To blog or not to blog?

Well, it’s been a while but here I am back in the blogging world once again. I thought long and hard about starting up again but a couple of girlfriends have been insistent that I/we carry on.  Both Phil and I have been blogging for a while now and I worry that from time to time, we repeat ourselves and that it’s sometimes the same old same.  But I'm here now and I’ve started up so I lets just see how it goes.   Don’t expect too much though in the way of excitement; we’re flat stony broke and we’ve nothing in the diary of any significance for the rest of the year. But hey, no worries as they say back in Oz, I’m sure together Phil & I will find something to talk about in 2010.

It’s been a little surreal being back home.  We’ve spent the last 10 days catching up with friends and family which has been great.  The only downside has been the jet lag which has been horrific.  It’s only been the last few days that we’ve managed to sleep normal times through the night.   We’ve both suffered the same and I’ve never experienced jet lag like it.   I can’t remember too clearly, but the day we arrived home was a haze.  The following day was not much better and bar a trip to Tesco’s for supplies, we didn’t do very much.

Last Saturday Phil picked up Georgina from the city centre and dropped her back home.  Harriet and Shane popped by at tea time to share a Chinese take-away but we had to send them home at 8 o’clock because we were bushed and needed to go to bed.   The following day (Sunday) we jumped in the car and set off to Melton Mowbray to see Phil’s mum and dad.   I had been looking forward to my mum-in-laws roast lamb dinner for many months and couldn’t wait.   We hadn’t got too far on the M1 when Phil said that he thought the land rover felt ‘rough’.  And sure enough, we hadn’t got much past junction 16 when the temperature gage suddenly shot up and we had no choice but to pull over. Phil filled her up with water and oil a couple of times and 2 hours later we finally arrived in Melton.

It was lovely to see Bet and George and lunch was splendid.  Their world doesn’t change much but every time I see them they seem a little bit more bent over and tired.   They said the winter had been long and harsh but thank goodness they still seem to be in relatively good health. Phil’s mum and dad don’t do the internet and so haven’t been able to follow the blog so I’m sure we must have bored them silly with tales from down under.   Of course, we spoke to them on Skype whilst we were away, but still, it was good to see them face-to-face after so many months away.

On Monday evening I went over to have supper with Christine.  So much has happened in her life since I last saw her in November.  I’m not going to say much only that her life has moved on since I last saw her last year and she is now in a much happier place since John died.   We had a nice evening and I didn’t get home until midnight.  I didn’t mean to stay so long especially because she had to go to work the next day.  

Phil took his car to the garage on Tuesday and in the afternoon I picked up Harriet from home and took her to the hospital.  She had to have a blood test and like me she has fairly invisible veins so getting blood is always difficult.   Also she is fairly squeamish so she wanted me along for support.  The nurse thought I was her friend rather than her mum (I liked her!) and she was a dab hand with the syringe and managed to get the sample full of blood from HH on the first attempt.  It was such a lovely spring day that when I got back, Phil & I walked along the canal to The Giffard where we had a curry and a pint.  On a Tuesday after 5pm you can get a curry and a pint for just £4.99 after 5pm.   We were way too early but Steve the landlord hadn’t seen us for so long that he said we could have the deal anyway.  And very nice it was too!

Almost everyone that we’ve seen since we’ve arrived back in the UK has told us how bad the snow was over the winter.  Indeed, Emma & Harriet emailed me some photographs but I don’t think we quite realised just how harsh the weather was.  I think, had we have done, we wouldn’t have moaned so much about the weather in Australia!!!  I don’t do the cold very well so thank goodness we weren’t here.  The weather has been beautiful since we arrived back home, long sunny spring days which bodes well for a good summer.  Fingers crossed!

