Youse arksed for it! July 28, 2008

Here are some pics from Italy, hope you enjoy

(sorry, know I’m really late and need to update desperately, had lots going on!)

We had just got to our Tuscan Chateau, it was stinkin’ hot!

This is our wicked awesome pool that we got to swim in and youse didn’t.

This is the view of the castle where James and Aggie got married, from our joint. Isn’t it pretty?

This is me and Dernie and my huge fat chops, just about to go in and sit in the church in 30+ degree heat, despite the wedding being at 5:30pm! Phoar!

Agatha and James – Newlyweds!

An amazing cathedral we happened to stumble upon in Siena, we had no idea it was there, one minute we were lost down a tiny alley way, next we turn a corner and there we are!

The square in Siena where it’s all happenin’!

See what I mean?  We were innocently sitting at a cafe, eating an innocent (yet delicious) pizza or two, and lo and behold, a parade enters the square and does a lap of honour, stopping and singing at each corner!  It was absolutely incredible!  They were celebrating because their team had won the horse race around the square, and they had a huge following of young and old, and most of them had dummies around their necks.  Couldn’t quite figure that one out but hey, I’ll let it slide.

Well, I hope youse enjoyed that little update.  I would just like to add that I was talking to Nicoooooole while I was writing this post, and she may have influenced me somewhat.

That is all.

A Grand Day Out June 29, 2008

Marcus and Hayley have come to visit, and Dernie and I have been showing them around!
Here’s what we’ve been up to:

They arrived;

We went to see Trafalgar Square;

We got hungry and ate stuff,

We visited some old friends at Madame Tussauds’ joint,

And giggled at various things on the London Eye (OK, they giggled at me…).

Last but not least we checked out the Tower of London, before heading to Euston so Marcus and Hayley could check into their hotel.  Tomorrow at dawn they set off for Europe on a bus.

Have fun guys, see you in a few weeks!

Guess what a six year old said to me today? June 19, 2008

‘Miss, when you talk, you have a double chin!’

Ouch.

Just precisely what has been going on? June 10, 2008

A few things really. Well, that was a bit of a fib, cos nothing that exciting has been happening except…

I’m going to Northern Ireland on Friday!

That’s right, I’m off to a wedding (one of Dernie’s mates), and off to meet his family (eek!). Apparently the famous Donegal Ralley is on as well, so I get to see lots of Donegal too. Good times.

We fly into Belfast on Friday morning, then drive to Omagh, Northern Ireland.

I also had to purchase one dress for this occasion. Also good times.

And shoes 😉

So what, I hear you ask? Well, I like shoes. Isn’t that enough?

I’ll be back on Sunday, ready for work Monday morning. Bad times.

I’m starting to get ‘when are you coming home?’ questions. The answer to this conundrum is August 31! But please give me a day or two to get back on my feet before you ring me (I’m watching you, Nicolllllle!)

But…before this happens, Marcus and Hayley will be here on June 26 to visit and do lots of touring! And I’m getting way too excited and planning things for them to do in their precious spare time! They’ll be buggered!

OK, I neither have the content or desire to write any more for now. Supply teaching has drained it out of me.

Until next time…

The air failed the softness test May 25, 2008

Yesterday I was driven up North to a village called Bury with a car full of guns’n’ammo. There was a very good reason for this, and let me point out that the guns weren’t exactly the bullet-shooting type; instead they were the little hard round pellet shooting type. Which in some ways can be much worse, but I can’t think of any way that might be worse right now. Scratch that last bit.

Anyway, back to rambling…

I went along with two of my flatmates – Andy T, an ex-paratrooper army-type, Andy J, a vegetarian pacifist, and non-flatmate Nick (another pf these ex-army types who seem to know what they’re doing). We were a motley crew.

When we got there we donned our army gear and strapped our weapons to our bodies (Andy J did a good impression of Hannibal Lecter crossed with Lara Croft) and had our weapons tested by the Marshalls who were there to make sure people didn’t cheat (You there, behind the tree, TAKE YOUR HIT!).

The first taste of the action I received was right in the mush, just above my lip. It was reasonably close range too because we were inside a building and I was hiding behind a door that I’d pulled into the corridor for cover. I jumped out to shoot and he got my first…it brought tears to my eyes.
Luckily these guns only shoot little plastic pellets, but still, they can injure if they get you in the wrong spot.

