Look! Up in the Sky - it's Empty

The weather this week has been amazing - nice long sunny days, clear blue skies and spectacular red sunsets.

One noticeable difference for the later part of this week to other blue sky days is the total absence of the usually criss crosses of vapour trails (contrails) left by jet air craft ferrying people across Europe.

We aren't seeing any of this for a while.

But courtesy of the Icelandic volcanic eruption of Eyjafjallajokull Volcano (nope I can't pronounce it either - but you can hear it here) no aircraft can fly in pretty much most of the UK. Airports have been closed for 3 days and it looks like the volcano is still erupting and spilling ash & gas out into the UK airspace - insert Iceland joke here (at least they are back to exporting something, they didn't cripple the UK with their dodgy banks but they'll get us this time etc).

The ash is also causing spectacular sunsets bursting with red & orange and really setting the evenings on fire. We are seeing colours that could be similar to those immortalised by JMW Turner back in 1815 when he painted many scenes with amazingly vivid colours attributed to the ash that was in the sky from a volcanic eruption of that year.

Chichester Canal by JWM Turner.

I love this painting and I think that it captures a magically sunset to a greater degree that a photograph.

So enjoy the crystal blue skies - you may never see them again (unless you are back in Oz in the outback!).

Posted via email from The World of Brad and Ying

Daffodils in Spring

A lovely part of London in the early spring is the sudden awakening of millions of daffodils. They literally pop up everywhere, some (like the photo) are planted, but many just seem to appear in random places providing a lovely splash of colour after the drab winter.

Posted via email from The World of Brad and Ying

Driving on Tower Bridge

I recently had to drive across London and unwittingly ended up driving over Tower Bridge (at the royal speed of 20MPH) and couldn't resist snapping a few pics as I was rather excited.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from The World of Brad and Ying

We are now officially Londoners!

So we made the move from Guildford to East Dulwich over the Easter long weekend and can now officially say we are Londoners!!

The move was pretty easy - as you expect when you have virtually nothing to move, we did a trip on Thursday with the little Peugot full of clothes, then again on Friday when we went to clean the house at Guildford. We have to go back this Thursday to do the `check out'. One of Ying's friends is going to come around and pick up my desk, luckily he has a big 4WD and will be in Guildford and lives in Forest Hill ( next door suburb to East Dulwich).

We are loving the new flat as it is much more homely that Guildford with proper rooms, a lounge, a nice big kitchen, a good sized bedroom and an office for me. Also a sofa bed for those of you wishing to come visit.

We did a trip to Ikea today and got some chairs, an office chair and a bookshelf (no bits left over - good as gold!).

So now we are at home and looking happy to be settled for some time (believe it or not :)

If you haven't got our address or phone number, then shoot us an e-mail.

I'll post some pics soon.

Moving to London In Less Than 2 Weeks

After living in the beautiful Guildford for 8 months, we have decided to move closer to London so that we can have easier access to London to enjoy the london urban life. It will also make it easier to catch up with friends and meet new people.

So with our usual style, we found this lovely 2 bedroom flat in East Dulwich on our first day of hunting. Since we'd done the research on locations and knew where we want to be, it wasn't hard to make a decision once we saw the lovely flat, especially it comes fully furnished.

We are very impressed by the number of parks around us considering it's only 5 miles from the heart of London. The local landmark Horniman Park and Museum is only 2 minutes walk on the East side; to the west is the nice big Dulwich Park; to the North lies the Pecham Rye Park and to the South we've got the ancient Sydenham Hill forest.

 Horniman Museum

The local East Dulwich High Street is very lively and has great vibe, with a lot of shops, cafes, pubs and restaurants lining on both sides. The more posh Dulwich village is also within walking distance.

In less than 2 weeks, we'll be moving in and start a new life once again! We can't wait to explore the local parks and pubs and be part of the local community. Evidently the local online community forum is one of the liveliest in the UK, at least that's where we found our flat!

Looks like winter is over

Today it is sunny and 13 degrees - and I walked up to High Street without a beanie - the first time in about 5 months - so it looks like winter might be over.

Here is some blue sky to prove it:

St. Martha on the Hill - Guildford

Taken yesterday on a walk up our favourite hill to St. Martha's Church.

World's Smallest Cadillac - In London - in 1913!

Found this really funny old video of a tiny Cadillac driving through London in 1913. What a brilliant little piece, just look at the traffic even back then.

