We’re leaving tomorrow.  Part of me is sad, because there are so many things that we didn’t get to do, but part of me is really looking forward to being back home with friends and family and a media that doesn’t completely ignore the netball!

Today dad dropped the car back bright and early, then we headed out into the city again.  We went to the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.  So did a few thousand other people.  This is something that happens every second day.  It’s not like it’s rare or anything, but we were lucky to get a spot where we could see, despite arriving about an hour before it started!  I say started… that was when the first lot of people in silly hats with instruments walked around the side of the fountainy-roundabout thing we were standing on.  No-one actually came out of the palace gates until about an hour later!  We got to listen to lots of people in guard-uniform play brass band music, and see a few guys in funny hats (funnier than the bearskin ones.  They looked a bit like the love child of Lady Gaga and Cousin Itt) ride past on horses (one of which was playing up rather delightfully ).  The actual outside-of-the-gate bit lasted about 5 minutes or so, which was a bit of an anti-climax!

But I’m still glad we went, coz if we hadn’t I would still be wondering what it was like!

We ended up talking to a Kiwi woman standing in front of us – we’ve come across a few over here actually, lots in Scotland especially.

Took the tube (still LOVE that thing, by the way – when we met up with our friends yesterday we initially met at the Gloucester Rd station, and as soon as I walked in I sniffed the air and said to dad ’smells like the underground!’) to Leicester Square, where we ended up getting West End tickets for £12.50 (more on that later).  Then walked over to Covent Garden, where we had lunch and checked out the market.  This was very cool – full of vintage jewellery stalls interspersed with places like Lush (went in for a good sniff – I love that place!) and clothes stores etc.  Pretty sure I could have spent a lot more time (and money) there than I did!

Met up with dad again, he was watching a street performer trying to get out of a straitjacket.  Just as it finished and we were walking away, I spotted someone who looked kind of familiar to me.  I did a double-take, thinking ‘nah’ (coz the whole time I’ve been over here I haven’t run into anyone I knew that we haven’t intentionally met up with, but I’ve been wondering if I would, since everyone seems to have a story like that), then she did one too, and went ‘Brooke?’  It was a girl I played netball with in second year uni!  Randomest thing that’s happened to me on this trip by far, but very cool!

Then back on the tube to St Paul’s Cathedral, where I sat on the same steps as the birdwoman, then on to Paddington Station (photo in front of Paddington Bear souvenir stall) then back to the B&B to get changed (dad didn’t think we needed to, but I was wearing sandals and a top with food down the front, and was worried there might be a dress code.  There didn’t seem to be, but better safe than sorry!).  Went to Chinatown for dinner, which was yum, and they had pearl iced tea (aka Bubble Cup, which is one of the few chains I haven’t seen in London), which I was pretty excited about coz I’m kind of addicted and I haven’t had one in about three months!

Then off to find the theatre.  We ended up going to Avenue Q.  I dithered for a while, but since my dad is not the hugest fan of musicals and was pretty much just going along with me, I decided not to drag him to Wicked, figuring he’d enjoy Avenue Q more.  The best way I can describe it is Sesame Street for adults – a mixture of real people and puppets, whose puppeteers are fully visible, although you don’t notice them at all really.  Some puppets are obviously based on Sesame St muppets – there’s the Trekkie monster who sounds just like the Cookie monster except for the fact that he’s a total pervert, and Rod and Nicky, two guy-puppets who live together, one annoying the crap out of the other (Bert and Ernie, anyone?).  I think Kate Monster is supposed to Prairie Dawn, and Princeton Franklin, although I don’t remember Sesame Street well enough to be sure.

Our seats were as far back as you could get, but the place was tiered so we still had a good view of the stage.  And it was FUNNY.  We both LOLed a lot.  I’d seen bits of some songs on youtube, but didn’t really know the storyline at all.  The cast were awesome, and the girl who played Kate Monster and Lucy the Slut in particular was great – each character had a really distinctive voice and she sang phenomenally well in both.  Dad even said it was one of his three favourite things we’ve done while we were over here – success!

I now have certain songs from it stuck in my head. I managed to keep a lid on the singing on the tube though.  ‘The Internet is for Porn’ in particular would have got me some funny looks!

And that’s it for my last post from London… might get a chance to post at LA airport, but if not, ka kite in Aotearoa!

So… Edinburgh night 2… We ate the haggis! It was actually quite good. It tasted nice, and as far as ingredients go, it’s probably really not much worse than your average sausage, so it was fine! I can think of several things I’d put below it on a ‘foods to take to a desert island’ list.

Then I pretty much crashed. Oh but first I found a book of Pub Quiz questions. So I didn’t crash straightaway, only after testing myself on half the book’s contents!

Off early the next day – we’d parked the car in a spot where they started charging for parking after 8.30, so it was out of Edinburgh pretty quickly. Had almost as much fun on the way out as on the way in, everything’s either one-way, or doesn’t seem to be in existence in real life, only on the map o.O

But once we were on the open road it was fine. We spent most of the day driving, except for the stop at Corbridge, which had a historical Roman site – foundations and ruins of a Roman camp from the first century AD. Pretty cool, but more dad’s thing than mine. My interest in ancient Rome pretty much begins and ends with the Asterix comics!

Had lots of fun with the radio stations; the frequencies are all quite close together (at least I’m guessing that was what it was), so you’d be listening to one song, then you’d go round a corner and it would cut into another station, then another corner and it would cut back again! Kind of annoying when you’re in the middle of screeching along to whatever awesome power ballad they were playing (poor dad!).

We were heading for Scarborough, coz dad liked the sound of the name, but it was getting late-ish and we hadn’t sorted anywhere to stay, so we turned off at a random YHA sign, which brought us down a one-lane road, then down a no-cars track for 1/2 a mile, then down some stairs, into a little bay called Boggle Hole.

Yes, Boggle Hole. You can probably tell by the name that it wasn’t exactly the most cosmopolitan spot on the whole planet! Did not relish the thought of dragging my suitcase all the way down (and up steps on the other side to the annex where we were staying!) so told dad when he went to get the car to bring the luggage down that I wanted to just chuck a few things in my daypack, thinking he’d wait with the car, since I was sorting out the check-in rigamarole (you’d think they’d have members’ details on a central system, rather than having to write it down every time!). Got up to the turnaround spot. Car gone, luggage there. Suitcase. Got annoyed. May have stamped foot. (nobody saw me though, dad wasn’t back yet). Dragged suitcase back up to car, switched over, walked back with pack. Was over everything by dinner time and let dad do the cooking (I did it on haggis night, so we were even), then found a woman to talk to about books, etc (picked up an Enid Blyton, went from there). It turned out she was a sleep therapist, and apparently I am entirely justified in my afternoon naps, it’s part of the body’s natural rhythms

The next day dad insisted that I had to walk over to the next town (Robin Hood bay), because it was really cute. It was very cute (you had to park on top of the hill, cars couldn’t really get into the village, hardly any streets) but I would rather not have walked, especially with my backpack, and since dad had driven over anyway lol.

