Happy Christmas / Happy new year!!

I hope everyone's having a good time over the break and there hasn't been too much stressful Christmas shopping!!

I've arrived safely in NZ about a week ago now, and have been just loving the time with Mum and Dad - home is such a good place to be. Also helps that it's summer and we have about double the daylight hours of Britain! :) (I'll have my gloat now thank you...)The flight wasn't too bad - despite a transit in Tokyo of about 8 hours. It was great to be travelling with Nathan, and I saw lots of films even if I didn't get that much sleep. Recommend Virgin for the total of 4 meal choices! And little fold-up tables. Air NZ has it for the friendly staff and leg room though.

From the airport Nath and I more-or-less went to our respective families and stayed there a bit. I mucked around at home for a few days and got used to being back, and managed to catch up with a lot of friends at the pub on Friday night. Then on Sat morning drove down to Wanganui (where Granny and Grandpa plus other family live)... it's a lovely drive. New Zealand really is a lovely place. There's something about it.

I love Christmas, it's the best. It's so nice to get all the family together, and we've got these little traditions. We stayed at Guzara (grandparents house) for 4 nights or so - and much enjoyed the pool, which was heated to 30degrees! Like getting into a bath! Christmas dinner was for 17 this year, and it was a successful Christmas in that we managed to stuff ourselves with food for 2days running. Hmm... talking of running, maybe that's a good idea!!

Planning to spend a couple of days bumming around, then off to the Coromandle probably to have New Year's at the beach, and then sailing with mum and dad for a few nights.

Ah, it's good to be on holiday...

Christmas Photos

Granny and Grandpa and Mum

Dad:
Mum and Granny with Christmas tree:
Christmas dinner - inside the marquee

Christmas parties

Scenic Bath:

Following Alex and Chris's party, we had: Rich's going away party on Friday (leaving England and going back to Zimbabwe and Sth Africa for Uni):

Rich's dance moves:

Nick and Mim

Me and the two mims

Then there was a pudding and wine party on Monday.

Bristol office work do on Tuesday - dress up as a hero or villain - I went as a kiwi, Sarah as Steve Irwin and her friend a pirate.

Cardiff office work do on Wednesday: Traditional Welsh dinner at Cardiff Castle! (Very exciting, a party in a castle!)

Drinks to say goodbye with friends in pub (The Raven)

And here's a nice view from the plane...

Not long...

Not long now til we come home ... Only 2 more weeks! I'm so looking forward to the trip. I do really love New Zealand, and while I haven't been homesick, I'm pretty excited about coming back for a visit.

It's getting well Christmas-y here already, just into December - the lights are up in town and people are rushing about trying frantically to get Christmas shopping done. I joined them on Saturday - it was PACKED in Bath. They have the Bath Christmas markets too, which a lot of people come to see I think.

It's going to be a busy time before we leave... what with belonging to two offices (so 2 office parties), and a combination of social engagements, I'm going to be going to 6 parties in 7 days over the weekend and into next week!! (Should be a productive week at work???). Wish me luck...

Actually we had the first Christmas party last weekend, at Alex and Chris (who lead our home group)'s house - it was amazing. Alex outdid herself with a huge array of yummy foods in their flash new kitchen, and there was some dancing afterwards. Lots of fun :)

Mmm pudding...

Our lovely hosts Alex (on right):

And Chris (on left):

And here's a nice one of me and Sarah:

Night out (friends photos)

Last weekend we went out in Bath...

Ben, me, Nath, Rich

Mim, Katy, Pete

Rich & me

Images of Bristol

Some scenery photos around Bristol...

My office

Funny bridge

Cathedral

Station

Park

Update...

Hi All.
Not much new or exciting to report... I've had the flu for the last couple of weeks and had to spend a considerable amount of time in bed, which was pretty boring. But the time passed considerably quicker thanks to Nath's laptop and his and Sarah's DVD collections! :) So I've been taking things a bit quietly, still getting over the last of the sickness. But, on Saturday we did go out to watch the rugby, and then went to a late showing of the new Bond film.

The main exciting thing is looking forward to our trip home!! We come back in a month, which isn't long at all (especially when considering buying Christmas presents!!) - so that will be great. It will also be good to be able to plan some long weekends away when we get back, which I haven't been able to do so far because I'm taking all my leave for this year over Christmas. There is lots to do before we go too, with Christmas parties starting up already! The Christmas lights go on this weekend I think, so can probably expect carols in all the shopping malls etc. Aargh! They have a Bath Christmas market, which I'm planning to go and check out too, so that should help me get into the spirit :)

Photos of meeting up with Mel and Haig plus Efstratious....