It is also great just looking at the old double decker buses running and the way the people were dressed - even the kids wore suits and hats.

Plus it all ends with some high quality silent film slap stick.

Bargains at Guildford Farmers Market

Every Friday & Saturday on North Street Guildford (runs parallel to High Street) there is a farmers market with stalls of fresh fruit & veg, local produce, cakes and flowers.

We tend to go there in the afternoon on the Saturday because they are trying to sell everything they can, so they have lots of specials for a pound, it is quite fun to hear the different stalls all yelling out "Everything in a bag only a pound" or "2 pineapples only a pound, fresh & lovely, come & get em before their gone" etc. The loudest of them all is a girl of about 20 - she is funny and always draws a crowd for her £1 bags of goodies.

You can get some seriously good deals - check out the bag of bananas we got for £1:

24 Bananas only a pound

We also got these satsumas for a pound and the 4 avocados for a pound.

All up we spend about £5 and get enough fruit & veg for the week. Bargain.

The New Forest, Hampshire

Yesterday Sue, Alex & Zoe were going to come around for a Guildford trip but couldn't make it - so we decided to take a day out exploring.

Ying suggested a trip down to the New Forest in Hampshire. The New Forest is the smallest of the national parks in the UK.

It was originally founded as a park by William the Conqueror in 1079, so it's not really a new forest in my opinion.

You can read a bit about The New Forest here.

It is different from an Australian National Park in the sense that it was full of towns, roads, ponies, cattle and loggers. But I guess they are trying to preserve the historical context of it as a working common that is pretty much unchanged by the millennia that has passed since being founded as the private hunting domain of of William.

It was a beautiful place with quaint towns, ponies wandering the streets, wide expanses of heath and actual forest.

The ponies are a special feature of the New Forest and are actual a recognised breed and are all actually owned by the commoners - read about the ponies here.

Highlights were the main town of Lyndhurst. This was a lovely town with a really cute high street, lots of interesting shops (like going to those places like Bowral & Katoomba). The shop that made the biggest statement about the town was their only car dealership just at the start of high street - Ferrari's and Maserati's. I guess thee New Forest commoner is not so common anymore.

After a Cornish pasty in Lyndhurst we drove to a parking place a few miles out of town and hand a walk in the forest. Probably not the best time of year as the trees were all bare and the ground was very soggy, but we walked for about 2 hours and enjoyed the quiet and fresh air.

After the walk we drove around to Beaulieu - a gorgeous little town with a beautiful old manor house, a ruined abbey and ponies wandering the roads. We didn't have long to stay there, but will definitely be back in summer to do some camping and further exploring.

Beaulieu has a French name (coming from William the Conqueror's time) but now has a very distinctly English pronunciation - bew-lew. Here is how to say it: http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=beaulieu (speakers on).

Anyway Beaulieu also houses the National Motor Museum which is supposed to house the biggest collection of vintage cars in the word.

After Beaulieu, we popped into Buckler's Hard for a butchers, but found you had to actually pay to get into the village - serious. With time short we gave it a miss, but this was an important ship building area with the close proximity of logging from the New Forest supporting the industry there. It was one of  the ship building towns that supported Nelson's ship building program.

From there we took the one & half hour drive back home.

Very much a beautiful part of the country and we look forward to doing some camping there in summer.

Dad suggests a book called The Forest by Edward Rutherfurd which is one of those historically based novels that follows life in the forest over the last 1,000 years. I haven't read it yet, but will do so soon.

Ponies resting in the open just near Lyndhurst

Brad and a beautiful old moss covered tree in The New Forest

Ying modelling on a great fallen tree.

Brad re-living the dragon riding scene from Harry Potter 

Just a Few Tickets

I had a 2 day trip up to Blackpool on Thursday & Friday last week going exclusively by train.

Left home at 5.30am on Thursday and got picked at 10.30am at Poulton - so with changes & waiting times, about the same as if I had driven. I did have the luxury of a first class ride on Virgin trains. In first class you get tea & coffee for free plus free use of the wireless internet and they have power points so you can plug in the laptop. So this 2 hours from London to Preston was much better than driving - I could actually get some work done.

Virgin have a funny pricing policy - when I booked my tickets, the first class ticket was only £4 more than standard, and for the return trip, first class was cheaper than standard - go figure!

All up in the 2 days of train trips I had a total of 12 train tickets (not to mention the Oyster card trips on the Underground) and 1 Oyster card receipt.

All up a good trip - but tiring.