20051128 Festive season

It’s been ages since our last update, and to be honest, we just have not had time! Since the beginning of November, we seem to have been all over the place without a minute to ourselves. Busy, but we wouldn’t have had it any other way.

We started with a weekend in Manchester, visiting Tessa and Bronwyn (Gwyn’s mom and sister). They have a lovely semi detached in a suburban area in Manchester, close to just about everything. We flew in on Friday night and spent Saturday in an old private estate/national park called Tatton Park. It was beautiful, you could almost smell the history. We spent ages walking around the grounds (or should I say mud), exploring the Christmas market and wondering around the private gardens. You could spend an entire day just doing that! Most importantly Lol saw his first reindeer, a total highlight!{mosimage} That Sunday we spent a quiet day at the house, enjoying a family lunch as a bit of a birthday celebration, before heading back to the airport.

The next day was Gwyn’s birthday, a whole bunch of us went of to one of our favourite Italian restaurants in Richmond (Prezzo). It was a great day, it’s weird not to see the gang and family, but enjoyable nonetheless.

The weekend after the birthday, we hired a car and made our way through the Cotswolds towards Birmingham. We cautiously made our way out of London and on through Oxford and stopped at 2 small towns, Stow-on-the-Wold and Broadway. Both towns are so small (blink and you miss it kind of towns), but very quaint. It was cold and rainy, so we enjoying cosying up in a 200 year old pub with bangers and mash.

We then slowly made our way to Birmingham to visit Kitch and Lucy (Lol’s grandparents). We managed to explore Birmingham city centre (their version of the London Eye and the Aquarium mainly). We also spent some quality time with Brian, Bridget and the cousins Ciara and Christoher. I (Gwyn) am glad to say that I seem to be the favourite at this stage with the kids, much to Lol’s disgust.

On our way back from Birmingham, we popped into Stratford-upon-Avon. We only managed to fit Anne Hathaways Cottage in, but it was beautiful. We will definitely go back there for a weekend. It looks as though you can hire bikes and make your way across the town and there are a number of lovely walks as well. So we will be going back there in the spring.

We started this week off by going Ice Skating at the Tower of London. Who would have thought we would be doing that? We went with some of Lol’s colleagues and we didn’t fall once!! We wouldn’t have hurt ourselves anyway because we were so well padded. We then spent an hour walking around London and over the bridge again and again. We were looking for a specific restaurant and no one knew what the address was…in the cold!! We found it eventually and had a great time anyway.

Other than that, the biggest news is that Winter has officially arrived. It really felt like it was overnight. Maximum of 6 degrees and minimum of 1 on average so far and snow in Scotland. Should be a white Christmas in Edinburgh (think positive, think positive). The funniest thing, the other morning we were walking to work and jumping in all the puddles, weird, but they were all blocks of ice! I keep telling them at work that if I am late, it’s because I am building snow men in the garden.

So we have some great photos http://photos.yahoo.com/the_bowens have a look let us know how you are all doing!!

Miss you all.

L&G

20051017 Venice

Bon journo,

Our next anniversary is going to be difficult to top, Venice was super romantic and we really recommend it to any man trying to earn big points with his woman! We spent 4 days in the little sinking city seeing a number of the historic sites, tasting the food and soaking up the cosmopolitan atmosphere. Our hotel was a 14th century converted house set alongside one of the canals and conveniently located to the main sites. Some of the highlights included feeding the millions of fat cheeky pigeons on St Marks, taking a lovely gondola trip down the little canals, walking on the beach in Lido, watching the sun set over the city and tasting all the interesting food (I even tried cuttlefish pasta – basically a plate of black worms). I have loaded up some photos if you want to see how picturesque the place is. Oh and thanks for all the anniversary well wishes we got, much appreciated. We got back into London on Wednesday evening and have settled back into the usual swing of things.

Yesterday we popped off to the Borough market, a rather interesting little market close to London Bridge where lots of fresh produce is sold. Gwyn purchased probably the world’s tastiest fudge and some home made breads, I on the other hand found monster mushrooms and some fresh vegetables. It’s a good place to go after you have eaten; otherwise those smells will seduce you into buying everything in site.