Then off in the car again. Another pretty long day, got most of the way to London. I managed to navigate us onto the motorway without too much trouble (I realised that we’d been over here too long when dad started referring to the two-lane, NZ-state-highway-type roads as ‘little roads’), and it was pretty plane sailing from there. Stopped along the way at a motorway ‘Services’ – these are stops every so often along the way that are pretty much like roadside malls. The one we went to had Burger King, McDonald’s, KFC, a couple of UK chains, and a bookstore, and we didn’t even look in the building on the other side of the road! Had more fun with the radio, eventually found a station that Baby Spice was DJing, which made me disproportionately excited!

Ended up in Aylesbury, which is a little north of London, and had lots of fun finding a place to stay. Found a pub called the New Zealand, so dad went in to ask for directions (shock! horror!), and ended up in a motor inn down the road. They had a bath, which made me excited for some reason, since I never take baths (I know, ha-ha. Obviously not in an Elizabethan way, just in an I-take-showers way. ) Took a bath. Went back to the New Zealand for beer o’clock. Lime and soda, yay! Dad started talking to a guy called Des, and had another pint. Then another one, so I headed back to the motel and left them talking about bricklaying techniques. Watched the end of The X Factor. Don’t know how much of this gets to NZ, but it’s pretty much like Idol, it’s the show that Leona Lewis won. It’s epic here, and I’ve been hearing about these two contestants, the Grimes twins, in the media for weeks. So I watched it. They are AWFUL.

Then found a show counting down the 50 greatest comedy characters of all time.  Tuned in at #29, and of course felt the need to stay there until #1, 100 minutes later!  It was Basil Fawlty, if you’re interested.

Got woken up at 8 the next morning.  Realised it was actually 7, due to daylight saving happening overnight.  Dad is happy because his watch is showing the right time again (albeit 12 hours out) for the first time since NZ daylight saving changed.  It’s still on pre-daylight-saving time from NZ, because he doesn’t know how to change it.  So for the first few days he was on the right NZ time, but an hour (-12) out for UK time.  Then he was wrong for both, and now he’s right again (apart from the -12 thing).  He was quite proud until I pointed out that in three days we’ll be back in NZ and it’ll be wrong again. 

Had brekkie, looked up Great Missenden, looked (unsuccessfully) for a laundromat in Aylesbury, then headed off.  Great Missenden was only 7 miles away, so we got there a little early.  So what was in Great Missenden?  The Roald Dahl museum!  This is the one thing that I really really really wanted to do while we were over here.  I am a pretty epic fan.  Like, I’m-naming-my-future-daughter-Matilda-after-the-book-character epic.

We couldn’t find it initially.  We followed the sign along the main street but there was nothing obvious.  Then we passed a rather nondescript blue building, and for some reason I decided to look upwards.  ‘We’re here,’ I told dad.  ‘How do you know?’  I pointed at the words on the wall.  ‘How do you know?’ he asked again.  ‘It is truly swizzfigglingly flushbunkingly gloriumptious,’ I read off the wall.  ‘Ah,’ he said.  We went into the Twits cafe.  Dad had a fizzy lifting drink (a spider with chocolate sprinkles) and a fairy cake with orange buttercream icing.  I had a whizzpopper (which for some reason twangs a connection with farting… it was a hot chocolate though, with maltesers and pebbles and raspberry sauce.  Have just looked it up – it IS a fart, in the BFG.  Why on earth they’d name a drink after a fart I do not know!).  The museum itself was definitely geared towards kids, but I still had fun and learnt a few things.  Like, in the original drafts, Matilda was a total brat (based on Matilda, Who Told Lies, And Was Burnt To Death, by Hilaire Belloc, which, funnily enough, we did one year in drama at school!) Miss Trunchbull didn’t exist, and Miss Honey was the villain.

Then headed to the gift shop!  Got a book for a friend’s little girl, and bought myself a Matilda bookmark and mug (for drinking Ovaltine). Was very tempted by a framed enlarged print of a page from Matilda, but resisted!

Didn’t do the village walk – Roald Dahl lived there for 30 years and a lot places in his books were inspired by places in the town.  Will be coming back for that one day!

ZOMG just read the wikipedia page for Matilda (read in a brochure that Matilda’s mother went to bingo in Aylesbury where we stayed, and couldn’t remember whether it specified Aylesbury in the book, or just said ‘the next town’ so looked it up) and the Royal Shakespeare Company has commissioned Tim Minchin to write a musical of Matilda.

There are actually not enough words in the English language to describe how excited I am by this!  Tim Minchin + Matilda + Musical = f*****g brilliant!

Ahem.

Headed on through to London.  Managed to drive pretty much straight to the area we stayed in last time (it was a really great feeling, recognising things!  It was also possibly just being back in London).  Have ended up in the same B&B we stayed in 6 weeks ago, although thankfully with a slightly larger room this time!

This afternoon we found a laundromat, then went to meet up with some friends from New Zealand who are living here.  They’ve been here for a few years and it was awesome to see them again.  I kind of love the feeling of being with other Kiwis when everything else is so different and infamiliar, like we’re part of some club lol.

Then back to the B&B.  Looked up West End tickets for tomorrow night, but I think I might have left it a little late (I was pretty sure dad didn’t want to go, so hadn’t seriously thought about it.  I think he might be relieved!) so probably won’t do that.

Another reason to come back (like I need an excuse!)

Off to see the changing of the guard tomorrow, then back to Aotearoa on Tuesday.

Things I will be eating when I get back: kumara, milo, (proper) marmite, steak and cheese pie.

Well the ghost tour wasn’t really a ghost tour; more a history tour of the ‘underground city’ – the chambers and vaults inside the hill where people lived (I say ‘lived’, it wasn’t much of an existence) up until the late 1800s.  Although the tour guide did his best to scare us by telling us all about the curse that was supposedly on the old bridge we were in (they built vaults in the bridges to be used for storage, except they leaked water and worse) and all the creepy things that had happened on previous tours.  If you’ve ever watched Buffy, our tour guide reminded me of Spike with a Glaswegian accent instead of a London one.  Although that was probably just because of the long leather coat he was wearing, because he looked nothing like him otherwise lol.  He was very funny and interesting though.  He’d psyched us all up during the tour by telling us about terrible happenings and hauntings etc, then we got to the final chamber and he told us that this was where the creepy stuff usually happened – the lights would go out, but this didn’t bother him, he said, because the lighting was old and the place was damp.  Then the torches would go out, which bothered him a little (it wouldn’t have bothered me, they were the kind you charge yourself by shaking, and he’d been shaking it the whole trip to prevent it from going out).  Then, the candles would go out.  Apparently this bothered him a great deal, because any good ghost hunter knows that when candles go out on their own it’s a sure sign of supernatural presence (or a wee draught, I thought to myself, especially since the candles were situated quite near to two small air vents in the wall of the vault).  He told us that when all these things happened, people on the tour would see things in the vault (he’d seen some horrific things himself, he told us), or come back and tell him about how they were followed home by something they couldn’t see, and would feel the presence for weeks afterwards, etc etc.  He didn’t tell us how often this had happened, and since the lights didn’t go out on their own that night (which I suspect they never did at all), he turned them out himself, to see if the spirits would come, despite the fact that they never had before when he’d extinguished all the lights himself.  Two people blew out the candles quite eagerly (I suspected accomplices), and he switched the lights off, then his torch.  Just as he switched it back on again, a large figure leapt out of the shadows and roared at us.  The 6′5″ man in front of me jumped backwards.  A few people squealed.  I remained standing straight with my arms folded, and I don’t think I even started, probably because I had been expecting something like it for the whole trip and this seemed like a pretty perfect time to do it!  I definitely found the London Dungeon trip scarier, and that wasn’t even supposed to be haunted or ghostly, they just swung you round in the dark and jumped out at you!  I guess I’d kind of expected them to do more of the artificial scaring lol.