Work update

I've been here just on 2 months now, so still not a huge amount of time, but long enough to have got into a routine. I'm working on one main project, designing a rising main - relatively simple, my main job is co-ordinating people and consents etc, as well as being involved in the actual design. Other than that, I'm going through a whole lot of somewhat historic applications for mains sewerage in villages in rural Wales - some of them first made the applications in 1998! So, just trying to get those tidied up and reports issued. It's interesting trying to pronounce some of the Welsh place names, like Pwllheli and Rhiwgoch!

At the end of last week I went on a Corporate Welcome, which is run every few months for new starters in the company - across all grades/levels. There were about 90 people there in my session. It was quite similar to the grades 6-9 conference that I went on last month - it involved an evening at Warwick University conference centre, with a nice meal and open bar to get to know others in the company. Then on the Friday, it was a full day of seminars - an introduction to what the different sectors of the business do, as well as an HR/ H&S / Financial overview and an introduction to some of the other Opco's. Really interesting to see the wide range of projects that FM's involved in. It was also a good chance to meet others in the company, and hear their vision for where we're going.

Outside of work, things are going well - have had a few weekends at home recently which has been really nice actually - good just to be able to relax a bit. Am still doing loads of stuff with church, which I'm really enjoying, and have lots of lovely friends there. I'm going to go and check out a swing dance class tomorrow evening, which should be fun.

Sunday pub lunch

Trip on Sunday to a lovely pub in Ford, near Bath, to celebrate Aunty Jenny's big birthday!!

Oxford

Hi all,
Nathan's cousin, Steve, came to visit us for a few days, and last weekend we all went up to Oxford for the weekend. We managed to catch up with Auntie Jenny and Uncle Chris, as well as Rich from back home, who's studying there, and Mim from Nath's church, who's just moved to Oxford.

We had a trip out to Chiselhampton, currently a building site - J&C are re-doing their house entirely. So far the walls are up, and the roof due to go on soon. You get quite an idea for the place even as a shell, as can visualise how it's all going to look - very impressive! And interesting to see it all 'in progress'. J&C then very kindly took us out for dinner to the Kas Bar, which is a Moroccan place with sort of tapas-style food (ie. lots of little plates of things). It's a really fabulous place - very buzzing, and decor is quite something.

On Sunday we hung out with Rich, at an Australian-New Zealand BBQ, and went for a bit of a walk around Oxford. Also got to have a walk around Magdalen College with Cat, his girlfriend (who's lovely) - which was very impressive, especially with the deer!

The Car

This is our little car - isn't it beautiful!!

London and Awre

Hi all,
I've had a busy couple of weekends recently. The weekend just gone we went up to visit Dad's family - Ian and Tricia and cousins Oli and Emma, with their girl/boyfriends too.

It was lovely as always to go to Awre, they live out in the country and it's such a refreshing place to be. I always really enjoy it. It was an easy drive too, around an hour and a half away - not too bad at all. We went over the Severn bridge which was quite exciting! (Nath didn't really think so). We ate a LOT of food, and also admired the puppies - 11 x 6week old lab pups, so cute. On Sunday we went for a nature walk, and picked and ate the produce as we walked along. I think that's something that the NZ wilderness lacks - not so much in the way of berries and edible things - or maybe it's just that our palates aren't accustomed to it. Anyway, lots of blackberies, elderberries, plums, sloes, apples, etc. It was a lovely day. Saturday we went for the usual walk to the pub, and the boys enjoyed Severn Sider Cider, the girls Peary (cider from pears - quite good). All in all it was very relaxing and not too much happened, just enjoyed everyone's company.

The previous weekend we met up with Mum's side: Jenny and Chris, who were in Bath for the evening, and cousin Marcus, over from Bristol. We had drinks in their very fancy hotel first, and then went out for a lovely meal, in a place called Hole in the Wall - actually most of it's under the road level! Sort of in a vault type thing. It was really nice. Again, great to catch up with family. And on Saturday we went up to London to visit Amy (N's sister) and Jonny. A big trip for our little car, but it made it fine - though we were a little frazzled after it taking about 4hours instead of 2.5! Stupid London traffic!! I suppose we should have expected it... Lovely to see them though, before their next European adventure and then return home.










