Our time is up? So soon? June 2012

We wore our English 'hats' and tourist 'hats' this month in a mad dash effort to squeeze in as many experiences as possible in our last month of living in the motherland.

There was the Polo in the Park where we enjoyed Pimms and cocktails in the sunshine. Oh and some polo too.

We had to fit in with all the other half tanked Aussies carrying arround pineapples!

An 'adults only' trip to the London Zoo-that's right-no children!  I think the place was full of teachers who could finally enjoy being at a zoo with friends rather than on school excursions.

Only party animals in sight-food and drink a plenty!

A trip down the Thames to Greenwich to explore the Cutty Sark-the last surviving tea clipper and fastest and greatest of her time according to Royal Museums Greenwich-it was pretty impressive!

Use those guns!

Exploring yet another Sir Christopher Wren designed building-The Monument-climbing all 311 steps to get some great, but windy views of London.  The best part (after the views) was the certificate we received on our way out!

We had a little taste of country England too, taking a trip to Lavenham, a historic wool town in Suffolk.  On any normal day you would expect the village to be sleepy and quiet, however we just happened to turn up the on the day of the VW convention-the place was heaving with Beetles and Combies!

And finally, we farwelled our oh so conviently situated living quarters, packed a bag each of Summer, holiday clothes and shipped off all other possessions in some suitcases bound for Sydney.  So long London, love you long time x

Our street in Hammersmith-the trees finally getting their leaves back!

The photo links page will have a link to this months photos

Mooching about in May

Aside from spending the first weekend away in Vienna (see separate page), most of May was spent hanging out in London and enjoying the company of friends as well as the spate of lovely weather!

Blue skies, late sunset, 26 degrees, the River Thames & a glass of wine-what a combination!

Our rowing course progressed and we eventually made it out onto the Thames a couple of times without anyone capsizing or falling in!  On the 6th & final night, we even got to go out in a double together which saw Julian doing the bulk of the rowing while Danielle sat white knuckled, balancing the boat and barking orders!


This isn't us but it is our boathouse and shows the river at low tide.  At high tide, there is no ramp to tramp down!

 We continued to explore more local pubs for Julian to tick off the list and sampled another fine English Sunday roast at one such local pub.  (There's been talk of setting up a rating site for all this roast tasting!)

Our final weekend in May saw us return to Cambridge (with camera battery charged this time) where we tried to blend in more with the locals rather than the tourists thanks to our lovely hostess, Kier, Danielle's ex flatty.  We went up to Ely to gawk at it's magnificent cathedral-the oldest Catholic church in England...

...sampled some lovely, local real ales and ciders at the beer festival which was conveniently on the weekend we visited and also went to a local air show, put on in honour of the Queen's diamond Jubilee...

 Brilliant weather, stunning scenery and good company made for a fabulous weekend!

More photos can be found here