Work is busy, but there is nothing too exciting to report on in that area. The weather is starting to turn now. The weeks are a bit confused, a couple of really warm days followed by chilly days and then a couple of rainy days. You can definitely feel the difference though and it is starting to get dark at 18h30 or so. It is going to be a shock to the system when winter arrives, but we are slowly buying proper clothes, extra blankets and boots, so lets hope that we make the adjustments well.

Highlights coming up are a weekend in Manchester followed by a weekend in Birmingham; need to catch up with the families. In between, we are trying to organise our Christmas trip. Scotland is looking good for us, but we may look at Europe too.

Well, we hope that everyone is doing well, enjoying the summer…those of you in the Southern hemisphere. We are missing you all!

Love

L&G

20050925 I survived

Hi Guys,

All is well with the two of us over here in London, been real tourists over the last two weekends. Went to see the Queens abode - Buckingham Palace - full of bling bling, over the top furnishings, great historical facts and security. I liked her garden best – basically the size of the Western Cape, equipped with its own dam - good place for a spot of night fishing! I am now due an award, I have survived, Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Kensington Palace and Hampton Court Palace (and Gwyn only purchased one ornamental tin through the whole process)

Yesterday was a fantastically sunny day and we decided to head off to Greenwich. We took a well recommended river cruise (City Cruises) from Westminster Pier, with commentary by a hilarious rough Pom. He was quite opinionated and gave a description of each building, according to the British Public. For example, we saw the world’s largest motorbike helmet… also know as the offices of the Mayor of London (see picture). The cruise was ideal for getting great views of Big Ben, the Bridges, The Eye, St Pauls, Canary Wharf, etc…. Did you know the word ‘Wharf’ is an acronym - ‘Warehouse at river front’? We also had a superb view of the homes of the rich and famous. One bedroom apartments on the Thames can cost of to £2 000 000. Heck of a price for a view of a brown river. Imagine what you can get in Camps Bay for that?

Greenwich is a winner of a place, with oodles of history, beautiful architecture and markets, it is a real escape from the city’s hustle and bustle. We managed to go to the Cutty Sark, a tea clipper (huge wooden sail ship) used to bring tea into the UK from China back in the day, The Royal Observatory - the home of Greenwich Mean Time and the Meridian (while we were there, a little boy asked his dad why it is called east and west – his answer, “because we are British decided to do it that way!”), National Maritime Museum and some fab markets – home made nougat with pistachios and chocolate, all kinds of olives, boerewors, art, fruit and veg and some xmas shopping.

Otherwise we are all doing well, missing you all, along with the warm SA summer.

Best,

L&G

20050918 Our trip back to SA

As SA rushes into summer, London is slowly becoming gloomy and wintery. At least that it what it feel like today as it is dark and rainy. Great movie and book weather. Its hard to imagine that we were in sunny SA a couple of weeks ago.

Our trip back to SA was quite a surprise for most of you I am sure. Opa was not doing so well, so Lawrence and I decided to go over for a visit. We are very happy to say that by the time we left, Opa was up and walking around, even playing billiards. It was wonderful to see everyone again and visit the old haunts once more. Looking forward to a longer trip back in March next year, so that we can spend more quality time with everyone.

Other than that flying trip, nothing of great excitement has happened, just work-home-work. We have booked our next trip though; we will be going to visit Venice for our Anniversary next month. We will let you all know when the photos for that are up.

All our love

L&G

20050726 Viva le France

Never a dull moment in the Bowen household and the past two weeks have been no exception!

The 14th July marked a day of birthdays. Trevor (Lawrence’s dad, Diane (Richard’s mom) and Tessa (Gwyn’s mom). Tessa’s came through to London to celebrate with us. Lawrence and I were still at work but Bronwyn and mom seemed capable of entertaining themselves with a whole lot of sightseeing. We all had dinner (Shawn and Nadia included) at a Steakhouse on the Thursday and we had a toast to everyone at home, especially Trevor who celebrated his 60th…we wish that we could have been there to celebrate with you. On the Friday, we went to see the Lion King in Covent Garden. It was fantastic! You can’t imagine the costumes that they wear; even we Africans were impressed because they really did look like animals.

That weekend we went to visit the Tower of London. The highlight was definitely the Crown Jewels…what were De Beers thinking when they gave that Diamond away. We also managed to squeeze in a visit to Kew Gardens. It deserves more time though because it is massive and absolutely beautiful.

