Welcome to England – the land of double decker buses, pork pies and prawn cocktail crisps

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Arriving at London Heathrow we attempted to declare Tim’s beef jerky only to find no one at the desk, walking towards arrivals we were stopped by a lady...

“You are not allowed to bring meat products into the UK” She said in a loud voice. Looking quickly over her shoulders she added quietly “Okay…go through quickly then…”

Mum, Dad and Sam were waiting at arrivals - they were very excited to see us and informed us all about the two-week heat wave that they had experienced. After a quick drive arriving back home we discovered that the lock from Tim’s bag was missing. Opening his bag we saw that it had been riffled. Lucky nothing had been taken as all our valuables were in hand luggage. At the bottom of the bag under his clothes was the broken lock, which conveniently had been placed, back in the bag and then zipped up again.



Back in the UK it felt as though I had never left and soon I slipped back into the routine of life. I also found myself experiencing that ‘English panic’ that I once used to suffer from every time the sun comes out from behind a cloud. The panic is that you have to rush outside as soon as the sun comes out preferably with as little clothing as possible. Even Tim found himself joining in…



During our stay in the UK we have spent a lot of time catching up with friends and family. Seeing good friends it is like we haven’t been apart which they always say is a sign of a great friendship. On Saturday evening we had a wedding celebration at a local golf club. We had about 45 friends and family that travelled to the event. It was good fun and we even got the venue to put on a BBQ instead of a buffet as a sign of us living in Aussie land. As usual everyone commented that I have a ‘really strong Australian accent…’ Tim managed to convince the venue to throw in a round of golf for him and we had a great night dancing away…The following day we had family round and spent the day with them. My Aunty makes the best tiffin in the world (like a chocolate biscuit based bar) and we smashed back many slices.



Spending a couple of days in London we went to see ‘The Lion King’ which was awesome and worth every penny. Meeting up with my cousin and her boyfriend we went out for a meal at a place called ‘Meatliquor.’ Lining up outside we were told it was ‘strictly over 16s’ and having our hands stamped we entered a restaurant that resembled a nightclub. Ordering extremely unhealthy but delicious food we ate burgers, fries, hotdogs and the biggest onion rings you have ever seen. Afterwards we went for a drink at what appeared to be an ‘olds man pub.’ Entering the building I commented to my cousin Carly in a loud voice

“Look we are the only women in here…no wonder everyone is staring at us.”

Ordering our drinks we noticed the barman was sporting flowers in his hair, looking around us we noticed that the ‘old mans pub’ was in fact a gay bar and everyone was staring at us not because they were checking us out but wondering why 4 straight people had walked in…



Despite the fact that not many people in England have heard of ‘Aussie Rules football’ after googling it we found a league with a local team that believe it or not train about 15 minutes away from where my parents live. Tim quickly emailed them to ask if he could come along to training and on Thursday evening went along. He was excited behond belief, as he had to give up half a season in Australia. Turns out the coach for ‘Reading Kangaroos’ used to play for RSMU (a team in Tim’s football league) and Tim played against him about 5 years ago in Australia – small world eh? Anyway the team has made the grand finals, which will be played in London next week. Tim might even be playing…



Spending a couple of days in the South East myself, Tim and Sam went camping whilst my parents decided to go to a B&B nearby. Tim was pretty surprised at the UK version of ‘camping’ which involves setting up a large, comfortable tent in what would be described in Australia as a ‘caravan park’ complete with a clean toilet block with hot showers and hairdryers. Honestly after camping in Africa I could only describe it as ‘luxury.’ Tim, Sam and my Dad even went surfing (yes there is a large surfing culture over here.) I decided to wait until I got back to Australia, as the weather was 17 degrees, raining and with about a million people also attempting to surf in the water. The following day we went to ‘Boardmasters’ which is a large, international surfing competition held in Newquay. The beach was absolutely packed with young people. One of the judges was South African and he had his voice being blasted over a speaker so everyone could hear on the beach. It was quite funny because a lot of English people can’t distinguish between South African, New Zealand and Australian accents (I used to be one of them) and therefore there were lots of comments about the ‘Australian surfing judge.’



Hope everyone is keeping well. I am actually missing you all lots xxx

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