth the late drive back. The fatigue still set in Carly missing the turn resulting in forty-five minute detour!
Trip to Manchester (22/5/2010)
After another monotonous week of work, a morning gym session we set of to Manchester to see Mark and Chrissie. Mark had unfortunately been extremely sick so it was nice to see him up and about again and still smiling albeit a few kilo’s lighter. We headed to the shops picking up a huge antipasti feast and some cider. We spent the entire afternoon in their newly decked garden in the sunshine. Our day of feasting continued with steaks and red wine
that evening.
Sunday morning after breaky we set out to Mark’s sisters in Buxton. Buxton another georgeous English Village.. perhaps a second to Hartley Whitney. The stunning weather continued and we enjoyed the picturesque journey through the Peak district. After a BBQ we wandered down to beautiful park and gardens to feed the ducks with Mark’s niece. After a wonderful weekend we made the dreaded journey back to Stoke.
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Mark and Chrissie
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Manchester weekend ...
It was great to have you both up here for the weekend - heres to a repeat back in oz somtime!