Rain, Rain, Go Away

This place is crazy... Does it ever stop raining..? I've just parked the car in Nottingham after driving up from London and it's been like someone has been fire-hosing me for the last 3hours... April was the last time we saw any solid blue sky in the Midlands.
Praise God for the occasional escape to London :-)

(Mind you, we really don't have it that bad, see the main news on the BBC's website)

Cook-Off

On Friday night, some actor friends from our company had a cook-off! Most actors as you know have 'another job' while they are in between jobs and auditions; and Nathan (actor in another team) is a chef. So....Friday, after rehearsal we all went to Sainsbury (equivalent to Coles or Woolworths) and bought a whole lot of ingredients that Nathan and Paul (a budding cook in my team) could work with. Everything from a whole fresh chicken to organic chocolate, we had a 'Ready Steady Cook' moment and went a little crazy.
Nathan and Paul cooked away in the kitchen as the girls sat back and drank wine watching and waiting......for hours.

Around 10pm we finally sat down to eat!
Incredible! It was almost sensory overload with the amazing flavours the boys had created in the kitchen. We had leeks stuffed in brie and mushroom, mixed bean enchiladas, chicken curry, chicken stuffed with goats cheese wrapped in bacon; just to name a few.

Hats off guys. It was truly amazing!

Morzine, France

Matt has taken a much needed week off work and driven to Morzine, in the French Alps to go mountain biking with some of the lads from London.
He has sent me this picture just now which I think sums up the week he has had so far.

My Birthday

It was birthday on Friday 13th.
I was in rehearsals but was blessed with lovely surprises throughout the day. The company organised a cake and card for me, my team bought me a teddy called Cappuccino (can't possibly know why?!), and Matt met me after work to go for a few birthday drinks with my work friends. So all in all, the day at work wasn't bad at all!

Thank you so much to everyone back home for making my birthday so special, even when you are so far away. To Kyles for the Tim Tams (yes!!!), to Ros for 'Ritzy', the cutest toy dog I've ever seen; to Pat and Nomes, well, what can I say...I am now officially the coolest cat in town with my new sunglasses; to the Wysel gang for the beautiful singing (it was so special); to Nana who sent a lovely blue scarf (thanks Nana!!), and to Mum and Dad for your love and chats on skype.

And...to my beautiful Matthew for being my family, friend and husband when I was missing everyone in Aust so much.

The 'cake' (above) is actually a couple of ciabatta (yummy Italian bread). Matt knows me well, and he and Kathy (a friend here in Manchester) knew my aversion to cakes, and my weakness for yummy bread. Thanks guys!

xo

Best Few Days

Jo and I have had the best couple of days this last week; relaxing (for the most part) and different.

Tuesday night – after two long-ish days for us both, we headed up to the bottom end of the Lake District for a two days & nights of clean-air, walking and hiking. We lodged in the Mill Force Farm, a very peaceful B&B on Tuesday and rode some of the North Face mountain bike trail around Grizedale Forest on Wednesday & Thursday (big thanks to the lads at Grizedale Mountainbikes for all their help). Despite it being Jo's first time on single-track (think: a bike trail that looks like an off-road walking track), she handled the trail, weather and her husband’s high-maintenance bike like a pro. See her thoughts here.

After work on Friday Jo drove us from Manchester down to our good mate Tim’s place in south London – braving the worst traffic I’ve seen for a while (I spent the 6 hours on my laptop doing work :-( ).

Despite missing out on tickets to a matinee of Othello at The Globe, Saturday still ended up sunny and super-fun with a lovely bottle of white at Borough Markets and an hour or so watching the London Prologue of Le Tour de France. Crazy stuff. I’m told they averaged ~56kph over the day’s stage. There was some serious money and sponsorship there – with around £25k of ‘reserve bikes’ on the top of each rider’s support van.

Tim introduced us to his local curry house: Cinnamon - the best Indian curry I’ve had in England, which we ate as once again Jo tried (unsuccessfully) to watch the original StarWars movie (Esp 4). Funny times.