On Wednesday I drove over to Olney to see Maddie at the cottage; she told me that we hadn’t met up in 14 months so the visit was long overdue.   Steve had replaced the kitchen and replaced the floor in the dining room and what a good job he’d made.  We went for lunch at a nearby pub but I can’t remember the name.   Even though I hadn’t seen Mads for well over a year, nothing much changes in her world; she’s still overworked and underpaid and now she all the work to do for Ed’s wedding in September.  Phil went out with the Wednesday night crew and had a good catch up with all the boys.   Jim & Shirley picked him up and they very kindly dropped me off at Vanessa’s where we chatted over a few glasses of wine.  It must seem that we have done nothing but wine and dine since we’ve back and it’s true but today (Monday) the diet starts!

On Thursday we drove down to Lowestoft to stay the night with Phil’s Aunt Daphne who was released from hospital a few days before.   Unfortunately the Land rover was still in the garage as they hadn’t had time to look at it but we had a blue Nissan Micro as a courtesy car so that was okay.   The roads were busy but we arrived in Lowestoft a little after one o’clock.  Daphne looked better than I expected, considering her age and all that she’s been through over the last few months.  Her good friend Jim has been a star and if it weren’t for him I don’t know how Daphne would have coped.    She is barely mobile and can only shuffle with the aid of a frame.   She was a little cantankerous and a touch on the grumpy side but I suppose that’s to be expected given her situation.  Early evening we went to the Beefeater for supper; it was a bit of an expedition getting Daphne and her frame in the little Nissan but we managed to get there and back without any major trauma.  

Daphne didn’t have any jobs for us to do while we were at her house and well, I’m not very good at sitting around and not doing anything so I was glad to say goodbye and get away on Friday afternoon.   Although the sun was shining in the morning, come mid afternoon, the skies went grey which was a shame because on the way to Woodbridge we decided to stop off for fish and chips on the beach in Aldeburgh.   Bad luck for us because the famous fish and chop was shut, as it always seems to be whenever we go to Aldeburgh.  We struggled to find any eateries for lunch so we ended up in the pub near the chip shop where we shared a ham roll, a pint and a packet of crisps.  It wasn’t unpleasant and it was nice to sit by the open fire.

We stayed with my sister in Woodbridge on Friday night.  Both Phil & I love Louise & Mark’s house and it always a treat to stay there.  As usual, Mark cooked us up a delicious meal which we washed done with a few beers and some wine.  It was just a shame that Lou had lost her voice and was a little under the weather.   Mark’s having a tough time in his job but other than that, they were both fine and are very much looking forward to their holiday to Egypt at the end of the month.  As usual and just as we have done with all of our friends this week, we must have bored them with tales from down under.   We left Suffolk reasonably early but there was horrific hold ups on the A14 and it took us hours to get home. Phil cooked a chilli con carne for lunch-cum-dinner and we had a lazy afternoon and evening catching up on recorded TV programmes.  Yesterday Phil picked up Georgina and they went to Melton to see Grandma & Granddad.  I practically spent the whole morning on publishing websites uploading various blogs in an attempt to convert them to hardcover books.  I succeeded in the end but it took a while because our files were so big and had so many photographs. The afternoon was spent doing domestics. 

I bumped into Jason (Emma’s husband) last weekend and he said I looked knackered.   And then Phil came out of the front door and Jason said that Phil looked even more knackered than me!  Jet lag has a lot to answer for but thankfully we are now back into a UK sleep pattern.  Even though we’ve been away for 4 months, now we’re home, Australia almost seems a distant memory.

As I said at the start, I’m not making any promises that this new blog will make good reading. Phil did exceptionally well managing a post almost every day in Australia but I’m not that interesting I’m afraid and will probably only manage 2 or 3 posts a week but maybe I can persuade Phil to dip in here and there.  I have to also apologise today for the lack of photographs.  Last week I took my camera into the little shop in Fenny Stratford but they said it was full of sand and beyond repair.  Fortunately they had some reasonably priced second hand cameras.  I picked one that looked easy to use and the guy in the shop said he’d do me a deal if I traded in my old chargers and batteries.   I’m picking this up later this morning.  For now, I need to post and publish and make a start on the job search.