This weekend we spent in Paris (ah so blasé). We left on Friday night after work via the Eurostar. What a good way to travel. 3 hours later we were in the centre of Paris waiting for a taxi. We booked a hotel in the centre of Paris, close to the Arc de Triomphe and it looked very quaint when we got there on Friday night. When we woke up and went outside on Saturday, it was exactly what I had pictured. You had to walk through a street market to get our hotel, which was in a little square. The street market sold fresh fruit, veg, seafood and foie gras. Lovely.

On Saturday, we spent most of the day on a “hop-on-hop-off” bus where you are taken to all the sights and can get on and off the bus as you want. We spent time at Le Louvre, Notre Dame, Eiffel Tour, Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Elysees.

Words cannot describe the feelings of actually seeing theses places. The Louvre was breathtaking (it was not given the time that it deserves, but we did see Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo…as well as a whole lot of statues of men without winkies, not sure what that was all about). Notre Dame was amazing in that a feeling of peace comes over you when you walk in. The cheery on top was definitely the Eiffel Tour. We spent about 2 hours in the queue, but you cannot complain when you finally get up there. Lawrence and I went to the second level, couldn’t get the guts for the highest level. We finished the day at the Champs Elysee and Arc de Triomphe, just awe inspiring.

Sunday was designated Tour de France day, just as well we did because all the shops close on a Sunday in Paris. We found a spot on the pavement at about 14h00 and had to stand until the riders came through, at about 17h00. We complained about the long wait, but all was forgotten when the riders came in. One big bunch of them, coming through at a speed of note. They came past 8 times, so we could see their strategies in play. Lawrence saw a whole lot more that I did, oh to be tall!

After the Tour de France, we had a bit of a rest because the feet were suffering and then decided to see the sights of Paris at night. This is a must for anyone coming to Paris. We made our way to the Eiffel tour at about 9pm. We bought some crepes from a street vendor and sat on some steps over looking at tower and waited for it to get dark enough to see the lights. Please have a look at the photos because no words can describe it, made the whole trip worthwhile. We also had a look at the Arc de Triomphe and Champs Elysee at night, lovely.

Monday was spent at Leisure. We took a boat cruise along the Seine for a last look at Paris and then made out way to the train station for the trip home.

This was an excellent initiation of travelling in Europe and we are already negotiating our next trip.

20050710 News at last

Hello Guys,

It has been a while since our last update just been so busy with work that our life has kind of felt like it was slipping into a work sleep work sleep rhythm. But we have actually done a lot since.

I suppose you have all heard about the bombing in London, terrible event which has really hurt the city. Gwyn and I were lucky to have been at work when it all happened and as we don’t really go into the city have not really been affected by it. Things have seemed to return to normal, although the mood is very sombre. There are still a lot of people missing and emergency services are pulling bodies out of the tubes…terribly sad and we are so grateful that we weren’t there.

On a lighter note, let’s pick up from our last update. Gwyn and I went up to Birmingham to visit my family, Gran, Granddad, Aunt, Uncle and my cousins (the 2 little ones who have been shown on the banner for the last couple weeks). We caught the Virgin train from Euston station (yip the station where a bomb went off) and compared to our last trip on the Mega (disaster) Bus, this was the Rolls Royce of travel – comfortable and fast. Got to Brum at 9h00 and we had a quick look round the city centre where Gwyn will definitely be going back to hit all the fashion shops and the 8 story high book shop. We caught a cab up to my grandparents and it was really great to see them and the rest of the family again. Their old folk’s home, Elizabeth Prout Gardens, is grand with lots of friendly people and great care. There are emergency buttons and intercoms in all the rooms. At a stage, I went into the bathroom and pulled what I thought was a light switch next to the john. Next things, the wall in the bedroom was talking to Gwyn asking if everything was ok. We were picturing the NHS rushing in to get me out of the toilet. Funny for us, but a godsend for the older people.