At Tim’s suggestion we headed off to the London Zoo today – which Jo will no doubt tell you all about. Afterwards Jo and I Tube’d back to Waterloo to grab her bag before she caught a train back up to Manchester.

I’m now finishing off fish-n-chips in one of Jo & my favourite restaurants, the Young Vic, The Cut, Waterloo and am about to drive up to Watford for work tomorrow.

Good photos; great times!

London Zoo

Today we went to the London Zoo with Tim (our host for the weekend). It was a blast! Among the highlights were the very social Meercats, the crazy African hunting dogs who seemed to be on heat for they didn’t stop running; the very wise looking monkeys because of their white long moustaches, and of course the lions and tigers, who by the time we saw then were having a sleepy afternoon, rubbing their tummies after lunch. My favourite, however, were the Gorillas. I couldn’t stop staring at the male sitting, munching away on his spring onions. Bad idea! Gorillas find it rude when people stare; they would rather we ‘glanced’ at them. This became evident by the way he walked casually to the window where I was crouching down, gave me a little glance and then WAM! completely rammed the window at the exact spot I was crouching. Needless to say, I was up standing quick smart!
There is something relaxing and satisfying about watching animals. It was a beautiful day, beautiful weather and excellent company. (the 3rd image was taken just seconds before Gorilla charged at the window)

Sunny Saturday

Saturday was a beautiful, blue sky, sunny, hot day….all day! After a much needed sleep in, Tim, Matt and I had planned to go to Shakespeare’s Globe to see Othello. Unfortunately, it was sold out! Great to see he’s still going strong! So, instead we strolled over to Borough markets and sat in the sun sharing some lovely white wine. After contemplating many options for the afternoon, such as the Zoo, the V&A, and so on, we ended up staying put and soaking up the rays. I think I even got a little burnt, can you believe it? Around 4pm we trekked to Knightsbridge to see the Prologue of Le Tour de France. (I’ll let Matt fill you in on that one). We finished off a very nice day with some Indian food, red wine and the Star Wars IV. Happy days.

The Lakes District

After work on Tuesday, Matt and I drove up to The Lakes District for a lil’ two day break. Matt had organised accommodation at a cute little 17th Century cottage, I fell in love with it as soon as we arrived. In the morning, we hired a full-suspension bike for me (for those interested I rode a Gary Fisher the first day and a Rocky Mountain the second), and Matt rode his prized Cannondale and we went trail riding for two days. We were going to go hiking the second day but I loved trail riding so much on the first day, we went out again. It was my first time trail riding on 'singletrack' and on a proper bike. It was a little scary, though, with all the technique Matt had grilled in to me back in Sydney, at the park next door to 161 Botany St, a lot of the much needed tricks came back.

The trails were muddy and puddly but riding with Matthew was so much fun! The trail was quite challenging in sections, but Matt was very patient and encouraging through out. I appreciated the regular coaching from the front, telling me what was coming up and what I had to do: ‘stay to the left’, ‘weight back over your seat’, change gear!’, ‘don’t stack!’ he he he. I only had one very small stack, which was only doing something very silly anyway.

On the second day, we went on a few more challenging routes, and I found myself going faster than the day before; The end trail was fab – downhill slopes, jumps (that I just rode over), bridges over drops and man made ramps. I don’t like man made ramps, they scare me - I had to walk over a few of them. I think it’s the fear of the unknown – what’s underneath? How big’s the drop? How sharp is that corner?

On the Wednesday night, we drove to a local pub a couple of miles away, recommended by John (owner of the cottage). It was curry night! We certainly got value for money both the ‘curry’ part of the meal, but also because there was so much food, not to mention making friends with the cutest, and most energetic, two year old Border Collie I’ve seen in a while.

I was a little apprehensive about the trail riding, but I had an absolute blast! It was fantastic being out there with Matthew, seeing some of the countryside in a beautiful part of Britain, exercising and keeping the nerves in check!
I saw and experienced why Matt loves it so much.

I may have to buy a bike!