Hogmanay Cancelled

:(
We've just received news that Hogmanay has been cancelled. Silly Scots!

But...we are on our way to meet with Matt and Lou!! Yup they're in Edinburgh for the festival as well, and also...Tash White! How fun! We'll have our own Fireworks!

:)

Here's a couple of quick vid's from this afternoon showing what the weather was like...



and a little later on...

Happy Hogmanay!

While all of you down under are well in to the New Year, we are just finishing dinner and about to walk up to Hogmanay - Edinburgh's New Years Festival, and argueably the best celebration for New Year world wide. The Scots celebrate Hogmanay over two or three days in festivals of bands, street theatre, fun-fairs, an ice-rink, and of course....whisky.

However, we are continually checking the weather forecast to see if the celebrations will start at 10pm as planned. We can hear the wind whistling from inside, and from our soaked clothes from this mornings trip up to town, it will be a little wet for fireworks...Happy Hogmanay!

Christmas Day

Matt, Ros and I celebrated Christmas a little differently to the Moore/Wysel traditions. Unfortunately, it didn’t snow (even at 0 degrees) so my dream of having a white Christmas is yet to be filled...but we still rugged up inside with the heater on.
After a sleep in and pancakes we went off to the Christmas service at Platt, our local church, which was just excellent!

Arriving home, we had to take shifts in opening presents around our Christmas tree; we were so completely blessed! Thank you!!! Ros and I cooked up a storm for Christmas Dinner and with the help of mum's amazing Christmas Cake, our pudding was pretty good too! Thanks Ros for carrying it over in your suitcase, that's why it so heavy?!

We missed family and friends, but we had a ball and enjoyed our little Christmas together in Manchester. The best bit was sharing and celebrating Jesus’ birthday, and being so completely blessed to know Him.

Off to Scotland

We're off to Scotland for the rest of the week in about 5 min... How fun's that?

Jo's going to update this while we're in the car (thanks Jo!)

Ros has Arrived

Just a quick post to let everyone know Ros, Jo's sister, has arrived.
Unfortunately, Ros was an unlucky participant in a major BAA baggage conveyor-belt breakdown at Heathrow yesterday that was still disrupting luggage this morning. I just spoke with BAA and the bags are being forwarded on to Manchester on any flight that has room in the hold, so we should have it back soon.

Meanwhile, Jo and Ros are indulging in some retail therapy for a place for Ros to sleep tonight. I offered a chair, an airline blanket and a movie, and was sent to my office.

We'll update this post with news later tonight.

--> Ros' bags were eventually delivered about 10.30pm Tuesday night. There were a couple of things missing from them, which we are now chasing up, but the rest of her gear was safe and sound. :)

Our Real Christmas Tree!

We have one!
And it’s real!
And it only cost £8!
And we had to carry it all the way back from the Christmas markets to our flat in the pouring rain. But, it was team building for Matt and I!

Thanks to both our amazingly organised Mums, we have presents to put underneath our new, real, pine tree!

Thanks Mums!!!

Silly Billy

I was invited to an audition today in Sheffield for a Theatre in Education gig touring with a play about Drug Abuse. It was an excellent workshop style audition; a fantastic script working with a director who has worked a lot with the BBC and written for The Bill etc.

All that was background information for the reason I am writing the blog. I was so exhausted from the huge audition (four hours no break), and the travel to Sheffield in the morning that on the way home I fell asleep on the train. Usually no problem; however I totally missed the Manchester Piccadilly stop, and woke up when we were passing stations I’ve never of, apparently on the way to Liverpool Lime street. After a slight panic, I hopped out at Warrington Central (wherever that is) and managed to just make a train going back towards Manchester. Thankfully, the ticket officer thought me falling asleep was funny, so had a laugh at my expense and didn't make me pay for the 40 minute trip back to Manchester. Instead of arriving home at 5:30, I walked through the door at about 8 pm.

What a day! And I didn’t even get the job!

Waffles in French

I have just received a call from Matthew (he’s in Switzerland all week on training), very excitingly telling me that he’s just had his first full conversation in French, and the guy didn’t even notice! Tres Bien!
Training was over (Friday afternoon), so Matt had a bit of time to go in to town and see a bit of Switzerland rather than the conference rooms and his hotel room. What better way then to enjoy a Hot Swiss Waffle with real Swiss chocolate, YUM!!

Hope he brings back some chocolate!

Carols Service

We went along to a Christmas Carol Service at our new church tonight. It was fab! Full with a choir and orchestra and a conductor that reminded us of Rob Taggart, (hi Rob!), it was just great, we loved it. There was a supper afterward that I baked some traditional Aussie Christmas treats for (went in a flash), that joined the mulled wine, and mince pies.

Good Times!

Voice-Over

I auditioned for some Voice-over work yesterday. I simply was asked to read something out of the newspaper over the phone, and what better article to read out than the Aussie's winning the second test!
Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!

Valet

I drove our car to a Valet Service garage yesterday to get all the shattered glass out of the inside of the car from the break-in. The car was unrecognisable when I picked it up yesterday afternoon. It looks like a showroom car, it is absolutely sparkling; the inside looks like it has never been sat in, the engine is sparkling, I was so impressed! I was almost too scared to drive it home, it looked so good!

Though, in true Manchester style, it was raining when I drove it home....there goes the new sparkle and polish!

Ashes

It is good to be an Australian in England during Ashes-season.
:)
This is also Jo and my hundredth post. How 'bout that?!

Cheers, from Dublin

Hey there, just a quick post to thank you for your ongoing email/text/prayer/comment support over our first month in Manchester.
It seems we're both working pretty hard at the moment; I'm spending a bit of time in Dublin and Jo's been working like crazy on auditions and interviews for all manner of really cool things, so it's been a busy first month, but a rewarding one.
We'll have to post a vid or photos of our apartment just as soon as we spend some time at home with the internet.

That's it, I'm off to bed. (It's just past 2am and I'm still in the hotel lobby... I only arrived a short while ago, so am just catching up on email.... looking forward to internet@home ....zzzz)

Back Teaching

I had my first day teaching in Manchester today. I have signed up with a different teaching agency on Tuesday and taught at a school in Salford (just west of the city) today (Friday). I was warned by the consultant that it was a 'horrible school', so why did she offer me to go there? I guess they try you out on tough schools when you're new.

Thanks to lots of prayer, not just for my protection, but that the students would be blessed, it wasn't too bad at all. I taught girls PE all day. Though, I have to say, the students can't solely be blamed; the school building was the most derelict, dark, dingy school I have ever been to. I even sat on a chair in the staff room and it broke right under me. So I tried another one, and it broke as well!

I'll have to stop eating celery as well now. :)