Towards the end of the day I was in another building with a group of hard-core army types, and I hear screaming. Everyone stops fighting and crowds around to check it out – there’s a guy clutching himself bent over double against the wall shouting ‘You shot me in the bollocks you %$£*!” I was surprised, as while a couple of guys emitted empathetic groans, a lot of the blokes there couldn’t supress their giggles – you’d think they’d have a bit more sympathy for this guy – it could have been them!

By far the highlight of the day was just after that incident, when I’d just bumped into Andy T again, after he’d been ‘hit’, which meant that he had to wander off to the re-gen point before he cold rejoin the game. He went all professional on me, and slung his rifle over his shoulder at the bottom of a staircase, which harboured at least 3 members of the opposing red team (we were blue). He carefully removed his pistol from its holster, and crept up the stairs, simultaneously removing his last grenade (little smoke bomb) from his pocket, striking it and tossing it onto the landing. If you are in a room where a grenade goes off, no matter how big the room is, you’re dead and have to go back to re-gen. He got two of them, and they came down calling ‘dead man walking!’ with their hands in the air. He crept carefully to the top of the landing, and emptied the other rooms of opposition before zoning in on the last room with a red player inside.

From there he starts signalling to me asking if I have a grenade, but I don’t, so he creeps forward, as another ex-army type arrives to back him up. The opposing player in the room kicks the door shut, fearing a grenade will finish him off, so Andy and the new bloke take their positions, and storm the room, shooting and shouting until the red player shouts ‘HIT!’ and puts his hands up, exits the room smiling. Andy pats him on the back and says ‘Good man’, and they have a big of a laugh about it.

It was pretty amazing to watch, and if you sit back and just observe all day you can see scenarios like this occurring all over the site. Personally I just liked doing my own thing, sometimes getting pretty close to the action, getting shot a fair few times (nothing too bad, I didn’t get any marks this time apart from one or two on my face – and yes I was wearing safety goggles) and I even managed to shoot a few soldiers myself, without getting shot.

It turns out Andy was shot at pretty close range during that last scuffle, right in the guts. He’s now sporting a seriously black and blue new belly button, but all’s fair in love and war.

I gots technology… May 18, 2008

Heya youse blokes, just checkin’ in and updating things that have happened recently:

I received a belated Christmas pressie last week that I am totally rapt with, in the form of an IPod Nano! I was so excited and scared of scratching it that I went out the next day and used some of my John Lewis (bit like pommy Myers) vouchers that my old school gave me as a leaving present and bought a swish red leather case.

Here is my pride and joy pictured with my new Laptop – if you look closely you can see whose website I was looking at at the time…

Marcus’! I thought it only fitting as the gift was from him and Hayley. Thankyou guys, I love it!

You might be thinking ‘Good one Annaleis, bout time you got a lap top! Geez!’ and you’re right, it was about time, so I managed to acquire one thanks to Dernie 🙂 He set it all up for me and fixes it when I can’t figure out what it’s doing or when the internet connection drops out, causing me to nearly slug it up the chops. Which for anyone who knows me, is unsurprisingly often.

My social calendar is quickly filling up these days, not only am I working full weeks supply teaching (not bad really!) but my weekends are being overrun with activities. Take last weekend for example, Dernie found out on Friday that he’d landed a new job, and we couldn’t let that go uncelebrated, so we celebrated in the central London pubs and drank rum and Diet coke (with lime, people – I’m posh now!). The next day I nursed a hangover while lounging around in the 27 degree heat in Richmond Park, near Wimbledon (ah what a life!)

This weekend was very quiet. The highlight was that I had a kebab for tea last night. It was very nice thankyou. Precisely NONE alcohol was consumed.

Moving right along, next Saturday I am going Air-softing (yay!) with my flatmates! I’ve been once before and loved it. Everyone there gets dressed up in hardcore army gear (except Andy J and myself, who aren’t hardcore in the least) and shoot big black guns filled with little white pellets at each other. They sting when you’re up close, believe me!

