Saturday 29 March 2008

I'm Dreaming of a White... Easter?!!

Things are looking up. We have had a nice wee touch of snow, some visitors over the long weekend and the days are getting longer, getting dark at 6:35, and it is supposed to be a whopping 10oC tomorrow.
Jordan and Jax (friends of Eryn’s from New Plymouth) came and stayed for a night on Saturday. Thanks to the delight that is public transport we had to drive most of the way to London to pick them up. What should have taken an hour and cost ₤15, was going to take two and a half, involve three trains and two buses… and cost a rather ridiculous ₤120.

After a bit of a drive to the north bits of Suffolk, where we checked out Framlingham Castle (in the dusk), tried to drive to the disappearing town of Dunwich (in the almost dark), and went for a walk on the beach at a town which we have yet to locate on a map (in the dark). We ended up in a cute little pub in Aldeburgh (which, the locals inform us, is pronounced ‘ALL-borough’… we’re beginning to agree that English is the hardest language to learn!) where we discussed the sometimes absurd challenges of life in Blighty. In hindsight, it might not have been the best location for this conversation, so we beat a somewhat hasty retreat after a couple of nasty stares from the natives.

The others indulged in some good old fashioned British binge drinking – which is a lot like the binge drinking at home, only less frequent and finishing earlier – while I looked on in disgust and judged them for being so common…and some middle of the night phone calls to NZ – it’s about the only time that the time difference comes in handy!

Woke up to snow the next day, proper on-the-ground stuff too, none of this ‘it’s snowing but not settling” rubbish in Ipswich… so we headed off to the park and made a snowman. When I say we I mean Eryn, she was about as excited as a Labrador chasing a stick… And about as good at making snowmen as the Queen’s corgis. As soon as we got inside (completely soaked), it stopped snowing and was nearly gone three hours later.

Click on the photo for the whole album:

As soon as we’d loaded Jordan & Jax back on the train, Rod and Louise turned up for a couple of nights – was great to see them, and an opportunity to retrace our steps from Saturday in the daylight! We did discover we have an uncanny knack of leaving a town once the snow cleared up and arriving just as it started in the next place… it made for some picture-postcard-type scenes, but there comes a point when you’ve had about enough, really.
This weekend is a pretty quite one, I've just been at the football... watching Ipswich Town draw 0-0 (lucky Eryn wasn't there to whinge and point out the futility of such games!) and we're off for a wander in the countryside tomorrow... then we're heading to Krakov, Poland on Friday, which we're both really looking forward to...
Talk soon,
Kent & Eryn x

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

At last I can check your blog.
I am suprised we have such a useful system.

Caro said...

Nice to hear from you, Hideyoshi. Where are you now?

At least, Kent and Eryn, a 0-0 all draw is better than the result of Dad's West Ham. They lost 2 - 1 after leading 1-0 to Sunderland who have not come back to win from being down for 7 years and who have not won back-to-back games for seven years.

Snow seems odd at this time of year. It is supposed to be coming into summer for you. Spring anyway.

Hope Krakow is good. Someone (Rod?) said it is meant to be very beautiful.

Have had Louis and Sarah here for the weekend, mostly working in the garden and painting and cleaning our rental property, but we also had a walk on Surat Bay and saw sea-lions - they leave after The Simpsons.

I really liked Framlingham Castle - Malcolm didn't like walking on the ramparts.

Love, Mum.

Malcolm said...

Snow is cool for photos eh.
Framlingham Castle very scary. Didn't realise you live on a roundabout - watching that must be fun if you are really bored.
Cheers