St Stephen's Day

Well thats what they call Boxing Day, here. We had a lovely outing today, walking among the hills and along the cliffs of Castlerock. We visited Downhill Castle and the Mussenden Temple, build by the Bishop Hervey, the Earl of Bristol. The locals tell us that the Temple was a romantic hideaway built as a meeting place for the Bishop and his cousin, who apparently he had a love affair with. It was cunningly disguised as a library and is perched on the edge of the cliff overlooking the ocean. From the Temple you can look down the coast along a 6 mile sandy beach and then on the other side across the coast to the village of Castlerock with its church steeple rising up out of the mist of the day.

It was truley lovely. We have had a great stay here. Wonderful hospitality from Stuarts' family with a traditional Christmas Dinner served hot at lunch time. Very different from my family Christmas Dinner in Australia, cold meat and salad served at dinner time when the evening is cooler. We are off to Belfast today and then intend to travel towards the west coast on our journey back to Dublin and back to England.

Happy Christmas

Many blessings to everyone who has managed to keep looking at the blog and to all of you who gave up. We are in Ireland for Christmas with Alan's daughter, Charlotte and her family. Ireland is warm (up to 12c) compared to Basingstoke and the sun has been shining and the rain has only fallen once. We are truly blessed. Today Alan and I went for a drive to Donegal County and had a look at Greencastle. We drove around the coastline which was very picturesque and spent a little time in Derry looking at the city walls and shopping for some last minute presents. We are off to dinner with Stuart's (Charlottes' husband) family this evening and have been invited to share a traditional Christmas dinner there tomorrow.

Have a lovely, safe and happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year to you all.

Down in the Bayou; Louisiana, no its still Texas

Well Alan and I are trying to dredge up our memories of the US again. After Galveston we drove on through Austin and headed off to Louisiana. We could have gone to the space stuff in Austin but it was late afternoon when we got there because we spent ages looking at the Galveston Oil Rig Museum.

We drove for ages and eventually pulled up at an RV camp on the side of the road and asked could we camp there. The camp was actually a community of road workers and their families living in 45 foot camper trailers and Winnebagos with all the mod cons. We were the only campers there. There were US flags at the front doors of nearly every trailer.

It was a warm and balmy night and we set up camp at the back of the RV park as far away from the large family gathering that was happening on the other side of the road. It initially sounded interesting because they had a band playing latin music. Then we noticed the singing. Visualise Uncle Fernando, playing his piano accordian and casstinettes hogging the karaoke machine and singing pissed and off key for hours and you have it.

We had just settled in and cooked our dinner when the sky got dark and brooding and it started to pour rain. Next thing the RV owner came over and told us that a gale force wind was on the way and would we mind spending the night in one of the vans. We gratefully accepted and while the van didn't blow away the rain came in in buckets, dripping on the bed, and floor etc. As it turned out the tent was intact the next morning, dry as a bone as we had coated it with water repellant from our stay in Galviston. The owners of the RV park refused to accept payment for our stay. They were like most of the American people we met, kind, helpful and generous.

Stonehenge

Now that we have our little car. Its a Ford KA, a tiny little thing that looks like a noddy car, we are able to go out visiting local points of interest. We took a day trip to Stonehenge and after queing for 2 miles to get to the site we got there. It was very interesting but because its so touristy it was hard to get into the ambience of the place. The wind was howling and it was as usual overcast and bloody freezing. You can no longer go up and walk among it or touch anything anymore but we all herded round it and took some great pics. I am having trouble uploading pictures on the blog and on flikr at the moment but I will keep trying. To avoid the traffic we drove home through the countryside and visited some small villages. The army seems to own most of the area near Salisbury and there were road signs saying Slow Tanks Crossing.

Old Basing

After Al got back from Aus. We hired a car in order to buy a car and after spending a weekend roaming around Basingstoke looking for cars we gave up and went sight seeing. We went to Old Basing. We went to look at Basing House which is actually a ruin of a manor house but unfortunately it was closed so instead we walked around the village of Old Basing and took in the little thatched roof cottages and had a fantastic walk through the churchyard. The cemetery was overgrown with brambles and ivy but there were walkways through it. The old tombstones were beautiful emerging from the ivy and hidden in amongst the autumn trees. It was really lovely.

Back blogging and coming up in the world

Hi, y'all. No I'm not back in the states but in Basingstoke, Hampshire UK. Lots has happened since I last posted a blog. We have moved twice, I got a job, Al went back to Aus (sadly for his darling Aunty Pam's funeral) and came back (thank God) and now we are house sitting in Basingstoke and looking for a car.

We moved for one night to another hostel and then to a so called holiday let for the same price. It was a bed sit with an insy winsy kitchen and a bathroom that was down the hall. We had our own key and didn't have to share with any one else but the shower didn't work and the bog was so close to the bath Al had to put his feet in the tub to crap. To wash my hair I had to sit in the bath and pour a bucket of water on my head. No offence to any poms reading this but our experience so far is that English plumbing is the worlds worst. Every shower we have used has been bloody useless. Although we at least have hot water and reasonable water pressure here in Basingstoke.

I have a job in Twickenham where I work as a care manager for a people with learning disabilities team. The staff are friendly and helpful and two lovely Irish nurses helped me move all our stuff to Basingstoke while Al was gone. Apart from having one case from hell, the work is reasonable and I am starting to get into my role. I still have no idea how the NHS, Housing and Social Security systems work but I'm working on it. The down side is that I leave Basingstoke at 6:14am on the bus to the station and after two train rides I arrive in Twickenham at 8:33am. Coming home is a bitch because the train arrives about 3 minutes after the bus leaves and I have to wait 20 mins for the next bus. If I don't catch the right train from Twickenham I don't get home until 8pm. Glad I'm not going to be doing this for ever.

We hired a car this weekend and drove around looking at car yards to buy a car and then gave up and went sight seeing. I have some lovely pictures of Old Basing. This is a very picturesque place. I will post pictures later. Anyway, its Sunday night and if I don't hit the sack by 9pm I'll be wrecked tomorrow at work. See you all anon.

Galviston Oh Galviston

Well Galviston is not quite what the song evokes. We spent 3 days sweltering in a public camping shelter. It was very tropical weather, raining in the afternoon and humid as hell. The town is really flat and below sea level. At one time it was devastated by a cyclone along the lines of what happened to New Orleans. There is a long road running parallel to the beach and we saw some amazing looking beach houses. They were all different shapes and pastel colours and looked like something from a film set. I would have loved to transplant one in Bateman's Bay. They were a bit out of our price range for property starting at around $800,000.

Al was very keen to visit the Ocean Star Off Shore Oil Rig and Museum. We spent at least 4 riveting hours there (yawn) looking at all sorts of deep sea diving, oil drilling stuff. Al loved it. They had an oil men wall of fame and George Bush Snr was on it. I looked for Jed Clampett but he had not been given the acclaim that he truly deserved.