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Published: July 13th 2006
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Our house
With our housemates car in front Hello from Manchester!
Well let me firstly apologize for not updating this blog for such a long time! We have had a hectic month or so settling in, but are now up and running and going along fine in Manchester.
We have found accomodation in the form of a share house with two polish couples, living about 4 miles from the city in an area called Crumpsall. It's a very ethnically diverseplace, with people from all corners of the world. Theres a Jewish college, a synagogue (i think thats how you spell it) and a budhist temple, mixed in with the many small food shops catering for Indian and Pakistani customers.
And of course it's a very compact enivronment - the houses are butted right up together wall to wall, which means every night we are serenaded by the 2 year old next door. It's a tight, highly urbanized environment, but it still manages to provide it's fair share of parks and greens. We live behind the catering department of the North Manchester Hopsital which joins onto Crumpsall Park, which is great for an impromptu game of football (The Park, not the catering department)
The World Cup has
Silent Valley
Ireland country side been a hot topic over here - There are St. George flags flying from cars, buildings and prams. Wayne Rooney is a hot topic, as is Peter Crouch and his hypnotic dancing sensation. The passion and pride of this nation in its football team (and the sport in general) is incredible.
I've managed to get a job with a company called WSP Development doing engineering work, in the Salford Quays area just outside of Manchester. Stacey is now working at Marks & Spencer, a classy supermarket. She's signed up with a social work agency, and is on her way to getting a job in the industry.
The big news is, we've been able to hire a Combi Van!! Many thanks to Brett (who took over my job at the shire in Aust) for renting it to us. We've got plenty of trips planned ahead - The Van is equipped with a Gas stove, fridge, sink, a fold-out bed and a Malaysian Airlines Cusion (We'll keep that between you and me, Brett)
We've done a few trips so far, the first being a weekend in Ireland. One of the guys we met in Salzburg (Canadian Mike) was studying
Band Trip
toot toot in Dublin at the time, so we met up with him and some of his friends to check out the town. We visited the Guiness Storehouse, checked out the sights and finished off the day with a night out on the town!! They certainly know how to have a good time over there.
The next day we met up with Ben's parents to head to Northern Ireland for the Warren Point Blues Festival, where Van Morrison was the headline act. They had tickets to the show, while we were going to see what we could find. Well there was nothing available and we headed off to find something else to watch when at the very last minute, an irish bloke had two tickets to sell as his friends had pulled out (which he sold at cost price which was nice). It turned out that he was from Belfast, had done quite a lot of travelling to Australia, and had once met Eric Clapton in an Airport.
The concert was great - It was in the town hall, with a filled capacity at 500 people. His band were spot on, they had the whole hall ready to start dancing!
Of course he finished the show with Brown Eyed Girl, and even though it sounded like he'd sung it a billion times (which no doubt is true) it was still great to hear it.
Another good weekend was when we joined in with the Banks Brass Band for the Whitfriday marching competition in Saddleworth, with Ben's parents Sam and Rod. It was a day of travelling from village to village, performing a march down the main street and then stopping to perform it standing still to be judged. We travelled with the band on the bus, stopping at around six villages. We sampled a few of the local real ales along the way, and had time to chat to other people and get to know the band. A great day out was followed with joining the band again on the Sunday for the local Church garden party in Banks, an interesting event involving crowning the "queen" to preside over the day.
The next trip we did was down to Stonehenge, on the way to drop the Van off for it's MOT (roadworthy) in Reading. We stopped in Avebury where there was another stone circle, only bigger and less
touristy. There were a lot of hippies at this site (the van and the beard fitted in) and small bands of people, walking the line of the stones while beating drums and singing songs. I was half tempted to join in, but I didn't have a bed sheet to wear (Have a look at the photos of it). Stonehenge didn't dissapoint - the massive size of it together with its origins (shrouded in mystery) provide for an awe-inspiring site. Yeah man.
The next trip we did was a day trip to York, a city based upon ancient roman ruins. We sang the Grand Old Duke of York song along the way there, an hour and a half drive from Manchester. It was a great day out, with many buskers and small plays being shown all over the town. We visited the York Minster, walked along the Town walls, had lunch in the musuem gardens and visted the treasury house, which looked like it was taken out of the 18th century (pretty much because the furniture was made in the 18th century).
We'll we have a great time so far, with only a bit of a hard time for
the first week or two when we were in the midst of setting ourselves up. But now we are going along nicely, and we have decided to come back in December to stay for Six months, before heading off on another trip. We'll still going back to Australia in October, and look forward to catching you all then. We hope everyone is well at home, and miss you all terribly! Will write soon,
Cheers
Us.
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Allison
non-member comment
HHAHHHAHAH
Hi, I just showed all your embarassing pictures to my workmate, Bree. She's still laughing now. SHUT UP BREE!!! Awesome guys! I graduated on Wednesday, great time. Can't wait to catch up. Keep having a wicked, fully sick, phat, time, right! Love al