Trevor had made an impression on a number of ladies who live there - apparently he is quite the Casanova! It was the firs time that I had seen my 2 little cousins, Christopher was expecting his cousin (me) to be his size and was a bit disappointed when we were larger and older. Ciara was a bit more relaaxed, and by the time that we left, they were chatting away, cool kids. Gran and Granddad are really looking good and full of naughty jokes, next time we go up we are going to be spending some more time - 2 days is way too short.

We also did the strawberries and cream thing, popped off to Wimbledon one Saturday afternoon to catch a couple matches. The queue to get in was incredibly long and took us over 2 hours to get in to the place, but everything was so organised we did not mind the wait. Andrew Murray was playing so all the poms were out in force sitting on Henman hill, where there is a huge TV, supporting the young lad -. We caught about 3 games and had a smasher of a time. Next year we will be doing the centre court thing with my mom… can’t wait.

Yesterday we went off to Hampton Court Palace for the famous flower show. The palace sits on a massive estate with meticulously kept gardens. The show was very interesting with highlights being the 4 Seasons pavilion, which as you moved through, takes you from summer to winter scenes, very well done. Is was an interesting show, but quite frustrating in that we do not have a garden to do up, although we did manage to steal a lot of ideas for small gardens. More interesting for us was the tour of the Palace itself which dates back to the 1600’s. One can just imagine the historical figures walking the same paths as we were. We even had a look at the maze, not sure that I will list it on my 10 favourite things to do when I am bored as the royalty in the 1700’s did, but it was fun nonetheless.

This week is Trevor’s birthday (quite a big one but not sure if we should mention it here). Sorry that we are not there, but we will have a toast to you on Thursday. Tessa (Gwyn’s mom) shares the same birthday as Trevor, and she is coming down to London from Manchester on Wednesday to spend the birthday in London. We are going to see The Lion King on Friday to celebrate.

Then the next weekend it is off to Paris. Yipppeee….

20050613 Last week on Days of the Bowens

This must come as quite a shock, yes an update in less than a week since the last! We have had a couple highlights this week, long boating on Wednesday, Gwyn rolled off her City and Guilds project and is moving onto a new project at Siemens in Staines (Ali G hails from Stains too), our anniversary - eight years as an item, bank accounts finally being sorted out, both now with national insurance numbers, booked our trip to Le Tour (Tour de France), and I saw the Bat mobile!

Long boating…. in London?... sounds a bit odd, but Shawn’s god mother, Josie, who lives over in Maida Vale (posh area) has a long boat, and yes there are canals in London. We were invited to a dinner cruise which took us from Maida Vale up to Camden Town and back. We were welcomed on board with a ‘long’ glass of wine and set off with Shawn at the helm, guiding us down the windy cannel through some long tunnels under roads and past some of the wealthiest areas in London. Houses here go for a staggering £10 million and are owned by some rich Arab sheiks. Now we know where to hide if the Al K’Aida decide to attack London…the only place that won’t be bombed! Mom, we saw Michael Flatly’s place too,not too shabby! We moored up at Camden, all of the market was packed up, but the weird people (punks, fairies, goths, walking S&M advertisements, pin cushions, etc) were still around. To continue past Camden required going down a lock, which was just too much effort after the amount of wine that we had already consumed, so it was an about turn, off to find a spot to settle for dinner. Strangely we came to a holt alongside the London zoo…. Josie prepared us a pasta dinner and the 7 passengers sat inside, enjoying the spoils. After that, we decided to take ourselves for a tour of the zoo, strangely, one can walk straight into the zoo even though it was way past closing time, now 21h00 and still light. It felt a bit odd being the only visitors, and so did the creature features, all giving us the look, which eventually got to us... so we moves on our way. We only managed to home at midnight, but it was well worth it!

Saturday, we popped down to Waterloo station to get our Euro Star tickets for our France Trip, very efficient system the Euro Star people have going. Looking forward to seeing Lance come home for his seventh gold! Shawn and Nadia went off to The Parade of the Colours, celebrating the Queens Birthday and were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the royal family, Camilla and William included. Then we popped down to Covent Garden, and guess what, Batman rocked up, promoting his new movie Batman Begins, giving us a sneak peak at his car, wow wow wow… Gwyn had to drag me away, it must have had a V12 under the hood, lots of flaps everywhere…. Any mans dream. Saturday night, to celebrate the Eight years that Gwyn and I have been a couple, it was out to supper at an American restaurant called Old Orleans. We decided on a ‘Chocolate Brownie Sunday for Two’ for dessert, and when it came all the heads in the restaurant turned, a little boy sitting at the table next to us chirped up, ‘look at the size of it’. It was huge, the equivalent of a gold fish bowl full of brownies, cream, ice cream, caramel and all the good stuff…. This was after we had a huge meal…. So much for the diet! Anyhow this feasting was followed by a movie, ‘Mr & Mrs Smith’ well recommended!

