So we've been meaning to show you where we live for a while... but good things take time.

Kitchen/Lounge
Here is our kitchen. It's pretty new and has all the essentials: microwave, oven, dishwasher, full size fridge, underbench freezer. The oven and hobs are gas (as are all the ovens, hobs, and heating over here) which is so much faster than electric to cook on. The lounge and kitchen are joined and on the same floor as our room.

Our bedroom
Our bedroom is pretty big and is basically a bedroom at one end and an office at the other. We had a whole lot of photos printed while we were in Thailand and they are all up on the walls and the bed spread is also another Thailand purchase.

From the outside
This is from the road. That is Kate's car out front in the disabled park (which isn't a disabled park anymore apparently). If you look really closely, you'll see Aaron in the window of our room and Kate popping out from her loft bedroom.

Bathroom/Laundry
Just the norm here - shower, basin, toilet, washing machine and drying rack. We also have another toilet - which is good at times. The bathroom and spare toilet are on the same floor as Richard's room. It is work in progress, but I'm used to living in half-finished houses so I feel like I'm at home.

Back Garden
The garden is quite big - a lot bigger than I expected from a London house and is off the back of Kate's parent's flat on the first floor. We made good use of it during the summer, getting out there for BBQ's and just to sit in the sun and read.

Think that pretty much wraps up the tour - hope you enjoyed it!!!

And on a lighter note... Would you give money to this man?

Hi to Aaron's dad and good on him for getting out there and helping out with the collection for the blind

Look over there! It’s a ‘Hairy Coo’ (Cow). We have all seen them, but it is still cool to see them in their natural environment. The Scottish highland. Just look at the horns on the blighter! Actually, the bull put those horns to some use while we were there. You see that Asian kid with the brand new North Face puffy jacket, he got his photo with the Coo and started to walk away, at this point the Coo turned and flicked its head slightly. The tip of his horn caught and split up the back of his jacket, it was so quick and split it wide open (about 20cm long). Fluffy down was flying everywhere. I personally couldn’t stop laughing, the tip of the Coos horns had little clumps of fluff on it :+)

The story behind this chapel is this: This guys mother was getting old and sick, and could no longer make the trip to the local church. So her son single handily, with no prior architectural experience made this chapel. It is very impressive, and pulls various styles from all around in its construction. Never afraid to preach my ideas, I felt quite at home at the top of the alter, commanding my flock.

For lunch we went to a 300 year old pub, it was heavy from the freshly lit smoky coal fire. And you could just feel the atmosphere in there, given a middle of winter blizzard, you could imagine people stuffed in there, fires lit at both end of every room (there were almost two fire places in every room) and each person with a bottle of whiskey.

After lunch we went to Stirling, where there is a monument to William Wallace, at which point our guide pulled the movie of Braveheart to complete pieces, removing any and all feeling that it was slightly based on reality. After that we headed through Glasgow and on to Edinburgh to fly home.

Transport woes
So. We are in Edinburgh, it is raining and we have about 2 hours to get to the airport for our flight home. We had told our friend Chris that we couldn’t meet him for a feed (and scab a ride to the airport), so we were going to catch the bus. So we get directions and start searching for the bus stop, we can’t find it. We start to ask people slowly starting to get nervous about the time. People point us to the bus station, about 5 minute walk away, now to me this sounds like an obvious place to catch a bus to the airport, people come in from all over the country, you get on another bus and get to the airport. But no. There is no bus to the airport from there, so we are starting to get towards panic mode (i.e about spend lots of cash on a taxi) when I start ignoring the individuals and start asking groups and mobs of people in the hope one of them knows where the stop is. One person did, and we found it. Pretty much out of the way and not on any main roads.

We get into Gatwick about 11:30, there are no direct trains to our place so we jump on the next one to East Croydon which is normally where you change to get on another train to our place. But it is Sunday night and by the time we get there, we missed the last train by about 2 ½ hours. So we go outside to hopefully catch a bus (we are still a long way from home, about a £40-£50 taxi ride). We were actually lucky enough to find a night bus line, which went pretty, close to our place; it would drop us off at about a 20-minute walk away. Waiting at the bus stop for an hour we realise its not coming. Stopping another bus we ask the driver were it was and he tells us that it doesn’t stop here, the sign is wrong. The sign is wrong. I am livid. On the point of tearing the pole down and beating the bus with it. We go down to were the bus actually stops, wait another 30 minutes, get on and get home in time to get up at 6:30 for work the next morning.