It was still a cool trip though, learnt heaps about the history of Edinburgh, which was pretty disgusting in parts!  The city within the walls was one mile by 1/4 of a mile, and at one point about 200,000 people lived there.  Hence the living in a chamber inside a bridge with faecal matter dripping through the ceiling.  The tour guide said faeces a lot.    Eventually the government in England did something about it (around 1880), not because of the appalling living conditions or the fact that children as young as eight (probably younger) were being sent to work in the mines, but because they’d seen a picture of two children, a boy and a girl, strapped together in a harness ready to go down a mineshaft, dressed just in their underwear (clothes could get tangled in the pulleys).  Their objection?  Boys and girls would be morally corrupted if they saw each other in just their underwear.

So they decreed that the city wall was no longer protected, meaning that if it broke it wouldn’t be repaired from then on, allowing the city to slowly spread outwards.  Of course on hearing that it wasn’t protected anymore, the locals took to it with pickaxes etc and had it down within a few weeks.

Lots of other gruesome stuff too.  It was brilliant.  Also I was thinking in a Scottish accent for the rest of the evening thanks to Gerry (does anyone else have this?  If you spend time around someone with a different accent, do you start thinking in it?  Or am I just weird?  I think I know the answer to this… ).  The next time someone decides to have a go at us Kiwis for saying things like ‘fush and chups’ and generally mangling our vowels, I will send them to Scotland.  Brulliant, wuld (world) and cuss (curse), among others, are all words that I heard a lot last night (and in the last few days, too).

Got back to the hostel, decided not to attend the ‘no clothes’ party in the common room (not quite as dodgy as it sounds, you could wear things, as long as they weren’t clothes, like rubbish bags, or cardboard boxes) and toddled off to bed.

This morning we went to Edinburgh castle.  Luckily for me it’s just across the road (I can see it out the window of the hostel now) coz I was still tired!  We had a quick tour, then a proper look-round on our own.
Some highlights:
* St Margaret’s Chapel (may not be St Margaret’s, since it was built as a memorial to her by her son in 1093, before she was made a saint (1250ish), I didn’t think to check) – Queen Margaret lived in the castle (funny that, since she was Queen of Scotland ) and died there too.  Her chapel is the oldest building still standing in the castle, and TINY.  Like, seats 25 people tiny. Highlight because she was connected to the high school I went to.
* The Scottish Crown Jewels and the Stone of Scone (which is pronounced skoon, like the first half of schooner). This was fun because my pub quiz team once got asked a question about the Stone of Scone, and I giggled at the name. I don’t think I had any clue what it was for at the time (it’s an old bit of sandstone that’s been part of the Scottish throne and coronation ceremonies for centuries.

We also stood in the room where Mary, Queen of Scots gave birth to King James (although he wasn’t king then, obviously. That didn’t happen for another twelve months or so, because one-year-olds make brulliant monarchs Mary was actually a baby-monarch too).

I was really tired after spending three hours there so I headed back to the hostel while dad went to the Scottish museum. I dithered in a few souvenir shops on the way back coz I’d seen some cute tartans but decided I didn’t really want to pay NZ$50 for a scarf so didn’t buy anything. I did go into one non-souvenir shop called Ness, which had really awesome stuff. Like, really awesome. Mostly wool and tartan, but cool colours and cute stuff like hats and handbags and wallets, etc. I was seriously tempted by a few things but they were all really expensive (I couldn’t really justify spending over $100 on a handbag when I already have four or five!). I tried on one top that was very cute and on sale for $16, but it didn’t fit.
Probably just as well, really! I also looked for a book on Scots Gaelic in the castle bookshop but couldn’t find anything. I probably need to look in a bigger shop, I think. I’ve decided that my one really touristy souvenir is going to be a t-shirt that says ‘mind the gap’ – they’re everywhere in London and I really want one!

Tomorrow we’re heading for Hadrian’s Wall, then the next day to the Roald Dahl museum, which I’ve been looking forward to the whole trip.

We packed up the car in Pitlochry this morning and headed off, but not before writing in the comments book.  I’d read through all the past ones and people had been quite creative (and also had waxed lyrical about a former staff member called Chad, who I think I am sad that I didn’t meet lol) but I just left a little scrawl at the top of the page.

We went through Birnam on the way down to Edinburgh.  Yup, as in Birnam Wood, as in MacBeth.  There’s only one tree left from the original wood now, an epic oak, which, of course, I took way too many pictures of.  Dad looked a bit concerned  when I kept saying things like ‘Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and Thane shall be, what thou art promised’ in a spooky voice, so I had to give him the major plot points of MacBeth.  I’m not a huge Shakespeare fan – we did a few plays in high school English, but none of them ever really grabbed me, apart from MacBeth.  Maybe because we also kind-of did it in drama one year.  I played one of the ‘witches’ (in this version we were the school witches-with-a-b, in sexed-up uniforms and knee-high boots.  I wasn’t very good at this, and spent most of every drama class being told by the teacher to ‘be more provocative’.  I can still remember a lot of Lady MacBeth’s speeches though lol).   We were kind of right in the middle of MacBeth country; Glamis was just up the road and Cawdor was further north.  We didn’t go to either one though, just the Birnam oak.

Also in Birnam was a Beatrix Potter exhibition, which on the literary scale is about as far removed subject-wise as you can possibly get from MacBeth!  I’d seen the movie Miss Potter when it came out, so didn’t learn much that I didn’t already know, but it was still pretty cool, and I bought some presents for my goddaughter and her new brother there.

Got on the M9 after that and headed to Edinburgh, stopping off just before the Forth bridge (over the Firth of Forth, which, like Anathoth jam, makes me feel like I have an epic lithp) to have lunch beside another little port.  Then had lots of fun trying to find our way into the city centre.  The actual place was easy enough to find, because there’s a whopping great castle on a rock in the middle of it, but all of the roads seemed to lead OUT of there, and none IN.  I swear it was worse than the Christchurch one-way system.  Eventually found the hostel.  Like the Pitlochry one you get your bed assigned to you, and instead of having numbers they have names, which go with whatever theme the room has (there’s Lord of the Rings, Winnie the Pooh, etc).  We’re in the ‘Happy Days’ dorm, and my bed name is…Arnold!  This is only funny (and maybe not even then) when you know that my predictive-text name (the word that comes up first when you try to write my name in predictive) is Arnold.  I laughed.  Then had to explain it to dad, and both the receptionists.