Next weekend we are off to Birmingham for a visit, so watch this space for updates.

Lol & Gwyn

20050602 We have Contact

Houston…we have contact! Sorry for the delay in updates, but when you read the rest of this web page, you will understand the amount of changes in our lives over the past month, hectic! We just actually got back from a great adventure to the Lake District, where we stayed on a stud farm, minutes away from one of the northern Cumbria towns, Keswick. A bit more about that later….

Since our last update we have moved from Southfields (Southern London), to Ealing (Western London) to a little ground floor flat which has made our lives a lot easier (no more stairs to climb with shopping and suitcases), the tubes and trains are just down the road and we are in walking distance to all the shops… really cool. I got a cool job with British Sky Broadcasting, probably the reason why the comms have calmed down.You have probably seen Sky News on TV, well Sky in the UK are something like Multichoice, only difference is that they also own their own channels, like Discovery, Sky news and Sport, National Geographic etc… I am responsible for the website http://www.sky.com/ordersky/home, am part of the 300 member DTH (direct to home) Marketing team and am loving it!

Now back to the Lake district, Monday was a bank holiday in England so we took the opportunity to use our long weekend constructively, so after work on Friday we caught a bus up to Manchester, which was supposed to arrive at 24h00 in the evening but only got there at 2h00 the next morning due to all the bank holiday traffic. We then stayed the night at Gwyn’s moms place (very bright but very cute) and shot up to the Lakes the next morning. Only about a 2 hour drive from Man and well worth it. Tessa had to work on the weekend, so Bronny and one of Tessa’s colleagues, Cornel, joined us on our road trip. The lake district reminded me a lot of SA strangely, but not of one place in particular, bits of and pieces, like driving along the waters edge of Knysna lagoon, the stark green mountains and crystal streams of Lesotho, the forests and waterfalls in Mmpumalanga and the town atmosphere of Dullstroom along with its fishing. The first day almost blew us away, literally, the wind was pumping, the ferry to cross lake Windermere was closed and all I could think was, where is Jonny with his wind surfer, Bjorn Dunkerbeck would have given his left ….. to surf in that kind of wind. So we meandered our way along the lakes from Newby Bridge, Past Windermere (Peter Rabbit lives there), then Ambleside, Grasmere and to Keswick had a cool pub lunch and then checked in at the lovely little guest house / horse farm. After the lack of sleep the evening before we had a bit of a power nap and relaxed for the remainder of the afternoon. At about 20h00 (only goes dark at about 21h30) we took a stroll along the Derwent Water (lake next to Keswick) followed by dinner at an Italiano restaurant, where some smelly Italian served us awesome Italian nosh!

The next day was more sight seeing, a lot of driving on small country lanes and stopping at picturesque little villages. Our first stop was at Hawkeshead, were Beatrix Potter used to live and then took the ferry across Lake Windermere (it wasn’t so windy this time). We tried to stop at a couple of places, but the sun was out and in true British tradition, all the poms were out, which meant that there was no parking for the tourists. In the end, we went through to Grasmere where we took a tour through Dove Cottage (Wordsworth’s love shack by the sounds of it) and then strolled through the village looking at all the little shops and galleries and crystal clear rivers (fly fishing of note guys!). All of this action obviously tires one out so the power nap followed shortly. At 20h30 we awoke, still bright outside, and went for a long stroll into the country, and low and behold, we found another river of note….please excuse all the river pics in our gallery, I could not help myself. The area where we stayed had lots of little country walks where the farmers have seemed to open up their lands for the good of tourism, making the area very popular with the outdoor and adventure junkies.

