a typical view from a bridge in venice

a window onto venice

On Monday Claire and I flew out for Venice where I discovered a new love for the city. This was taken in our hotel room in the morning of our first day. We tried to capture the warm light streaming into our room.

woz and claire

Woz has now included a complimentary bike tour of the sights of London to all our (willing) guests! Would you trust that face?!

and another one of me!

A warm autumn night on the Thames

looking over westminster

yours truly

em and claire

September also brought a visit from Claire, although a much more extended one than our other guests. She's here for two months on and off and so we've had fun catching up and hanging out in London. Here's us on the London Eye at dusk.

sampling the produce at portobello rd market, notting hill

papillon

After so many trips to Little Venice and back with our guests, we decided that with the luxury of a little more time we'd let our little boat "stretch her legs" and explore a little further. We had no idea, but after Little Venice we were able to cruise continuously with no locks for about six hours, bringing us right out into the English countryside. We had a great trip and moored for the night outside a lovely restaurant where we ate dinner. This shot was taken in the morning from outside the restaurant.

fi and em

ron and fi on the thames

Ron and Fi arrived in September to spend a little over a week with us. Fi, Ron and I had a lovely time together cruising the Thames.

a lot to catch up on ....

So much has happened since I last wrote, and I think I could be here for hours trying to fit it all in. So, read on as I try to capture the last few months in different entries.

apologies to all!

Well it's been a month since my last entry and I would like to thank those loyal readers who have logged on each day in vain! Unfortunately our monitor packed it in a month ago and after much investigating it seems that they don't make things to last these days and so rather than repair the monitor we bought a little over a year ago, we have had to buy a new one.

Where can I start? If we didn't already love London then we're completely sold after the last few months of summer. Expecting the worst from an English summer we've been absolutely spoilt with about two or three wet days in months. We've spent lots of evenings after work having picnics in the park (Regents, Green or Hyde Park), dipping our feet in the fountains at Trafalgar Square and watching the world go by, and have taken the boat out loads of times to cruise the canals!


Over the last month we've had Katie stay with us again, Jerry has come and gone, Claire and now Woz's parents, Ron and Fiona staying with us. We've had a ball and have also been quite busy with the boat inbetween.

Boat wise ... we moved out of the boat a few weeks ago, took everything that wasn't fixed and moved onto a neighbour's boat so we could sand and stain our floorboards (photos to come), we also finally have a bathroom wall (encouraged by the fact that our parents were staying with us) and so our guests can use the toilet without having to ask everyone to look the other way and sing loudly!

We had some really exciting news too which I'm sure is not news now to most of you - my brother Tim and Katie got engaged which we're rapt about. So we'll be home in April next year for their wedding. Woz can't wait as he will be in the wedding party.

This weekend we took the bike on it's first long journey from London to Brixham in Devon. We went down to say goodbye to Woz's cousin Mariece and her fiance Kevin before they fly to Australia to be married and to live. Brixham is a gorgeous little fishing village and we loved exploring it on the bike.

After staying overnight at a B&B last night we headed off early this morning to get home and back to Heathrow to pick up Ron and Fiona. It was a crisp and cold morning and it was good to head off early and see the world waking up. You get a lot of time to think when you're a pillion passenger on the back of the bike and as we were driving though the fields (or paddocks in Australian!) I was thinking that they were not disimilar to Gippsland, but just as I was thinking that I saw a circle of stones standing up in the middle of a paddock and realised it was Stonehenge! It was very sureal and I'm not sure we actually saw it as it was very early and there wasn't the droves of tourists I imagined would be surrounding it. It was very beautiful and just the way one should discover Stonehenge I think!

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!