A nation in mourning- AB's vs France

A late decision saw us along with flatmates Amy and Tim head across to Cardiff for the rugby. It took about 2hours on the train and we stayed with a lovely Welsh family. Amy and Tim had met their daughter while travelling through South America.




Above -Amy and Nadia take a moment to pose outside the stadium before the game. The streets were packed full of Kiwis, a black out!


Tim and I actually went to the game while the girls went out for dinner and soaked up the atmosphere outside the ground. Above - not our actual seats but a good view from halfway for those who paid the extra NZ$500.




The All Blacks intensity in the Haka was impressive, unfortunately games are not won by how hard you slap your legs when performing a Haka.

Tim and I were quite keen to have a look on the pitch, but the 7+ men in high vest orange jackets were not so.

A lovely group shot from left Amy and Tim (back), Maddy, Hayley, Clark, and Nadia (and some random who we picked up off the street).

It was a fantastic weekend one we will always remember...................for the wrong reasons.

Big news.... in Bath

Bath spa is a quant town about 2 hours train ride west from London. The town is most famously known for the Roman baths that are there. The baths are established around a natural hot spring similar to what we have in parts of the New Zealand.

However, Bath is now most famous for where I proposed to Nadia......................and she said yes....

Above- The Abbey that has stood in Bath for a few hundred years.

Yes believe it or not there is a home to the Sally Lunn bun and its in Bath from the year 1482. Who would have thought. Slightly more impressive than the home of the Jimmys mince pie in Roxburugh.

The picture above shows in the bottom foreground the Roman baths and in the background the Abbey.

I'm told that second to Venice and somewhere else I cant recall, Bath is the only place in the world to have a set of shops on a bridge- I wasnt convinced.

It was only after both Nadia and I dipped our hands in the water that we saw the huge bright yellow hazard signs saying 'do not touch the water' woops...................

The Roman Baths were very interesting. So many old things that have been round longer than our home country of NZ, you can't help but be impressed by this gigantic Roman head.

We listened to an audio throughout our tour of the Roman Baths whcih was very informative and a great history lesson!

Below is the B&B where we stayed - Great Ashley Farm. It was approximately 20 minutes out of Bath very quiet which roused memories of Forest Hill.

Above the magical spot where I proposed to Nadia.

Ye Olde London town

We arrived in London on Sunday the 25th of June....and unfortunately we didn't have the greatest of starts to London given we arrived to...

a) The wetest July in history

b) Terroist threats to down town London (car bombs).

At first we were slightly concerned by this but it seems we were the only ones, as Londoners are well used to terrorists causing problems. We then started hitting the London tourist hot spots!

Above- Tower Bridge often mistaken as London's Bridge.

Unfortunately flash photograpghy did not permit us taking pictures of the Queens private parts (of London Tower) but I can ensure you they were big, over the top and completely tacky. A must see though.

Above-Can't help but think of Beefeaters Gin..........................

Nadia's re-Tardis, not quite as spacious as Doctor Who's either

Above- Nadia looking rather casual in front of the royal hang out Buckingham Palace.






Nadia, Bridget and Maureen McKenzie (Tim's mum) along with Amy went through the Bunckingham Palace State Rooms.

Just down from Tony Blair's former and Gordon Brown's new pad in Downing Street.

The London Art Gallery in Trafalgar Square.

Above- Nadia shares a hilarious joke with the guard who as you can see cannot contain himself.

One weekend we caught the ferry from Westminster and headed to Greenwich for the day. Below are photos from our day at Greenwich:

Greenwich- it was hard to avoid all the references to time.....................

Above- where the east meets the west....

Above - On our way back from Greenwich on the ferry we were lucky enough to see the bridge raised up for a boat to go through.

Above- Big Ben and Westminster Abbey

Above- 100 Victoria Embankment, Unilever House where Nadia works.

Above - our Flat in Willesden Green

A great kictchen- 5 gas hobs.... watch your head though!

I work in St Alban's it is an hour commute from oour flat - 40minutes on thh train and a 20minute walk from th rtrain station. You can see from the map above that St Albans is a reasonable distance from London/ Willesden Green.

Next:

Cardiff.......................sad times ;-(

Dubai... and nearing the finish line

My how time flys. We arrived in Dubai at 5.30am and by this time it had already reached a barmy 38 degrees, we knew at this point we were in for a sweaty few days.................


Nadia and I in traditional dress trying to pull off our best 'emiraty' pose.



We went on a desert safari where the locals treat you to some Dune Bashing. Dune Bashing involves flattening the tyres of your brand new Toyota Landcruiser and then randomly flying up and down the sand dunes as fast as possible. I acknowledge the photograpghy was not great on this one but I challenge you to take a photo when you are being thrown around like a rag doll.

Yes- the desert is as hot as it looks.

Nadia gets some traditional tatooing - Henna painting (ink that lasts about 10 days) apparently its all the rage over there.

Above- If you look hard you can just see Nadia mouthing the words 'hurry up and take the photo, I'm sweating like a bore' maybe not those exact words but something similar.

Camel Riding! Hot tip, if you are at the front make sure you hang on tight as the incline when they sit down is sharp as Nadia and I discovered.

Above- A local with his Falcon. Falconing is a national sport over there. I would be paranoid that my bird would fly away though, no problems for this guy as it is tied to his arm!

Whilst in Dubai we mangaed to catch up with Jeremy (a colleague of Nadia's from EY) and his girlfriend, Rochelle. They took us cruising in their new Wrangler Jeep (mandatory in Dubai-if your not in some form of land crusier/SUV you gain no respect on the roads).

We then went out for some Lebanise cusine and tried some of the local delights.

Above- Jeremy and Rochelle

Puff the Magic Dragon lives in Winton... Nadia samples some of the local 'shesha' aka hubbly bubbly- this one was apple flavoured, but they have many to choose from.

Before

and after.... you would have thought Nadia would have been fine after all those years smoking behind the bike sheds at Central Southland College, but evidently not.

Above- The worlds only 7 star hotel, we stayed there 3 nights- the rooms were nice and the food was good but we thought definately only a 6 star, rather than 7 (yeah right).

Actually this was us with Steve and Johanna Raynor enjoying the bath water that was the beach and looking on in admiration at the Burj Dubai from afar.

We crashed at the Raynors (family friends) for a night and having not seen the crew for at least 5 years it made for a great catch up. They showed us sites including, pointing out the boundaries of the city when they first arrived in Dubai, 6 years ago (which was about one quarter of the city as it is today) and the world's tallest building (with 51 floors still to be built). FYI 20% of the worlds cranes are based in Dubai.

That's it for us now off to the big smoke- London!