Our last day started off with another hearty breakfast, and slowly starting making our way back to Manchester where Tessa was awaiting us for lunch. After lunch it was back to the bus station for the long trip home. After an hours delay, again!, we managed to get settled in our reasonably luxurious coach (when compared to Friday’s) for our trip home. We left Manchester at 16h00 and arrived back in London at 20h30, meaning that we only got back to the flat after 21h00. Lessons learnt…..go to the Lake District again on a non bank holiday weekend and always take the train.

Other than our travels, we are managing to settle in quite well. The ADSL line is up and running and the bank accounts are almost sorted out. We are awaiting our credit cards now so that we can start booking more holidays. On the 18th, we are going up to Birmingham to visit Gran and Grandad, looking forward to that, and then hopefully Tessa and Bronny will be coming to London over Wimbledon, but we will see how it pans out.

20050428 Settling Down

Hi All,

Wow it has been over a week since our last update and a lot has happened since. Last weekend we popped off down the road to Windsor to go and see the Windsor Castle, the oldest working castle in the world if I am not mistaken. Windsor is set right alongside the Thames, and is a very bustling little place. The Queen was in, indicated by her Royal flag flying, and as luck would have it, we got to see her. The Aston Martin club was doing a charity event at the palace, which the Queen gave her Royal treatment.

The Castle itself is so full of history it really humbles one. It dates back to the 1400’s, or something as unbelievable as that and when you start thinking about the people who must have walked the same passages as you, it is really awesome.

Yesterday was my Birthday, getting old I am now 27 -Thanks for the Birthday wishes you all sent me, I really appreciate it! I had a great day, got lots of presents and was spoilt rotten! Gwyn even got me a Personalised Thornton’s Birthday cake, amazingly yummy. We went “down the pub” at Putney Bridge, not far from where we are currently staying, with a view over the Thames, and said a big “Cheers” to all of you guys back home thinking about us!

The job hunting is going well and I have some really nice companies which I am getting interviews with, so if all goes well I will soon be out of the relaxed holiday mode and focused on work, actually looking forward to getting stuck into some work.

Some more exciting news from back home is that Nick and Michelle’s have set the date for their Big Day, the 18th of March 2006, enjoy the preparations, and see you all then!

Keep Well – L&G

20050418 London Update 17 April 2005

Another week down and Lawrence and I are settling in nicely. We now wake up in the morning and say “What a nice day, clouds but no rain. 15 Degrees…get the sun block!”

I have completed 2 full weeks of work and am client based now, doing some work for an Education authority called City and Guilds. Interesting work and we are hoping to get some more coming our way, which will be nice for me. The client is in the city, near St Pauls Cathedral, anything in London is great.

Lawrence has been very busy with interviews, and we are holding thumbs for a couple of them. We really think that he will get something soon, the end of the month coming and all…let’s hope so. He is getting so frustrated at home. You can imagine, there is nothing to fix and no garden to play in.

Yesterday (Saturday) we took a trip to Wimbledon to find a barber for Lawrence. £22 for a hair cut, crazy people. So Lol is taking a trip to Oxford tomorrow to visit Shawn’s £7 barber, much better.

We then went on to IKEA…oh my word. What a place! You can imagine how big our eyes went. So many ideas, especially for small places. So before we come home, Lawrence and I will be doing some huge shopping there for our small townhouse. We only bought some tea towels, a lamp shade and some excellent Swedish Sweets, mmmm.

Today, we went to watch the London marathon. We went to the London Eye, about 5 miles from the finishing post and we saw the leading wheelchair athletes, men and ladies. They were going at a pace of note. We then strolled down to Buckingham Palace were the race ended and then walked through St James park to have a look at the flowers and ducks (Lawrence). There were so many people but the vibe was amazing. No drunkards and rowdy people, oh so civilized.

After that, we joined Nadia and Shawn at a little tea garden in the Wimbledon Common for some lunch and a stroll. There were so many people and families our enjoying the sun, quite a nice way to spend the afternoon (even got a bit of sun burn, amazingly). Now we are all ensconced in the flat doing Sunday night activities as per usual.

Next weekend we are planning to go through to Greenwich, something for Lawrence’s birthday!….watch this space.

Missing you all!

Gwyn and Lol

20050403 2nd of April Update

Hello All,

It is a Saturday evening, going on 20h00, not dark yet and about to put up the feet up and relax with a 12 year old whiskey, but first let me give you a bit of an update.

