Well, once again I have been remiss, I have failed to keep you all updated...story of my life! And once again, so much has happened, so here is the edited version!

First of all a huge congratulations and 'kutchy kutchy coo coo' to Aneleise and Steve for the birth of their daughter Piper.  That would have to be the most exciting news (not that its my news, but hey...) since my last update!  And she is so cute.....

Ok, Ok, I will stick to my news...lets see....

Have been to more shows - Stomp was the most recent.  Was very clever and I thoroughly enjoyed it! Would recommend you see it if you get a chance.  I spent most of the show saying to myself 'man that's clever, how on earth did they come up with that...'

Did a bus tour round london with Bob.  That was great cos we have been here long enough that we had our bearings on the tour and there are certain things we have noted to go back to!  I don't know that it would have meant as much if we were new to London so I am pleased we did the tour when we did.  Bob and I got off the tour to go into Harrods (wow, is all I can say) and got a sundae at the food court that was about £9!!!  It was worth it tho, man it was good.

As you know Bob, Bec Jules and I went to Amsterdam for Jule's 30th at the beginning of September.  I thought Amsterdam was great.  Among other things we went to Anne Frank's house and, like the true tourist I am, I bought Anna Frank's Diary.  Am about half way through the book and really enjoying it.  My main memory of the house is that at the end of the self guided tour you can go into a room and take part in a computerised questionnaire which asks questions like 'Should Police be able to express their religion through wearing turbans or other headgear while on duty?'.  The answers given by those in the room (via a computerised system) are then tallied and you get shown the percentage of 'Yes' vs 'No' answers.  It then tallys those results across all responses given to date.  The questionnaire was interesting, but I have to say the reason it is the most memorable part of that experience is that this young boy sitting next to me kept farting.....and it was so smelly I had to leave! 

Anyway, we also did a cruise along the river which was great, very scenic and full of champagne and cheese!

And on one night when we were in town, we passed this little pizza stall.  We stopped to get a (much needed) slice of pizza, and to pat the cat, and the guy tried to upsell with a one night stand offer (!!??).  When we weren't really going for it, he offered to throw in the cat for free....

More recently Bob and I went to Bath for the day.  That was awesome.  in fact I am keen to go back there for a weekend at some point.  It was very pretty and there was loads to do. One of the places we went was to the Roman baths.  They have this self guided tour thing where you have a handset and as you go round the tour there are numbers on the wall that you type into the handset and a pre-recorded message tells you what you need to know about that part of the tour.  The best part was they had special numbers for children to have a 'kids version'.  As I was still recovering from a rather large night on the Friday (we did the tour Sunday), the kids version was about all I could cope with.  I had the attention span of a peanut that day, so the kids version was great!  It had quiz's and all sorts (I got 100% in the quiz!).

Scott Knowles came to London last week!  For those of you who don't know him, he and his partner, Michelle, are friends of mine from Palmerston North. Michelle, it was a pity you couldn't come too!  next time.  I must confess I had my first pang of home sickness seeing Scotty, but I was pleased to be able to catch up with him - even if he did seem to maneouver himself around London more ably than me!  In my defence, I was recovering from Kylie Hansen and Megan Yardley's birthday drinks the night before so the brain wasn't functioning as well as it otherwise might.

Umm...what else....oh, just went away for work to Doncaster (overnight). I was staying in the cutest little hotel and would like to have explored a bit more, but unfortunately there was too much work to be done!  I did, however, find time to go to the new shopping centre that has been built next to the train station.  That was very cool.

Next up is Spain!  Bob and I leave next Thursday, coming back on Monday.  Woohoo!

Hope all is well!  Missing you all.

Lots of love,

A

xx