Went off exploring.  Decided we didn’t have enough time to properly explore the castle so we’re leaving it till tomorrow.  Found a Writer’s Museum instead, focussing on Robert Louis Stevenson (I totally didn’t know he was Scottish.  But then I have never read any of his books either, I don’t think), Sir Walter Scott, and Robert Burns.  I sat down in a chair at the end of it and started falling asleep so dad sent me back off to the hostel and kept exploring.  On my way back I found a shop that sold…wait for it…Maltesers ice cream.  We totally need these in New Zealand.  I had Maltesers here the other day, actually, and thought they weren’t quite the same as the ones in NZ (I think the chocolate is made differently, maybe?  Our Cadbury’s Caramello is way better too – the stuff here is pure sugar and WAY too sweet) but the ice creams are brilliant.  And in exchange we can introduce the Brits to those Goody-Gumdrops-on-a-stick things.

And now I am back in the hostel.

Today I remembered two things that I left out of previous blogs:

The first is what we did on our first night in Pitlochry.  We visited the Hydro-electric power station, because dad likes hydro-electric power stations.  While there, I saw my first-ever fish ladder.  When we were on Skye, planning this bit of our journey, I had pointed out the area and all the stuff there was to do (MacBeth and Beatrix Potter for me, power station for dad, etc) and laughingly mentioned the fish ladder, thinking it was some kind of joke (I was picturing a fish climbing a ladder).  Dad looked surprised and asked me did I not know what one was?  Me: ‘WTF?  They’re actually a thing?’  They’re a series of pools, arranged in step formation, that the fish can swim/jump over so they can get over the dam.

So a fish ladder is a real thing, but it still makes me LOL.

The other thing was also in Pitlochry: LIME AND SODA!  We went to a pub across the road from the hostel for beer o’clock and the barman asked me what I wanted.  ‘Do you have soda water?’ I asked.  ‘Yep,’ he replied (I guess they must in Scotland, coz people drink whisky and soda).  ‘And do you have lime cordial?’ I continued (I was getting a bit excited by this point).  ‘Yes, we do.’  ‘Ooh!  Can I please have a lime and soda?’  ‘Sure…’ (clearly unsure as to why this was such a momentous event for me).  It was actually a little bit too sweet, and dad had to finish it for me, but it was  a lime and soda!

/ridiculous excitedness

Dad has just come back and informed me that he found a cute pub for dinner (I think he is even less keen on the idea of eating the haggis that we bought than I am), and that we are going on a ghost tour of the city, which I am quite excited about.  Sure, I don’t believe in ghosts, but I can still enjoy a good ghost tour in the same way I can enjoy Buffy without believing in vampires!

20th October.

We left Skye a day earlier than we had initially planned, because EVERYTHING is closed there on a weekend (Sundays are particularly bad).  OK not quite everything.  We did a wee roundtrip of the island, and found one attraction that was open on a Sunday, so thought we should check it out.  It was the ‘Giant Angus MacAskill Museum’.  Angus MacAskill holds (held?  He still has the record, but he is dead) the record for being the tallest Scotsman, and is also the tallest man who was not a pathological giant (ie; he was naturally tall and all in proportion, he didn’t have elephantiasis or pituitary disorders or anything).  He was 7′9″, and I took a photo of dad next to the lifesize model of Angus, then loled at how little he looked in comparison.  We also found a castle on the mainland that was open, called Eilean Donan, which is where they shoot castle scenes in movies when they need a castle (it’s been in Highlander and Made of Honour).  We found another really old church on Skye too, and I took several more pictures of the tumbledown gravestones, trying to be arty.

We didn’t get very far from Skye, about 40 miles onto the mainland in a little place called Ratagan.  Pretty much all we did there was play Trivila Pursuit (yay!) and go on a horse trek.  Well, pony trek would be more accurate, since we were riding Highland Mountain ponies, but they were pretty sturdy ponies.  I had one called Rocky, who was very well behaved.  Dad had a mare called Brea, who farted a lot and tried to bite my pony if I got too close.  It was a very cool trek, more relaxed than others that I’ve been on.  Usually they might let you go for a trot if you’re lucky.  This guy informed us that it was easier for the horses to go up hills if they were going fast, so we were going to canter.  And so it was that I went for my first non-accidental canter, ever.  Then he told us that there was a log coming up that we were going to jump.  My horse had slowed down to a trot by now and I was like ‘uh-oh’ coz I don’t think they jump very well at a trot, but then he started cantering again and then whee!  My first jump! Then I went for my third-ever accidental gallop.  That was not quite so much fun, especially since my feet had come out of the stirrups during the jump, but I managed to stay in the saddle and got the pony back under control.  And when I’d stopped shaking I felt pretty damned awesome, and kinda just wanted another log to jump over!

We did a stop-start drive to Pitlochry afterwards, but not really seeing anything of particular interest.  We had intended on staying in the YHA here, but thought we’d pop into the independent hostel and see what it was like.  It’s pretty awesome.  It has free wireless, and the make your beds and do your washing for you!  Just like being at home lol   The people are really nice, and they have Trivial Pursuit too *geek* (I’m 3-0 up over dad at the moment ).  They also have a huge video collection; I stayed up till 11.30 last night in hysterics over an old Billy Connolly show.  If you’re ever travelling through Ireland and Scotland, I’d recommend the independent hostels over the YHA ones, they’re a lot more family-feeling in my experience.

Today we went to the Edradour Distillery, which is the smallest whiskey distillery in Scotland.  It was a half-hour walk from the hostel, and they give you a mug (well, a cheap mug; the tea/coffee is expensive, but you get to keep the mug), a free tour, and a free dram.  I learnt a lot about how whiskey is made (the place smelt pretty good, all malty and a bit marmite-y), and re-affirmed that I hate whiskey (the roof of my mouth was numb for a large portion of the tour).  Very cool experience overall.  Also ticked off my mum’s souvenir in the gift shop lol.

This afternoon we went to visit Britain’s (and possibly the world’s) oldest living thing – an epic old yew tree. It used to be 17m in circumference, but over the years people cut chunks off it and some kids actually burnt a hole through the middle, so now there’s two separate trunks about 2m apart.  Still living though!  It’s approximately 3000-5000 years old (because the trunk isn’t entire anymore they can’t count the rings to tell how old it is), and there’s a tradition that says Pontius Pilate was born there. (veracity unknown!)

We also walked the ‘Birks of Aberfeldy’ track, which was a whole bunch of waterfalls.  The track was named after a Robbie Burns poem of the same name that was written about the waterfalls.  I sat in the spot where he allegedly wrote the poem and dad took a picture of me looking all writerly and ponderous and poetic

Visited the Queen’s View (Queen Victoria went there, but apparently it was actually named after Queen Isabella, wife of Robert the Bruce) on the way back to Pitlochry, which is apparently the prettiest view of a loch in all of Scotland.  It was quite nice.

Tonight I beat dad at Trivial Pursuit again, then discovered that the internet was deciding to work for me, yay!  So blogging.