Just had a traditional “Bangers and Mash” for dinner compliments of Shawn and Nadia, the two of them are rather talented when it comes to cooking!

You know the saying “go big or go home”, we went big and we got a home, yip we signed up to rent a 2 bedroomed place in Ealing today (14 Abinger Court, Gordon road, Ealing, W5). Very well appointed little ground floor apartment, 5 minutes walk from the Ealing Broadway tube station, where we can catch the District or Central tube, as well as the overland rail, for Gwyn to get to Stockley Park. Ealing is very open and full of character, the people almost feel like they come from PE, lots of shops and places to eat too. The agent who got us the place, strangely, comes from the little town of Bloemfontein -- what are the chances…!? So on the 1st of May we will be moving…

Otherwise all is “ohRight”, Gwyn and I both had a bit of a cold this week but are coming right now, Gwyn starts work on Monday (4th April) with RWD Technologies, all very exciting, I am starting to get into the job hunting Process and have some interviews and good looking prospects coming up in the week… so hold thumbs!

Missing you all… L&G

20050327 Day 6

Hi All,

Well, we are now almost past our first week over here in London, it has been one of discovery. Like dutiful tourists we have already seen an abundance of sights, The London Eye, Big Ben, 10 Downing Street, Trafalgar Square, Leichester Square, Buckingham Palace, Piccadilly Circus, Madam Taussauds, all the parks with their spectacular daffodil spread, all the tubes stations, Harrods (wow), London Bridge, Tower Bridge, Tower of London….I have probably missed out a couple but to sum it all up we have been busy and our feet are in shock.

Tonight we are turning our clocks back an hour (we think, might be forward), summer is here and the days are getting longer, Gwyn and I are still feeling the cold, even though the locals are now down to t-shirts…. We will be going to be spectators at the epic Oxford vs Cambridge boat race tomorrow, it starts at Putney bridge, just down the road from where we are staying and ends in the Chiswick area, I think it is going to be quite something to witness. www.theboatrace.org

Some of the interesting things which I have noticed so far, is that Londeners are much calmer than the people back in SA, probably because they don’t need to sit in traffic, but rather on public transport….People read a whole lot more here, book shops are booming…and Gwyn is smiling. People are always wiling to help and a lot friendlier, streets are relatively clean despite the fact that there are hardly any dustbins around, street names are placed halfway up the side of buildings, daffodils grow out of the middle of a well manicured lawn and not in flower beads, squirrels are everywhere and Easter eggs are personalised (but avoid the Harrods Eggs if you still want to eat for the rest of the month)….

Gwyn’s Mom came down from Manchester to pick up Bronwyn and they are staying in a guest house in Wimbeldon at the moment, we got to the airport at the crack of dawn, and waited for a couple hours before she come through, but Bronny has taken to the streets and seems to be fine with the new UK life she is going to embark on. It was good to see Gwyn’s Mom and gave us a chance to catch up on the couple months that she has been in the UK. Tomorrow the two of them will be Mega Bussing it back to Manchester…. We will probably see them and my grand parents in May with the next bank holiday.

Cheers for now…thinking about you all and hope you have a great Easter!!!

Lawrence & Gwyneth

20050321 Touch Down

Hi All,

Gwyn and I along with Shawn and Nadia are all safe and sound in London. Our flight over on Virgin went well, not too comfortable but did not feel too long.

We are feeling a bit shell shocked and have this funny uneasy feeling. But have had a shower and are going exploring. Gwyn WILL have a starbucks coffee today.

We caught two tubes and a bus to get out to Shawn and Nadia's Place, not a good idea with 45kg (120 pounds) in morning tube traffic. Weather is good - blue skies.

Just seen a squirrel in the common..... :))

Missing you all ... so so much ....!

LOL & GWYN

20050228 20 Days 2 Go

We have moved out, yip, this weekend Gwyn and I Packed our bags and said goodbye to the house and are now moved in with my parents till we shoot of to the UK on the 20th of March 2005. We have our tickets, on Virgin, and just need to finalise Gwyn’s visa, but no worries there. On our house front things are looking good for our house to be rented while we are away, so hold thumbs… tenants are hard to come by. 20 Days left till take off.