The day is set up into different games, and is a lot like Unreal Tournament, because you play ‘capture the flag’ style games, and each team (there are two teams, red and blue) might have a different objective, like protect the box full of nothing, but you only have one life, and the other team has to capture the box, but they might have unlimited lives etc.

It’s a pretty full day, we’ll be out of the flat at around 6am to drive up north to this place, and we’ll be back probably by nightfall. Lots of fun though!

The weekend AFTER all that, Dernie and I are going to Ireland for the weekend – partly so I can meet the family (eek!) and partly to attend his mate’s wedding. I got to buy a pretty dress to wear so I’m happy. Wanna see it? Too bad! I still have to buy shoes that match, and Andy T reckons I need a big flouncy hat…I don’t think so Tim.

Anyway, that’s enough blogging for one month. Until next time kids!

ps. Happy birthday Bread Bread! Have fun in Hobart with the kiddies!

Nommuch really April 25, 2008

That’s the answer I’ve generally been giving to people lately when they ask what I’ve been up to. It’s not entirely true of course because there are always things going on, it’s just whether or not I think you’ll be interested in replies like ‘I’m doing a few shifts at the pub because school holidays have been on’ or ‘I lost my voice on Wednesday and and still struggling to make much noise’, and it’s also to do with whether or not I can be bothered going into detail about why these things are happening. A simple answer is never enough for my friends and acquaintances.

So, shall I go into adequate detail for you now?

What I have been up to:

As was mentioned above, school holidays have indeed been on, this is a rather bittersweet occasion for me at the moment, because although it’s a welcome 2 week break, it also means that I’ve left the school (and nursery class) that I’ve been teaching at since the start of the school year, and I miss those little tykes. It also means that I have no pay for two weeks, which can be a bit of a struggle when you’ve got shedloads of rent to pay, and council tax to pay (stupid England).

This is why I’ve been working back with Dave at the pub, and it’s been pretty good. Half price meals again, as much juice as I can drink, sleep-ins in the morning, ah this is the life!

OK, school holidays are over and done with now, and I’ve had a couple of days work so far. Yesterday there was a teacher’s strike, so I didn’t like my chances of being called in anyway, and incidentally, I’m really glad no one called because I seem to have lost my voice. Great. This means that I couldn’t work today either, and I was booked up and everything. D’oh! It’s not all bad, it gives me a chance to make some ANZACS and…do nothing really.

Next week things are looking brighter, I’ve already got 3 days booked, and one of them is at the school I went to last week. Apparently they liked me and asked for me back, which is allegedly a rarity within that school. Yay me!

So, all in all, what have I really been up to?  To summarise this entire post, nommuch really.

The day Gio came to stay April 9, 2008

Roight!

Some of youse have been wondering what I’ve been up to lately, and I’ve been saving my blogging prowess until something exciting happened, and guess what? It has!

The first exciting thing that happened is that Gio made it to ‘Londinium’ after all this time, and we celebrated this miraculous occurrence starting on Friday afternoon by first picking him up from Paddington station (I recognised him immediately because he described himself as being dressed as a twat), organising him an Oyster, then going straight to Piccadilly for a whistle-stop tour of central London (and over here to your ‘yawn’ left, is Big Ben, millennium wheel, Downing Street etc blah blah). I’ve done this quite a few times now and I’m really starting to take it for granted…not good.

We ended up getting very hungry and thirsty and going to the Porterhouse pub in Covent Garden for some much needed Boags Premium, and when that got too crowded moved on to the Walkabout pub next door for some Crownies and…Sambucca… 😉 Not to mention the Chocolate Mini Eggs that Gio ate off the (sticky) floor

Dernie Showed up some time after that specifically to laugh at us and buy us some drinks, because we were still thirsty. Noice of him! We left the pub at closing time and took the bus back to my flat. By this time I was very tired…and sober…

See? There’s me being sober

Everything else that night has been made up.  I reasoned that if something is not in my memory then it (obviously) did not happen. Suffice it to say that my flatmates, Gio and Dernie all laughed at me the next day. Ha blimmin’ ha.

At this point I need to say that Friday was the warmest day London has seen this year, it was full-on shorts weather, though I refused to suffer the indignity of bearing my pasty legs. The Saturday must have been one of the coldest days of the year, and on the Sunday I woke up and the whole city looked like this:

This was about 10am, in the garden at my flat. Snowfights ensued. 😀

He was aiming for me!

