Merry Christmas

It was just me and Ben this year, the first time it's been just the two of us since we've been here.

(First christmas over here we were at Mel's, the second at home in Aus, and last year we had Forgi and Ben)

It was nice, but very different. We both agreed we had a fantastic day, but that it didn't feel like christmas, partly because we weren't sharing it with everyone!

So to help share it with everyone, we have made a web album on Picasa, it's available here.

Merry christmas everyone, and have a fantastic year, we plan to!

Nic and Ben

Ben's latest cooking delicacy

Today Ben took Nic's request for a crispier pizza a bit too far! oops! :-D

Slackers

Yes, yes, we know. We are slackers. Since we last posted we have been to various places which we were going to post about and then fell behind so didn't post anything... (a bit like my lab book actually... hmm...)

And so, here's the plan: We will briefly mention what we have done since then. If we get a request to post about it, we will. In the mean time, we will assume we are now up to date and hopefully try to be some what more active on our blog! Yay!

So... Since March 2006 we have done the following things and spent some amazing times with some fantastic people!

Mike and Jan Robbins visited us May - June '06, leaving us for a spell and then coming back again! Ali Droop kindly offered them bed in his terrace house where ben and I were renting at the time, so we got to have them under the same roof as us which was great! thanks Ali!

While they were here, we:

- visited Whitby
- went Puffin watching (they are very cute, and hard to spot!)
- went walking in Malham and Bolton Abbey (in the Yorkshire Dales)
- went to Ambleside (in the Lake District) where we did walking and some rowing (!)

Uschi and Rich Norris and Kathy Ryan visited us in June '06 (while M&J were elsewhere) and we had a fantastic week looking around the York area and Castle Howard.

In December we went back to Australia for almost 6 weeks, where we had a fantastic time socialising with family and friends in Canberra, Jervis Bay and Sydney

In Feb '07 we moved just down the road from where we were living with Ali Droop to our own rented terrace house! :)

Maz Crompton visited in April '07 and I went with her to Haworth in the Yorkshire Moors where the Bronte family spent most of their lives -picturesque, and GPS in cars is very funny, they try to take you the most direct route, which when travelling through a major city like Leeds, is not necessarily the fastest route!

Mike Robbins visited and stayed with us May-June '07, again leaving us for a spell and then coming back again! While he was here, we visited:

- Edinburgh where we had a fantastic hot chocolates 'palate' (we each tried 5 hot chocolates! yummy!)
- Yorkshire moors and Riveaux Abbey

And we had Griff Ware turn up two days after he confirmed he was coming in June '07 where he stayed with us while ostensibly doing uni work in Leeds - but we know it was really his evil twin plotting to take over the world and meanwhile keep his mind in shape by beating us at board games!

And, today, we just got back from a beautiful week in Barcelona where we met up with Uschi, Rich and Allie Norris and had a ball. And I fell in love with the architecture of Gaudi. I want to post some photos of that, but Dad took most of the photos and I have to wait til he sends them to me!

- nic

London some time ago

Around March this year Ben and I went to London to see the musical FAME! as a wonderful Birthday present from my parents! So at last I am going to post some photos from that fun weekend.

This is the hotel room we stayed. Very nice! :)

Saturday

On the first day we went for a walk around the Whitehall area.

One of the busy London Squares.

A caged garden in the middle of town!


Architectural differences!

We mustn't let him out! ;-)

The eye of London. York has one now too, copy cat! But they wouldn't let it be put in town so it's out near the Railway museum. hehe!

Big Ben! :-)

Me next to a guard. Dad took a photo similar to this in Canada next to a Canadian guard which he loves, so I couldn't reisist adding to his collection!

After a fun but very cold day in London we hate some great Japanese food (there aren't any Jap restaurants in York and Ben and I have missed them lots!) and went to see the musical. We had fantastic seats, about three rows from the front!

Just before the show started!

