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