As You Like It

With apologies for the slightly poor quality photos (taken on my work-issue Blackberry) Shaun and I went along to the Globe Theatre on the Southbank to see As You Like It on a recent balmy evening. The theatre is built along Elizabethan lines to replicate how audiences back in Shakespeare's day would have experienced his plays. It is a slightly uncomfortable 3 hours or so - more so for the people who paid £5 to stand in front of the stage.

Having said that though, the play was fantastic and the weather was warm shining down on us from above - all in all a really great night.

M

PS: Apologies that we haven't been updating the blog all that frequently lately - a computer glitch has prevented either of us from uploading photos from home. Hopefully it will soon be sorted one way or the other!

Cruising down to the Barrier

On a sunny recent Sunday we thought we'd hop on one of the cruiser boats on the Thames and make our way downriver to Greenwich and the Thames Flood Barrier. It was a stunning day and London was looking its best - nice to see it from the perspective of the river.

M

Three Peaks and a Van

The Three Peaks Challenge - Three peaks, three countries, one very long (but rewarding) 24 hours for Hamish, Gabrielle, Dean, Helen, Shaun and me (on support crew duty).

M

God Save the Queen

Having successfully applied on the New Zealand House website between 8.59am and 9.03am on the appointed day approximately 4 months ago, we received in the mail (to the incredulity of various English co-workers) a highly sought after ticket to the third of of this year's three Royal Garden Parties at Buckingham Palace [credit for shamelessly copying the idea of using a photo of the invitation goes to geandhw.blogspot.com].

While I had harboured ideas of swanning about the Palace lawns in the sunshine, the weather had other ideas. However, after standing in a half-hour queue in the rain with other guests in their finery to make it through the Palace front gates, we eventually made it out onto the lawn to enjoy brass bands, tea and cucumber sandwiches as well as Sandringham apple juice, Dundee cake and many other delights, despite the ever-present drizzle.

The Queen, Prince Charles, Camilla and Princess Anne were all doing their duty meeting the honoured guests (not us) and we duly filed into the roped off areas to watch them pass by. Unfortunately amateur paparazzi shots were not encouraged and so we had to disappear into the Palace gardens to get a shot of us in our finery - keeping an eye out for security and the odd roaming Yeoman warder.

All in all a most delightful afternoon!

M

Afternoon Jaunt to the Home of Cricket

Having booked tickets for this a full 12 months in advance, we headed along to Lords to watch the Black Caps play South Africa in pool play at the ICC 20/20 World Cup, a double header fixture following a heated Netherlands v Pakistan match. While the Black Caps came close, sadly South Africa took the game in the final over. Lords, however, was smashing.

M

A more refined form of Boat Race

Oxford and Cambridge lining up at the start of the annual Boat Race - Oxford (closest to the camera) taking it out in the end by a length or two.

M

In search of the Corrs, to be sure to be sure

Last Friday evening we dashed away from work and within an hour or two we were in Dublin, trying to get a taste of the city in 2 days. Yes, a "city break" - that great OE institution where you try and see a city in a weekend and end up seeing the church, the unusual statue in the square, the museum and the "quaint local restaurant" before getting back on the plane.

What to do that was, well, Irish? Well it was Dublin, so one of our early stops was Ireland's #1 tourist destination - the Guinness Storehouse, now an impressive conceptual space dedicated to the art of brewing the black stuff. Indoor waterfalls and huge vats of barley featured (together with a complimentary pint of Guinness from the bar on the 7th floor). I've decided that it does actually taste slightly better than liquid Marmite - my previous firmly held impression.

Also a required stop was Kilmainham Gaol - which housed the leaders of the Irish Republican movement in 1916 (and in which they were ultimately executed) - very sobering and quite a contrast to the Guinness visit.

OK so we did visit a church - the Christ Church Cathedral. However, as well as the usual cathedral offerings, Christ Church displays a mummified cat and mouse which were found in an organ pipe in the 1850s - bet that cat rued the day he chased that mouse in there.

Following our tourist trail around the city we headed to Temple Bar later for some Irish music and the bar scene, via an Irish storyteller over dinner and some good old Irish stew. I suspect Shaun was secretly hoping he might see one of the Corr sisters wandering around Dublin by night but if they were there, they were hiding.

The next morning we were up early and out of the city on a mini tour south of Dublin through the mountains and lakes of Ireland's prime film-making district - County Wicklow - as well as being the source of all that pure Guinness water and (apparently) the home of Daniel Day-Lewis. He must have been spending his weekend wherever the Corrs were.

We spent some time wandering through Glendalough - a beautiful 10th century monastery complex in a secluded valley, in surprisingly good repair. Lovely to be outside in the sunshine and the trees!

M