The musical itself was great. Neither Ben nor I thought much of the first half, but the second half more than made up for it, with much better songs, excellent dancing and some nice plot movement (which to be fair, was set up in the first half). Well worth it! :-)

Sunday

The next day we went to Camden markets, which was very touristy and we didn't actually buy anything. And then we were going to go to the London Museum but decided that we were too tired and cold so went to see V for Vengence at the humongous Odeon in town. A great experience and an interesting movie!

While we were waiting for the movie to start we grabbed a hot choc and people watched, and also found this:

I really like this movie! Its about love after marriage, and Billy Crystal is a brilliant comedian and actor.

After a second Japanese dinner (this time at restaurant chain called Wamagama - very nice!) we caught a late train home having had heaps of fun!

Thanks heaps mum and dad!

- nic

Late night, double feature picture show, I want to go!

We went and saw a live performance of Rocky Horror show last night. Hell yea! :-D

It was great.

Excellent audience participation from the beginning (picture all audience members doing the time warp together and Ben sitting in his seat looking rather bemused! - he joined in during the encore!)... and some excellent one liners from the narrator, who was very good. Rocky himself, was just a feast of the eyes... Muscles... hmmmm muscles :D. 'I'm a muscle fan!' And the Frank N Furter wasn't Tim Curry (that would be a bit wrong at Tim's age anyway!) ... but he was bloody good, and he had a great time hamming it up too!

It was soo much fun. :)

And of course, cos its Rocky, you have to get dressed up... :) Thanks to Mel for the corset!



Competition for best caption! ;-) (no we don't have a prize, you just get to feel good that you are clever!)

cheers,

-nic

We are Moving!

Hi all,

Today we are moving houses! We are leaving our studio flat, with its much loved view and much hated tiny kitchen and only one main room... to a Terrace House built circa 1900! :-)

It's beautiful, quaint, very English, and has more than one room! yea! Downstairs is a hallway, with a sitting room on the left, at the end of the hallway to the left is the stairs to up-stairs, and straight in front of that is the living room, and then a small kitchen which still manages to have more benchspace than our current flat... and then in front of that a bathroom.

Upstairs are two bedrooms. We are staying in one. The owner of the house is staying in the other.... Yes we are moving back into a shared house arrangement!

The owner is a fellow first year PhD student, Alastair (we call him Ali). He is studying complex systems, which equals computers + biology, which in turn means that both Ben and I have a lot in common with him! We met him at the beginning of January. Since then, we have become excellent friends with him, seeing him recently about 5 times a week, sharing dinners, and just generally having a good time. So moving in with him will just be making it easier to spend time with someone we already spend a lot of time with. :-D

He only bought the house about a month and a half ago, and we have been helping him decide how to furnish it (go Ikea porn!) and then helping him put together lots of flatpack furniture (suprisingly satisfying, and very tiring).

And now, having found someone to replace us here, we are moving! It didn't take us very long to find someone, we thought we would have to advertise but the University of York Accommodation Office had a waiting list for the flat, and found someone on it for us! yea!

Okay, I guess I need to actually go and start packing... (we've given ourself this weekend to move and clean the flat, though we are hoping to do it all today, we think that's realistic since we only moved from Aus 6 months ago with only two suitcases of stuff, and haven't yet managed to increase that by too much).

So take care everyone, and there'll be photos soon. (but not too soon cos there's no net access at Ali's yet... though that will be coming in the next couple of weeks)

Ciao,

nic.

My arm is better

For those of you who don't know, my arm is now officially recovered. :-)

Monday a week ago I had my last physio appointment, and the next day I saw Mr. De Boer's current registrar who said he thought he would let me go. I told him I had played Hockey on the weekend with no ill effects, he laughed and said he would definitely let me go!

:-)

I can straighten my left arm a couple of degrees less than I can straighten my right arm, but both the physio and the registrar said my right arm can hyperextend, and in fact I have what they would call 'normal' extension back in my left arm.

I would like to thank everyone who has shown their concern and sent their well wishes my way, it is greatly appreciated!