The next morning the bus was leaving a 9am, everyone managed to get up in time and get down to the bus to head off to Rogie Falls and Loch Carron. At this point I should point out we are in the Highlands, unfortunately the name is a tad misleading, they aren’t very high, in comparison to the mountains in the New Zealand they are more like big hills. But the scenery is very nice, being late autumn the trees were all different shades of yellow and red. A lot of it is very similar to the scenery in New Zealand.

Somewhere along the drive, Doug and I jumped out of the bus to give a demonstration for the tour group and anyone driving past of how the Scots put out brush fires. It basically consists of large tennis racquets and you beat the grass. To me it is looks like it is more likely fan the flames into a large inferno, but hey, each to their own.

After a lunch on the shore overlooking the Isle of Skye, we visited Eilean Donan Castle, the castle seen in the ‘Highlander’ movie series. Actually we sore a lot of movie famous castles, we saw the two castles from ‘Monty python and the Holy Grail’ and the ‘bridge of death’ where you must answer me these questions three:

Bridgekeeper: Hee hee heh. Stop! What... is your name?
Arthur: It is 'Arthur', King of the Britons.
Bridgekeeper: What... is your quest?
Arthur: To seek the Holy Grail.
Bridgekeeper: What... is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?
Arthur: What do you mean? An African or European swallow?
Bridgekeeper: Huh? I-- I don't know that! Auuuuuuuugh!

Heheh, anyways… after the various castles and battlefields (there isn’t much to take a photo at these really, it is just a grass paddock, swamp or forest) we glanced at Fort William and Glen Coe before heading to Oban to spend the night.

Next stop was at Pitlochry for lunch, it is a small town. So Carmen and I grabbed some food from the supermarket and walked down to the river/dam to look at the salmon ladder allowing the to get around the hydro-station. We saw a couple, ate our lunch and jumped back on the bus. Had some more whiskey.

Few small stops later, we found ourselves at Killiecrankie, the first large victory 1689 Jacobite Rebellion, this was a rebellion against the newly appointed King (the Dutch) William of Orange. Outnumbered 2 or 3 to 1 the Scottish Jacobites rolled over the English regulars using some the layout of the land to their advantage. Unfortunately their leader Viscount Dundee died in the battle and the army lost momentum. After a look about, we got back on the bus and drank some more whiskey.

We arrived to the almighty Loch Ness late in the afternoon, the Loch holds enough water to submerge the entire UK in a foot of water. Keeping an eye for Nessy, we squinted at every floating stick, ripple or rock which showed its self on the surface of the loch. At this point the tour guide started to press a little pressure on us to go for a plunge into the Loch. It is cold, it is nearly winter, and did I mention it was cold? He started going on about you will only be here once and …. A bit of pressure and to much whiskey through the day, the majority of the bus stripped down and jumped into Lock Ness. At this point I would like to note, that Carmen did not go in. Chicken :+)

After our swim, we quickly rushed around the corner to Inverness to our hostel to get changed and warm. Hit a couple of pubs and get a feed. I tried the local speciality. Haggis! It isn’t anything special really and just tastes and feels like dry meatloaf. We couldn’t not take a photo of the condom vending machine in one of the Scottish pubs, Whiskey flavoured! At the time, it was very amusing. And that concluded day one.

Bags packed and ready to go, Thursday night I meet Carmen at Gatwick airport and we caught an Easyjet flight up to Edinburgh. We were lucky enough to catch up with Chris Singleton who picked us up from the airport and put us up for the night. Chris is a mate of ours from Uni.

We were going on a MacBackPackers, 3 Day ‘Highland Romp’ tour of Scotland. It is a pretty good trip, normally it is a jump-off jump-in tour, with a bus leaving every day, so you can stop anywhere for as long as you want and jump on the next bus. Although it sounds like a lot of driving to get around Scotland in a couple of days its not that bad, for example Edinburgh to Inverness is only a 3 ½ hour drive, so if you spread that out over a long day with lots of sightseeing and stops on the way, you only ever drive for 30 minutes at a time.

The bus left Edinburgh at about 9am so we had a couple of hours in the morning to walk around looking at the City. The morning was very ‘crisp’ to say the least as it is getting near winter over here, but the city is still very beautiful. A lot of space, nice stone work and clean. So off north we headed…Our tour guide was Doug, he was a local Scotsman from Edinburgh. His story telling abilities were fantastic and he was constantly spinning a tale of the Scottish history as we drove from place to place.

