a lovely summer's day

Today some Ann, her husband Ian and son Kealan visited us while in London. I studied Auslan with Ann who is 'Irish by birth, Aussie by choice' as she says. Ann and I spent a lovely afternoon shopping up a storm in Oxford St and then we all took the boat out for a short trip down the canal. Such a treat to see her!

happy as a pig in mud!

if you can't beat 'em, join 'em ...

woz's new toy

the bike

a set of wheels

Yesterday morning Woz and I caught a bus down to a little village in the south of England to pick up his new motorbike. A Ducati 750 Super Sport. I've never been a motorbike fan, but this really is the best way to get around when you live in Central London, and not only that, we plan to get out and see more of the UK. The ride back was absolutely beautiful, a gorgeous warm day and windy roads leading to more and more stone cottages and farms lined with stone fences.

all the world's a stage ....

Katie and I at Shakespeare's Globe theatre. We watched a brilliant performance of Pericles on a warm summer's evening.

running the stones through my toes

every minute or so they had to fight off a huge wave! 

a friend of ours, Ro, being baptised. 

the crowd

brighton beach

This entry is a little late, but on Saturday Woz and I and about 200 people caught the train down to Brighton beach to see 102 people baptised from church. It was pretty incredible! I couldn't quite get used to the idea of there being no sand, but loved the sound of the waves crashing on the stones.

out of the mouths of babes

I've been working this week as an interpreter at a school holiday sports program through the local borough (council) and am working with a mixture of hearing and Deaf children, and for a change, most of them are in primary school. Today while I was voicing over for a Deaf child, one of the 5 year olds walked up to me and said "You’ve got a funny voice. You sound like Dorothy the Dinosaur from the Wiggles". I took this as an astute observation of my Australian accent and not my resemblance to a big green dinosaur with yellow spots.

all things must come to an end

It has been great spending some time with Mel and Ruffy both here in London and in France. But sadly, on Sunday night Woz and I said goodbye to them as they flew back to Melbourne. On our last night we all went out for dinner and Mel and Ruffy soaked up the last bit of sun before they flew back to Winter.

a new edition

Finally we have a bedroom wall, which I'm sure our guests will appreciate!

our bed 

looking from the front door 

our boat on our mooring at the marina

papillon

I thought it was about time I posted some new shots of the boat. Also, there's a shot of it from our pontoon as it was pointed out to me that we hadn't actually told anyone what our boat was called! So, as you can see, in the photo above, it's called "Papillon" (French for butterfly). Apparently it's bad luck to change the name of your boat, and although we don't believe in luck, we like the name and so we've decided it's a keeper!

As for the interior of the boat, we've done a lot of work on it which you wouldn't be able to see from the photos, but the main difference you'll see is that it's been painted, the floor boards are down (although not yet stained) oh, and we have a real bed!