Tomorrow we’re off to Edinburgh.  We will be eating haggis there.  I am not sure how I feel about that yet, but there will be a blog post about it.  We bought it yesterday at the supermarket and I’ve been psyching myself up lol.  I avoided eating ‘haring’ (quite probably the incorrect spelling) in Holland, so I feel obliged to have some haggis.

Ka kite ano

PS.  Notes that I have written down, intending to blog:

* The river Snizort.  I wrote this down because it sounded more Star Trek than Isle of Skye, and it made me lol.

* ‘Hamish the Hairy Haggis’ – this was a children’s book that I found in a souvenir shop.  It was kind of hilarious, but I didn’t buy it.  If I see it again, I might.  I also found ‘Hairy MacLairy’ amongst all the Scottich kid’s books!

* ‘Coffee, cakes, clothes, and other yummy things’ (on a cafe sign).  mmm, t-shirt….

(written 17th October)

From Connemara we travelled on to Donegal, where we stayed another two nights just outside of town.  It wasn’t a terribly exciting place, and the YHA we stayed in was a bit uninspiring compared to the Old Monastery, although we were the only ones there, so room and bathroom all to ourselves!  There was also a tv and a whole pile of videos, including a Spice Girls one (another redeeming feature! ) Annoyingly, the place also seemed to be some kind of community centre, and on the first night, when there was a Boyzone doco on that I quite wanted to watch, they decided they were going to hold a meeting in the TV room.  The next day we went on a tiki tour around the area.  I had wanted to go and see the Slieve League cliffs, and maybe Rosses as well, because of a verse from one of my favourite poems, ‘The Fairies’, by William Allingham:
With a bridge of white mist
Columbkille he crosses
On his stately journey
From Slieveleague to Rosses
(‘He’ is the fairy king.  As in elves, not Elton John.)
Apparently dad had completely failed to make the connection that this was the Slieveleague I had mentioned (how many places called Slieveleague could there be?), despite the fact that this verse (which I had recited to him when I suggested that we go there) was right there in black and white on the information board we read.  He found out from some locals that there were no walks or anything there so decided not to go and have a look.  I assumed he had remembered that I wanted to go and decided not to anyway and spent the rest of the day a little annoyed.
Further along the road we got to Columbkille, where he decided to go for a 10km run and left me to my own devices in the town.

After an hour and a half there, I can understand why the fairy king passed over it.

There is a small town just north of Greymouth called Dobson, which, whenever I go through it (it’s the kind of place you go through, rather than stop at), makes me feel quite depressed.  Columbkille gave me a bit of a Dobson vibe.  Here is what I did:  Visited the cemetery to collect names (this didn’t last long – everyone was called Patrick, Ann, Mary, Brigid, or John.  I am not exaggerating!), and then bought a newspaper and drank tea for an hour.

The second night in the hostel I settled in with my duvet to watch videos, only to discover that the VCR was broken.  I channel surfed for a while (TV is just as dire over here as in NZ), before finding a movie that I’d seen before and liked, so stayed on that.  Then the Irish dance class started up downstairs!

The next day we drove to Belfast, and spent most of the afternoon in the city.  I tried to look for a book on the Irish language (to go with my Welsh one) but no luck.  Dad said I could probably get one on Amazon or something anyway, but that wasn’t really the point – I wanted to buy one in Ireland, otherwise I could probably find a book like that reasonably easily in NZ.  On the way back I got sidetracked in H&M.  This is a store kind of like Glassons crossed with Max.  I’d been past a few stores in various countries and kept seeing this skirt that I liked the look of.  This store had it on sale for £7, so I figured why not try it on.  Sadly it was not to be, but I found plenty of things to try on!  I ended up only buying one thing, a raspberry and aubergine (colours; there are not actually fruits and vegetables on it) striped cardigan for £10, which is probably a bit less than what you’d get it for at home.  Was amused to discover that sizings here are just as bizarre as in NZ – I tried on shirts that were size 12 that fit, 12s that were too small, and ended up having to get a size small cardigan!

Another hostel in Belfast and another room to ourselves (I highly recommend travelling this time of year!), the only drawback was that the mattresses were plastic-covered, which meant your sheets continuously slid off.  I had the TV room to myself for a while (nothing on again!) until a guy came in a started talking to me.  It turned out that he was also a Kiwi.  It also turned out that he was a 9/11 truther (it came out when a documentary on skyscraper construction/safety started).  I know one or two of you who read this blog believe this too, but I don’t so I’m writing about this – just to clarify, I don’t mean any offence to you!  I don’t like arguing with complete strangers, so I politely smiled and said things like ‘oh really?’ as he told me that there was third building next to the twin towers that collapsed at the same time, that didn’t have a plane fly into it.  Apparently this was reported initially the morning of the attacks, but stopped after the first few broadcasts.  I resisted the urge to tell him that I was up pretty early that morning and heard one of the first few news reports on the radio, and didn’t hear anything about a third building!  Also, I’m pretty sure people would MISS a third building that just vanished, but no one ever mentions it.  As far as I could tell, he thought that the planes flew into the buildings, then whatever bombs the government had planted exploded, collapsing the buildings in on themselves.  I didn’t ask him to clarify though.  Apparently all his friends are engineers and they think it’s impossible that buildings would collapse the way the twin towers did just from planes flying into them (pretty sure there haven’t been that many planes fly into skyscrapers!)
Smile.
Nod.

Up nice and early (even dad wanted the alarm set!) for the ferry to Scotland the next morning.  Pretty easy crossing, with free wireless (yay!) so I kept myself occupied for the two-hour trip.  Drove all the way from Stranraer to the Isle of Skye that day.  It was pretty smooth sailing, except for the bit where I navigated us the wrong way at an intersection (in my defence, I thought we were at a different intersection; and if we had been at the one I though, we would have gone the right way!) and ended up driving around a town called Renfrew on the outskirts of Glasgow trying to get back on the motorway.  I am firmly of the opinion that every rental car should be fitted with GPS!  My highlight of the journey was passing ‘Loch Lochy’.  I giggled for what was probably an unnecessarily long time at the thought of a ‘Lake Lake-y’,

Stayed last night at the YHA in Broadford (a few miles from the bridge across the Kyle of Lochalsh, which is between Skye and the mainland.  I beat dad at chess this time (he’d had four beers, so it probably wasn’t the truest victory lol, but hey, I beat him at chess!), and set dad’s cellphone alarm for 7.30, since dad had decided we needed to leave for our walk at 8.15 (apparently 9am is unacceptable, because by then the ‘day is half over’ o.O) and since I was in a girls’ dorm where he couldn’t wake me in time.  I bounced out of bed  (ish), showered, had brekkie, and headed back upstairs to brush my teeth.  On my way past receptionist, the warden handed me a note from dad, informing me that I had missed the walk.  Since it was still only 8.05, I was pretty annoyed (not really to miss the walk, just that I’d got up early for nothing!) I looked at my watch a couple of times and was surprised to discover that it said 9.05.  WTF?  I wasn’t in the shower for that long!  I looked at the cellphone.  8.05.  I am still completely mystified as to how the time on the cellphone changed by an hour in the 24 hours between me setting it for the ferry and setting it for today, but apparently the walk wasn’t my kind of walk anyway, so not a big deal lol.
Headed out to Armadal in the south of the island, coz I wanted to go to the bookshop at the island’s Gaelic college.  It’s the only place in the country (and the world, I guess) that teaches tertiary subjects in Gaelic, so I thought it would be a failry ideal place to pick up a book on the Gaelic language.  Unfortunately it was a Saturday, and while there were a few areas open, including what seemed to be reception (minus a receptionist), all the signs were in Gaelic, so we had no idea which (if any) pointed to the bookshop!  Might try somewhere in Edinburgh.

