At long last, we have found a gap to update the website!!! The last update was after our trip to New York at Easter, so we now have four months worth of catching up to do. Where shall we begin…..
For my (Lawrence) birthday in April we went up to Stratford upon Avon for a celebratory weekend, and we got to see my Grand Parents who live 30 minutes away from Stratford. There was just one problem with Stratford, unbeknown to us it was bloody Shakespeare’s birthday too, so every Shakespeare nutter was in town… just imagine. Never the less we had a great time and managed to chill out. http://picasaweb.google.com/the.bowenz/StratfordUponAvon20070426. We got back to London on the Sunday, and had Megan and Rob stay with us for a couple days before embarking on their 6 week backpacking European tour. I take my hat off to them, I would not be able to do such an epic. http://picasaweb.google.com/the.bowenz/RobMeganVisit20070430.
In May I went to a week long Dove Conference in Barcelona, really cool experience but a bit too much work as I did not manage to see much of the city. Barcelona is such a chilled out place, you get the feeling that everyone is on holiday. Lots of nudist beaches, which I discovered by accident, really. The best part of this trip was the acquisition of my new camera, a Nikon D40x SLR, so watch out world, Lawrence is going to be taking more pictures (got a 4 gig memory card). http://picasaweb.google.com/the.bowenz/BarcelonaDoveConf20070517.
In June, Gwyn took up another hobby, Cake Decorating, learning how to ice and decorate cakes. Hopefully this becomes an earning hobby eventually. She is really enjoying it, learning a skill that is completely unrelated to work and she is buying so many gadgets that I am starting to feel jealous! She has finished the beginners course and has applied to attend the next one starting in September.
We also took the plunge and bought a car in June. After a lot of umming and ahhing, we eventually decided on a small Vauxhall (Opel) Corsa. Just a little run around to be used on the weekends. You cannot imagine the joy of being able to go to Tesco and buy more than you can carry at once! We have also discovered all sorts of places that are round the corner from us, but are not on a bus route, therefore we do not know about them! Of course, Lawrence had to buy the Sat Nav (called Tom Tom) to help us get around, boys and their toys. It definitely makes life easier as we usually have no idea where we are going.
Trevor and Margo also came over for a visit in June and spent some quality time in Birmingham with Trevor’s parents and a week with us in London. The highlight of their trip being a day at Wimbledon on the 1st court. We managed to catch the only day without rain, although it was absolutely freezing - but what an experience regardless!
It was also the first year that the Tour De France started in London, and we went along on the day to watch the time trials. Absolutely fantastic. The riders went past all the major sites (mainly all the monuments celebrating the defeat of France by Britain), and we picked two good spots, one in Green Park and one in Hyde Park. There were huge screens up broadcasting the live race, and there were so many people just sitting on the grass, soaking up the atmosphere. Now we have seen the first and last days of the Tour De France…closure
July saw Tessa’s (Gwyn’s mom) birthday and we met up with Mom and Bronwyn in Brecon, Wales for the weekend. We found a cute little B&B in amongst the Brecon Beacons. This was the first major test for the Tom Tom ands we came up against unexpected roadworks. The poor thing had to constantly recalculate. It is a wonder that it did not swear at us.
Already at August, and the big milestone for Gwyn at work was a 2 week trip to Asia to deliver SAP training to the BSI HR teams in Hong Kong, China, Japan and India. She spent 1 week in Asia delivering formal training to 8 delegates and then the next week was spent travelling with a day in Beijing, Tokyo and New Delhi. It was an exhausting trip, but beneficial and interesting. Not a bad thing to be taken out of your comfort zone and eat jelly fish and chicken feet.
We did get very bad news in August as well. Opa Klaas, Lawrence’s granddad passed away on the 13th August. Lawrence flew to SA that day to be with his family, but I was in Beijing and could not fly out. The funeral took place on the Friday 17th August and was by all accounts very touching and memorable. Opa will be missed by all who knew him.
After a very emotional and exhausting August, we finished off with a long weekend to Switzerland. We spent 2 nights in Interlaken where we went up the Jungfrau (highest point in Europe) where Lawrence got 3rd degree sunburn while wearing his Oakley’s (just imaging the mask of Zorro only funnier) and then moved onto to Luzern for 2 nights. What a beautiful and underrated country. Absolutely stunning in summer, it would be phenomenal in winter we think. Now we are completely motivated to go skiing.
Sjoe, enough waffling on, we will have to keep you all updated more often. Next on the cards is another conference for Lawrence, this time in Majorca, lucky boy. No travel plans are set in stone, apart from the trip back home in December, but we will keep you all in the loop!