‘Just stand under this tree for a minute – there’s a good girl…’

Revenge

What a shot!

Tulip Icecreams

We made it through our snow war, then went to Hampstead Heath to experience a bit more.  There were some crazy people there wandering around in shorts, but unfortunately I don’t have those photos.  The snow had melted almost completely by the afternoon. 😦 but it was great while it lasted!

That night was another party, this time in my flat, organised by my flatmates. about 10 of us consumed about 5 pizzas, plus sides and 15 bottles of wine.  I did not feel very well halfway through the night so piked it really early (hehe sorry Gio!)  The next day was G’s last day so we went back into town, did a little more sightseeing (this time at the National Gallery – very swish!) then I dropped him back at Paddington Bear station, and he was never heard of again.

Since then I’ve done nothing but sleep, so thanks Gio for coming to visit me and making the snowy weekend even better!

Until next time something exciting happens…

Workity work March 5, 2008

This is the height of procrastination…I’m at school, after hours (the school is open late tonight due to a meeting that I need not attend) and I prepared myself for a work lock-in.  Thus far exactly NONE work has been started.  NONE.

But, Gio has got himself a mobile phone and called me! He’s apparently coming to see me the weekend after Easter for some drinks and chats.  I’ll hold him to that.  My day has just gotten brighter (Well, metaphorically speaking of course, the day is actually getting darker as it’s now after 5pm.  But I didn’t have to tell you that did I?).

Now, back to work!

More from Stockholm February 21, 2008

Hiya!  Some of youse blokes have been wondering what Stockholm was like, what we got up to and how cold it was.

Well, when we landed in Skavsta Airport, we found our way on the rainbow bus into Central Station where my mate Lindy was waiting to pick us up in her trusty Volvo.

Initially she drove us around in the middle of the night (we arrived at about 10:30 Sweden time) before finally letting us off at her house out in the ‘burbs to meet her husband Johan and their mate Rob-from-Bristol, who was very funny and very pissed!

After a few welcome late night drinks we turned in for the night, then awoke the next morning to meet Lindy and Johan’s energetic four year old son Emil, who insisted we play table hockey with him for hours!

We eventually escaped with the promise of another game upon our inevitable return, and Lindy whisked us out of the house to see the sights of Gamla Sta – the Old Town.

There was lots to see there, we went into the local church,

and learned a bit of history about the area, like the feature stones around the windows of this building:

which represented each Danish head that was severed during one of the times Sweden ruled Denmark (or vice versa, Lindy wasn’t entirely sure!)

We also saw a cannon ball sticking out of the corner of the building next to this one…apparently it’s been there for centuries…

See it? SEE IT?! It’s just above the round sign on the corner.

After that we sat down for a Semla (marzipan flavoured Swedish cream bun) and a cuppa tea, then waddled off for more sight seeing.  By this time it was about 3pm and starting to get dark.

   

There’s lots of photos like these – check out my Flickr account to see them properly (right hand side)

Hrm, what else?

Oh yes…There was ice at the train station…well pretty much everywhere.  The train station near Lindy’s house was really cool because it was inside a MOUNTAIN!!!

We sampled some authentic Swedish cuisine, which involved a sort of flat bread, with mashed potato, seafood salad, mustard and a hot dog with sauce all in the one package.  In some kind of crazy maverick move, Dernie decided to go for the double-dog option.  Suffice it to say, neither of us could finish this delicacy.

Delightful!

After that lively meal we decided to become a bit more bold with our food choices, and thus purchased one Plopp.

 

I couldn’t resist a quick nibble. It was pretty much Chickenfeed chocolate with a funny name.

 By far the best bit of site-seeing we did was on our last day – we went to the Vasamuseum, where the Vasa Viking ship resides.  Apologies for the dodgy pic, my camera isn’t much good in bad light, but it was really incredible.  All hand built of course, all wooden, a magnificent structure that had us standing with our mouths open in absolute awe.  Brilliant.

It had two cannon levels which could hold about 200 people each.  Huge!

Anyway, I’d better be off, I’ve waffled on here long enough.  Like I said if you want to see more, go check out my Flickr account!

Seeeeeeeyas!