Went to look at a ruined castle in Kyleakin, then back to the hostel, where I did a 500-piece puzzle before we got the map out and planned the rest of the trip.  Then we went to look at Kinloch church, which is ancient and ruined, complete with trees growing out of the walls and tumbledown gravestones.  Very cool, especially in the half-light.  I took a lot of photos!

Back to the hostel again.  Dad beat me at chess (no beer this time), but it was slightly more sophisticated – we both still had about half our pieces on the board, whereas the last two games have been one or two pieces each chasing each other around the board.

It is after 11, so I’m off to bed, but first, two points:

1- YAY FERNS for beating England in extra time!  I really really hope the game is available on the screens on the plane on the way back (somehow I don’t think so, though), coz it sounds like it was quite exciting!

2- I miss milo!  Before I left NZ I was trying to decide whether there was anything that I would miss enough that I should take it with me.  I decided I could like without marmite and jaffas for six weeks, but figured there’d be milo (or something fairly identical) in the UK.  I was wrong, and I MISS it.  I did some investigating in the supermarket the other day, and decided that Ovaltine looked the most similar, ingredients wise.  It probably was, but it is still wrong.  It’s maltier than milo, and (this is the bit that really bothered me) dissolves in your milk.  I don’t know about anyone else, but I have my milo with cold milk, and I reckon the best bit is the spoonfuls of milk-wetted milo at the bottom of the glass after you’ve drunk all the milk.  Ovaltine denies me this pleasure.
I WANT MILO.  This will be the first thing I eat/drink when I get back to NZ.

Tonight we’re spending our second night in The ‘Old Monastery’ Hostel in a little town called Letterfrack (which makes me lol for no reason I can discern).  There are 3 cats and two kittens, and it’s quite a family sort of feel – everyone hangs out in the common room and there’s no tv so conversations start.  And there’s porridge for breakfast!  My favourite hostel so far I think.

Yesterday we drove up here from Galway.  The hostel there was quite crowded (14 people) to a room, and next door to a pub (so quite loud on a Saturday night, especially after Ireland had just won the game that got them in the next Soccer World Cup finals), but it was fine really.

We stopped a wee way along the road to visit some people that we’d met at the B&B in Birr.  They’d invited us to stop in at their house, which was very cute.  It was an older couple and their grown-up son.  Both parents had been Oxford professors (history and something else that I’d forgotten), and their son had been there too (and written books with his father), and they have a holiday home in Ireland when they want to get away from Oxford for a while.  They were very eager to share what they knew about the area and its history, and talked over each other a lot of the time, just because they had so much to say.  Extremely interesting and also quite amusing to observe!  They insisted on feeding us lunch and showing us the garden (they had manuka, koromiko, and harakeke, so we taught them the Maori names, it felt quite good to be teaching them something lol) so we ended up being there for a good five hours!  They suggested that we take the coastal route to Clifden and mentioned a few spots to look at.  Very cool to meet them.  The son SO reminded me of someone, but I cannot for the life of me think who.  I don’t even know if it’s someone I know, or someone from TV or something.  It’s annoying me no end!

Clifden wasn’t very atmospheric, and our independent hostels guide told us that there was one just up the road, so we kept driving and found this place.  I got one of the kittens in trouble on arrival, coz I picked it up and brought it inside, where it wasn’t allowed.  The warden picked it up by its scruff and threw it out the door.  I felt really bad, since it was my fault, but it must have forgiven me because it jumped on me knee and started purring later on!  I’m good at making friends with animals it seems – there was a dog in the pub in Fishguard that we went to after the movie, and it was very cute (a yellow lab, which I have an even more epic soft spot for thatn your average dog, because I used to have one… I just love labs’ ears – they’re so soft!).  I went to take a photo of it, which was when I realised I didn’t have my camera.  It wasn’t in the car either, but luckily I remembered that I’d taken it out to take a photo of my lime and cider earlier, so I ran back to the other pub, where, thankfully, the woman behind the bar had been keeping it safe.  The dog got epic pats when I got back – if it hadn’t been for her I wouldn’t have realised my camera was missing probably until Ireland!

Today I was a bit slow to get going, and decided I didn’t want to go with dad on his 6.7km walk up a hill.  So I mucked around in the visitors’ centre for a bit, then felt more energetic, so thought I’d do the 1.5km loop track at the foot of the hill.  I had my iPod going and was feeling quite good when I got halfway round, so I decided to switch to the 3km loop instead, and pranced along singing and waving my arms, feeling awesome and probably looking like a right egg (but I was out in the bog so no one could see me ).  Felt even more awesome when I got near the end of the track and saw the couple I’d passed at the start of the 1.5km track just finishing that one, which ran parallel to mine.  Danced along the nature trail track, then went back to the hostel and had mouse traps for lunch.  Nom.  Still not a huge fan of this British Marmite though.

Dad got back a bit later and we headed out to Kylemore Abbey, which was originally built as a (really fancy, like castle-proportions, and castle-look) family home on the edge of a lake.  Some Benedictine nuns took it over in 1920 and started running it as a girls’ boarding school, which it still is.  It was pretty awesome, made me wish I was 13 and off there after the summer hols with the O’Sullivan twins and Bobby and Carlotta (if you are not an Enid Blyton geek you will not get that ).  There’s a church there too, which was built to look like a mini-cathedral (successfully), in honour of the wife of the castle’s original owner.  Nuuns who formerly lived/worked at the school are buried in the graveyard there, and I had fun checking out their names.  Almost every one was Sr. M. middlename.  Mary.  Two of them were Margaret Mary, but everyone else was Mary something.  Dad thought it was strange that some of them had men’s names (there was a Peter, a Bernard, and a Brendan, among other).  I explained (and I’m fairly sure I have this right, but if I don’t, let me know!) that in Catholicism, when you get confirmed, you take a saint’s name as your middle name.  So all these women would have been Mary, then chosen their mn when they got confirmed.  Dad refused to believe that all these parents had named their children Mary.  Me: Yup, the Catholics love their Virgin!  I’ve seen lists of whole families, with all the daughters name Mary, but with different middle names that they are actually called by.  I also pointed out a couple of people we know who come from Catholic families who have Maria as their mn (one of whom is a man!).

Saw another ‘Road Liable to Flooding’ sign.  Two of them actually.  I’ve seen a few so far in Ireland, and they’re driving me up the wall.  I’m pretty sure it should either be ‘Road Liable to Flood’, or Road Prone to Flooding’.

