One way to the UK?

So… things seem disjointed in my writing since Turkey and Galippoli but from now I’ll try and keep more up to date and things shall flow (like the rain falling here in summer..) once more.

So, after returning from Turkey, almost exactly a month later Mara and I headed off to Barcelona, Spain for a weekend. Nice city, however, it rained there. Very disappointed with that! The thing I (and Mara) loved most about the place was the relaxed atmosphere and the market! Oh what a glorious and cheap food market. We had fresh fruit of all sorts and also very fresh seafood at such cheap prices! Never gorged on so many prawns for 4 Euros… or 3 Pounds… or 6 dollars anywhere in my life! We had cocktails on the beach one afternoon, followed by Paella for dinner and a jog of Sangria between us, prior to meeting up with Hattie (an expat) and her Dutch friends and we headed to some clubs, and a great place that served absynth the proper way… ahh fantastic, except Mara’s camera was stolen at some point that evening… and then Mara got very sick once we’d gone into a nightclub (we must have walked there…) and then I finally got her outside after she’d made good friends with the porcelain bowl, and stood in the rain trying to get her to sober up before a taxi would take our fare and drop us back at the Hostel! Met some lovely Spanish boys there though whilst waiting in the rain haha. Every cloud has a silver lining I guess.

I think the next trip was the weekend in Wallington for Sarah’s birthday and to attend the Derby Day horse races again – been here over a year so things are starting to reappear on the events calendar! Derby Day was great – not quite as good as last year, because last year we’d just arrived in the UK and still had a tan, and the weather was hot, hot, hot… not cloudy and threatening to rain! But still, a great day and I even backed some winners – very impressed!

I took a trip at some point to Brighton for a girls weekend with some 2012 colleagues (even though I was working at NHS); Naomi, Pam and Gill. The weekend started well with chocolate on the train down Friday after work, and then continued with wine in plastic cups (a trademark provision of Gill!) and crisps and then cheap cocktail jugs in the Hostel and a good night out around the town… Saturday night was great too, Naomi, Gill and I danced our little feet off at the Walkabout (shameful I know, but we couldn’t get in anywhere else cuz Gill, the eldest, doesn’t carry ID anymore and she wasn’t allowed in anywhere except the Walkie!) but it was awesome with cheap drinks and a live band all night anyway so we had fun. Oh and for dinner we had a fantastic Thai dish… would definitely recommend The King & I restaurant by the beach. We went to Brighton Pier and ate donuts and took silly photos and tried to win a soft teddy (Naomi was determined..) but ended up heading back to the hostel empty handed. Sunday we shopped all day in ‘the lanes’ and had a nice lunch, then headed back to London in the afternoon.

I feel like I’m forgetting trips… but I’ll update if I have!

Last weekend I headed up to Edinburgh to try some haggis (really almost same as black pudding so tasted fine to me) and to find the Loch Ness monster. The Edinburgh Fringe Festival also happens to be on in August, so I managed to see a stand-up show on the Friday night (flew up there after work) and also saw street performances a-plenty! The Sunday ‘Haggis Tour’  Loch Ness explorer bus trip was a long day, but definitely worth it. Got to make friends with some nice people, and also to see a lot of the Scottish country side! Went up the Highlands, almost up to Inverness (look at a map.. fair distance between Edinburgh and Inverness). It was raining for parts of the day – to be expected – but wasn’t actually as cold as I thought it would be. Lots of hairy Scottish Highland Cows around the place and breathtaking scenery. Loch Ness itself was awesome too – even without seeing a monster with my own eyes – it is the biggest body of water in all of mainland Europe and is very, very deep! Sorry I didn’t note down the facts we were being told – too busy keeping eyes on the ‘fish finder’ for Lochie haha. The guide (marine biologist) showed Madina and I a photo of ‘a monster’ which really just looked like a dinosaur spine to me *exactly* he responded. He thinks there are a few, possibly up to 18 living in the Loch and I really, honestly wouldn’t be at all surprised if they did actually exist there. The photo definitely looked real, but even without that, the Loch itself is home to canibalistic trout not found anywhere else (they live right near the bottom and eat each other until the school runs low, then they move to warmer surface water and breed, and once the school reaches high numbers again, they dive back to the bottom to eat their own family again… ew). Loch Ness is also home to another special kind of fish, which is usually only found in salt water but for one reason-or-other it survives and thrives in the Loch. So… some other things about Scotland – Loch means Lake… but as our guide Carole (roll your Rs) pointed out, Loch Lochie does not translate to Lake Lakie! Heather is the ‘purple stuff’ growing on Scottish hills and when it decomposes on the ground, and especially in the lakes (making the water black) it is called Pete.. so Heather turns to Pete (perhaps where Pete-moss comes from!?). Anyway, Scotland and Edinburgh was totally gorgeous and I would love to live there… honestly. I checked online to see if Laing O’Rourke my company has an office there, but unfortunately they’re only working on a site in Perth (not the Aussie Perth, the Scottish one) which is somewhere else in the country (I drove past in the bus). Uhh well… next time perhaps.

So, for my first ‘solo trip’ I enjoyed myself and the freedom it gives. You can do what you want, when you want, and it’s easy going on a tour bus on your own as it forces you to be nice and make friends with other people. Would probably be a bit lonely/boring if you didn’t go on a trip (day or o’night) with other people, but otherwise no dramas. On the Saturday I met Medida who was also visiting Edinburgh and so after the tour finished we went out for dinner together and then had a wander around all the street performances along the Royal Mile. Sunday, I pottered around the city and went for a big walk and then grabbed my bags and headed back to the airport and rainy London. Mind you, on the Sunday the weather in Edinburgh was brilliant and I saw a clear sky for the first time in ages!

This weekend, I’m off to Maidstone in south-east UK, I think. Emma lives there, and she’s one of ‘the six’ Mara and I are part of after te six of us met in New Zealand in 2006 and then spent Easter this year all together in Cork, Ireland (at Jen’s house) and then met up with 1/2 of us at Derby Day, so yeah 1/2 of us are meeting up again this weekend for what will no doubt be fun-filled shopping and drinking! I’m going to kickboxing, then meeting Sarah and Mara at London Bridge station, where we’ll catch the train down to Maidstone East – can’t wait!

And then next weekend, is the notting hill festival (will write separately about festivals over past months) and then on Monday 25 August Mara, Sarah (old NHS colleague of mine, and an Aussie from Adelaide) and I fly out to Valencia, Spain! We are going to LA TOMATINA! Yay – get ready to be pelted with tomatoes people! I still need to buy an extra bra or two and a waterproof camera… bras are recommeded in layers as apparently your shirts get ripped off (even though it’s a no-no in the rule book) and waterproof-disposable camera obviously to take photos (of the tomatoes, not naked people!). It should be a great week and fingers, toes and all else crossed that this time the Spanish sun will shine on down – I need a tan and some Vitamin D! After the festival in Bunol, we spend some days in Valencia, then jump on the Eurostar to Madrid for a Friday and maybe also Saturday night party and then head home early Sunday 31 August….. where, once home, I will be studying my ass off as I have a mock exam for OH&S the Monday (next day) morning, followed by full-contact session B of my course…. after which I do more study, study, study and then pass my exam on October 14!

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