Steve n Jen's UK adventures

UK and European adventures. Read on my pretties, and discover what two stray Aussies can get up to on their travels.......

13 December 2010

Dec 2010 a


Fri 03 Dec 2010
Thankfully most main roads have been gritted, so the snow isn't such a problem as it had been earlier this week.
However, Steve had been planning on having a nice relaxing afternoon off work, but due to discovering a flat tyre this morning, he's spent about 6 hours arranging purchase of a new tyre. The problem being that the car is an import and has specific tyres.
Anyway, Dan and Elizabeth arrived in goodly time, and we collected Judith from the local airport. Drove up to the event in Newmarket. Well, we did also have about a half hour's diversion too. Eventually got to site before 10pm. Got dressed quickly, and 5 minutes later there was a short SCA court.
Steve was brought up and sent to vigil to consider elevation to the Order of the Laurel - a big surprise for him and a great honour.

Here's the film showing his surprise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaloCF4F788

 

Sat 04 Dec 2010

Jen says thanks to those who knew and managed to keep the secret.
The ceremony was very touching, with many praising his qualities - Mistress Judith, HRH Sir Vitus, Mistress Kiriel (who's journey to the site was one of great determination), Nerissa as a Rose, and Baroness Ursula as a speaker from the populace. There were also messages read out from Acacia and Drakey, laurels from Alaric's previous Kingdom of Lochac.
The laurel medallion Alaric received continued its young tradition, passing to a new Insulae Draconis laurel, and was presented with a beautiful lineage scroll. Alaric was elevated for his knowledge and skills at the fine art of the Feast, with his specialty being in ancient Roman cookery.

So now here are the laurelling photos:

 



 
 

 And some photos of the evening's dancing. He really did look like something descended from Mount Olympus. Jen was on percussion, accompanying with the fab Mistress Kiriel on recorder and crumhorn, plus one other - Valeria occasionally on recorder.
Dancing - music provided by Mistress Kiriel

 
One very excited little Laurel!

Sun 05 Dec 2010
So we made our way back home, unpacked and rested.

Mon 06 Dec 2010
Steve starts coming down with a headcold as a result of the weekend's festivities....

Wed 08 Dec 2010
Steve's headcold meant he skipped fighter practice tonight.

Thu 09 Dec 2010
Tonight Steve decided to pamper Jen with dinner, foot rub and movie. Sweet.

Fri 10 Dec 2010
Jen started coming down with a headcold this afternoon. So, took the sensible option and stayed in tonight instead of going to a housewarming party.

Sat 11 Dec 2010
Jen is useless today and has a 4 hour 'nap' in the afternoon, which didn't even affect her regular sleep! Together we watched the three extended Lord of the Rings movies back to back.

Sun 12 Dec 2010

After another placid day at home, we headed out before dinner, to enjoy live on stage: Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds at the O2 (millenium dome). It was really great - Jeff Wayne conducted, and Justin Haywood sang his bits! Unfortunately the lady playing Beth was rubbish compared to the CDs, and Jason Donovan (as the young artillery man) sang most of his belted-out notes too sharp! He also failed to do anything about his Aussie accent and speech patterns. He said "reckon" a few times - for shame!!

However, it was overall really great. A fun surprise was this martian tripod puppet which lowered on to the stage and swayed about. It also shot out flame jets onto the front edge of the stage! Pretty cool.




02 December 2010

Nov 2010 b




Tue 16 Nov 2010
And so Autumn has turned very cold. Today there's a sturdy frost over everything outside. Poor Steve took 20 minutes just to scrape away 1-2cm of ice from the windscreen. Here he is scraping the inside too! (above)
Below: Autumn leaves in the gutter edged in the frost.

  
Fri 19 Nov 2010
 
After work, Jen decides that the Xmas tree is going up! Yes it's early, but all the adverts and stores already have Xmas songs and decorations everywhere. Here's Steve adding the finishing touch to the tree - the angel on top.



Just in time, the tree's done. Kev and Tash turn up for a lovely Steve-cooked dinner of chook parmijiana, wedges, dessert, and some serious fine ale drinking. Here's Tash trying to hide from the blogger... no such luck sweetie.

Sun 21 Nov 2010
Today we went out and saw the new film, Harry Potter and the DH part I.
We're both eagerly awaiting part II now.

Tue 23 Nov 2010
After work we visited the doctor together. We're now vaccinated against Typhoid - sigh, the downside of intending to visit Egypt. It will be so nice (and traditional for us Aussies) to be somewhere warm for Christmas.

Wed 24 Nov 2010
Steve goes to fighter practice and got whacked on the typhoid shot (arm) - ouch!

Fri 26 Nov 2010
This evening Steve cooked up a fab favourite of Duck in cherry sauce, for our visitors Soph and Paul. Well it is now almost their 6 month wedding anniversary and the happy couple stayed over for tomorrow's adventure of...

Sat 27 Nov 2010
Filming. Jen has a go at mucking about with a camcorder, with Soph and Paul the stars of the action, and Jen will get around to playing with video editing too in the coming weeks. Thanks to Soph and Paul who patiently followed Jen's direction. Hooray for Steve as the official on-set caterer too.  :-)  Especially the fab nachos for lunch!

Sun 28 Nov 2010
With it being so chilly outside, we stayed in. Steve had a great day playing online games with friends from around the world. Jen got stuck into some spring cleaning (or should that be autumn cleaning).
Here's the frost on the car today (right)... yep the photo was taken from the upstairs window, where it is warm.

Tue 30 Nov 2010
Snow! Steve drove to work in this!  Jen got the bus.


Above: zoomed-in view from Jen's window/wall at work; 
Below: and another shot from Jen's work - you can see the millenium dome (the O2) and Canary Wharf skyscrapers at the horizon.

Wed 1 Dec 2010
Steve goes to fighter practice, and was surprised by and extra 3 or so inches of snow appearing on the car in the 3 hours he was there.
Jen sensibly stays indoors, and emails a bunch of organ builders and suppliers to enquire about getting flue pipes made for building our own portative organ - a project which Steve generously offered to do for Jen awhiles ago and its only recently that Jen's been interested in deciding how she wants it to look.

Thu 2 Dec 2010
MORE snow!!!!! And yes we're both getting to and from work OK. Steve finds its much much more slippery on the roads as the snow has been compacted into ice.
Here's our front door inside and out; and shots in the neighbourhood.

Jen says hooray for snow boots!