OK I just looked it up, and apparently I am wrong.  A present participle can follow ‘liable’ perfectly elegantly and acceptably.  Still sounds wrong though.  *grump*

/nerd

Then off to the local for beer o’clock.  Got another accidental cider, but not for me this time (I’ve given up on lime and sodas and gone back to orange juice).  Dad just picked a name off one of the taps and asked for a pint of it.  WIN.  So he went and got an actual beer, and we shared the cider.

And just ate way too much chocolate.

On an unrelated note, RIP Stephen Gately.  A friend of mine used to refer to him as ‘the little short ugly one’ in Boyzone.  I’m really not sure why, since he was actually pretty cute.  Was never hugely in Boyzone, although I like their songs that I know.  Kind of big news over here, quite sad, he was way too young.

The Aisling Symes case has been big over here too, since her father was Irish (the radio station we’ve been listening to spoke to the policeman in charge of the investigation the other day; highly strange to hear the Kiwi accent on the airwaves here!).  Just read that they’ve found what is almost certainly her body, which is very sad.

But to finish on a more positive note, I’d like to put out a big fat CONGRATS to the Ferns for winning the inaugural Netball Fastnet World Series!  I haven’t seen any of the games yet (hopefully they’ll be available online somewhere when I get back), and I don’t think any of the rules they were testing will stay in the game (and neither does Casey Williams: “It’s ok, I can’t say it’s my favourite”. Keep up the straight talk, girl, love it!) but we beat them all so YAY!

Thursday was our last day in Wales.  The hostel warden burnt some toast in the kitchen and set off the fire alarm (apparently he did it the morning before too!), which was wonderful.  Dad knocked on my door and asked me if it had woken me up.  Silly question of the year award goes to…   We spent most of the day in Fishguard, which is the town where our ferry to Ireland left from.  Dad caught a bus back along the coast and did part of the coastal walk that goes around most of the south-west of Wales.  I found an internet cafe, then checked out the Fishguard library.  Read almost the entire Monty Python autobiography (did you know that Graham Chapman was a doctor?  Or that George Harrison financed The Life of Brian?) before dad got back, then we went and looked around Newport.  I don’t remember what we did there, so it can’t have been too exciting!

Our ferry wasn’t until 2.45am, so we had a bit of time to kill.  We went for beer o’clock at this little pub where the peace treaty was signed after the last invasion of Britain in 1797 by the French.  Evidently the French were criminals who got let out of prison for the effort, raided Welsh farmhouses when they got here, and turned up to the invasion drunk.  It lasted 2 days, and was highly unsuccessful.  Also unsuccessful were our attempts at ordering drinks.  Dad got his beer ok, but when he ordered my lime and soda, the Kiwi accent got in the way.  Apparently the barkeeper gave him a funny look, but dad didn’t think much of it.

Lime and cider isn’t actually too bad!

Haven’t been having much luck on the lime and soda front here; the first night in London I got good soda but only lime segments, not lime cordial.  The second night I got lime cordial, but flat soda water.  I think the third night I got lime and lemonade.  I gave up for a while, and just had orange juices until the lime and cider in Wales.  Tonight (in Galway) Dad ordered again, and I got lime and lemonade o.O

Srsly, soda water isn’t that exotic is it?

I think I’ll go back to the orange juice!

Anyway!  We went to the movie in Fishguard.  Only one movie every night, but it was only NZ$7 so you can take a gamble without feeling bad lol.  We ended up seeing Unrelated, which wasn’t really my cup of tea, or dad’s.  It was full of spoilt, disaffected teenagers, which is bad enough.  Then the adult main character, who I assume we were supposed to be feeling some sense of affinity with, starts acting the same!  It wasn’t really a bad movie, I just didn’t like it.  There was also a weird scene where they’re all hanging out in a square somewhere in Italy, and they are wearing things that look like a cross between a rain poncho and a hospital gown.  I am still completely mystified as to why!

That took us through to 10.30, so we went to have dinner, then jumped in the ferry line and napped for an hour or so in the car while we waited for check-in to open.  The ferry crossing to Rosslare was fine, I slept through most of it, since the promised free WiFi wasn’t working for some reason .  They had cushioned bench seats so it was easy to curl up with your sleeping bag.  I spotted one enterprising woman who had set up camp on the big foam cushions in the children’s play area!  I also slept through most of the drive the next day.  I feel a bit guilty about being in a different country and sleeping through all the scenery etc but I’ve just been so tired!

We went through Kilkenny and looked at the castle (Anne Boleyn was born there I think, or was related in some way), and stopped in Roscrea too, but it was raining quite heavily by that stage so I stayed in the car.

Then we arrived in Birr, Co. Offaly, which is where our very distant relations live.  I won’t share my surname, since it’s not common (everyone with it is related to me, that kind of uncommon!), but it starts with M.  John M, the first M to come to NZ (the one all of us Kiwi Ms are descended from) in about the 1840s, came from Birr, and there are still Ms in Birr.  We even have a street, AND a ‘close’ lol.  My aunt and grandparents have been there before, as well as a few other NZ Ms, apparently!  I didn’t notice any real physical similarities (although I think one brother might have had a hint of the infamous ‘M nose’), but the whole family there are apparently big readers, so maybe it’s an ancestral trait!  Evidently my grandfather’s cousin visits reasonably often, and is the spitting image of this family’s father, too, so there must be some common genes.  The family that still lives in Birr is very large, 13 siblings, of whom we met 7, and most still live in the town.  I think they’d be the same-ish generation as my dad; I didn’t meet any of their children but most of the ones I heard about were similar ages to my brother and I, or a bit older.  It was pretty cool to be shown around where our ancestors came from, felt a bit of the tangata whenua vibe   Learnt a bit about the family’s history too – apparently we’re originally Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-Norman, and came over with Oliver Cromwell (which is NOT a good association here!) in the 1600s.  Am now on a mission to discover the etymology of our name.

We also went to visit Birr castle, where an M somewhere back in the line served as a sheriff or senator, or possibly both (or maybe there were two different Ms?)

Then this afternoon we drove on to Galway.  Found a hostel (also saw an ‘Emo’ petrol station, which I LOLed at probably for longer than was strictly necessary.  It seems to be a chain, so there WILL be a photo next time I see one), and went for beer o’clock, then had the Irish version of McDonald’s for dinner (I think I might be getting scurvy – I have a serious craving for vegetables!  And fruit salad…with plain yoghurt… and a little honey drizzled over the top… *drool*) then came back to the hostel.

Tomorrow, further west, maybe visiting some people we met in the B&B in Birr who live in Connemara.  My stepsister P is a bit of a horse fiend so I’m going to try to spot some Connemara ponies for her.

