Sunday 25th Jan

Hi all,

Just a quick addition to our weekend. Today we went to 2 local castles. Castle Coch is like a fairytale castle - round turrets etc.. Castle Caerphilly is the largest castle in Wales. See the Web albums for more pics. One of its towers in leaning more than the Tower of Pisa!

Cheers.

Stones, tombs and more Castles

Hi all,
Had a good week at school (at least it finished better than it started!). Kristin may start work next week (her Police Check has arrived). Billy and Declan are very settled at the school and are involved in the sporting teams. Declan represented the school in the indoor athletics and performed well.

The Head teacher asked me at briefing on Friday to say something about Australia Day, I replied "it is usually an excuse for a long weekend and I'll see you on Tuesday!" She didn't see the funny side of that!

Thursday night, I went with Les (Dave's Father-in-Law) to his local club (2 min walk) and had a few beers. One of the fellows we were drinking with has offered us the use of his apartment in Cyprus anytime we want (gratis :) ). So I'm telling Kristin I need to get out and mix with the locals more often!

On Saturday we headed off to Stonehenge. First we arrived at a little village called Avebury (About 30 mins from Stonehenge). The entire village is surrounded by large stones (see photos on the Web album) in a perfect circle of a diameter of about 600 metres. As this is all maths, this part of the trip is definitely claimable for tax! Just out of Avebury there are 2 other historical sites: Silbury Hill (a man-made hill - burial/spiritual/??) and the Kennett Long Barrow (a large tomb on top of a hill). The Stone Circle of Avebury was just as impressive as Stonehenge.

From there we headed towards Salisbury Plain. Close to Stonhenge is Woodhenge (as the wood hasn't survived the 5000 years - there are concrete bollards to represent the wooden posts - disappointing to say the least!)

Stonehenge is one of the those tourist things you have to do and tick off -having said that we were very happy we went there. It is amazing to think that 5000 years ago this was built with just manual labour! It is a must see for anyone who comes to England.

From Stonehenge we travelled to Salisbury. A medieval city with a Cathedral (which has the tallest spire in Britain). At the Cathedral there is one of only 4 surviving original copies (there were about 40 made in 1215 and sent to all important cities in Britain) of the Magna Carta and allegedly the best preserved.

It is Sunday morning and we will probably go to some local Castles today and do our weekly shop.

Bye all, and keep in touch!

Week 3

Hi all, just survived my first full week of school, it's tough but then the next break is only 4 weeks away and we are going to Egypt.

Kristin has organised herself with a Nursing Agency and is doing a course today(sun) on "Agression Management of Patients" and she will pick up some work to keep herself sane during the days.

Billy and Declan are enjoying school, and Declan is representing the school in football (soccer) this week, as the Goalie. Declan also played in the School Rugby team this week - but the match was called off, similar with Billy's game.

On Saturday we went to Bath, the ancient Roman city. The baths and the Abbey were fantastic and the architecture in the town was very impressive (all photos can be seen on the Web Albums ). For those worried about our spiritual upkeep, I got the boys to pray at the altar for us all!

After Bath we went to Cheddar (yes ,where cheddar cheese was invented). The Cheddar Gorge is worth a visit and there are caves that you can go in. We went into Gough's Cave and I would say the Buchan caves at home were more impressive.

London - Cardiff
From St. Paul's, we hopped onto a Double decker bus (see pic) to Kings Cross Station and then the tube back to Euston.

As we headed for home it starting snowing! A minor wrong turn and a lot of icy windows and salt made the trip interesting on the way home. The pics here were about halfway back to Cardiff.

St. Paul's Cathedral

Spectacular! Declan said " Gordo wasn't talking crap for once - it is impressive!"

Here are some outside shots:

The Tower Bridge

By far the the most impressive sight in London, although St. Paul's cathedral is a close second.

Here are some pics:

Here are some pics around the Tower of London. (billy and Declan outside the Traitor's Gate)

London 3

Saturday

After a full English breakfast, we headed off to see more sights of London.

We started at Euston Station and caught the "tube" to Waterloo (south of the river). the temperature was a chilly -4 degrees Celsius and didn't get any warmer all day!

We proceeded to walk along the southbank of the Thames.

As you can see from the pics, it wasn't a great sightseeing day!

We went into the Tate Modern Museum - I now know that I'm not a minimalist or even a surrealist. (Dick there was one piece of work that reminded us of the collage work of yours that we have at Rosebud - Julian Schnabel's Humanity Asleep (1982) ) . Although I did learn about Dali and ants!

The walk continued past Shakespeare's globe, London Bridge, HMAS Belfast and onto the Tower Bridge.