One of our first stops was at Edradour Distillery, the smallest whisky distillery in Scotland. They make about 15 barrels a week, which although doesn’t sound like very much on its own, when you think that’s 15 barrels a week, 780 barrels a year and the age the whiskey for at least 10 years, they need storage for 7,800 barrels. Then you think of the much larger distilleries which make 10, 100 times that amount. We had our free sample of casket strength whiskey, good stuff for stripping paint I hear, and than our tour of the facilities. It is defiantly small scale stuff, only three staff and the whole process would almost fit in your garage (well a New Zealand garage).

The were about 7 of us on the bus, so more than a double seat each. Jumping back on, we found our nice tour guide had bought us a big bottle of whiskey. Our challenge was to drink it before getting to Loch Ness a few hours later. We found out why later…

Straight after work, we jumped on a train to my great-half removed-second (to be honest I cannot remember where they fit into the family tree) Uncle and Aunts. Although only an hour out of London, it is very quiet and relaxing up there. I think it will definitely be a weekend escape location if we want to 'just get out of the city'. They did offer us to come back any time, so we will try and hold them to the offer.

Incredibly nice people, and very welcoming. Lynda, Howard and their son Gary (who we stayed with for the first couple of weeks when we arrived in the UK) gave us a toured guide around the local area. Including St. Ives where Oliver Cromwell was born and started his revolt against the Monarchy. Apparently even to this day the Royal family wont visit St. Ives because of its history. There isn't much to St. Ives apart from the limerick, so you take that away and it disappears from the map and just becomes another little town.

We found Cambridge very much like Oxford. A town completely based around the University. The University was very impressive, unlike Oxford we could look around some parts of it. We were able to go into Kings College church, which is lined with stained glass windows, and intricate stone and wood work over the entire building. Unfortunately you were not allowed to take photos inside so, we will simple have to try and remember what we saw.

The other highlight of Cambridge was watching the amateur punting. Some people simply do not have co-ordination. They were losing their poles, crashing into each other, the walls and the over hanging bridges.

Some more photos here, and there will be some more coming soon, so check back in a week. The added benefit of checking back next week is you will be able to see this weekends trip to Scotland.

Friday night was the official Conoco Phillips Christmas Party (in October - I know!!!) and it was held at the London Zoo. The theme was bugs and the pre-dinner drinks were in the Bug House.

With Aaron currently working there, and me having work there in the not-so-distant past, it was really great! Not one of those dinner parties where one person knows everyone and the other person knows no-one. It was very, very posh with the guys all in black tie and the gals dressed up to the nines. So different to see the guys that I used to see in the office in open-necked shirts in a bow-tie and jacket (though they didn't seem to last long on most of the guys as they opted for comfort over style).

It was a great chance to me to catch up with the friends that I'd made while I was working there and they were all very keen to hear about how my new job is going, which by the way is going very well. My official title is Technical Manager and I'm in the Packaging department, which means I'm learning all about blisters, bottles and cartons for the pharmaceutical industry. I've been very busy already and can see that it will be a very rewarding position.

Well I'm feeling a bit homesick with race-season starting at home, so there was nothing else for it but to plan an excursion to a race-track. So I started looking into it and there just happened to be a race-meeting at Brands Hatch on the 2nd and 3rd of October. Coincidently, a couple of the guys that were out for the Formula Ford season in NZ last year were racing in the Formula Ford championship here - Joe D'Agostino and Charlie Kimbell.

Anyhow, I managed to convince (didn't take much) Nat and Shannon, another couple of kiwi motorsport enthusiasts that we've met since we arrived here to come down for the day as well. It's not easily accessible by public transport, so we hired a car and split the costs. After a series of small disasters, we still managed to arrive in time to see the first race just finishing so that was pretty good considering...

The circuit is the best circuit I've ever been to as a spectator with multiple viewpoints that allowed you to see the whole circuit. As they were only using the short track, the laptimes were all sub 1 minute even in the rain, and the short track is more like a karting track from home with lots of hill - some of them very steep. The weather was pretty awful, rainy and cold (just standard for a race-track I'm hearing my family say), but we were well prepared.

Racing was all pretty interesting, with the rain making for a few dicey moments. There are also quite a few options to pass on the track, and with the spectators being able to see the full track - you could always find an interesting battle in the field to watch.

All and all a good day out, but hoping it won't be raining next time we head down.