Wales again
October 7th
Went driving again today.  The rain had cleared but there was a freezing wind instead so I didn’t do much leaving of the car!  Stopped in a place called Haverfordwest, and found a cafe with free wifi (yay!) then got dragged down to look at the marina (dad really really likes boats).  I also visited a shop that only sold things made from recycled materials, where the shopkeeper had an epic cute spaniel puppy.
Dad was annoying me again today; I don’t know what it is, but he keeps pronouncing things wrong!  Like Haverfordwest.  You’d think it was pretty simple.  Haver.  Ford.  West.  But no.  Haverston was mostly it, but there were some other fairly impressive manglings.  Why is it so difficult to look at a word and say it how it looks?!  It’s not like it’s Welsh or anything!  We went through a town called Saundersfoot yesterday.  Saunders.  Foot.  Nope.  Sandershot.  About a million times.  And the other day he pronounced Nazi to rhyme with ‘jazzy’.  Me: o.O
ARGH.
Anyway!  We stopped at another port for lunch.  Two things that I have seen more than enough of this trip to last a lifetime: churches and ports.  Srsly.  The wind was freezing (and northerly; this whole other-hemisphere thing is confusing sometimes – a northerly is supposed to be nice and warm!) so I got back into the car pretty sharpish after finishing my marmite and cheese sandwich.
Then another one for beer o’clock.  This one had an old brick factory, and a pub whose sign pronounced that it was established in 1743 AD.  Because otherwise people might think it was built in 1743 BC.
In case you can’t tell, I was a little tired and grumpy today!
Got to our hostel (at Pwll Deri – don’t even ask me how to pronounce it!) just after five-ish (after more assorted docks, ports, and beaches) and dad went off for a walk.  Very pretty sunset but he’d taken the camera so only one shot (I will upload some more at some point, I promise!).  I made friendship bracelets while I waited for him to get back, then dinner (still no idea what the mystery green vegetable is!  It doesn’t look like bok choy… and the packet just says ‘spring green vegetables’).  Then Scrabble.  I wanted to play Monopoly, but dad said it would take too long and that Scrabble was a better option (anyone who’s ever played Scrabble with my father knows how hilarious this is – he takes FOREVER to take a turn).  He wasn’t too bad tonight though (although I did end up searching my hair for split ends a couple of times).  It was close, but I ended up winning with ‘queef’ on a triple letter score.  Maybe not totally legit, but it’s in urban dictionary, and I’ve heard multiple people use it, so it totally counts
And now waiting for the washing machine to finish so I can put our clothes on to dry overnight!  Had a strange dream last night that Darren Hayes released a cover of Lady Gaga’s song ‘Paparazzi’… wonder if tonight’s will be just as strange?!

Speaking of strange… I had ‘Once In Royal David’s City’ stuck in my head for most of the day (or the only line that I know, anyway!).  No idea why, and it’s driving me up the wall!

Friday 2nd October:
We arrived in Portsmouth at 6am, then found our way to the other ferry terminal that would take us to the Isle of Wight (no, not the whole terminal, just the ferry ).  We were staying with friends from New Zealand (K & V) who we hadn’t seen in about 3 years, so it was pretty awesome to see them again.  They also have a little girl (A) who had been born since they left NZ, so we got to meet her, although she was a little shy the first day.  The first day we mainly explored the island, and went for a walk along an estuary (saw a gorgeous little really English cottage on the way, all stone with ivy growing up the front and flowers in the front garden), and hunted for conkers, then went out for dinner to a proper English pub.  I had steak and mushroom pie, which was pretty good.  I still like my steak pie with cheese best though!
The second day my dad went to Newport, one of the towns on the island, to have a look.  V had to make lunch for some of her dad’s clients, so I went with her and A.  A was definitely out of her shell by this point, and she and I were very good friends by the end of the day lol.  We did colouring in, then visited the hens and collected eggs, then gave some soft toys diving lessons, then made an island with sofa cushions in the middle of the loungeroom.  We also played quite a lot of soccer (sorry, football!).  I made friends with the dog too; she climbed on my lap at one point (this is a spaniel, btw, not a pocket-sized dog ) and sat there quite happily as long as I kept patting her.
We got lots of news from NZ while we were there too – good old facebook, news gets to the Isle of Wight before it gets four towns up the road!
We left the next day (Sunday 4th), although I wished we could have stayed longer!  K took us on a chain ferry on the way to the big ferry back to the mainland, which I’d never seen before.  Basically it’s a boat, but instead of running on its own steam, it gets pulled across the water on chains.
After the big ferry, we jumped on a train to Salisbury, where we found a YHA, and another cathedral (I should have kept a church count on this trip!).  It was pretty epic, and one of the adjacent buildings housed one of the four remaining copies of the Magna Carta, so it was kinda cool to see that in person.  We missed the supermarket (I tried to tell dad that supermarkets didn’t stay open that late in England, but as per he didn’t listen!) so had Chinese food for dinner and dad managed to lose another sweatshirt somewhere between the cathedral and the hostel (this brings the count of Things He Has Lost to: one pair of shoes (recovered), one address book (recovered), one t-shirt, two sweatshirts.  He now has one micro-fleece in which to brave the cold climes of Scotland!  Ohai clothes shop ).
I had ten hours sleep that night, but still managed to be epic tired the next day.  Turns out I was coming down with something, coz I currently have my second cold in the last four weeks!  We drove further west, dropping in at Stonehenge on the way through.  We thought we probably should since we were in the area!  We didn’t go in the ‘cage’ but I got some pretty good photos.  It’s not as big as I’d imagined, but still pretty impressive when you consider that they did it without any of the cranes etc that we have today.  Stayed for all of five minutes (it had started to rain, the first since we left NZ) then headed off again.  Spent about 3 or 4 hours in Bath, which is quite touristy.  While dad went and visited the original Roman baths, I found a Jane Austen museum!  It wasn’t where she lived, but only a few houses down the road from one of the houses she lived in (there’s a dental surgery there now, but I took pictures!).  I learnt lots that I didn’t already know, and renewed my motivation to read the four books of hers that I haven’t yet!  I also showed remarkable restraint in the gift shop
Then on to Manorbier, which is a little coastal town south-west of Swansea in Pembrokeshire, Wales.  Another YHA (most annoying shower ever!  The water stops every 30 seconds and you have to re-press the button to make it go again!  But otherwise very nice).
(Up to Tuesday 6th now!)  Went for a tiki tour round the coast, first to Tenby where I found a net cafe with wireless, then went and got a chocolate ice cream, which earnt me some odd looks given that it was quite wet and windy (pretty warm though).  Went to the supermarket for supplies, and ended up getting Marmite.  British Marmite is more like vegemite, only quite a bit stronger.  I’d actually wanted peanut butter, but the PB here comes in only two kinds: crunchy, and smooth, both with full salt and sugar.  Not like in NZ where you get three different levels of crunchy, plus the option of +salt,-sugar, or -salt,-sugar, etc.  I don’t like the sugary stuff so Marmite it was!
On to Pembroke, where we explored Pembroke Castle for a good two hours or so, including the actual room where Henry VII was born.  Did you know that the Tudors were originally Welsh?  Coz I totally didn’t lol.
I was not so restrained in the info centre, and bought myself a book on the Welsh language (like, linguistics, history, nerdy kinda book).  Decided to start a collection, will now be after similar in Ireland and Scotland.
And back to the hostel.  Bacon, brocolli, leek (since we’re in Wales!), and some green vegetable that we’ve eaten for two nights in a row now, but still can’t identify (I think it might be bok choy?) stir fried with rice, yum.
And now off to bed with my nerdy Welsh book and a box of tissues!