Other than weekend excursions, things are going well, all in all. Work's not the most exciting I've done, but it's not too bad either. In my usual way, I seem to have taken on a whole lot of things, and am feeling that I'm spread a bit thin at the moment - what with Church, catching up with friends, Nath, and just getting to and from work, I certainly have little time to be bored! This weekend should be a pretty quiet one though so I'm looking forward to that actually.

Anyway, lots of love to ya,
Fi

Edition 2 - Grad conference

A month since I've been away already! Crazy... Things are going well. This week's been a good one at work - as I've been away on a conference for a day and a half!

We had a conference at Warwick University for grades 6-9 (the non-managers), across the whole of the company, so there were about 400 people there on the session I went to, and about 12 from my office. It was a great opportunity to get to know both the teams that I'm part of - those from Bristol who I sit with, and those from Cardiff who I work with. Basically it was a socialising thing... with an open bar!... It was trouble waiting to happen... and then a whole lot of seminars during the days. A lot of inspirational, 'don't we work for a great company' talks, and some videos with American voice overs which weren't so well received generally. Very interesting on the whole though, and nice to break up the week!

Last weekend was a pretty quiet one. Had a church ball for the youth group Nath helps with, and it was quite funny to be there boogying down with 16 and 17year olds. It was a good laugh. Otherwise didn't really do anything. Had Nathan and Pete over for Sunday lunch and generally lounged about.













Some friends - Larry, Rich, Mim

On Tuesday I checked out the local Scottish Dancing club, and that was good fun. It was a welcome evening and one of my friends came with me too. We did lots of fairly easy dances, but I think they usually split the classes into beginners and normal, and do the class seperately. Which is a different way of doing it. Think I'll keep going though, it was good fun. And there were other young people there! About 5 out of 40 or so.

The weather's been really good so far (touch wood), though I am thinking I should probably buy a raincoat soon... It's still light when I wake up though, which I'm more than happy with.

Hope everyone's well
xx
Fi

Photos

Some Photos...

The English countryside.. this is around where Nath lives. Pretty rural...

Here's where I live by contrast....
And some photo's from the party.... (these are friends from church)
This is Rich and Nick, who's party it was:

Katy and me...

Hi there!
This is a bit strange - never had a blog before.
Things have been going well, and I feel like I'm settling in to life in the UK. There have been a lot of changes in a relatively short space of time, so it's been pretty full on. I've now been working for almost 2 weeks, and have been over here for 3. Well, what's happened?...

I've hung out with Nath, which has been great to be in the same country again! And I feel like I've got quite a support group already, with lots of 'ready made' friends of his from church, who don't make me feel like I'm tagging along at all, but have really included me and been lovely.

The important stuff has all got sorted reasonably easily: we got given a car! Which is just amazing, what a blessing! I've moved into my new flat - terraced house. And the other boring stuff like bank accounts and insurance are sorted too.

Work's going ok, a little slow to start off as my boss has been away these first 2 weeks! It's pretty different to work at home both in terms of what I'm doing, and the atmosphere is a little less social, but I'm sure I'll get to know people better soon enough. Next week I'm going to a conference at Warwick Uni, with I think about 400 others from the various FaberMaunsell offices. It sounds like it'll be mainly a social thing, with a complementary bar in the evening! Oh oh.

There's been plenty of social stuff on - too much for me! I'm already starting to have to say no, to preserve my sleep and my sanity!! Last weekend we had a wedding reception and a 21st to go to, which was great. I'll try and put some photos on. This weekend a church ball, and next weekend catching up with some family. During the week, there's lots on with small group, meeting up with people at the pub, seeing Nath, and next week am starting scottish dancing again.

Church is good, and I feel already really at home at Nathan's church, because everyone's been so welcoming. They are pretty similar in many respects to St Pauls, but have more of a community feeling and larger range of ages. The way it seems to work is everyone goes to the morning service and then the evening one is for those who want to go a bit deeper and a bit more contemplative. I've added myself to Nath's small group, which I think is where I'll stay. It's also been really nice to meet families that will have us over for Sunday lunch, it's good to be around families when you're away from home.

That's enough for now I think. Lets see if it works!